Stop trashing the West, instead learn from them || Acharya Prashant, at ICT-Mumbai (2022)

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?...  ~~~~~   Video Information: 18.10.22, ICT-Mumbai, Mumbai   Context:  ~ How can India become a superpower?  ~ Why is India still a developing country?  ~ How did America become a superpower?  ~ Is materialism way towards happiness and growth?  ~ Why did we lose to the Britishers?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00A very good evening to one and all present here. I, Isha Engle, take great pleasure in

00:07welcoming you all to Sarwal, an interaction with Asha and Prashanth ji. Thank you so much

00:14sir for sparing your valuable time and gracing us with your presence. I extend a warm welcome

00:20to all the dignitaries present on and off the dais, professors and fellow ICDians. We

00:27mark every beginning with the lighting of the lamp so that we can spread the light

00:32and in it guide others too. We uphold this tradition here too. I would like to request

00:38Acharya Prashanth ji, Honourable Registrar, Professor Aarav Deshmukh, Eastern Convener,

00:45Professor Amit Pratap and the Dean of Research and Innovation, Padmasa Devrajan ma'am,

00:53to come on to the stage and light the lamp as a tribute to Mahaswara Sati, the Goddess

00:59of Knowledge. I now call upon our Honourable Registrar, Professor Aarav Deshmukh, to introduce

01:13Acharya Prashanth ji with a bouquet.

01:16Good evening. I can see your helping response. I can also see that you are very eager to

01:26hear Acharya Prashanth ji. Actually, Acharya Prashanth ji doesn't need any introduction.

01:36However, as a practice, I have to introduce myself. Acharya Prashanth is an Indian Vedanta

01:47philosopher, environmentalist and a social reformer. Acharya Prashanth completed his

01:56education from IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad. Acharya Prashanth is an acclaimed Vedanta

02:07exegete and a national bestselling author of over 100 books. He is a powerful voice

02:16of social-spiritual awakening in today's world. Today, tens of millions of people,

02:24specially the youth, get inspired daily by Acharya Prashanth ji. Through his direct contact

02:34with people and through various internet-based channels, he continues to bring clarity to

02:41all. Acharya Prashanth ji consistently talked in his class and received highest commendations

02:52and prizes possible to a student. Since his childhood, he has been reading books. Often

03:00used to get lost in reading. He would skip meals and sleep. At the age of 10, he had

03:09read almost everything including Upanishads in the father's collection and was asking

03:18for more books to read. His father had extensive home library and entire library books he had

03:28read at the age of 10. Very commendable. He is the founder of a non-profit organization

03:37named Prashanth Advait Foundation, PAF. He has worked as a management professional for

03:45a few years in a variety of industries. When he was 28 years old, he started Advait life

03:54education out of a mystical and spiritual urge with the goal of giving people an inner

04:01clarity missing from their lives. Around the age of 30, Acharya Prashanth ji started

04:09speaking publicly in the form of public discourses and followed by open discussions.

04:15Sir, it's an honor to welcome you to address our institute on behalf of ICD Mumbai.

04:28We thank you for accepting our invitation and without taking much time, I invite Acharya Prashanth ji

04:38to interact with the audience. Thank you.

04:47Pranam Acharya ji. My name is Dev Ranjan. I am a third year B.Tech student.

04:52As we all know, India recently celebrated its 75 years of independence. As a citizen, I see developed

05:00countries of US, UK and those in Europe which are better developed and have a better income.

05:08This was driven through materialistic ways. How India as a developing country can use

05:15spirituality to become a developed country?

05:17You see, that which you are calling as the materialistic approach, please sit,

05:27is nothing wrong actually. It's just that it might not be complete.

05:39But there is a difference, a big difference between something being wrong

05:45and something being incomplete. Right?

05:53Vedanta is very clear about it. Education must necessarily consist of two components.

06:06The first component or the lower component is called avidya or aparavidya.

06:20It's to do with the world, the material world.

06:28The thinkers, the seers said very clearly, if you do not know the material world,

06:42you will be condemned to fall in a deep place, deep and dark place.

06:51It is extremely important that you understand what this world that you experience

06:59through your senses is all about. Therefore, science as we know it is very important and very useful.

07:13You cannot just brush it away by calling it materialism.

07:20India suffered a lot because it did not pay adequate attention to material advancement.

07:31And the sages say both things. On one hand, they say if you ignore material education,

07:45you will suffer. And then they say, if you ignore inner education, again you will suffer.

07:58But out of these two, and this is coming from a spiritual book,

08:07therefore it becomes all the more significant. They say out of these two kind of sufferers,

08:13the one who suffers due to absence of material education and the one who is ignorant about the inner self,

08:25one who does not have inner education, who is the one who suffers more?

08:29Guess what do the Upanishads say? They say the one who does not have material education, he suffers more.

08:39You will go to a bad place if you do not have inner education, which you usually call as spiritual education.

08:51If you do not have that, you will go to a bad place. But if you do not have worldly knowledge,

08:57you will go to a worse place. And then the Upanishads say if you have both,

09:06then you will never be afraid, you will never be conquered, you will be such a winner

09:15that even death will not be able to terrify you. You must have both.

09:21There is a lot that we need to learn from the West. Right?

09:30We have paid a price already in our history.

09:37When the British came here, with relatively small armies, they were able to defeat the various Indian armies.

09:56They fought a lot of battles here. In most of the battles, the British were outnumbered.

10:03Their armies were relatively smaller and still they could win. There were many reasons obviously.

10:09But one of the reasons was that their technology was more advanced.

10:15And if you lose the various battles of various kinds of freedom,

10:24what is now left to save when freedom itself is lost and freedom has many aspects.

10:36Each of those aspects requires preservation, security, defense.

10:44A lot of that requires you to be materially strong.

10:50At the same time, we very well know that the West itself is suffering due to lack of inner knowledge,

11:04spiritual education. And because the West did not pay adequate attention to that aspect,

11:13they themselves have landed in a big mess. You look at the climate crisis today.

11:2190% of the crisis is attributable to the developed Western First World.

11:31It could be said that lack of inner education is one of the important reasons

11:40why the West has become such a threat not only to itself but to the whole world.

11:50Not only to mankind but to all the species that inhabit this planet.

11:56It is very difficult really to say which one is a bigger problem.

12:03To not to have material knowledge or not to have knowledge of the self, knowledge of the mind,

12:11knowledge of who you really are from the inside.

12:15If you do not have material knowledge, you will fall prey to all kinds of superstitions.

12:21If you do not have inner knowledge, you will start considering yourself as the only thing that exists and matters

12:29and that your body and everything that arises from the body like thoughts and emotions will be your masters then.

12:40It will be another kind of slavery. Do you see what happens?

12:46When you do not have knowledge of the world, then somebody from the world will arise and enslave you.

12:56And if you do not have knowledge of yourself, then your own evil tendencies will enslave you.

13:05In either case, you will be condemned to be a slave. Who wants to be a slave? Nobody.

13:13And which slavery is worst? To be enslaved by somebody outside of you or to be your own slave?

13:20Both the slaveries are equally bad.

13:25Depending on the context, one could say one is worse than the other.

13:31But we do not want to choose here. We want to dismiss both these threats.

13:38Right? So our educational institutions must have both.

13:44On one hand, obviously, you must have state of the art teaching facilities, laboratories.

13:54Our teaching institutions should be focusing equally on research and we should be generating papers and patents.

14:04At the same time, we should have humanities departments, very rich humanities departments,

14:14even in courses of professional education and basics of philosophy, psychology.

14:26When I say philosophy, I definitely wish to include Indian philosophy, the various darshans that we had.

14:36So you all as students of professional courses must be exposed to that as well.

14:43Right? However, by that I do not in any way wish to take away the importance of professional technical education.

14:55Science is extremely important. Mathematics, the various humanities, the arts, all of them are very, very important.

15:03Along with them, we must also have courses that deal with life.

15:13Courses that educate a young person in what it means to exist.

15:25What it means to relate. The very question of identity. The question of values.

15:35The question of the right relationship between the self and the world.

15:42There must be an entire department dedicated to this.

15:49If that is not there, there will be problems. The West is already facing those problems.

15:55We do not want to follow the West in this respect.

16:00We want to take the best from everywhere.

16:06We do not want to repeat somebody's mistakes. Do we? Yes.

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