Spirit of Our Constitution || Acharya Prashant at SRCC (2023)
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00:00 We, the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a sovereign, socialist,
00:07 secular, democratic republic.
00:08 Where do you think these words are coming from?
00:11 Come on.
00:12 Where do you think these ideals are coming from?
00:17 It's very easy to say they are coming from France or UK or America.
00:22 And I agree to this.
00:25 In a very contextual way, in the contemporary sense, they did come from Europe and the spirit
00:40 of the renaissance.
00:43 But when you, when you, you know, sovereign, you know what does the word sovereign mean?
00:51 What does sovereign mean?
00:52 Not ruled by somebody outside of yourself.
00:57 Now come on.
00:59 That's a spiritual thing to be not to be ruled by somebody outside of yourself.
01:05 Sovereign does not mean that you will, it does mean that, but it does not mean only
01:12 that.
01:13 It does mean that you will not allow China to lord over you, that there would be no hegemon
01:19 that you would tolerate.
01:20 Obviously, it does mean that.
01:22 But it means something far beyond that as well.
01:26 Vedant would say, "Na kartasi na bhoktasi, muktasi eva".
01:44 That's that's your identity.
01:48 You are only free, "muktasi eva", you are just free, that's your fundamental identity.
01:58 I, I, seeing that in that sovereignty, otherwise, otherwise, why would, from where would words
02:06 like freedom and sovereignty come?
02:09 Socialist, what does socialist mean?
02:17 That you want to have a society in which opportunity and resources and status are available to
02:27 all.
02:28 You do not want to create a society of unequals, that socialism.
02:36 And what kind of equality do you want to give?
02:38 You want to give equality of opportunity, opportunity to do what?
02:45 Opportunity to indulge in nonsense?
02:48 Opportunity to indulge in nonsense?
02:50 No.
02:51 Opportunity to self-actualize, opportunity to reach the purpose of life, opportunity
02:57 to materialize your highest potential, right?
03:01 And what is that highest potential?
03:03 That exactly is what Vedant aims for.
03:10 Look beyond yourself, right?
03:12 See, see, in the very material sense, socialist would mean, let there be schools for all,
03:21 let there be bread for all, let there be uniformity in income distribution.
03:28 But that's the beginning, that's not the end.
03:30 Just as independence is the beginning, freedom is the end.
03:34 You do want people to have access to food, health care, education, opportunities, all
03:40 these things, but these are means.
03:42 What is the end?
03:43 The end of the nation has to be congruous with the end of the individual, right?
03:49 Because the nation is the people.
03:52 What does it begin with?
03:53 We the people.
03:54 Am I right?
03:56 Yes, we the people of India.
03:58 And then that's so beautiful.
03:59 How did I miss that?
04:00 We the people of India.
04:02 So Vedant, what does it say?
04:04 Aho aham namo maham.
04:06 Nobody else is foisting this thing on us.
04:11 I am the most wonderful one.
04:13 Aho aham, look at my glory.
04:16 Namo maham, I bow to myself.
04:20 So nobody else can give this to me.
04:22 We the people of India, we are giving to ourselves, as the last line says, and give to ourselves
04:28 this constitution.
04:30 Because nobody else can give this to me.
04:32 No God can give this to me.
04:34 I decide I'll rule myself.
04:36 And that's Vedant.
04:39 Nobody outside of you can be allowed to rule you.
04:43 First line, we the people of India.
04:45 Last words?
04:47 Last words?
04:48 Give to ourselves this constitution.
04:50 We, I decide, I will live the way I am.
04:57 And to know who I am and to reach the place of my purity, all this is needed.
05:04 Justice is needed, liberty is needed, equality is needed, paternity is needed.
05:07 All these are means so that ultimately I can be myself.
05:12 This is a purely spiritual document.
05:15 This is an Upanishad.
05:17 Are you getting it?
05:22 So there is no dissonance really.
05:25 You cannot say there is the way of Vedant, but then we have to follow the rule of law
05:34 and we have to live under the constitution.
05:36 So the constitution does not arise from a vacuum.
05:40 You have to know where it comes from.
05:43 So we have all respect for all the different places it came from.
05:52 But we also know that at its core, the constitution of India is arising from the very spirit of
06:01 freedom and freedom as we all know is the very, the only goal of all spirituality, particularly
06:11 Vedant, Mukti.
06:15 You look at the philosophies that India has had and if you just ask a basic question,
06:24 what is the aim of this philosophy?
06:26 The aim will be Mukti, Mukti, Mukti, Mukti, Mukti, Mukti, Mukti, Mukti without fail, without
06:34 aberration, Mukti.
06:36 The means might be different.
06:37 Yoga has one particular means, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, they will have other means.
06:43 Even those philosophies that do not believe in any God like Jain and Buddh philosophies,
06:48 even they have only Mukti as their end goal.
06:52 So that's the Mukti that you see here.
06:54 This is a spiritual document, Mukti and Mukti cannot come to you without the right kind
07:01 of external conditions.
07:02 So the constitution of India strives to give you those conditions externally in which liberation
07:10 can be possible internally.
07:13 Are you getting it?
07:16 The constitution of India, if you look at the preamble, tries to give you those conditions
07:20 externally that can make liberation possible internally.
07:29 So please do not take it as a conflict between the constitution and Vedant and this question
07:35 has again and again come to me.
07:36 People come and say you are teaching Gita, you have been at the Gita since many years
07:42 but we respect only Samvidhan.
07:44 It's beautiful if you respect the constitution but if you respect the constitution, you must
07:49 get close to the heart of the constitution and at the heart of the constitution is freedom
07:55 and freedom in its highest way is called liberation and if you love liberation, then you will
08:01 have to come to the Upanishad, you will have to come to Ashtavakra.
08:05 Are you getting it?
08:06 The constitution exists to provide conditions in which the vision of the founding fathers
08:15 can see, meet materialization and where were those founding fathers really drawing their
08:22 inspiration from?
08:25 I am positing that it would be only half correct to say that their inspiration was coming only
08:35 from other countries.
08:38 If you really look at the spirit of this and each word is talking of just one thing, freedom,
08:47 mukti.
08:48 Mukto mukta bhimani, the one who takes himself as free will become free.
09:01 The one who takes himself as free will become free.
09:05 Takes himself as free, what does that mean?
09:09 Behaves in the way of freedom, strives for freedom.
09:13 The one whose abhiman, that is ego, that is belief is all placed in freedom itself will
09:20 become free, mukta.
09:23 That itself is what the constitution is trying to bring to you.
09:27 It also tells that all this thing about the constitution being a foreign document is all
09:36 nonsense and we are hearing a lot of that these days.
09:39 We say, oh the constitution is not really Indian.
09:43 The word they use is indigenous.
09:44 They say it does not have indigenous origins.
09:48 It is inspired from outside.
09:50 No sir, please read it carefully.
09:54 Please go close to the spirit of the constitution and you will find nothing alien in it.
10:00 If anything, it has, it represents the universality of human aspirations.
10:06 This kind of a thing applies, mind you, not only to India, but also to America, also to
10:13 Africa.
10:14 Does it not?
10:15 Does it not?
10:16 Any people anywhere would be glad to accept this as the preamble to their constitution,
10:20 correct?
10:21 So this is something very, very universal.
10:24 You cannot say the Indian constitution is an imported thing.
10:28 If you will say the Indian constitution is an important thing, then the result will be
10:33 that you will try to somehow subvert the constitution and there is a certain group of people who
10:40 are trying even that.
10:41 They are saying, no, this constitution is not good.
10:44 It does not merely need amendments.
10:46 It needs replacement.
10:48 But why does it need replacement?
10:50 It is already the Bhagavad Gita.
10:53 It is already the Upanishads.
10:54 Why do you want to replace it?
10:58 Instead of respecting it as something, if not religious, then next to religious.
11:05 Instead of respecting it, you are talking of replacing it.
11:08 What's the point?
11:09 Why?
11:11 [Music]
11:15 [MUSIC PLAYING]