Bharat: Vedanta and Veganism || Acharya Prashant, in conversation (2021)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...  ~~~~~  #acharyaprashant #Vedanta #Veganism #Animals #crueltyfree  Video Information: 19.07.2021, in conversation, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India  Context: What is the relation between Vedanta and veganism? Why should one respect all forms of consciousness? How to go beyond ones' physical nature?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00Namaste. Acharyaji, before we even jump into the connection of Vedanta with animal rights

00:10or veganism, before that I wanted to understand is that, personally, what is the connection

00:18between Vedanta and India, Bharat? Well, you see, Vedanta is the culmination of the philosophy

00:38of the Vedas. So, the Vedas are encyclopedic in nature, they talk about a lot of things.

00:49Their topmost philosophical content is known as Vedanta. So, the Vedas originated in India,

01:02so Vedanta is a very much home-grown philosophy of the soil, that's the relationship between

01:12Vedanta and territorial India, and if we talk of India, the living conscious entity, then

01:24Vedanta is the root from which all the philosophical systems, in some way or the other, take their nutrition.

01:38So we have had so many streams of thought in India, we have had religions, sects and

01:47their branches and so much else, but the undeniable fact is that all of that finds

01:58its inspiration in Vedanta. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that there can

02:06be no spirituality without Vedanta. Vedanta talks of and addresses such a simple and fundamental

02:18issue, that you cannot avoid it, if you want to live in truth, if you are someone who wants

02:26to understand life. So, that's Vedanta for beginners. Superb! Acharyaji, that's what

02:38I was asking. That is beautiful, that's almost like Sanatana Dharma, the eternal principles

02:45of life, where that is the foundation. And how old is this belief system in India? Are

02:52there any traces? Can we trace it? First of all, it is not a belief system. Religions

03:01are belief systems. Vedanta is extremely exploratory in nature. It does not really ask you to believe

03:11in anything. It carries no dogmas. It carries no fables, no stories. You really don't need

03:22to posit anything, assume anything or take anything for granted. That's the fundamental

03:31beauty of Vedanta. Experiential in nature? Not even experiential, because even experience

03:38depends on the experiencer. Therefore, all experience is in some way subjective and therefore

03:47flawed and open to questioning. What you experience might be very different from someone else

03:54does or what I do. The three of us might have the same object in front of us, yet our experience

04:03with respect to the object might be entirely different. So, therefore experience too cannot

04:09be taken as the truth. This is the level of rigor at which Vedanta operates. It goes right

04:19to the experiencer, to the entity that says, I, I live, I feel, I sense, I say, I think

04:29and questions it. Who is that entity? From where does it come? How much trustworthiness

04:36does it have? That's Vedanta. Beautiful. Yes, there is a saying, Aham Brahmasmi. So, I am

04:47that I am. And does that also mean that it is asked to reincarnate again and again and

04:53that is in different form. Before we move ahead, I just forgot to answer the second

05:01part of your question. How old is Vedanta? You see, if I talk of the Upanishads specifically,

05:12which are the cornerstone of Vedanta. Vedanta consists of Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita

05:18and Brahma Sutra and out of these three, the Upanishads are the fundamental. Then the

05:25oldest Upanishads, you could say were written, composed around 4000 years back and from that

05:42time onwards, it has been a continuous stream. So, there are Upanishads then that were composed

05:53before the Buddha. Then there are Upanishads that were composed in the Buddha stage. Then

06:00there are Upanishads that have been composed in the Christ era and the most recent of the

06:09Upanishads are well no more than a 1000 years old. So, that's the chronology. It's not one

06:18particular book, the Upanishads. These are parts, these are excerpts from the bodies of the Vedas.

06:28Though some Upanishads have an independent existence also, but their genesis is spread

06:36over a vast stretch of time. Yeah, please. Very interesting. So, what is the relationship

06:45between these Upanishads, Vedanta itself with veganism or with just animalism? Yes. The

06:56relationship is extremely deep, very organic and these two things, spiritual understanding

07:06and veganism are actually inseparable. You see, when the Upanishads or when Vedanta asks

07:19the question, who am I? Then after removing all the fluff and all the falseness, one comes

07:32to see that one is the consciousness that is asking this question. One is the experiencing

07:41entity. And if you have heard Acharya Shankar's famous Nirvana Shatkam, then there he continuously

07:57negates what one is not. I am not air, I am not water, I am not the body, I am not

08:05the past, I am not the future, I am not this, I am not that. So, who am I? Then I am consciousness

08:13and I am consciousness that must be purified to the maximum extent possible. I am asking

08:24this question, who am I? Because the consciousness that I am suffers. It suffers because it is

08:31impure, it is impressionable, it is contaminated. So, consciousness has to be respected, it

08:38has to be kept pure. If consciousness has to be respected, then consciousness in all

08:45forms has to be respected. You see, my suffering as an individual is because my consciousness

08:55has not received the kind of attention and respect from me that it deserved. If I really

09:06want to be free from suffering, then I have to respect consciousness. And if I have to

09:12respect consciousness, then how can I deny that the consciousness of the animal in front

09:18of me is not very different from my own, that the animal suffers in much the same way as

09:27I do. There also has to be then a level at which a person starts identifying with consciousness

09:34itself, you know, that's like a first step because a lot of people cannot go beyond the

09:40physical and understandably so. Yes, yes, yes. You see, that's the trouble with living

09:48in the physical. The more you live in the physical, the more you destroy the physical.

09:54You see, when we say somebody is very body identified, it appears that that person would

10:01be taking care of the body a lot or would be taking care of the material aspects of

10:06the life a lot. Well, that's not really the case. When you are too attached to the body,

10:14when you are too identified to material stuff, you find that you destroy even the material stuff.

10:19For example, you look at the environmental crisis today, you look at the climate crisis,

10:25all that is destruction on a material dimension. Because man loves material and therefore he

10:35is creating havoc in the dimension of the material, the earthly dimension, the trees,

10:41the rivers, the mountains, everything that is material is being destroyed. So, even to

10:48let material stay in a healthy shape, one has to have a certain detachment from material

10:56and that detachment from material can only come when you first of all identify yourself

11:02not as material primarily, having a material dimension, but not material at the core, but

11:09consciousness at the core and when you are consciousness at the core, you cannot avoid

11:14admitting that the glint in the eye of the chicken or the goat is not very different

11:23from the light in your own eye. How can you then proceed to slaughter the little thing?

11:31Very difficult. I mean, it's also like having non-ownership, right? So, I don't own this

11:40material, I don't own this body, I don't own that life form. Just identifying consciousness

11:46as it is or what people sometimes call the creator. If one has any link to that and whatever

11:54name that they call it, is when they start getting more sensitized to all beings, all

12:00living forms around and I think animals are just one part of it. Is that what you meant?

12:07You see, there is me and there is the material world and there is a relationship between

12:16the two. When I do not know who I am, then the relationship between me and the material

12:23world, and the material world consists of animals, inanimate things, persons, consumable

12:30goods, everything. Then the relationship between me and the world gets totally distorted and

12:40obviously I suffer and I make the world suffer. So, a person who is cruel towards animals

12:49is actually quite likely to be inconsiderate and insensitive towards his or her loved ones

13:02as well. But they might not even know it, right?

13:08They might not even know it, but then, you know, it's like the virus. You may not know

13:15that you have the virus, but the effects will be there for you to experience and for everyone

13:23else to see and the suffering might not be just personal to you. If you have the virus,

13:31then you cause suffering all around.

13:35And according to the Vedic philosophy, isn't that, that we are insensitive to our own selves,

13:40because like you said earlier on, it all starts with knowing yourself. So, if you respect

13:45yourself, you by default respect another, by default respect you.

13:48Well said. In fact, I have been emphasizing on this since a long time, that if you are

13:55being considerate towards animals, then it is not even a purely selfless thing. For your

14:03own good, please be sensitive to other conscious beings, other sentient beings, because if

14:10you are not good to them, what it means is that you are not good to life itself and you

14:17too are life. If you do not know how to respect the physical integrity, the very existence

14:26of an animal, you really do not know how to have even self-respect.

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