The Influencers you follow on social media Acharya Prashant, at IIT-Roorkee (2022)
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~~~~~
Video Information: 28.09.22, IIT-Roorkee, Roorkee
Context:
~ Why social media influencers are so rich?
~ How to not be affected by social media?
~ Why do social media influencers affect us?
~ How useful is our education?
¬ Why is critical thinking critical today, but is lacking to such a large degree?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
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: 28.09.22, IIT-Roorkee, Roorkee
Context:
~ Why social media influencers are so rich?
~ How to not be affected by social media?
~ Why do social media influencers affect us?
~ How useful is our education?
¬ Why is critical thinking critical today, but is lacking to such a large degree?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Namaskar, Acharya ji, my colleagues, students, ladies and gentlemen.
00:12I was thinking how to welcome you.
00:18But I forgot everything when I saw Acharya ji.
00:22I felt that I have known him for centuries.
00:27Maybe many people don't know Sanskrit here.
00:34Acharya ji has touched all three pinnacles.
00:40Whether it is IIT Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad, which is the highest institute in management, or civil services.
00:53And after doing all this, we are so fortunate that he has come to our question and answer session.
01:04Acharya ji, I welcome you.
01:07I am happy that in the 175th year of IIT Roorkee, when we are here, Acharya ji is here.
01:19I know that many people here are eager to ask questions and answers.
01:30I won't come in the middle.
01:32But when Anil ji asked me to welcome Acharya ji here, many questions came to my mind.
01:41Among them, I felt that we have developed so much.
01:49Our brain has developed so much.
01:52We have taken on the human form with a single cell plasma.
01:58So, haven't we won with fear yet?
02:04Or in this evolution, which was from a single cell to our human form, was there an evolution of fear too?
02:14It is possible.
02:16You all know Hindu mythology.
02:19All the incarnations that we had, the first fear may have been of the earth being submerged in water.
02:26Or the fear of measuring all three worlds.
02:29Or if you talk about the Kareta Yuga, it may have been the fear of words.
02:37Or the fear of the country.
02:39So, I feel that we have not been able to understand fear.
02:44And it is possible that in today's Q&A session, we will try to understand it with the help of Acharya ji.
02:53And he will guide us in this.
02:57I feel that the three types of fear that I felt, because I was thinking about it since morning.
03:05One is for the country.
03:07The fear of the country that happened during the time of Krishan ji is now gone.
03:15Because we are the army, we pay taxes, we are patriots.
03:20The second type is of the society.
03:22In the society, there are people like Acharya ji who improve the society.
03:29And there is our Dharamguru.
03:32There is an individual fear that is in our mind.
03:37I feel that today, we will find solutions for that.
03:43And this is the fear of things that do not exist in the physical world.
03:50Things that we are not able to see.
03:52Things that we are afraid of.
03:55So, I welcome all of you.
03:59I request all of you that in the Q&A session,
04:06if you have a question in your mind and someone else has asked it, then do not repeat it.
04:12Because we have got very little time from Acharya ji.
04:16And in that, I want that we get maximum solutions.
04:22With this, I welcome Acharya ji once again.
04:26Thank you, sir.
04:35I would now like to invite Acharya ji to come up on the stage
04:39and request our Dean of Finance and Planning, Mr. Sharma sir to felicitate.
04:56I would now request all the dignitaries on this stage to ceremonially light the lamp.
05:26Om Saha Namah
05:51Om Saha Namah
05:56Saha Namah
06:01Saha Namah
06:06Saha Namah
06:11Saha Namah
06:16Om Shanti Shanti Shanti
06:29Sir, my question is, there are many influentials in today's era
06:33and all are right at the conclusion based on their rational thinking or based on their thought process.
06:39And as listeners, we just grasp the conclusion but we don't get behind the thought process.
06:44And we all have our own thought process.
06:47Then how do we conclude that whatever we are absorbing from their conclusions,
06:53we are taking the right track rather than being simply influenced by them.
06:59You are talking of influencers.
07:02Yes, sir.
07:04What kind of influencers?
07:06Sir, any like motivational influences, for example, we can take.
07:11Or life-breaking influences just to those who show what things are right and what are wrong things.
07:19See, you have the benefit of critical thought being students of an institute of technology
07:32having been trained through the rigors of logical thinking.
07:40You already have the capability to get into the truth or fakeness of anything that is being told to you by any kind of influencer.
07:56If there is a problem in physics, mathematics or engineering in front of you and somebody offers you a particular solution,
08:07do you just go to the last step and accept the conclusion?
08:12Is that scientific or rational? Do we do that?
08:17No, we don't do that. What do we do?
08:20If a conclusion has been offered to us, the conclusion is the last thing we focus on.
08:27What do we focus on?
08:31We focus on the process.
08:35We focus on the assumptions that the problem solver is making.
08:41Have you started, for example, with a hypothesis?
08:44Have you made the hypothesis explicit?
08:48Or are you just hiding your assumptions?
08:51Then, in the problem-solving mechanism, there are, let us say, 21 steps involved, assuming a simple kind of problem.
09:01Is each step of the problem logically related to the previous and next one?
09:13Or is it so that step number 12 is disconnected to step 11 and something totally unrelated comes up at step number 13 and we accept it?
09:28How does one step follow from the preceding one?
09:37When we are solving a problem in academics or wherever, this is the way we proceed.
09:46And if we don't proceed this way, we know what happens.
09:49The problem does not really get solved. The solution won't work.
09:54If you have written, for example, a computer program, it won't compile, it won't run.
10:00If you have tried to solve a problem in mathematics, the solution would be false or unattainable.
10:06Worse still, there is often an evaluator who will mark you zero on your solution.
10:13Why? Because he'll be able to see through your thinking by looking at the various steps you are following.
10:20But when it comes to an influencer, often the medium of consumption is the video. Is that true?
10:28That's how you and the pace at which the solution is delivered is quite fast.
10:37Often it is deliberately kept fast and we do not have time to pause and think over what has been said.
10:49Equally, the video medium offers you an opportunity to simply press the pause button, does it not?
10:56Why do you allow the influencer to run away with whatever he wants to serve you?
11:02Make him halt. Ask him, so this is what you just said.
11:08And it was a short sentence of, let's say, just eight words. I want to question you here.
11:16He'll want to simply hop over. He'll want to quickly jump to the next thing.
11:24You shouldn't allow him to go to the next sentence if the previous one itself has not been justified or established.
11:33Can I go to the next step of solving a problem in differential calculus when the previous one itself is faulty?
11:43And forget about moving from one step to other. Can I even start solving the problem?
11:50If my assumptions are all wrong, not only they might be totally wrong.
11:56More commonly, they are not even explicitly stated.
12:02In statistics, for example, when you solve a problem, you often have to start with hypothesis.
12:10And what do you do? You openly state your hypothesis.
12:16Forget about statistics. When in class 6, we were dealing with basic ideas of congruency, etc.
12:24And there were problems. How did we start? Let there be a triangle ABC.
12:33And then there is a similar triangle XYZ. And this was stated right at the beginning of the solution.
12:43Is that not true? You are making your assumption obvious.
12:48Now, the person who is coming to you, first of all, is he assuming something? Assumptions are dangerous.
12:55Secondly, even if he is assuming something, is he accepting that he is operating on assumptions?
13:06That does not often happen. And we lack both attention and time.
13:12So, for example, a YouTube video comes to you and you start watching it.
13:19And within 5 to 7 minutes, something just runs over you.
13:28We have not been trained in critical thinking when it comes to matters of life.
13:35We know how to think critically, but all that skill, all that training,
13:43we have somehow reserved only for problems dealing with science and technology, etc.
13:50Not for problems that deal with life itself.
13:57I find it very interesting and also saddening, obviously.
14:05There are a lot of people who do very well in science and technology, etc.
14:14In their personal spheres, are often deeply superstitious.
14:22How are these two things possible? These are possible because the same education that told us to think sharply,
14:31so as to clear the JEE for example, told us to keep all the thinking prowess aside
14:42when it comes to life issues like motivation, like purposefulness,
14:49like friendship, like time management, like values, like money, like love.
15:00When it comes to all these, we behave in the same primitive ways as any uneducated person would.
15:11Believe me, as the trend is, if you are mostly B.Tech students here, how many B.Tech students here?
15:20Lots.
15:22A majority of us do not directly serve the field of our education.
15:31What then is the point in passing through all these years of rigorous training?
15:39There is a point. The point is that the mind should become accustomed to looking at anything in life with inquiry.
15:51Even if you do not work as a mechanical engineer after having a degree or even a PG in mechanical engineering,
16:02still, if you can retain the faculty of critical thought, your education has not been wasted on you.
16:11But we do not retain that.
16:13In the classroom, we are very inquisitive. In life, we are simply submissive and subordinate. We just accept anything.
16:28There is a circuit diagram and there is a certain flow of current and you will want to know why there are certain fluctuations,
16:35where is the impedance coming from, what is going on.
16:39And there is resistance and impedance within the mind that we take as just natural and normal and we do not go into it. Why?
16:52And you will find it very interesting that the knowers who came up with the verses in Vedanta
17:02were actually taking a process that is very similar to the kind of process you take when you want to solve a scientific problem.
17:14Is that not highly liberating? You are so near yet so far.
17:19The sages were scientists in one sense, scientists who proceeded through the honest and rigor method of experimentation, observation and independent verification.
17:38That is exactly what you also do in your labs and workshops, do not you?
17:44You solve a problem and you start claiming I have solved it.
17:50Will that work? No. It has to be independently verified.
17:57If there is no one else to verify it, then you should be the verifier at some other point in time.
18:05Because the problem is internal and it might appear solved in one mood, in one frame of mind.
18:11So return to the solution two days later and question yourself, is it solved? Does it still stand solved as it appeared two days back?
18:22We don't do that. And that's the reason why very, very ordinary and mediocre people succeed in fooling us.
18:33I appreciate the question.
18:35People with very little worth, very little understanding of life are able to preach even to distinguished audiences like the one here.
18:49How does that become possible?
18:52The fellow might be working as a scientist in ISRO or DRDO or probably even in NASA.
18:58And he regularly bows down to some primitive peddler of local kind of superstition.
19:09Amazing. Now this is magic. How does it even become possible?
19:16The fellow leads a state of the art research lab in Europe, Zurich.
19:25But cannot begin his day without looking at one particular direction in the sky, eating one particular kind of dairy product.
19:40And some brainwashed kind of fellow visits his home and he'll organize a great function to welcome and facilitate him.
20:02Why have you compartmentalized the mind in two halves?
20:10Why do you say that mathematics has to be applied only to numbers?
20:17Mathematics is not necessarily numerical.
20:26You get what I'm trying to say.
20:29Why can't the same spirit of inquiry be present to everything in life when that same inquiry I will not accept without verification?
20:40I will not take anything just because it seems to be coming from a particular authority or high seat or respectable position. I will not take it.
20:52The first freedom is to be free to question.
20:59To question others and to question yourself.
21:03I feel like doing this. But why?
21:06Why should I be a dictator unto myself?
21:11So, if you have a book written by those influencers, pause at every sentence.
21:20Though most of them don't write books, they don't have anything worth writing.
21:25Pause at every sentence. Analyze.
21:28Just refuse to move to the next sentence till you are contented with the current one and the previous ones.
21:37And if they are saying something in video or audio form, we said the pause button is always there.
21:49Don't let them, as they say in English, pull a fast one.
21:55You understand what it means to pull a fast one?
21:57Haath ki safai.
22:02The magician on the stage does it just so cleanly and so swiftly that the audience is unable to catch the trick.
22:12Don't let them get away with this.
22:15Don't let him pull a fast one. I repeat.
22:19And then people sometimes ask me and they seem a bit irritated.
22:24They say, Sir, why do you give so many gaps when you are speaking?
22:29Sometimes you seem to pause even for a minute, 60 entire seconds.
22:34Why do you do that?
22:36And I ask them, what is your problem?
22:38If I give you thinking space, if I give you breathing space, you know what the problem is?
22:44We are accustomed to being steamrolled.
22:46Just come and run me over.
22:50Don't give me time and opportunity to think because I have lost the capacity to think.
22:56And if you will give me the opportunity to think, I will feel irritated.
23:01I can imagine.
23:03I can waste myself in worries.
23:09Fancies and dreams I like.
23:13Fancies and dreams I like.
23:17But critical thinking I abhor.
23:21Why must that be the case, please?
23:24And remember, the world throws so many things at you continuously.
23:31If you will not have the filter of thought and inquiry,
23:38you will be enslaved and exploited.
23:43You live in a world full of ignorant beings and when you are ignorant, you are violent and exploitative.
23:53That's a rule.
23:55When you are ignorant, you do not know yourself.
23:58When you do not know yourself, how do you take care of your anxiety and lack of fulfillment?
24:04You try to do that by exploiting another human being or animal or whatsoever is there in the world.
24:10You have too many desperate people around you and they do not know what they are desperate for.
24:20But they feel the unease.
24:24They feel the internal pain and anger.
24:27So they will do anything to somehow get rid of their suffering.
24:34And how do they want to get rid of their suffering?
24:37By exploiting others.
24:41Why do you want to become the fodder for somebody's ignorance?
24:55And this information explosion has in some way made things worse.
25:01You see, take the example of your campus.
25:06All the right kind of knowledge that a young person really requires was available in this campus even 30 or 80 years back, was it not?
25:21You had a well-equipped library always.
25:25No?
25:27So if you wanted the right knowledge, it was always there.
25:31You would be having a central library, you would be having departmental libraries, you would be having libraries even in your hostels.
25:39So the right knowledge was always there, even before, even much before the information revolution, right?
25:46So what has the information revolution given you?
25:49The right thing that you wanted was anyway always available.
25:53I am taking the limited example of this campus.
25:56What has the information revolution given you?
26:00It has given you all kinds of junk knowledge.
26:05And when this limited mind space is crowded with junk knowledge, you are left with no space for right knowledge.
26:16It would be interesting to see whether in the campus,
26:20attendance in the libraries has really increased over the last two decades.
26:28Or if you have an online library system,
26:33the access has really multiplied over the last two decades.
26:42There is nothing called ignorance, there is nothing called absence of knowledge.
26:48There is just rubbish knowledge crowding out the right kind of knowledge.
26:57And that is what we are seeing today.
27:01Floods of influencers and motivators and what not.
27:06And what are they giving you?
27:09They are giving you the inability to go to the right places that can illuminate you.
27:19You have only 24 hours in a day.
27:22You have only so much of first attention span.
27:27And you have only 80 years in your life max.
27:33If a lot of that is taken away by rubbish,
27:37what are you left with to devote to the right things in life? Please tell me.
27:41Nobody will tell you.
27:44Do not go to the right things.
27:46If they openly start telling this to you,
27:49the matter will become too explicit and you will rebel.
27:53You will rebel.
27:55If I ask you, for example here,
28:02how many of you have read Khalil Gibran or Jiddu Krishnamurti or Lao Tzu?
28:08If I ask you, how many of you have read even two Upanishads?
28:15The answer will not be very encouraging.
28:23What is the reason?
28:25Are these texts not really available?
28:28Is that the reason? Are we living in some primitive ancient tribal village?
28:33No, that is not the reason.
28:35In fact, those texts too are more easily accessible today than they were 30 years back.
28:42Right?
28:44But if you go to bookshops today,
28:48you will not find a single book by J. Krishnamurti.
28:51That was not the situation even 10 years back.
28:56What has happened?
28:58Or you go to the Krishnamurti YouTube channel.
29:03The stats there will surprise you.
29:06What has happened?
29:08What is the information revolution giving you then?
29:13It is just taking you away from the right things.
29:15Probably as a proportion of population, more people were reading Krishnamurti 30 years back than they do today.
29:26Probably more youngsters were reading the Upanishads 30 years back than they do today,
29:34even as the Upanishads have become more easily available.
29:38Don't you see what is happening?
29:40They will not tell you openly that they are taking you away from Vedanta.
29:43They will not say don't read Vedanta.
29:46They will simply say, oh please watch my new motivation video.
29:49Now you had only one hour and that one hour has been taken away by that junk video.
29:59How will you now read Rumi's poetry?
30:02And also after watching that one hour, that motivation video,
30:07you are mentally degraded to such a level that Rumi's poetry will become incomprehensible to you.
30:19If you are a fan of most of the popular influencers in social media,
30:24it is very difficult that you will be able to appreciate anything that is subtle, valuable, rich or high.
30:35It won't happen. These two things can't go together.
30:37You cannot simultaneously be a fan of some abusive roaster and Ramana Maharshi. Impossible.
30:55So that's the way you are being blocked from going to a Ramana Maharshi.
31:01This inundation, this very flood of social media influencers and not only social media, from all fields.
31:16Even sports persons have become social media personalities.
31:20Even politicians are now social media personalities.
31:23And from my personal experience, not just theoretically, let me tell you,
31:35you enter the campus as a kid and you are in risk of even walking out as a kid four or six years later
31:52if you do not develop from here.
31:56And you cannot develop from here if you have not had the company of the greats, full stop.
32:06You cannot become a well-developed young person with wisdom, with courage,
32:15with the steel to pass through fire if you have not read the greatest literature that the world and its history have had to offer.
32:32Youth is not biological.
32:37Youth is not something that an animal can attain.
32:42Youth is something to be developed with determination, with practice, with patience.
32:54Otherwise you can become 60 years of age and still be a kid.
33:02You will never become youthful.
33:06Adulthood is something that is not attained by most people.
33:10We become physically adults. Yes.
33:13Physically we look like adults in terms of height etc.
33:17We will marry, we will have kids and people will think, oh these are adults walking. No.
33:22You are still a kid and you will continue to remain a kid
33:28if you continue to remain vulnerable to these motivators, influencers and whatever is there on social media.
33:38They themselves are kids. No grown-up will ever subscribe to them.
33:46So their interest lies in ensuring that you remain a kid.
33:53If you start growing up, you become a threat to them. Don't you see that?
33:58If you start growing up, you will outgrow them. You will go beyond them.
34:03They do not want you to grow up. They want you to remain juvenile, imbecile.
34:14They are not entertaining you.
34:17They are stunting your growth. Don't you see that?
34:24They are not your friends.
34:28They are not doing any good to you.
34:30They have an agenda and they are pursuing that at your cost.
34:41Not only are they taking away your time, they are taking away your capability to think critically.
34:50How big a loss is that, please tell me, on a scale of 10?
34:54If somebody takes away your very ability to inquire and think critically, how big a loss is that?
35:03How big?
35:06When is left an animal or a vegetable?
35:10With the mental sharpness gone, what is left in life?
35:15You cannot even love now.
35:19And I am talking of love because I am talking of young people and love is something very important in your lives.
35:25With the sharpness gone, with the ability to really understand gone,
35:31you will be depriving yourself of this thing called love. You want that to happen?
35:42Please be very cautious.
35:45Very cautious and question them at every step.
35:49And questioning is not the same as blind negation.
35:55When I say question them, I am not asking you to keep alleging.
36:01Questioning is always from a detached and neutral point.
36:07I want to know. That's why I am asking a question. What's wrong with that?
36:11And is there something that should not be questioned? Please tell me.
36:16Is there something so important, so unknowable or so holy that it just cannot be questioned? No, there is not.