Woman Empowerment: Two Essential Dimensions || Acharya Prashant, with ITM-Mumbai (2023)

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: 04.04.23, ITM-Mumbai (Online), Greater Noida  Context: ~ How to empower women? ~ What is the potential of women? ~ How should a woman live a successful marriage life?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00Good evening to all, to one and all present for the session.

00:06Today, we truly feel blessed to have Acharya Prashanth ji, who gracefully agreed for an

00:15interaction with our students at ITM Khargar.

00:20A strong proponent of veganism, a climate change activist, an advocate for general equality

00:27and women empowerment, these are just few ways to describe Acharya Prashanth ji.

00:33He is not only one of the one well-known Vedanta teacher of our times, but also one of the

00:41most relevant and reliable wisdom teacher, who is followed by ten of million of people

00:47through his various online and offline platforms.

00:51From authoring over hundred best-selling books to receiving the most influential vegan

00:59of the year award by PETA, Acharya Prashanth ji has been instrumental in bringing social

01:07spiritual transformation across the globe and especially amongst the youth.

01:12Sir, it's an honor to welcome you and address our students at ITM.

01:18On behalf of all of us, we would like to thank you for accepting our invitation.

01:24Sir, to start with, since this is an interactive session, I would like to ask one question

01:31to you, which is on women empowerment.

01:36In last few years, we have seen that this word, women empowerment, it's been used in

01:42our society to a very large extent.

01:45To some extent, I feel that by this empowerment that has been given, there has been some kind

01:52of social turbulence.

01:54I would like to know, in your words, what exactly is the meaning of women empowerment?

02:06You see, when we say a person is to be empowered, we need to first of all understand who the

02:22person is and therefore what is the meaning of power and what is the requirement of power

02:34for that person.

02:38So we are talking of a human being, more specifically we are talking of women.

02:48What is the fundamental desire that a human being has and what's the most fundamental

02:59suffering?

03:02The desire is freedom that comes from realizing the nature of bondages.

03:15So freedom and realization, these are our fundamental desires.

03:24This is what we all want, men or women, and if we do not have freedom, if we do not realize

03:38what our bondages are, then that's the fundamental suffering.

03:44So you see, power is needed only to bring about a change, right?

03:54Power is energy.

03:56We need to change the situation as it currently exists.

04:02The status quo is unacceptable because it includes a lot of suffering and that's the

04:10reason we need power.

04:12If we do not know who we are, what our situation is, what our problem is, and why we need power,

04:20then power becomes counterproductive.

04:23Is that not so?

04:26So I must know where I'm stuck.

04:28I must know what is it in my current situation that I need to change.

04:35In my current situation, it is the lack of understanding of the very nature of my bondage.

04:45That's what I need to address and change.

04:49That's what in my current situation is totally unacceptable.

04:57So what then is empowerment?

05:01Empowerment is understanding.

05:05Empowerment is illumination.

05:07If I want to empower someone or if I am to be empowered, the first thing is to know where

05:16I'm stuck.

05:19The first thing is to realize the nature of my bondages and consequent suffering.

05:26And then I'll have the urge and the wisdom to challenge things as they stand inside me

05:42and outside me.

05:45And when there is that challenge, there is change.

05:52And that change brings me to a point of peace.

05:55That's the entire purpose of empowerment.

05:58You come to a point of peace.

06:00You come to a point of freedom.

06:03You come to a point where your potential to be realized takes material form in the shape

06:14of your life.

06:17So that's empowerment.

06:20The woman is a conscious being exactly as the man.

06:28And obviously both need to be empowered.

06:32But here the question is more specifically in the context of women.

06:37So that's the conscious being, the woman.

06:40And she does not realize the nature of her bondages.

06:47The outer and the inner conditions are not favorable to realization.

06:52And now we are going into the nature of her suffering, her weakness.

07:00So there is an outer condition in the form of the world she inhibits.

07:06And there is the inner condition in the form of her mental environment.

07:11And both these are not conducive to strength.

07:17Both of these are not very illuminated conditions.

07:22If we want to empower the girl or the woman, we have to work on these two fronts.

07:30We have to create external conditions that tell her that first and foremost she is a

07:37consciousness waiting to attain heights.

07:44And she is not to spend her life by the dictates of her body.

07:54So she has to be saved from social influences and biological imperatives, these two things.

08:05So this discussion so far has brought us to the two important pillars needed to uphold

08:14any kind of empowerment.

08:16One, take care of all the things that influence her from the social point, from the legal

08:28point, from the religious point, educational point.

08:36From all these places influences come and they shape her mind.

08:43You could say they distort her mind.

08:47So empowerment of the woman would involve taking care of these points, these institutions.

08:56You have to take care of the religious influences.

08:59If you have a girl and she has been told since childhood that the very success of the woman's

09:07life lies in taking care of the household and the husband and the babies and she does

09:15not need to accord priority to anything else.

09:19She does not need to read much.

09:21She does not need to explore much.

09:24Her own ambition and potential is of secondary importance.

09:33That knowledge is secondary to, let us say, daintiness.

09:41That servility is more valuable than curiosity or inquisitiveness.

09:51If these are the values that have come to her from religion or family, then that's a

09:56huge problem.

09:58So empowerment would involve challenging the so-called religious institution.

10:07It's actually not true religion that teaches such things, but in the name of religion such

10:15things are drilled into the girl's mind.

10:19So empowerment would mean that you do not let the folk kind of religion do such things

10:27to the girl.

10:29Then there is the educational thing.

10:31What is it that's being taught in the schools?

10:37That involves the content of the textbooks where there might be subliminal messages that

10:50are gender insensitive in nature.

10:58For example, if you want to show what a kitchen looks like.

11:05You have shown the kitchen and a woman in a saree standing there.

11:12Technically what you have shown to the kid, and let's say it's a class three kid, technically

11:17what you have shown to the kid is all right, yes, that's the kitchen and there is the lady

11:21standing there.

11:22But what you don't understand is that you have also in the process sent across a dangerous

11:31message that the kitchen is for the woman and that the place of the woman is in the kitchen.

11:40So that's regarding the content of the textbook.

11:46And then there is the attitude of the teachers.

11:51How are the teachers looking at their boys and girls, the students?

11:57What advices are they rendering to the students?

12:02And it often happens that the teachers, even in their good intention, end up giving dangerous,

12:13even toxic advice to boys and girls out of their own ignorance.

12:23It's not a problem of intention then, it's a problem of the teacher's ignorance.

12:29So that institution has to be taken care of, we are talking of the educational institution,

12:33the religious institution, then the law.

12:37The law, first of all, has to take care of the interests of the woman, and that does

12:51not merely mean talking of equality in a blind way.

13:02If you really care about equality, then you will, first of all, want them to be equals.

13:11You cannot have equal laws for two sections that are fundamentally and historically unequal.

13:24So the legal community has to go into that and take care of that, and to a great extent

13:32that has been done.

13:34In fact, some people allege that it has been overdone.

13:39Really some people say that what has been done is not very meticulous.

13:46You have taken care of the woman's interests, where you could see her interests placed.

13:57But because you are yourself not very insightful, you do not see where her real interests are.

14:04And where her real interests stand, there you have not been able to provide any legal

14:09protection.

14:10Take, for example, the instance of very prevalent marital rape, and even till date the law does

14:24not seem to be able to do much when it comes to that.

14:33Then there are the institutions of the media.

14:38You have the movies, you have the television, you have the social media, and all of these

14:42are affecting the girl's mind.

14:46And if you are making her mind feeble, and you are distorting her consciousness, then

14:52obviously there is no empowerment.

14:56So these have to be taken care of.

15:00And then it comes to the girl's insides.

15:04We said empowerment would include two domains.

15:09The domain within and the domain without.

15:11The domain within is her own biological tendencies.

15:17The domain without comprises of the forces, factors, institutions that affect her mind.

15:26We have spoken of all the external factors, now let us get to the internal one.

15:34So you see the girl has been evolved by nature in a particular way.

15:46And evolution is a very gradual and tedious process.

15:55In historical sense, on a historical time scale, just till yesterday we all were residing

16:01in the jungle, right?

16:05It's been just a few thousand years since we have totally and completely moved out of

16:14the jungle.

16:17Before that, since millions of years we were in the jungle.

16:21And the woman's body has been trained over these millions of years of evolution to play

16:29her biological role only.

16:34And that training of a million years cannot be undone or offset in a matter of a few thousand

16:44years.

16:46So even as today we say we are cultured, we are civilized, we are urban, we say we are

16:56not animals anymore, we say we are not jungle dwellers anymore.

17:01But still our body belongs squarely to the jungle, right?

17:08And what is it that the body wants to do in the jungle?

17:14Look at the body of any jungle creature, look at the body of a wild beast.

17:21What does it want to do?

17:22It wants to secure itself, it wants to eat and it wants to procreate.

17:30Nobody in the jungle cares for any kind of realization or understanding or illumination

17:35or empowerment.

17:38So the body of the man and the body of the woman, both these bodies are coming from the

17:44jungle, but we are specifically talking of the woman here.

17:49Coming from the jungle, all that her body cares for is the biological imperative.

17:56And the biological imperative is to relate with the male in a certain way and to procreate

18:04a lot and to perform the same role that she has been historically performing since millions

18:13of years.

18:15The thing is that those millions of years are just too far behind us now, right?

18:31In a very short span of time, in just a few thousand years, around let's say 60-70 thousand

18:39years, we have been able to put the jungle far behind us.

18:48But the body has still not come to terms with that fact, right?

18:57Even as our lives have changed a lot, our bodies have not.

19:02The bodies continue to remain the same as they were, let's say, 10 million years back.

19:11Not much has changed.

19:12Fundamentally, the body is the same.

19:15Though consciousness has changed, life has changed, obviously we know how much science

19:19and technology have changed, thought has evolved, but the body has not evolved.

19:28Because as we said, evolution is a very slow process.

19:32So the body has remained the same.

19:35Body has remained the same.

19:37Evolution has been outpaced by the growth in thought, understanding.

19:46What does that mean?

19:48That means that there is a huge lag.

19:52Even as we have great books available, the sharpest products of intellect are available

20:03to us for use, the urges of the body remain very animalistic.

20:11What does the body want?

20:13Attachment, possession.

20:17And when it cannot have what it wants, there is anger and jealousy and such things.

20:25And especially the woman's body has been raised or evolved in a way that there is a lot of

20:35insecurity because the historical, prakritic, natural role of the woman was to raise kids.

20:45And in the jungle, that's a very important role.

20:47In fact, that's the central role of one's life.

20:51We are talking of the woman.

20:54If you look at the jungle, the woman exists to be pregnant.

21:02The woman exists to breed.

21:05That's how it happens in the jungle, right?

21:08The woman does not exist to become an artist, a painter, a dancer, a scientist, an explorer,

21:13a thinker, a meditator.

21:16No.

21:18In the jungle, she exists just to survive and to give birth.

21:24So she will eat, she will seek physical and mental protection, security, and she will

21:32seek a mate who can impregnate her.

21:38Now that is continuing even today.

21:41And if that continues, no empowerment makes any sense.

21:48Even if you change all the institutions, the external ones, we have talked of the religious

21:55one, the educational one, the legal one, we have talked of the role of media and so many

22:00other things.

22:01Even if you take care of all those institutions, the woman would still not be free.

22:12Even if you bestow all kind of powers on her, she would still either refuse to wield those

22:20powers or would misuse those powers.

22:26Because internal bondage is way more severe than any kind of external bondage.

22:35If you give her external freedom without caring for her internal freedom, external

22:42freedom will make very little difference.

22:45In fact, external freedom will become dangerous because it will create an illusion of freedom.

22:51She will think she is free, she will claim she is empowered, whereas she is as much in

22:57bondage as she always has been.

23:01And that's the case of a lot of so-called empowered women today.

23:09They say we are empowered, but internally they are still living in the jungle variety

23:17of bondage.

23:21So that's where self-knowledge comes in.

23:31She needs to have self-knowledge.

23:33And that's where wisdom literature comes in.

23:39That is what is Atma Gyan or spirituality.

23:42That's where Vedanta comes to the woman's rescue.

23:46Vedanta tells her, oh, come on, learn to keep the body aside, you are not the body.

23:54The body is at most a resource that you can use to attain some legitimate objective.

24:07But what is a legitimate objective?

24:09That has to be known by knowing yourself.

24:14When you know yourself, then you know what your goals must be.

24:19So self-knowledge.

24:21You know yourself and then you know what your goals must be.

24:25And in the pursuit of those legitimate goals, you can use your body, that's fine.

24:31The body includes everything.

24:32It includes memory, it includes the wholeness of your brain, intellect, your power to argue,

24:43creativity, everything.

24:46And it includes your muscular strength.

24:50It includes everything that you are physically.

24:56So you must know yourself and then you can use the body for the right purpose.

25:03And then you will not use your body just to seek security or sometimes attract the other

25:09gender so that you can have a comfortable nest.

25:14All those things will then appear very childish to you.

25:21You will say, I am not born for that, I am a human being, I exist to realize.

25:27I am a human being, the purpose of my life is liberation, illumination, understanding.

25:34That's why I am born.

25:35It does not matter what my gender is.

25:38The gender is just a thing of the body and I am not the body.

25:42I am a consciousness seeking to be liberated.

25:48That's who I am.

25:51So these things, in my view, constitute the empowerment of women, modification and reform

26:02of external institutions, the institution of family, the institution of religion, society,

26:09law, education, media.

26:14These have to be taken care of.

26:17And more important than that, the woman has to have self-knowledge and to that end you

26:26require specialized courses in schools and colleges.

26:31You require wisdom literature to be a part of the standard curricula.

26:38And you need perspective.

26:40You need a society that gives importance to spiritual understanding.

26:49So that's from my side.

26:52Thank you so much, sir, for such an insightfulness on what women empowerment exactly is all about.

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