• 10 months ago
Full Video: If Vivekanand comes alive today, this is what he faces || Acharya Prashant, at BITS Goa (2023)
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hxb9lSMQHk&t=1s

Video Information: 12.01.2023, BITS, Goa

Context:
~ Has religion really been successful in its purpose?
~ Is a man better off without religion?
~ What is the role of religion in a man's life?

Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Transcript
00:00 Nobody wants to accept a Swami Vivekananda.
00:10 His lot, his fate is to be resisted.
00:16 He was resisted then, he would be resisted even today.
00:20 He was resisted by everybody including the youth then, it is the youth that would resist
00:26 him even today.
00:28 Now that's very counter intuitive because we love to talk of Swami Vivekananda as a
00:34 youth icon, right?
00:36 Swami Vivekananda, the favourite of the youth, youth icon, youth icon and here I am asserting
00:43 that were he to be here today, it is the youth that would resist him the most.
00:52 Because the work of a spiritual revolutionary, of the knower of Vedanta and it is Vedanta
01:02 that Swamiji was most fond of, he worshipped Vedanta, not any God.
01:09 To him Vedanta was secret.
01:14 His work is to challenge the conditioning of the day, in that alone lies the worship
01:22 of the truth.
01:25 Challenge conditioning, what are we conditioned as?
01:30 What are you conditioned to believe in?
01:31 Tell me please.
01:38 His work would be equally difficult today.
01:45 Beliefs have changed, the believer has not.
01:50 The one who loves to live in beliefs has not changed.
01:56 It is just that he has changed his beliefs.
02:01 So there was one set of beliefs then.
02:06 Be with me, come on.
02:07 There is another set of beliefs now.
02:11 But the tendency to live in beliefs has not changed.
02:16 He will have an equally tough task today with you guys.
02:23 You will not question him as a youth icon.
02:28 After he is gone, then another generation would, not you.
02:33 You would not like to listen to him.
02:36 Listening to someone who brings the truth to you is always a difficult task.
02:43 The nature of truth is that it cannot be pleasant, irrespective of how much you try to sweeten
02:58 it or smoothen it.
03:06 Are you getting it?
03:08 Think of this.
03:09 So many people would assemble to listen to him.
03:13 When he returned from the States, a huge procession greeted him right at the port.
03:23 But when he asked for just a hundred people who could be his soldiers, he was denied.
03:39 Beliefs are superstitions.
03:41 Just that it is easy to call the other's superstition as superstition.
03:51 Our own superstition we call as a sacred belief or holy culture or passion.
04:04 In a non-religious, non-cultural context, your personal belief you will call as your
04:10 passion but even that is superstition.
04:15 And when that is challenged, one does not like it.
04:21 The superstitions of that time are quite evident.
04:26 The fellow is for example saying that snakes live for 2000 years or that a certain tree
04:34 turns into a beautiful lady every fortnight and today you can laugh those things away.
04:43 How about the superstitions of today?
04:46 Have we tried to inquire the superstitions that we carry?
04:52 Come on.
05:00 Risk a guess at least.
05:05 Can you watch me from there?
05:08 Otherwise this seat is available.
05:09 Come on, come over to this side.
05:12 I will have to bend to look at you and same with you.
05:25 What are the superstitions we carry?
05:29 Please.
05:32 Ha ha ha consume, consume and consume.
05:42 Have more.
05:43 That's the purpose of life.
05:46 Happiness is the purpose of life and happiness is obtained through consumption.
05:53 Happiness is the purpose of life and happiness comes through consumption.
05:59 And Swami Vivekananda will again have to fight this superstition till his last breath.
06:09 And he will again be defeated.
06:11 We will not let him win.
06:13 Thank you.

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