Is time travel possible? || Acharya Prashant, at IIT-Delhi (2023)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00Acharyaji Pranam. I am Pranjul, student of IIT Delhi. I want to understand the concept

00:07of time travel or timelessness. Is it there, is it any spiritual side to it or it's just

00:14a product of human mind? It's a fantasy. Where does the future come from? Where does

00:22the future come from? The future comes from the choices that you make today, right? You

00:29are there and the material world is there and you are a creature of choice. If you are

00:36not a creature of choice, everything is deterministic and then life is not worth living. There is

00:44no freedom. If everything is predetermined, where is the question of freedom then? And

00:51freedom is the highest spiritual ideal. So you are a conscious person and by definition

00:58consciousness is choice, which means there are an infinite number of futures possible.

01:06If you say you are travelling into the future, which particular future are you travelling

01:10into? Which particular future? So all this time travel is just fantasy, a nice thing

01:18to entertain the mind, there is not much more in it. Sir, some related with the gravity,

01:24more the gravity, slower the time would be and some say when you travel more than the

01:30speed of light, the time slows down. So is there any sense to it or it's just for fun?

01:42Slowing down of time is one thing, negative time is a totally different thing, right?

01:52So remember that when you travel at the speed of light, you are not you anymore. So we talk

02:05of travelling at the speed of light as if some new technology is just on its way. What's

02:12your weight by the way? Let's say 70 kg. You know how mass behaves with speed, right?

02:24What will happen to your mass? You will be an impossible mass as your velocity approaches

02:35that of light. Have you not heard of that m is equal to m naught by root 1 minus v square

02:42by c square, standard equation? And then from where will the energy come to accelerate you

02:49any further? If mass is increasing to those levels, from where will you get the energy

02:57for acceleration? Infinite mass will require infinite energy. So all that is quite titillating

03:11but still quite pointless. Sir, I have often heard mostly from women that they have sixth

03:26sense. Is it for real or just a man-made theory, woman-made theory? It's not a new thing nor is

03:38it specific to women. The scriptures have always said that the mind is the sixth Jnanendriya. So

03:50classically that's the way they put it. They said there are five senses of knowledge,

03:56there are five senses of action and then they also talk of eleventh sense. That's the mind.

04:02How? To watch something you require this particular sense, right? It is called the eye. So watching

04:14should be dependent on the eye. Let's see. Close the eyes. Close your eyes. How many of you are

04:23still not watching something? Is it so that you are not watching anything now? You are still

04:30watching, right? From where is that coming? That's coming from the mind. That's the sixth sense. Even

04:36if you plug your ears, you'll still hear sounds. From where are those sounds coming? From where

04:42do dreams come? They all come from the mind. So the mind is the sixth sense, nothing else.

04:48So what is this thing that you classically call as the sixth sense? It is nothing but the deposit

04:57of past experiences. You see each single one of us is carrying millions of years of experiences

05:06in every single cell, right? That's the process of evolution. We have not just descended in one

05:14particular day. All those experiences are contained within us. There is a reason why you have the

05:19thumb. Why do you have the thumb? So this thumb is coming from experiences of the past, right?

05:26There is a reason why you don't have a fifth finger. When you have a thumb, then you are able

05:31to do something very special. What is it? This kind of a posture is not possible with a fifth

05:39finger and the moment you can do this, you can hold something. Are you getting it? There is a

05:46reason why your brain is more developed than the brain of the monkey or the chimpanzee because you

05:54walk on these two feet and therefore you can have subtler blood vessels in your brain. The blood

06:02pressure reduces when the head is erect. If you are walking on all fours like animals, then the

06:10head and the heart are at the same horizontal level. The blood pressure is higher. So finer

06:17vessels cannot develop there and when you have finer vessels, then you have finer intellect.

06:22So all this is coming from the past and we have accumulated experiences of the past and those

06:30experiences are helpful. A little rabbit, tell me, how does it know that it has to become alert when

06:41a cat approaches it? Has the rabbit been shown pics in advance? This is catty and run away when

06:49you see her. Has that happened? But very small rabbit, 15 days old and still if it sees a cat,

06:57it knows, run, run. How does it know? That knowledge is contained in the body. So the

07:09human body too, just like the rabbit's body, contains a lot of knowledge from the past and

07:16that knowledge is helpful when you have situations that are identical to those in

07:25the past. That's a huge condition, mind you. For a rabbit, knowledge of the body is sufficient

07:32because the rabbit never faces a condition that is not similar to conditions it has faced in

07:38the past. The rabbit was living in a jungle 10 lakh years back. The rabbit is still living in

07:44the jungle. So all the physical knowledge is helpful because the conditions are repeating

07:50themselves. But human beings, we are no more living in conditions that are identical to the

07:59ones millions of years back. So the knowledge that is there in the body can be helpful or can

08:06be very dangerous. The knowledge in the body can be helpful or can be very dangerous because our

08:12conditions have changed. Are you getting it? A rabbit looks at a female rabbit and runs after

08:21her and that is all okay because the rabbit is in the jungle where it is an animal of prey,

08:30which means its population is constantly being attacked. Therefore, it needs to procreate at

08:36a rapid speed. Therefore, the rabbit's body says the moment you look at a female,

08:41pounce upon her. Otherwise, the entire species will go extinct and that is all right. But the

08:47same knowledge is there in the man's body as well. It's just that you are no more threatened. In fact,

08:54today you are the species that is threatening all other species. But still the man's body,

08:59because of the past experience, feels like pouncing upon the woman's body. It's not that

09:04the man is to be condemned as over sexual. It's just that evolutionary training of the past. To

09:14have a stable population, you needed to have the woman constantly pregnant. Otherwise,

09:21mankind would have gone extinct. But that kind of an obligation, does it exist even today? It

09:28does not exist today. So conditions have changed, but the body has not changed. Body is still

09:33behaving as if you are living in the, that's why the woman's sixth sense often betrays her.

09:39Because it is acting as if the conditions are primitive, but the conditions are no more

09:50primitive. Therefore, you have to be very careful when you have intuitions and instincts and advisors

09:59from your sixth sense. You have to be very careful. It can be useful and it can be very

10:03dangerous. Are you getting it? Sometimes it can be useful. For example, you smell smoke,

10:12immediately the adrenaline levels in your blood will spike. Why has adrenaline risen in your blood?

10:24So that you can have more glucose, which is more energy. Because you used to have forest fires in

10:36the past as well. So the body has learned that the moment you smell smoke, you get a rush of energy,

10:42so that you can run fast. If you don't run fast, you'll be consumed by the fire. So all that is

10:47okay when it comes to those physical things, but that is not okay when it comes to all the matters

10:55that involve events, incidents of today. Are you getting it? So you should learn to be a witness

11:05of your sixth sense, which means you must learn to be a witness of your mind. The mind will tell

11:10you something. Does it happen or not? Someone comes to you and even without knowing much about

11:16the person, you feel like saying, oh, this is a wicked fellow. Does it happen or not?

11:21Women claim to have a more active sixth sense, so it happens more with them, right? Now,

11:29why does it happen more with them? Because historically they have been physically the

11:34weaker sex. Therefore, they were more in need of protection. One, the body was weaker. Second,

11:41there were large periods of pregnancy, extended periods of helplessness. So she needed to rely

11:50on advanced instinct. Otherwise, she would have been killed. She can't run. She's pregnant. Even

11:58if she can run, how about the kid? So she needed to be cautious in advance. Therefore, she developed

12:07the sixth sense more than the man. That was a historical imperative. Is that historical imperative

12:14needed even today, I'm asking? No. So there is no need to talk so much about the sixth sense,

12:19etc. Rather, talk about wisdom. Your wisdom is far more important than any sense or something.

12:26Spirituality is about transcending all senses. All wisdom is about transcending the mind. Do

12:33not depend on your thoughts, your emotions, and also your instincts. None of them matter

12:38too much. To some extent, they are useful. Yes. Beyond that, you should know that they

12:44are just biological, physical, so they cannot be trusted. Are you getting it? Do not just say,

12:52it is my gut feel. The gut feel and all is not of much worth. Or that thing today,

12:58that vibes. I'm not getting the right kind of vibes from this fellow. That's the function of

13:07an animal. Are you still an animal to trust vibes and all? If you are a human being,

13:13you will not trust vibes. You will inquire. You will go close. You will ask, who are you? Where

13:17are you coming from? What do you mean? You will engage that person in an argument. Or if you are

13:23too suspicious, you will do a background check, right? You will not say, I'm getting vibrations.

13:27What is this? So all that is a thing of the animal. Do not be too respectful of that.

13:47Now you also know what this thing about falling in love is. That too is a biological thing coming

13:58from the past. Just as you get bad vibes, they also call it low frequency vibrations, right?

14:04Science is indeed progressing. Low frequency vibrations. Wow. So not all that. The other

14:19side of the coin is you look at someone and say, oh, this is the one for me. I'm getting just the

14:24right kind of vibes. Senses are not trustworthy. Thoughts deceive. Experiences are partial. Do

14:44you know the great thing about the Jain philosophy? From where has it brought non-violence to you?

14:52It's called Nayavada. It says, do not trust, do not trust. All experiences are to the ego,

15:00do not trust. No experience is trustworthy. All the knowledge that you have is partial

15:07because you are the partial entity. You are the ego and the ego is never complete. The ego is an

15:13appurna thing, partial. Therefore, never trust your senses, which means do not trust your eyes,

15:18do not trust your ears and never, never trust your enquire, enquire, enquire. And that's what

15:25gives the Jain path and consequently the entire Indian thought a lot of tolerance. Because you

15:34say whatever I am saying is partial. Whatsoever he is saying is partial. So how do I attack him?

15:41I cannot say what I am saying is the absolute thing and even that which he is saying can never

15:47be the absolute thing. So how can I attack him? How can I attack him? Know that all this is just

15:53very partial because the recipient of all sensory input is the ego. It is the ego to which all the

16:03senses deliver their messages and that's the ego by definition is partial, partial, not absolute.

16:10So enquire, know, know, be a witness of the mind. In that the knowers have said that there is

16:22completeness.

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