They are not so different from us || Acharya Prashant, with Ms. Gauri Maulekhi (2023)

Acharya Prashant

Full Video: The One Most Important thing about life || Acharya Prashant, with Ms. Gauri Maulekhi (2023) Link:      • The One Most Important thing about li...     ~~~~~~~~~~  The Ahimsa Fellowship is India's first and foremost comprehensive 9-month programme that aims to create animal protection leaders across the length and breadth of India. It has been designed to bolster the capacity of fellows to emerge as effective animal advocates. It aims at creating a network of individuals who have been rigorously trained on effectively working on and advocating for animal protection issues of the country.   The curriculum of the program has been curated with inputs from leading experts in the field of animal welfare and the social sector. Ahimsa Fellows will work to render assistance to the State Governments and District Administration for the enforcement of animal protection laws and will assist law enforcement agencies.   The Ahimsa Fellows will be intensively trained to understand in depth the existing legal and policy regime of the country. This will facilitate their leadership in advocacy efforts towards securing and implementing favourable animal protection policies. The Fellows will also be trained in  Public Outreach and Awareness, Academic Research, Report and Proposal Writing, Field Visits and Documentation, Corporate Outreach, Fundraising etc.  They invite applications from committed individuals who are motivated about contributing to the animal welfare/animal rights movement in India.  The Ahimsa Fellowship is powered by People For Animals Public Policy Foundation and People For Animals Uttarakhand. It is supported by Ahimsa Trust, Humane Society International – India, Mercy For Animals – India, Fish Welfare Initiative India, Kaivalya Education Foundation, Miranda House College (University of Delhi) and NALSAR University of Law.  Eligibility Criteria  – Graduation degree in any discipline – Good communication skills [English and a regional language(desirable)] – Between 22 and 35 years old – Be available to attend the entire 9-month duration of the program  ~~~~~~~~~~  ‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...  ⚡ Want Acharya Prashant’s regular updates? Join WhatsApp Channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va6Z...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...   Want to accelerate Acharya Prashant’s work? Contribute: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/contri...   Want to work with Acharya Prashant? Apply to the Foundation here: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/hiring...  ~~~~~  Video Information: 04.04.23, with Ahimsa Fellows (Online-talk), Greater Noida

Transcript

00:00 Consciousness is what makes us alive and equally consciousness is what we live for.

00:13 Now extend the argument to animals.

00:19 The stuff of their consciousness is definitely different.

00:23 We might be thinking of discoveries, inventions, literature, art.

00:30 Animals don't think of that and if they do we do not know of that.

00:35 At least they don't think of these things in the way that we do, right, from our point

00:40 of view.

00:44 So the stuff of their consciousness is different but they are conscious and the fundamental

00:52 cravings that we have are very much alike to theirs.

01:01 Is it not so?

01:03 In terms of thought and the content of thought, obviously we are very different.

01:07 We are different from each other and we are very different when it comes to other species.

01:14 But when it comes to the very fundamentals of life, are we not all one?

01:20 Think of it, we do so many things.

01:26 What is the fundamental tendency driving the various things that we do?

01:30 For example, the tendency to secure a future, the tendency to just live on.

01:39 Chopin's art was the will to live, the will to just continue.

01:49 That he said is the basic human existential tendency.

01:53 I am asking, don't animals have that tendency?

01:58 At the root of all consciousness is the will to survive and continue.

02:03 We don't want to die.

02:04 The animals too don't want to die.

02:07 We feel pain, we suffer, so do animals.

02:21 The reasons might be very different.

02:24 Often the reasons are in fact not too different.

02:28 Separate a human mother from her baby and you see the suffering.

02:34 It's very apparent.

02:37 Separate a cow from her calf and the suffering is much the same.

02:45 So the fundamentals of consciousness we share with animals.

02:51 To some extent, to a lesser extent, we share those things even with plants.

02:59 And if you want to go deeper than that, then even with organisms that have just a few tissues,

03:09 basic or just even a single cell, like an amoeba or a paramecium, the will to continue

03:18 living is found there as well.

03:21 If you attack an amoeba, it has ways to survive and it wants to prolong its existence into

03:30 eternity by reproducing and it has its own peculiar way of reproduction.

03:38 The same things that we do.

03:42 Outwardly there is so much that we have created and that looks so spectacular and so different

03:50 from the jungle kingdom, but inwardly at our core, don't we all have the same desires,

04:00 the same tendencies that animals have?

04:05 Is not the very core of consciousness the same?

04:12 And it is consciousness, the maximization of consciousness, the liberation of consciousness

04:21 that is also the purpose of life, which means that a conscious entity has to be looked at

04:30 with respect, with a certain love.

04:35 If you want liberation of consciousness, how can you hurt another conscious being?

04:46 Especially when you know that it is the stuff of consciousness that differs, not consciousness

04:52 itself.

04:53 If your own consciousness is worthy of being taken care of, being nurtured and being liberated,

05:07 how can the same consciousness when seen in another living being be abominable, negotiable,

05:18 violable?

05:21 The same thing when I see it in my own self, if it is respectable, it will remain respectable

05:30 even if it is seen in somebody else's self.

05:37 If I really want to eliminate suffering, then suffering is what I want to eliminate, not

05:45 just my own suffering, because as long as I keep saying my own suffering, this my own

05:55 itself remains the cause of suffering.

06:01 This localization of consciousness itself is the limitation and the constraint and the

06:07 bane of consciousness.

06:11 I want to be happy, right?

06:13 We all want to be happy.

06:16 Why are we unable to be happy?

06:18 Because we want to be happy at the cost of others.

06:21 So I want to say I want to be happy and I want to have my own happiness.

06:26 So this my own is what prevents true happiness from coming to me.

06:33 A very localized and limited and individualized happiness is what I want.

06:38 I don't want happiness.

06:39 If I want happiness, it would be an impersonal happiness that I would share with as many

06:45 beings as possible.

06:49 So if consciousness is my goal or happiness is my goal or freedom from suffering is my

06:57 goal and I'm true to my goal, then I'll want these same things for others.

07:06 And if I want these things only for myself, then I cannot have them even for myself.

07:13 That's a rule.

07:15 If you want these things, these best of things that life can offer only for yourself, then

07:24 you will not have them even for yourself.

07:28 But if you want them for everybody, then you will have it for yourself as well.

07:35 So if I want my happiness at the cost of somebody's life, the thing is the poor thing will lose

07:43 its life and I won't even get what I want to get at the cost of his life.

07:52 It's a double whammy.

07:56 Nobody gains anything.

07:57 No emotions involved.

07:59 It is just mathematically a loss making proposition.

08:04 It's simply bad existential economics.

08:09 I wanted happiness by consuming that other person or animal.

08:15 That's what we want, right?

08:16 Otherwise, there is no need to hurt the other.

08:20 So I hurt the other thinking that happiness is a zero sum game.

08:27 I throw sadness upon you, I inflict suffering upon you and wishfully I think that will give

08:36 me happiness.

08:40 Happiness to my consciousness.

08:44 There's a problem there.

08:45 You are trying to violate an inviolable rule.

08:50 It's a rule of existence, prakriti.

08:54 That these things cannot be had in isolation.

09:00 That you cannot have these things only for yourself.

09:03 These are the most subtle gifts of living that cannot come to an individualized person.

09:13 Money you can have for yourself, I understand.

09:15 It's your bank account and if it's deposited in that account, it belongs only to you.

09:19 Nobody else can ever say.

09:22 When it comes to liberation, it can never be personal.

09:26 When it comes to real happiness, that is joy, it can never be personal.

09:33 Money can be a zero sum game.

09:35 I snatch 100 rupees from you.

09:38 You lost 100, I gained 100, the sum is zero.

09:42 The same cannot be applied to happiness.

09:46 I cannot take your life and enhance mine.

09:52 If you have lost your life, in the bargain, I too have lost mine.

09:58 Equally, if I can enhance your life, I have enhanced mine.

10:03 We are inseparably connected and the name of the connecting tissue is consciousness.

10:14 That's what we share, we all.

10:18 And in that there is no zero sum arithmetic.

10:23 If you lose, so do I.

10:28 If you gain, so do I.

10:35 So that day, I was in Rishikesh after the camp and there was this little puppy and we

10:42 posted a pic, me and the pup.

10:49 And along with that we wrote a little caption from my favorite saint poet.

10:58 Yeh tan, vah tan ek hai, ek pran dui gath, apne ji se jaaniye mere ji ki baat.

11:12 So this body and that body are actually the same.

11:17 The pran is the same, pran here refers to consciousness, gath means body.

11:22 Ek pran dui gath.

11:23 The bodies appear different, but the life is the same.

11:28 Life meaning consciousness.

11:29 Ek pran dui gath.

11:30 Two bodies, but the consciousness is just the same.

11:39 So that's what, you hurt the other, you are hurting yourself.

11:44 It's not even a matter of emotion.

11:47 It's not even a matter of sympathy.

11:50 People won't understand even if you call it empathy.

11:56 You have to help them see.

12:00 You kill the other and you are killing your own possibility of joy, fulfillment, liberation.

12:08 Don't you want that?

12:12 In some sense, the chicken is gone.

12:16 It won't suffer anymore.

12:19 But you have condemned yourself to enhanced future suffering by just doing what you did.

12:31 It's bad.

12:33 You disrespect the consciousness there and you have disrespected your own consciousness.

12:38 And if you disrespect your consciousness, how will you ever bring it to fulfillment?

12:47 Am I too abstract?

12:50 What are the friends saying?

12:53 Are they feeling disconnected?

12:54 I don't know.

12:55 I'm certainly not, because I can, I'll tell you something here.

13:02 When I first went to the parliament for the very first time and I was just like a tourist

13:07 walking around, I saw this huge engraving right in front of the parliament hall which

13:16 said Vasudev Kutumbakam.

13:19 And then I studied a little more about it.

13:21 You know, all the world is one family, globalization is one interpretation of it.

13:27 But I think from our civilization point of view, I think it's more deeper than that.

13:35 And it's about all consciousness actually being the same, exactly what you said.

13:41 And basically indicating a kind of a singularity from which everybody originated.

13:47 Which even physics agrees with now.

13:52 We can't look at species in silos.

13:56 And, you know, now even the World Health Organization has come up with the One Health Program, because

14:01 all health is one.

14:02 Those are little things where it's manifesting itself.

14:06 But it's just too little, too late.

14:10 Are we too late to save the planet, Ajaraji?

14:14 I mean, is it really too late?

14:18 Sometimes I feel like saying yes, it is already too late.

14:24 Probably that is the fact as well.

14:31 But that does not matter.

14:34 You see, it might not be too late, it might already be too late.

14:38 How does it matter?

14:39 It has to just keep fighting on.

14:45 Not for those who are gone, not for the future, but for the present possibility that there

14:58 is something precious, lovely, worthwhile that can probably be redeemed.

15:08 And one will not be able to forgive herself if one doesn't give it all one has.

15:17 [Music]

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