Winning the Everest, without killing || Acharya Prashant, conversation (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: 9.12.22, Interview with Kuntal, Mumbai   Context:  Acharya Prashant in conversation with mountaineer Kuntal Joisher discussing climate change, consumption, beauty and global warming.   Winning the Everest, without killing   ~ Is climate change real?  ~ How is climate change affecting the Himalayas and other sensitive ecosystems?  ~ What can one do to save Earth?  ~ Did Krishna really drink milk?  ~ Is milk central to the Bhagwad Gita?  ~ What is real beauty?  ~ Why are humans destroying the Earth?  ¬ How to save the planet?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00:00Sir, so glad to meet you again, I still remember our last panel discussion and we had a long

00:00:08conversation about climate crisis and a lot of those topics and I thoroughly enjoyed a

00:00:13lot of your insights during that conversation and really happy that you have invited me

00:00:18again to come on your show.

00:00:21I am so glad to be talking to you once again Kuntal.

00:00:25Thank you so much sir, thank you so much.

00:00:28So I wanted to kind of recount kind of where I started my journey from.

00:00:35So I have been now a vegan for the last 20 years but at some point in October of 2010,

00:00:41I discovered the biggest dream of my life which was climbing Mount Everest and I still

00:00:46remember announcing it to my friends and family and the mountaineering community that I am

00:00:50going to climb Everest as a vegan because of course naturally I was a vegan and I remember

00:00:54an instant pushback from the mountaineering community that no vegan has ever climbed Everest

00:01:01before that you need meat, that you need dairy, that you need cheese, that you need all these

00:01:05things to kind of build stamina and to even sustain on the top of Mount Everest and I

00:01:11kind of remember like why are they saying those things and I promised myself that day

00:01:16that I am going to climb Everest as a vegan or I am not going to do it at all and then

00:01:21I went on the journey of last decade or so and I have now ended up climbing Everest two

00:01:26times, one from the south side which is the Nepal side and one even from the Chinese side

00:01:31which is the northern side.

00:01:34And how many people have managed this kind of feat so far?

00:01:41So there are I think in my research there are three Indian civilians out of which I

00:01:45am one of them who have reached the top of Everest from both sides.

00:01:49There are many Indians who have climbed Everest from just the south side but there are only

00:01:52three who have climbed it from both the sides and if I have to kind of build a list of top

00:01:58hundred things that are some of my biggest challenges on the Everest journey, I can assure

00:02:04you that veganism was not even the hundred and first challenge on that journey yet when

00:02:09people kind of know me or people meet me, hey he was the first vegan in the world to

00:02:14climb Everest or he climbed Everest even though he was a vegan or despite of his veganism

00:02:20or so many of these things as if veganism is kind of a handicap and I always look back

00:02:27upon my journey very surprised that why are these people kind of thinking that veganism

00:02:32is a handicap.

00:02:33I never felt it was a handicap.

00:02:36I didn't even have to actually bother working around veganism to kind of go climb Everest.

00:02:40It was just came naturally and to kind of give you a background, it's not like I'm some

00:02:45mountaineer or I come from a mountaineering family, I come from a Gujarati business family

00:02:50so it's not like I have any genetic gift of climbing mountains.

00:02:54In my mind, it was never a handicap but yet till date I have people in my Instagram DMs

00:03:00people all the time asking me, Kundal, where do you get your protein from?

00:03:03Kundal, how are you building this strength?

00:03:05It's just mind-boggling to me that this is a handicap.

00:03:09So there is the perception that when it comes to mountaineering, veganism is a handicap.

00:03:17Then there is a rebuttal that no, being vegan is not a handicap.

00:03:22Can I extend it to say that being vegan is actually an asset or an advantage when it

00:03:29comes to physically taxing adventures?

00:03:34I definitely agree with that.

00:03:39Would you honestly say and strongly that being a vegan actually helped you climb the Everest twice?

00:03:51Did vegan actually help me climb Everest twice?

00:03:55I'm going to kind of ask this question myself as if I was a vegetarian, would I have still

00:04:00climbed Everest?

00:04:02I would have still climbed Everest, yes, that is there.

00:04:06But as a vegan, I do think there were two points that definitely helped me climb Everest

00:04:12probably a little better than others.

00:04:15And in short, a couple of points were number one, my recovery was far superior than my

00:04:22co-climbers who were potentially eating animal products.

00:04:28And of course, plant based products have been shown to help recover better.

00:04:33So that was completely in my advantage.

00:04:36It's not like you're a vegetarian or a non vegetarian, you can't still eat plant based

00:04:39products, you could still eat them and get the same amount of recovery.

00:04:42But I thought there was one little bit of advantage.

00:04:45But I think second one, which I feel was more from a mental aspect from my side was, I felt

00:04:53that I could go to sleep with a clear conscience that I was not harming anyone for my dream.

00:05:01And that I felt was giving me a mental edge.

00:05:04Maybe it was just within my context, maybe not over others.

00:05:08But that allowed me that mental edge that allowed gave me a sense of purpose as I was

00:05:12climbing and kind of going towards my goals.

00:05:16Those two things I feel gave me a lot of edge, would I have had this edge if I was a vegetarian?

00:05:22I don't know.

00:05:23It's difficult to compare.

00:05:24Probably a good insightful question to consider would be, would our dreams remain the same

00:05:36if we are violent and inconsiderate and cruel?

00:05:42So you wanted to do something, being a vegan.

00:05:48The question we would think of is, had you not been a vegan, would you have wanted to

00:05:53do the same thing?

00:05:54And it's a broader question, apply it to everybody.

00:05:56Is it just an ideology or a dietary choice or just a way to behave, a kind of culture?

00:06:05Or is it something at the very being, very core of the person?

00:06:13Does it help you achieve your dreams?

00:06:16That's one question.

00:06:19Does it help you have better dreams?

00:06:23That's another question.

00:06:26I think probably it does help you have better dreams because the quality of the dream matters.

00:06:38One could have a very conditioned, distorted and ugly kind of a dream and achieve it using

00:06:52all kinds of methods possible.

00:06:56What's the value of that achievement?

00:06:58On the other hand, if I am a person with, as you said, a clear conscience, won't I

00:07:05have a different dream altogether?

00:07:08Or, to put it a bit differently, won't I dedicate my dream to a greater purpose?

00:07:17For example, I know well that your fame from your expectations has been useful towards

00:07:30furthering the vegan cause.

00:07:32In some sense, you have devoted, surrendered the product of your dream, the output of your

00:07:39dream, the output of your success to a great cause.

00:07:46I cannot help thinking of Krishna's Nishkama Karma at this point where he says the right

00:07:55action is only the one that is devoted to the right cause.

00:08:02If you act just to consume the fruit of the action, it's not much and it means nothing.

00:08:13If the fruit of your action is devoted to a higher cause, that's what wisdom is, that's

00:08:20what makes you a real man.

00:08:26Interestingly, when you became vegan, at that time I had hardly even heard the term.

00:08:36So 22 years, 20 years?

00:08:3820 years.

00:08:39Late 2002.

00:08:40I was in campus then.

00:08:43I'm not sure I had known the term even.

00:08:48And even if I had known the term, I'm relatively a recent vegan, just 8 or 9 years.

00:08:56So it's very remarkable that you chose to do it at that time.

00:09:07And that poses a question to all those who are watching us.

00:09:15If it could be done so successfully, so meaningfully and so courageously at that time, what stops

00:09:25people from doing what is obviously right today?

00:09:32Because today, not only the importance, but the very centrality of veganism has been factually

00:09:39established beyond doubt.

00:09:4120 years back, it might not have been the case.

00:09:46Not so much literature was available, internet was not so rich, so flush with data and observations.

00:09:55We didn't have so many vegan success stories.

00:09:59Today we have all of that.

00:10:00Then how do people still manage to evade doing the right thing?

00:10:08It's a very interesting question.

00:10:09What arguments do people have in favor of continuously, brutally exploiting animals?

00:10:18What argument can you have?

00:10:19Right.

00:10:20I mean, one of the most common arguments that I constantly keep hearing, at least in the

00:10:26Indian context, is that Krishna has said that you can drink milk and the gods have said

00:10:34that you can do it.

00:10:36People use milk on top of the statues and all of those things and they say that milk

00:10:42can easily be...

00:10:43So I'm not talking about the meat consumption.

00:10:44A lot of them are, okay, we will not consume meat, but we'll still continue consuming milk

00:10:50even though they know what is happening in the dairy industry and how cruel it is.

00:10:56So I also wanted to get your sense of, since you come from a spiritual background and this

00:11:04is what your expertise is, what are your thoughts around this?

00:11:09See, first thing is you do not even need to be spiritual to ask a basic question.

00:11:17What happens to the cattle, the female mammal, the cow, the buffalo, the goat, once it stops

00:11:31yielding milk, is that not a very basic, commonsensical question to ask?

00:11:38Just as the human female lives for around 80 years, but is able to bear kids only for

00:11:48around half that duration, right?

00:11:53Women cannot usually conceive beyond the age of 40 or 45.

00:11:59So that's approximately half of their lifetime.

00:12:04The same thing, approximately the same thing applies to all mammal species, right?

00:12:11So the cow or the buffalo would stop yielding milk at the age of 6 to 8, maximum 9.

00:12:22Usually 7 or 8.

00:12:25And it continues to live for another 6 to 8 years.

00:12:31That's a biological rule, that's how it happens.

00:12:34Now what happens to that animal once it is not useful to the farmer?

00:12:42What happens to it?

00:12:43What do we think?

00:12:46And why shouldn't we ask that obvious question while holding our glass of milk, right?

00:12:53Today the buffalo is yielding this milk, tomorrow she won't.

00:12:59What happens to her then?

00:13:01So when, as you said, people say we don't consume meat but we take milk, it's a simple

00:13:11straightforward thing to ask, is not milk a clear precursor to meat?

00:13:20The same animal that was used for milk today is slaughtered tomorrow because it is of no

00:13:28use to the dairy farmer once it cannot give milk.

00:13:35So it goes to the slaughterhouse.

00:13:38The farmer cannot economically keep the animal with himself even if he wants to.

00:13:46As a farmer, what will I do with an animal that is of no use?

00:13:50And the animal weighs some 400, 600 kilograms.

00:13:53It eats a lot.

00:13:55How will I justify the economics if I keep feeding the animal without getting anything

00:14:00from it?

00:14:01So what do I do?

00:14:02The day I discover that the animal cannot yield any more milk, I sell it to the slaughterhouse.

00:14:13So that's how India becomes such a huge meat producing and exporting country.

00:14:20Not so much a huge meat consuming country but still a huge meat exporting country and

00:14:27again the connection is so obvious, is it not?

00:14:30We export so much because we don't consume much.

00:14:33See the cattle are there.

00:14:35Why?

00:14:36Because we consume milk.

00:14:37Now because we consume milk, therefore the cattle are artificially produced and raised.

00:14:44Let it be very clear that the cows and buffaloes that we see are not products of natural organic

00:14:53breeding or reproduction.

00:14:56It's not as if a cow and a bull just happen to meet and mate.

00:15:03That's not how it is happening.

00:15:04I don't know how we can afford to remain so ignorant about the basics.

00:15:10The cow is in 99% cases, the cow, the buffalo and all milk yielding animals, the cow is

00:15:18in 99% cases artificially inseminated because the farmer has to justify the economics.

00:15:26The farmer cannot wait for the cow to happily one day when she is in the mood to get pregnant.

00:15:34So that artificial insemination is one hell of an indignified humiliating thing.

00:15:46To treat a conscious female that way is horrifying and you talked about the PETA undercover videos.

00:15:59There are a lot of videos today, I suppose thousands, thousands, where you'd be able

00:16:04to see how a buffalo or a cow is inseminated.

00:16:09And once you see that, I'm not sure whether you would feel more saddened or more ashamed.

00:16:19So I saw a few of them and then I stopped watching, couldn't bear it.

00:16:23And those were not slaughter videos, mind you, just insemination, just insemination.

00:16:28But even that insemination is just so devoid of dignity, just simply shameful.

00:16:36And we do that to the cow that is respected so much in this country.

00:16:41The holy cow.

00:16:42The holy cow and we still we do this kind of a thing to the cow.

00:16:48So that's the first thing.

00:16:50Now coming to the aspect that Shri Krishna used to drink milk, see with all honesty and

00:17:02great bliss, I think I can loudly say I love Shri Krishna like very few people do.

00:17:14I'm totally enthralled by his Gita.

00:17:18Gita is extremely close to my heart.

00:17:23I teach Gita.

00:17:25I teach several other scriptures as well.

00:17:28But Gita is just special.

00:17:32Magnum opus.

00:17:36So now that's the message of Shri Krishna and that is what is supposed to be eternal.

00:17:46You see, let's say, let's say you with your great intentions and a clean heart become

00:17:59somebody who is admired, respected, loved, and you live for 80 years.

00:18:10And obviously, then you go 300 years down the line, after your death, what am I supposed

00:18:18to remember about you?

00:18:21The fact that you kept a beard, the fact that you wore a cap, is that what I was supposed

00:18:28to remember about you or the fact that you had something very timeless to say?

00:18:36This pair of jeans, this t-shirt, that watch, I mean the chair you are using, this technology

00:18:43we are using, all these are products of time.

00:18:48They will get outdated.

00:18:49They mean nothing.

00:18:50Right.

00:18:51They mean nothing.

00:18:52Right.

00:18:53We eat flat bread, right, flat bread, roti.

00:19:04Is it necessary that 300 years later, people would still enjoy the same kind of geometrical

00:19:13formation made out of the same kind of grains, right?

00:19:20The roti is actually a cylinder with very little height and there is nothing special

00:19:27about the geometry of a cylinder compared to the geometry of a triangle or cone or anything

00:19:33else.

00:19:34Right.

00:19:35Or it could be spherical, who knows.

00:19:40So what should I remember Kuntal as, a roti lover, is the flat bread the central message

00:19:48of Kuntal?

00:19:49Or is it something that he used to have because that was the culture of his times?

00:19:55He was an Indian.

00:19:56Right.

00:19:57He was an Indian.

00:19:58He was a Gujarati.

00:19:59And being a Gujarati, obviously you would be having very Gujarati preferences in many

00:20:04ways, right?

00:20:05Dhokla?

00:20:06I am not sure.

00:20:07Do you like that?

00:20:08Dhokla, Thepla.

00:20:09Dhokla, Thepla.

00:20:11So does the dhokla become a marker of enlightenment?

00:20:15No.

00:20:16No.

00:20:17300 years later when I want to remember and celebrate Kuntal, I start consuming dhokla?

00:20:25Yeah?

00:20:27So today is International Kuntal Day and how do we mark and celebrate it?

00:20:34By having copious amounts of dhokla.

00:20:37So he was born in Gujarat.

00:20:39What else can he have?

00:20:41What else can he have?

00:20:42Right.

00:20:44The eternal message of Shri Krishna is the Srimad Bhagavad Gita.

00:20:48All else is just time-bound stuff.

00:20:53All else is simply time-bound stuff.

00:20:55And most of that time-bound stuff comes more than a thousand years after Srimad Bhagavad

00:21:01Gita.

00:21:02Srimad Bhagavad Gita is 500 to 800 years before the Christ.

00:21:13And all the lore, the legend, the stories about Shri Krishna, they come 400 to 800 years

00:21:18after the Christ.

00:21:20Wow.

00:21:21So we don't even know if a lot of them are true.

00:21:25Yes.

00:21:26So it could also be…

00:21:27There is really no factual connection between the Shri Krishna we find in the great Bhagavad

00:21:35Gita and the Shri Krishna we find in the Puranic stories later.

00:21:40They are spaced thousand years apart.

00:21:47And yet we choose to remember the stories rather than the philosophy, the message, the

00:21:55truth.

00:21:57And if you want to follow all aspects of Krishna's behavior and his personal choices, then why

00:22:07don't you wear the same dress that he did?

00:22:10Right.

00:22:11Why don't you speak the same language he did?

00:22:17Why don't you have the same kind of relationships that he had?

00:22:22I invite them to raise the entire mountain on their little finger as he did.

00:22:29I invite them to perform all the miracles that he did.

00:22:32Why don't you copy and emulate all that?

00:22:38I mean, if you want to go by the stories, we have just so many stories about Krishna.

00:22:48Right?

00:22:49Every small aspect of his personality has been detailed, elaborated.

00:23:00So everything is available.

00:23:02Emulate everything.

00:23:04Why not emulate everything?

00:23:05Why are you always picking on that?

00:23:08Why are you just picking on milk?

00:23:11And please remember where he was raised.

00:23:15In a clan of?

00:23:16Shepherds.

00:23:17Milkmen.

00:23:18Milkmen.

00:23:19Milkmen.

00:23:20Yeah.

00:23:21What else would he do as a kid?

00:23:26Is Krishna the grown one ever seen as advocating milk, I'm asking?

00:23:33Does the Srimad Bhagavad Gita advocate milk consumption as a central tenet of Krishna's

00:23:39philosophy?

00:23:40No.

00:23:41Does it do that?

00:23:42Does it come anywhere close to that?

00:23:44No.

00:23:45Is Krishna even bothered about what you eat and all that?

00:23:51Is that what he is detailing to Arjun?

00:23:54No.

00:23:55No.

00:23:56No.

00:23:57But we don't want to read the Gita.

00:23:59We just don't love Krishna enough to read the Gita.

00:24:05What do we occupy ourselves with?

00:24:07The lore and the legend.

00:24:11And there we find something very convenient to our taste buds.

00:24:17Milk.

00:24:18Milk.

00:24:19It's just convenience.

00:24:21It's not merely convenience, let me please say.

00:24:24It's also a very cunning exploitation of the holy name of Shri Krishna.

00:24:36You are using the highest name just to achieve a very lowly purpose.

00:24:45What is your lowly purpose?

00:24:46You want to have lassi, you want to have ghee, you want to have milk and paneer.

00:24:52And to that end, you are exploiting the name of Shri Krishna.

00:24:56But what about when they say that we also want to conserve the culture or for example,

00:25:02one of the examples, I had a recent debate on Instagram where someone wrote back to me

00:25:06saying what if I am going to artificially inseminate the cow, we already discussed about

00:25:12artificial insemination.

00:25:14But he's like, let's keep the artificial insemination aside, I'm going to artificially inseminate

00:25:19the cow.

00:25:20But after that, when the cow becomes pregnant, first I'm going to let the baby drink all

00:25:24the milk, whatever is left a little bit I will take, I will love the cow, I will keep

00:25:29it with me and let it go till the end of life.

00:25:32Can I still drink milk?

00:25:33This is so utopian.

00:25:36This fellow knows neither economics nor agriculture.

00:25:41First of all, the calf can have two genders, male and female, right?

00:25:48You can have the male calf, you can have the female calf.

00:25:52The female calf is obviously useful.

00:25:54It will become a cow, a milk producing machine.

00:25:59What do you do when a male is born?

00:26:03You slaughter it potentially.

00:26:04You have to slaughter it.

00:26:06Because the male is a good 200 kilograms heavier than the female.

00:26:11How does it gain all that weight?

00:26:13By eating.

00:26:14By eating.

00:26:15And who will feed him?

00:26:17You cannot feed him.

00:26:20Economics don't allow that.

00:26:21And there are not enough gaushalas or there are not enough people to take care of him.

00:26:26Obviously.

00:26:27And cows are cows.

00:26:28They will not preferentially give birth to females.

00:26:33So males will be born as per the natural order.

00:26:41And when they are born, they are slaughtered.

00:26:42Let everybody know that.

00:26:44Let everybody know that.

00:26:45There is no option but to slaughter them.

00:26:49And there are several products that come from a young calf's body.

00:26:59Some of them are used to make vaccines.

00:27:02Some of them go towards research.

00:27:06And a lot of that goes towards delicacies.

00:27:10Veal, which is one, white meat.

00:27:15Also the leather is tender.

00:27:19And that is very expensive.

00:27:23Do you think the farmer will rather raise the calf and allow it to become a bull?

00:27:29That's a lot of bullshit.

00:27:30Yeah.

00:27:31That's a lot of bullshit.

00:27:32No.

00:27:33Completely agree.

00:27:34So I think a lot of these arguments like Krishna said it or these things, I think they are,

00:27:41I think it's just around convenience and apathy to a great degree.

00:27:46I keep inviting everybody, please, please come to the Gita.

00:27:51And even if you want to make sense of the Puranic stories, you have to first understand

00:27:55the Gita.

00:27:57I've been trying that since so many years now, been a decade actually.

00:28:04Mostly what I find is apathy.

00:28:07But when it comes to just enjoying and interpreting the stories as per convenience, and by the

00:28:15way, people do not know too many stories either.

00:28:18It's not as if they are not reading the Gita, but are enamored with the Puranas.

00:28:23No, that's not the case.

00:28:26They don't read the Gita.

00:28:27And most of them also have not read the Bhagavad Purana.

00:28:32All that we know of is some five to ten stories that have been circulating by word of mouth.

00:28:37Or we have seen those stories on the TV.

00:28:40On the TV.

00:28:42If I ask people, have you really gone through the Bhagavad Purana or the Harivansh Purana

00:28:48or two three other major Puranas out of the eighteen major ones?

00:28:54No.

00:28:55People won't even know the names.

00:28:58Just as I keep saying that people cannot tell the names of three or four important Upanishads.

00:29:06The same thing actually applies to Puranic literature as well.

00:29:10People will not know the names of the Puranas either.

00:29:14But they know the stories.

00:29:16Some five stories.

00:29:18If you say you are a Hindu, you know some five stories about Krishna.

00:29:23And using those five stories very smartly, rather cunningly, you justify whatever you

00:29:29want to do.

00:29:34So I had this question, three years ago we had a daughter.

00:29:39And it was of course through a vegan pregnancy.

00:29:43My wife has been a vegan for the last five years.

00:29:45And we decided that when we wanted to have a kid, that we would have a vegan pregnancy

00:29:49and we would raise the kid as a vegan.

00:29:52But when we were doing that, or when we decided that we'll raise a kid as a vegan or we'll

00:29:56go through a vegan pregnancy, again, there was a lot of pushback from my family, from

00:30:01my close relatives.

00:30:03Some of them calling up and telling me, Kuntal, you are making a very big mistake.

00:30:07You are hedging the future of your to-be-kid and what if, you know, something goes wrong?

00:30:13What if, you know, things kind of fall apart and a lot of those kind of things.

00:30:17And even after our baby was born, they were like, no, please give the baby milk.

00:30:21The milk is a very required kind of a thing.

00:30:25And otherwise, our baby will, you know, have issues and those kind of things, they kind

00:30:30of continued.

00:30:31So there was a lot of kind of struggle with the family around this topic where we want

00:30:39to be vegans and we're not trying to change you.

00:30:41I mean, if you want to change, we are here to help and we are here to guide you.

00:30:46But we as a family of three would like to kind of make our choice and be vegan and not

00:30:51harm anyone and not harm any other sentient being for our existence.

00:30:56So how, like, what do we, like, I'm sure a lot of your audience would also be kind

00:31:01of in a lot of these kind of dilemmas, right, where they are struggling with their family,

00:31:05friends and how do we kind of...

00:31:07I don't know how we are able to just suspend our common sense when it comes to these simple

00:31:14obvious things.

00:31:15I mean, the baby obviously does require milk, her mother's milk.

00:31:20And nature has provided for it.

00:31:22Nature has her own intelligence.

00:31:24Prakriti knows how to take care of her kids, be it the human kid or the kids of the millions

00:31:32of other species that are there.

00:31:35They exist because they have been taken care of, right?

00:31:40Think of this, the atmospheric pressure is just about very rightly tuned with your blood

00:31:52pressure.

00:31:54That's the kind of consideration an invisible force has for you.

00:32:02In fact, the very concept of Ishwar is nothing but Prakriti.

00:32:07Prakriti herself has also been called as Devi and also as Ishwar.

00:32:12So we couldn't have been sitting here had the atmospheric pressure been any lower.

00:32:22Our blood would have been sprouting out of our veins and noses and we would be bleeding

00:32:28through our mouths and all other places.

00:32:32Equally if the blood pressure, if the atmospheric pressure increases, we would collapse.

00:32:37The heart would not be able to tolerate the kind of resistance it would face.

00:32:45This body is a product of this universe and more specifically the planet Earth.

00:32:55We are provided for, we are cared for, we do not need to, we do not need to act additionally

00:33:05so very smart.

00:33:10So there is this beautiful one by the great saint poet Tulsidas, he says, he says it is

00:33:24done by the Lord, take that as Prakriti.

00:33:29He talks of the Amarbel, he says, why are you so, why are you so bothered and anxious?

00:33:45So there is this creeper Lata that supposedly has no roots and still it lives.

00:33:54It lives by drawing nutrition from huge trees.

00:34:00It just attaches itself in a symbiotic way to their large trunks and survives and lives

00:34:10and it's an existing species I think.

00:34:12I don't know the details but get the drift please.

00:34:18Why are you so anxious?

00:34:22Why are you so anxious?

00:34:28It just happens.

00:34:30I want to ask, is there any species in the entire existence that thrives on others' milk?

00:34:41No, no.

00:34:42When you say milk means mammals.

00:34:47Think of any other mammal that is built to live on and be nurtured on some other mammal's milk.

00:34:58Not one.

00:34:59Not a single one.

00:35:01Then how are our bodies in requirement of buffalo or goat or cow milk?

00:35:09In fact, it rings an alarm.

00:35:13If that's not what nature, Prakriti wanted us to have, is it not possible that it is

00:35:18actually harmful?

00:35:21That when you consume any kind of milk other than your mother's milk, it is actually harming

00:35:29your body.

00:35:30Is it not possible?

00:35:32And to the extent I have read and I have tried to read in a fair bit of detail, milk consumption

00:35:40is actually harmful because our bodies are really not designed to absorb, digest, metabolize

00:35:51beyond a certain age.

00:35:54The kid has the enzymes that can break milk down, the milk enzymes, the lactose.

00:36:03As you grow up, you simply have no chemical inside to deal with the fluid called milk

00:36:12you are ingesting.

00:36:14So what does it do to you?

00:36:16It remains undigested.

00:36:18Also it causes a lot of diseases, gastric problems, flatulence.

00:36:32So and we have no dearth of intelligence in this country.

00:36:42We are so smart when it comes to designing bridges, writing codes, even sending rockets

00:36:52and satellites into the space and then into the orbits.

00:36:58We are very smart people.

00:37:01But when it comes to fundamental issues like these, we just suspend our thinking faculty.

00:37:10Is it not a question that even a six-year-old would ask?

00:37:15The kitten does not go to the female dog.

00:37:22And that's an observation even a six-year-old girl would have.

00:37:26There is the kitten and the kitten is not going to mama dog.

00:37:32The kitten is going to mama cat.

00:37:36The lion can kill the camel, but we'll not find lion kids drinking the lady camel's milk.

00:37:52Never been seen.

00:37:53Never been seen.

00:37:54If they are powerful enough, they'll kill her.

00:37:57But in no situation are they going to milk her.

00:38:03How are we then doing it continuously and never investigating what we are doing?

00:38:10Just because it happens to be a very old tradition.

00:38:19Does that make it right?

00:38:21Does that make it useful?

00:38:24Ethics apart, is there even any utility in it?

00:38:29We don't want to ask these questions.

00:38:30And it's a very surprising thing.

00:38:33It's even to a point where if my daughter sometimes sneezes or has a mild fever.

00:38:37You know she has mild fever because she's a vegan.

00:38:39I'm like, okay, don't kids have fever?

00:38:43Don't kids sneeze?

00:38:44It's their building immunity process is what I think it's called.

00:38:47But this is how even to me, right?

00:38:50Oh, you had fever because you're a vegan.

00:38:53Oh, but you didn't see that I didn't have fever for the last five years.

00:38:55I just had fever right now.

00:38:58So that's something that I keep kind of seeing that happens to vegans a lot where anything

00:39:04happens to us.

00:39:05We are like almost living under a microscope all the time.

00:39:08That something goes wrong, veganism caused it.

00:39:11So why is that?

00:39:12In general, when you have some feeling for the truth, some respect for the truth, firstly

00:39:21you have observations, then you have arguments, and then you have conclusions.

00:39:28That's the right sequence.

00:39:31You have observations, then you have arguments, and then you have conclusions.

00:39:37But when you have no feeling for the truth, all you want to respect and protect is your

00:39:45own shady ego.

00:39:48Then the sequence is reversed.

00:39:50You have a conclusion.

00:39:51The conclusion is already there.

00:39:55You want to then build arguments to support your conclusion and also fabricate observations

00:40:05so that the argument may stand.

00:40:08That's how usually the wrong kind of argumentation works.

00:40:14And that's what we find in most debates, irrespective of whether they are within the

00:40:19family, on international fora, within communities, anywhere.

00:40:24The ones who are debating are already deeply entrenched in their positions.

00:40:31They are not discussing so that they may reach a fresh position, so that they may discover,

00:40:42unravel the truth.

00:40:46That's not the intention.

00:40:48The intention is, this is my opinion, this is my position, and I stick to this position

00:40:55because my ego loves this position, because my conveniences are tied to this position,

00:41:02because I'm afraid if I quit this position something unthinkable may happen.

00:41:08So I have all kinds of dubious reasons to stay at my position, but still I choose my

00:41:15position, I continue to do that, and then I come up with arguments.

00:41:21And I also then, you know, very selectively may pick observations from here and there.

00:41:27You see, if you are hell-bent on seeing something, you'll find that thing happening somewhere

00:41:33or the universe is vast.

00:41:37If I want to prove that vegans remain unhealthy, I'll definitely be able to locate two, four,

00:41:44ten vegans somewhere who are unhealthy, and I can pick them up very selectively and use

00:41:51that to establish what is already established in my mind.

00:41:55Basically cherry picking.

00:41:58Cherry picking.

00:41:59And this is just not, this is not a logician's way.

00:42:03This is the bullshitter's way.

00:42:06This is not how you proceed through honest debate and good logic.

00:42:15This is simply bad logic.

00:42:19One has to deal with the right sample sizes, one has to use statistical tools, one has

00:42:27to bring out correlations and probabilities, and then one may talk.

00:42:33How are you able to push your conclusion ahead with a sample size of one or one and

00:42:42a half or two?

00:42:44You know, Mrs. Joshi in the neighborhood.

00:42:49What does that solo case prove?

00:42:53What's the probability of that happening?

00:42:55Let's have some sense, some mathematics at least.

00:43:02And that's a burden we all have to bear, you see.

00:43:09If you walk an unwalked path, you'd be scrutinized at every step.

00:43:20People are just waiting to pounce at you.

00:43:27You make one mistake and that's used to prove that your entire journey is fundamentally

00:43:35wrong.

00:43:36To that point, I still remember in 2016, I submitted Everest on May 19th and it made

00:43:44some news.

00:43:45People were like, oh, first vegan submitted Everest and this, that, it went viral on social

00:43:49media.

00:43:50Not a very big deal.

00:43:52Two days later, another vegan, an Australian female doctor died on Everest.

00:43:58And if you go today and just type Everest vegan death, there are like literally half

00:44:05a million articles on her talking about that, how a vegan died on Everest and that's why

00:44:10people should not be vegan or that vegans are weak.

00:44:13And kind of, you know, just reflects back upon what you were saying is that how people

00:44:16will just choose that.

00:44:17They didn't write about me that, hey, that this vegan climbed on Everest and that there

00:44:22were 300 other non-vegans who have died on Everest, but they didn't die because of their

00:44:27non-veganism.

00:44:28They just died because of altitude sickness, which could be the case with this vegan as

00:44:31well.

00:44:32Right.

00:44:33It's a common thing on mountains.

00:44:34So no, but it was a good point.

00:44:36So I wanted to kind of point out one thing that you just said about how our ego comes

00:44:43in the way.

00:44:45And so is there a connection between us kind of surrendering to veganism or kind of moving

00:44:52towards veganism and kind of also working on kind of shedding that ego?

00:45:00And is there a spiritual angle to veganism or is vegan spiritualism like, what's the

00:45:06connection?

00:45:07I think there is a very fundamental connection.

00:45:12In fact, I have said on record that you cannot really be vegan without being spiritual.

00:45:21And if you are a vegan and have not declared yourself to be spiritual, then you are covertly

00:45:31spiritual.

00:45:32Even you might not know that you are a spiritual being, but you are actually spiritual.

00:45:39Veganism, I say, is the most contemporary name for compassion in today's times.

00:45:49What is veganism?

00:45:50It's not an ideology.

00:45:54It's obviously not just a dietary plan.

00:46:00It's something that emanates from your core.

00:46:04If you are really a human being, how can you tolerate, how can you justify to yourself

00:46:12that you are killing others, other sentient beings, for reasons that are totally avoidable?

00:46:28It's as simple as that.

00:46:29Do I really have to kill or torture others just to live?

00:46:36No, I don't have to.

00:46:39So that's veganism, compassion, karuna.

00:46:43And therefore, in India's context, veganism is obviously nothing new.

00:46:52You see, had Shri Krishna, or the great sages of the Upanishads, or Gautam Buddha, Vardhaman

00:47:06Mahavira, had, they had similar conditions as prevail today, in their times, I am very

00:47:17very honestly and deeply sure, they would have been huge proponents of veganism.

00:47:26It's just that in their times, because human population was far far lesser, and the relationship

00:47:36between man and nature was much more harmonious, in fact benevolent from man's side, therefore

00:47:48it was culturally okay to just take milk, and therefore they did not speak too much

00:47:59on this issue.

00:48:00They said, well, there are more central issues to talk of.

00:48:07But in their times, had dairy industry been the same way as it is today, what do you think

00:48:15Gautam Buddha would have said, the first thing, he would have said, no, no dairy please.

00:48:23Because that's the biggest horror on the planet today, along with animal agriculture, animal

00:48:29slaughter, and all those things.

00:48:33What do you think, when the very central message of Mahavira is ahimsa, jeevdaya, karuna, right.

00:48:42Had Mahavira been born today, alive today, would he have tolerated what is happening

00:48:50in the name of milk and dahi and paneer and other things?

00:48:59He would have very strongly stood up against all of this.

00:49:06So India already has the groundwork done, we know compassion, we understand the centrality

00:49:17of compassion, and that is what has kept India vegetarian, largely vegetarian for so long.

00:49:27At the time of independence, no more than 20-25% of India's population even touched

00:49:37meat.

00:49:38There were many reasons, and one reason is also that being so poor, they couldn't afford

00:49:43to touch meat.

00:49:44But still, there were reasons of religion and compassion as well.

00:49:50Even today, the per capita meat consumption in India is among the lowest in the world,

00:49:57and that is not purely for economical reasons.

00:50:01To put things in perspective, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh have almost similar per capita

00:50:10incomes as India, and still the per capita meat consumption in Pakistan is three to five

00:50:19times higher than that in India.

00:50:22So money is not the thing, per capita income in Pakistan is actually now significantly

00:50:30lower than that in India, and still the average Pakistani is consuming three to five times

00:50:36more meat than the average Indian.

00:50:41The same goes for the average Nepali also, and that comes as a surprise to many people.

00:50:48Because Nepal is a predominantly Hindu country.

00:50:52Nepalis are consuming per capita almost as much meat as Pakistanis.

00:50:59That I didn't know.

00:51:00That's a shocking statistic.

00:51:01As much meat as the Pakistanis, almost, approximately.

00:51:06So there is something about India that has kept it vegetarian, 30-35% of India's population

00:51:16is strictly vegetarian, though that actually means lack to vegetarians.

00:51:20So they do take dairy.

00:51:23And you know, this 30% vegetarian population, Indian, constitutes the bulk of the world's

00:51:32vegetarian population.

00:51:36So if there are 10 vegetarians across the world, in the entire world, six to eight of

00:51:44them are Indians.

00:51:47Now how is that possible?

00:51:48Why does that happen?

00:51:50Who did that?

00:51:51What's the reason?

00:51:52The reason is spirituality.

00:51:56So you said, is veganism related to spirituality?

00:51:59Please see that spirituality is deeply related to veganism's distant cousin, vegetarianism.

00:52:13And spirituality is not related directly actually to vegetarianism, it's related to compassion.

00:52:21And compassion made India vegetarian.

00:52:24Compassion is what is keeping India vegetarian.

00:52:30And compassion is also what will make India purely vegetarian.

00:52:35What is veganism, apart from pure vegetarianism, when it comes to diet, please tell me.

00:52:40Because those who say they are vegetarians, they're not vegetarians.

00:52:43Because milk is not a vegetable.

00:52:46It's not vegetable.

00:52:47Right.

00:52:48Milk is not a shark.

00:52:51So those who say they are vegetarians, they're actually not vegetarians.

00:52:56Vegetarianism in some way suffices.

00:52:59Could we understand the real meaning of being a vegetarian?

00:53:03We won't even have needed to coin a new term called vegan.

00:53:07Right.

00:53:08If you just be all vegetarians and people would not have to.

00:53:11Let's be pure vegetarians.

00:53:12Right.

00:53:13Let's be pure vegetarians.

00:53:14And pure vegetarian means abstaining from everything that does not come from a plant

00:53:18or a tree.

00:53:19Right.

00:53:20Which means you cannot have your lassi, dahi and milk.

00:53:22They don't come from plants.

00:53:27So if we could connect India more closely, more deeply to her spiritual core, veganism

00:53:39would be an organic fallout.

00:53:43It would just happen.

00:53:46It would just happen.

00:53:47Even without deciding to be vegan, people will become vegan.

00:53:52And that's what has happened to a lot of people associated with the foundation or recipients

00:54:02of the work of our mission.

00:54:05We get numerous stories every day where people have not even realized when they just dropped

00:54:13milk.

00:54:14It happened.

00:54:15It happened.

00:54:17If your consciousness is awakened, if you start thinking, if you start seeing that your

00:54:25ego and your tendencies and your habits are not really your friends.

00:54:31If you start seeing that, it becomes impossible to not to see that the stuff on your plate

00:54:39does not match with the stuff in your heart.

00:54:45In the heart there is compassion and on the plate there is cruelty.

00:54:51There is a dissonance.

00:54:52These two can't go together.

00:54:53So the stuff on the plate drops as simple as that.

00:54:58So that is what is spiritual veganism and spiritual veganism, one of the words is redundant.

00:55:06We could simply say spiritual and that would mean vegan to the extent that when I meet

00:55:13a spiritual person who is not vegan, I can't help laughing.

00:55:18That's a sad kind of laughter because I know what he is doing to a lot of sentient beings.

00:55:29How can you claim to be spiritual and have blood on your plate?

00:55:37The color of the blood might be white, but still blood.

00:55:42How can you say you are a spiritual being, you talk of elevating your consciousness,

00:55:48you talk of being a better person, you talk of being non-violent, you talk of being loving,

00:55:56you say you have wisdom, you say you understand life and then you are just chewing at the

00:56:07paneer, how can these two go together, mystery.

00:56:15So the more people turn spiritual or are forced to turn spiritual given the macro environment

00:56:27we are in and are coming to, the more veganism will become popular.

00:56:35If the earth has to survive, veganism has to prosper.

00:56:42So I have two follow up questions for you.

00:56:45So one is, okay I am spiritual but I am going to become vegan, but if I am looking at paneer,

00:56:53it is just on my plate, but I am still not making the connection where the paneer is

00:56:58coming from.

00:56:59So I know we discussed about people who think about cattle and all of those things, but

00:57:03a lot of times people may not, people may just think I just bought it in a store, it

00:57:07was nicely packed in a plastic bag and I got it, there is no cruelty behind because I am

00:57:13not directly seeing the cruelty or I am not putting enough effort to see that cruelty.

00:57:17So how do we kind of, so I understand the foundation is doing a lot of work around that,

00:57:23but how do we as lay people kind of.

00:57:26This argument would have been tenable 20 years back, when we didn't have so much social

00:57:34media and so much exposure.

00:57:37Not today, you are continuously scrolling your Instagram and Facebook feed, it is impossible

00:57:44to not to have come across videos talking of animal cruelty and such things.

00:57:51There are so many organizations today, trying to spread awareness, raise the levels of consciousness.

00:57:57If someone says, oh I didn't even know that paneer is a product of cruelty, the fellow

00:58:03is lying.

00:58:04You know, you know.

00:58:07There are so many organizations that are working day in day out, I can talk of my own, a huge

00:58:17proportion of our funds have gone just towards raising awareness.

00:58:24Publicity is what we are continuously doing.

00:58:27If someone says he, you know, just on YouTube, to put things in perspective, we have close

00:58:41to 10 crore unique users over the last three months, and that's just YouTube, that's YouTube.

00:58:52You add Facebook and Instagram and other media to it, and that's, and print media, that's

00:58:57a bigger number.

00:59:02So 10 crore people have seen what we want to say, at least once.

00:59:08Now how can you now claim that you have not seen?

00:59:12It's just that you are being dishonest.

00:59:13You have seen it, and yet are deciding to pretend you haven't seen it.

00:59:20We are pushing the damn thing right to your face.

00:59:27How can you not see it?

00:59:28Obviously you have seen it.

00:59:30We are not even allowing you to look the other way.

00:59:33If you look the other way, there is some other media there.

00:59:36Someone else talking about it.

00:59:37Someone else is talking about it.

00:59:38Or we ourselves are present on all media.

00:59:40What else are we doing all the time?

00:59:43And we are talking about it.

00:59:44In fact, from one of the prominent media platforms, the foundation's account got suspended multiple

00:59:55times just because we were talking of animals.

00:59:59And it was a Chinese controlled thing.

01:00:02They didn't want unpleasant stuff on their platform.

01:00:08Additionally, meat consumption happens to be somehow an important part of the Chinese ethic.

01:00:16So every time we would post something regarding this, first of all there would be shadow banning,

01:00:23and then the account itself would be gone.

01:00:26It's another matter that that platform itself is now gone from India.

01:00:29I'm talking of TikTok.

01:00:30Right.

01:00:31I realize.

01:00:32So we have paid the price.

01:00:35We are continuously doing that.

01:00:37We fully well know that when we post animal rights videos, they do not become very popular.

01:00:46So in that sense, again, we pay a price.

01:00:49We have to promote them harder.

01:00:51We have to push them with far more, far bigger amounts of money.

01:00:58So we are reaching out.

01:01:00And people know.

01:01:01Let now nobody come up with a straight face and say, but I didn't know.

01:01:07You know, sir, you know, unless you are, as they say, living in a cave or under a rock,

01:01:14you know.

01:01:15Right.

01:01:16Right.

01:01:17And the second question was, in our last panel discussion, you had started the conversation

01:01:23by saying that we are in middle of a mass extinction right now, and you had also mentioned

01:01:32that there's nothing we can really do about it.

01:01:37Do you think there's anything we can do through veganism?

01:01:39At least as lay people, can we make some tangible steps?

01:01:43See, please understand, where has all this carbon come from when we're talking of the

01:01:51sixth mass extinction phase we already are into?

01:01:56It is a carbon dioxide led thing.

01:01:59Right.

01:02:00Right.

01:02:02And of the previous five mass extinctions, three were caused by the same reason, carbon

01:02:09dioxide.

01:02:10So there's nothing new, there's nothing you can contest, there's nothing you can doubt

01:02:16the validity or prospects of.

01:02:18We know what happens when carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rises.

01:02:23It has happened before and thrice, and it's happening for the fourth time.

01:02:29Where is all this carbon coming from?

01:02:33Who is emitting so much carbon in the environment?

01:02:36Who is doing this?

01:02:37You have to understand.

01:02:40It's the darkness inside our minds that's emitting all the carbon.

01:02:50And I understand it will be sounding too poetic, but please stay with this.

01:02:57Carbon emissions are coming from our ceaseless consumption.

01:03:05The more we consume, the more we emit carbon.

01:03:13In fact, everything that we take as important, everything that we take as a supplier of happiness

01:03:25is very high on the list of things that emit carbon.

01:03:36Why do we want to endlessly consume?

01:03:38Be it a house, a car, the world, human beings, or animals.

01:03:48We want to consume them because we simply have ignorance within.

01:03:54We are born with an innate dissatisfaction.

01:03:59And we think that a lot of consumption will take care of that dissatisfaction.

01:04:04That's a simple reason.

01:04:06Nothing very complicated, very spiritual in that, right?

01:04:10You're not feeling good.

01:04:11What do you do?

01:04:12You purchase something on Amazon, right?

01:04:17Or you go watch a movie, or you go eat something out.

01:04:23So, and when do you feel the happiest?

01:04:29When you have a new four-wheeler, that's when you're congratulated a lot, right?

01:04:34Or when you have gone to the new exotic tourist destination, you post your pics, you're supposed

01:04:42to be happy.

01:04:44And others are supposed to congratulate.

01:04:46And that's what happens.

01:04:48And that's where all the carbon comes from.

01:04:50I'm talking facts, not just poetry.

01:04:54This is fact.

01:04:56Carbon comes from air travel.

01:05:00Carbon comes when you raise your comfort and convenience level.

01:05:07Carbon emission is the highest in developed world.

01:05:11And even among the residents of the developed world, the top 1% to 5% in terms of economics

01:05:23contribute way beyond their numbers.

01:05:29The more ambitious you are, the bigger a chaser of money you are, the more you are pushing

01:05:39the planet towards mass extinction.

01:05:42That's what is happening.

01:05:44It's as simple and as obvious as that.

01:05:50And see how wonderful it is that some people will still say, oh, I didn't know.

01:05:55I didn't know.

01:05:58You didn't know.

01:06:01And each of us are micro mirror images of the ones who are contributing the maximum

01:06:11to climate change.

01:06:14It's just that they have the resources, the wherewithal to actually add a lot of carbon

01:06:21to the atmosphere.

01:06:23We don't have so many resources, but we have the same ambition.

01:06:28We want to be like them.

01:06:30They have a personal jet.

01:06:32And you have reports available, public reports read of celebrities using personal jets to

01:06:39cover a distance of 30 miles, 40 miles, 50 miles.

01:06:49Because they can.

01:06:50That's a whim.

01:06:51That's a quick.

01:06:52Because I can.

01:06:53How do I justify my life?

01:06:56Why else am I earning so much?

01:07:01The common man cannot match that.

01:07:03What does he do?

01:07:04He has to go to Jaipur from Delhi.

01:07:08He takes a flight.

01:07:11The highway is great usually.

01:07:15Sometimes it's clogged.

01:07:16Otherwise, it's good.

01:07:17But then sometimes flights are also delayed.

01:07:21Sometimes flights can in fact just return to the base given that the Delhi Jaipur sector

01:07:28experiences heavy fog in winters.

01:07:33But that's what some 250 kilometers or something.

01:07:36And people want to still.

01:07:40So it's the darkness in the mind that thinks that you are born to consume and consumption

01:07:49will make you happy.

01:07:51The fundamental philosophy of mankind is flawed.

01:07:55We do not know who we are and why we are born.

01:07:59That's the problem.

01:08:01You are born suffering.

01:08:05So the first thing that comes to your mind is pursuit of happiness.

01:08:11And the market tells you that you can have happiness through consumption.

01:08:15Come buy my stuff.

01:08:16It will make you happy.

01:08:17And it does make you happy for a while.

01:08:19It says that happiness is in the first place no cure for suffering.

01:08:25Your problem is not that you do not have happiness.

01:08:28Your problem is that you have suffering.

01:08:30And happiness is no remedy.

01:08:33First of all, happiness is no remedy.

01:08:35Secondly, happiness that comes from consumption, far from being a remedy, is a problem, is

01:08:43a huge, huge monster, mass extinction.

01:08:48For the planet itself.

01:08:49And all that because we are spiritually illiterate.

01:08:53Because we do not know who we are in the first place.

01:08:57So all we want to do is binge, binge and binge.

01:09:00What do you think a person does once he gets some money?

01:09:06You didn't have money.

01:09:07You were sad all the time.

01:09:09Now you have a job and some money.

01:09:11What do you do with that?

01:09:13Do you use it to improve yourself, to raise your inner levels, to become a better person,

01:09:20to refine your mind?

01:09:23Do you use your money for that purpose?

01:09:25No.

01:09:26You go to the market, binge, splurge.

01:09:31I have money.

01:09:32I can throw money.

01:09:33Let me have that one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this

01:09:38one.

01:09:39Why?

01:09:40Because I am a suffering being.

01:09:42I am a suffering being who is also ignorant.

01:09:46So he does not know why he suffers.

01:09:51And that is what has led to this mass extinction that we are into.

01:09:56And now here I would be empathetic if someone says I do not know about mass extinction.

01:10:03Yes, because that's not something that any media is highlighting.

01:10:09Mainstream media would obviously never do that.

01:10:12But even social media is not taking this thing up.

01:10:15We have already entered the sixth mass extinction phase.

01:10:20And I said that yesterday.

01:10:27The temperatures in India within the next 10 to 15 years would cross the human survivability

01:10:35limit.

01:10:36There was even recently a UN report, I think that came up or I think an economic report

01:10:40that came up saying that India is one of the first countries that is going to be likely

01:10:45badly affected, badly affected by heat waves, by heat waves, roads will melt and the poor

01:10:53will bear the brunt.

01:10:58Because they'll be the ones, you see, in India still 75 to 80 percent of employed people

01:11:10do work that involves exposure to the sun.

01:11:18And that does not mean that you have to be a field laborer, right, or a laborer in a

01:11:26plant or at a construction site.

01:11:30You could as well be a salesperson, you're still exposed to the heat.

01:11:35You could as well be an auto driver or a fruit vendor.

01:11:3975 to 80 percent of the population is in jobs that involve exposure to direct sun.

01:11:47And they'll be killed.

01:11:53What's pathetic is nobody would know the right reason to blame.

01:12:04Somebody would blame the government.

01:12:05Somebody would blame the luck or the heat wave, the floods.

01:12:10Somebody would simply say, oh, it's a chance thing.

01:12:12We would not know that the fundamental reason, the murderer is human ignorance.

01:12:19We did that.

01:12:21There's no chance in that.

01:12:22It's not that the system is responsible.

01:12:25The individual human being is responsible.

01:12:28The choices that we have been making since long, our pursuit of happiness, the way we

01:12:33think that more is better, stuff our homes with furniture, with this, with that, do not

01:12:43think about utility.

01:12:45Just think about quantity.

01:12:47So even if you're a vegan, but if you are binge consumers, it is still, we are not spiritual

01:12:53at all.

01:12:54That's what, that's what, that's what, that's what, that's what.

01:12:58Therefore veganism has to be a far wider term.

01:13:05First of all, veganism cannot be a dietary thing only.

01:13:12I don't take dairy, so I'm a vegan.

01:13:15Not possible, sir, not possible.

01:13:18Veganism also cannot just be about using vegan products like non-leather belts and shoes

01:13:27and clothes and such things.

01:13:30It has to exceed that as well.

01:13:33Veganism has to be a certain philosophy of life.

01:13:38And if you don't have that philosophy of life, just not eating curd, etc., cannot make you

01:13:45vegan.

01:13:46I think of vegans who happily have three kids.

01:13:54How are you a vegan?

01:13:56Don't you know that when you procreate, it is the grossest kind of cruelty towards animals?

01:14:06And the planet.

01:14:07And the entire planet.

01:14:08How can you have three kids and you are celebrating?

01:14:12And you know, you're creating consumers.

01:14:19The fellow that is born would need roads, would need hospital, would need school, would

01:14:24need a lot of stuff to consume throughout his life and would in his life procreate and

01:14:32create more consumers.

01:14:35So giving birth is the mightiest act of cruelty today.

01:14:41And yet we have vegans who, you know, sending congratulatory messages to Didi, Didi, congratulations.

01:14:47Such a cute bundle of joy.

01:14:49And you're a vegan.

01:14:51How is it possible?

01:14:54So veganism, antinatalism, minimalism, they have to go together and at the root of all

01:15:03of them is simple spirituality, which you could also call as common sense.

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