Video Information:
Context:
~ What Role that social media plays ?
~ What is importance of real spirituality ?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #socialmedia
Context:
~ What Role that social media plays ?
~ What is importance of real spirituality ?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #socialmedia
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00 The outcome of the conversation would decide actively the fate of many million residents
00:23 of the kingdom, not just figuratively, literally.
00:27 Life and death depend on this discourse, therefore this discourse has so much potency.
00:31 Arjun is the real life student, not the ideal disciple, therefore Krishna's persuasion
00:40 has the cutting edge mastery.
00:43 That's what happened with Arjun as well.
00:46 So the Bhagavad Gita is such a real and captivating.
00:49 I am a PhD student in my fourth year in the design department and I am mainly working
00:54 with educational games and how we can use games to harness some sort of education because
00:59 I have seen a lot of children learning vocabulary through playing games like PUBG and other
01:05 things.
01:06 So I thought why not try to intentionally harness that.
01:09 So that is what I do.
01:12 My question to you was, so I was reading somewhere that Chanakya in Arthashastra and I might
01:18 be mistaken, so sorry about the specifications, apologies about that, pointed out the fact
01:23 that a king, if he needs to be successful and wants to rule his kingdom successfully,
01:29 not just with dictatorial absolute power, but successfully, he or she needs to pay attention
01:35 and extract the power of alcohol.
01:37 So Chanakya did not pass judgment on whether alcohol is good or bad, but he did understand
01:42 that a tool which is powerful has to be understood by the person who is leading the kingdom.
01:50 So that is when I was struck with the idea that ancient texts might have ancient texts
01:54 and knowledge that has been written in olden times might have some answers or some insights
02:00 into the contemporary problems that we have.
02:02 So I was wondering that in the contemporary current intellectual discussions that happen
02:07 in India, I often see a lack of or at least an inadequate importance that is put upon
02:15 the role that social media plays in our current consciousness.
02:18 I see that they do discuss it, but they hand wave it as a technology that it is there and
02:22 it has some influence, but I rarely see that in Indian discussions, we really dive into
02:27 it of what the problem it is creating or benefits.
02:31 I understand my question here is that do the Vedantic teachings have any insight on a spectacle
02:38 like this or if it did try to comment on such a contemporary phenomenon, how would it perceive
02:44 social media and its ever increasing role in our current society?
02:48 Vedanta investigates the mind and whereas the deepest desire and the ultimate destiny
03:05 of the mind is liberation, yet it is habituated to all kinds of bondages.
03:26 That's the condition of the mind.
03:32 You can call that as human consciousness.
03:36 Our inclinations, our tendencies, our habits are at odds with our welfare.
03:53 We need to be liberated, but we want and slip towards bondages.
04:09 So that's what the mind is.
04:12 An entity at odds with its own real interests.
04:26 So the mind is very easily attracted towards pomp, show, sexuality, display of riches.
04:50 It likes to be entertained so much that it sometimes even deliberately wants to keep
04:58 itself in illusions.
05:06 That's how the mind is.
05:08 The mind slips easily towards falseness but requires discipline and deliberate effort
05:20 to rise towards knowledge, understanding and liberation.
05:34 With the mind being like this, you have the social media technology in front of you and
05:46 it is one of the things of the mind to feel lonely since birth and clamour for company
05:58 and social attention.
06:02 And now you have Facebook or Twitter and you want attention.
06:11 You want attention, that's your mind.
06:16 The others want to be entertained and titillated, that's their mind.
06:25 You do not really want the truth.
06:28 You need the truth though but you do not want the truth.
06:33 That's your mind and the others too equally want to avoid the truth even though they equally
06:45 need the truth.
06:46 That's the other's mind.
06:48 Everybody has one mind, its expressions are varied but fundamentally the tendencies of
06:59 the mind are the same and equally the final destiny of the mind is one.
07:12 So what do I do?
07:16 I feel lonely, what do I do?
07:19 I look around for attention.
07:22 I look around for attention, the easiest way to gain attention is to peddle mischief.
07:29 Why?
07:31 Because the others too are attracted towards mischief.
07:38 The lowest common denominator has a tendency to catch on spread like wildfire.
07:50 All that is worst about us will be the fastest to spread and we just said that that which
08:04 is sublime in us, worthy within us, requires first of all effort, time, patience, discipline
08:16 to cultivate and a lot of equal effort to propagate.
08:26 Whereas mischief spreads on its own, falseness is contagious.
08:39 One person with the inclination to spread false ideas or information can do it very
08:51 easily whereas somebody with the intention to counter falseness will have to work ten
08:59 times as hard.
09:03 So now you see when we get a propagating machinery like social media in our hand, what use is
09:15 it going to be put to?
09:20 It has amplified the worst within us.
09:24 Though it's just a technology as you put in your question, but we being the users of that
09:33 technology, we have put it to the worst use as is our habit to put everything at our disposal,
09:47 at the service of our lowly tendencies and so social media too has been made a servant
09:58 to our lowly tendencies.
10:03 So you rightly put it there is no accountability, anybody can say anything and that gets magnified
10:13 very soon.
10:16 In fact, the worst the kind of content, the faster the speed with which it spreads and
10:30 that becomes known to all and we all are hungry for recognition, prestige, attention.
10:45 So we very quickly take the hint, we very quickly see what is it that sells, what is
10:54 it that brings instant rewards and also a lot of money is at stake.
11:02 If you can become a good YouTuber or a recognized social media personality that fills up your
11:13 coffers as well.
11:16 So now a very easy, a very cheap formula has been revealed.
11:26 Do the worst kind of nonsense and make a fortune out of it and this formula has been picked
11:37 up by the society in general, by politicians, by corporations, by everybody.
11:49 So that's what is happening.
11:51 When you had regulated bodies, then they were answerable and you knew the names and faces
12:04 of those who were in charge.
12:08 When it comes to social media, hardly anybody is in charge.
12:13 Now the mischief maker is faceless, anonymous because there are just so many of them that
12:19 you cannot call out or point out one single face.
12:27 Anonymity does not consist of nobody having a face.
12:38 These days anonymity really means billions of faces.
12:46 When there are billions of mischief makers, how many will you block?
12:54 How many will you call out?
12:58 So that's what has happened and regulation cannot be the answer now because regulation
13:07 is now impractical, impossible.
13:11 You cannot regulate so many people and you cannot have laws that punish people for their
13:20 intentions.
13:23 Of course, if there is explicit content, you can punish it.
13:27 If somebody is saying something that is factually misleading, you can punish it.
13:32 But then mischiefs can be of thousand kinds and those kinds are all very subjective.
13:41 You cannot identify them.
13:45 So regulation has become impossible.
13:49 What then is the way ahead?
13:54 The only solution then is individual responsibility and individual responsibility cannot come
14:01 by way of legislation or regulation.
14:09 Then the only solution is a cultural environment with spirituality at its centre.
14:24 Only then can people be self-regulated.
14:31 Or you could have a situation similar to one in China where the state has a million eyes
14:45 and hands and is clamping down on everybody and anybody who dares to transgress.
14:57 But obviously we do not want that to happen.
15:00 Firstly, that benefits no one.
15:03 Secondly, that will very soon prove ineffective.
15:10 So then you need people with their minds awakened.
15:23 You need people who can operate from a position of internal discipline.
15:34 And this is not a mere utopia.
15:37 I am not talking idealism.
15:40 I am talking of the only practical solution possible now.
15:48 So what do we do then?
15:52 Individual spirituality has to be promoted.
15:56 You cannot leave it at the mercy of blind social forces or market forces or even the
16:10 whims of democracy.
16:15 A few things have to be recognised as being fundamentally important and therefore be patronised
16:28 by the society.
16:32 I am talking of Vedanta here.
16:34 I am talking of core self-enquiry here.
16:40 That has to become a part of mainstream education.
16:49 Education cannot now remain a means to just earn your bread.
17:00 Education cannot be just about building a career.
17:07 We are into rough terrain and choppy waters now.
17:21 Humanity does not have much time left.
17:27 We need to be awakened very quickly.
17:33 It's a historical emergency.
17:37 The problems that you see with social media are but a tiny reflection of the real catastrophe
17:47 we unfortunately have at hand.
17:54 So that needs to be done.
17:58 The real inner centre being promoted, self-enquiry being promoted is the most important need
18:13 of the hour and I am saying that not as an exaggeration but with very careful deliberation
18:21 over long years.
18:24 There is nothing more important today than awakening the individual.
18:33 It was always important historically but today it's a do or die thing.
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