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Video Information: 24.08.31, Vedant: Basics to Classics
Context:
The Truth About Homosexuality: Facts, Myths, and Acceptance
How to Build a Supportive Environment for LGBTQ+ Individuals
Exploring the Roots of Homosexual Desire: A Scientific and Personal Perspective
Finding Peace with Your Sexual Orientation: Personal Stories and Professional Advice
Embracing LGBTQ+ Identities: Understanding and Acceptance Tips
From Confusion to Clarity: Understanding Your Sexual Orientation
References:
A Brief History of Western Homosexuality
https://www.csustan.edu/sites/default...
Links Between Economic Development and New Measures of LGBT Inclusion
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.ed...
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/enquir...
Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...
~~~~~
Video Information: 24.08.31, Vedant: Basics to Classics
Context:
The Truth About Homosexuality: Facts, Myths, and Acceptance
How to Build a Supportive Environment for LGBTQ+ Individuals
Exploring the Roots of Homosexual Desire: A Scientific and Personal Perspective
Finding Peace with Your Sexual Orientation: Personal Stories and Professional Advice
Embracing LGBTQ+ Identities: Understanding and Acceptance Tips
From Confusion to Clarity: Understanding Your Sexual Orientation
References:
A Brief History of Western Homosexuality
https://www.csustan.edu/sites/default...
Links Between Economic Development and New Measures of LGBT Inclusion
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.ed...
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00In the same light, how do we look upon the homosexual desires which develop within us?
00:07How does it matter whether you are a homosexual, heterosexual, you're still body-identified,
00:11you're running after a male body, you're running after a female body?
00:14The lust for body is still there.
00:17It's not about running after that hole compared to this hole in the body.
00:21Holes are holes. I do not mean that you should fly out of your body.
00:25But there has to be life beyond carnal interests.
00:28If one has homosexual desires, they are desires.
00:32If a man lusts after a woman, that too is a desire.
00:35So you do get something.
00:36But that which you get out of heterosexual activity, does that fulfill you?
00:41Does the kid ever satisfy you?
00:43Out of homosexual activity, you do not get a kid.
00:45You remain unfulfilled.
00:46But you remain unfulfilled in heterosexual activity also.
00:49Is there no better way to look at a human being?
00:52You do not ask a person, do you read, do you dance, do you love, do you care?
00:57We don't ask. We ask him, are you gay, are you lesbian, are you straight?
01:01If you are so sexual, then you cannot be good even at sex.
01:04If you are so obsessed with sex, sex will become a mania for you.
01:12Namaste Acharyaji.
01:13My question to you, my question is,
01:16that as far as sexual desires are concerned,
01:20we have got to learn that as far as heterosexual desires are concerned,
01:24there is a part which is biological in nature and rest of it is in mind.
01:30In the same light, how do we look upon the homosexual desires
01:35which are which develop within us and how to come at ease
01:40with these desires in our daily life? Thank you, sir.
01:46So many things that are happening in Prakriti.
01:53It's a very eclectic kind of dance.
02:02You cannot have each step of that dance correspond to certain value standards.
02:20Homosexuality is nothing new.
02:26It has been present since the very advent of civilization.
02:35We have known it to be present since then.
02:38Must have been present even before that.
02:41So just as you don't ask how to make peace
02:48with the unseemly and ungainly thing called nose.
02:56See, such a bizarre thing.
03:00Nose, randomly jetting out.
03:04It's there. It's a fact.
03:07You don't ask how to make peace with it.
03:10Similarly, you don't ask how to make peace with homosexuality.
03:13It just exists.
03:15There's nothing special about it.
03:18It is there. Fine.
03:20And it is present not only in homo sapiens but in several other species as well.
03:26Nothing fantastic about it.
03:29How does it matter whether you are a homosexual, heterosexual?
03:32You are still body identified.
03:34You are running after a male body or running after a female body.
03:39The lust for body is still there.
03:48I don't see how heterosexuals can claim to be inherently superior to homosexuals or others in any way.
04:03If there is somebody who can claim to be superior,
04:06it is the one who has seen the body for what the body really is.
04:11Just a biological thing.
04:14The superior being is the one who stops running after the body.
04:18It's not about running after that hole compared to this hole in the body.
04:23Holes are holes.
04:26You are trying to enter the same kind of cave,
04:29whether from the front or the back.
04:33You will reach the same place more or less.
04:41And who is inside the cave? Maya?
04:45How does it matter where you came from?
04:52Who is the wise person?
04:55Who is the liberated one?
04:58Who has a life outside of the cave?
05:03By cave I mean the human body.
05:06I do not mean that you should fly out of your body.
05:11But there has to be life beyond carnal interests.
05:16If one has homosexual desires, they are desires.
05:30If a man lusts after a woman, that too is a desire.
05:36And neither of these desires take you anywhere.
05:44Yes, the product of one kind of desire might be a baby.
05:53The other kind of desire does not lead to procreation.
05:57But still, does the baby fulfill you?
06:01Yes, there is a result in the form of fertilization and reproduction.
06:09So you do get something.
06:11But that which you get out of heterosexual activity, does that fulfill you?
06:16Does the kid ever satisfy you?
06:19Out of homosexual activity, you do not get a kid.
06:23You remain unfulfilled.
06:25But you remain unfulfilled in heterosexual activity also.
06:28No kind of sexual activity is ever going to fulfill you.
06:36Yesterday I tweeted.
06:46Spiritual periphery from a sexual center.
06:50That's the common man.
06:52The hypocrite.
06:54The center is sexual but he remains spiritual on the periphery.
07:01He does all the religious things and all the rituals and this and that.
07:09The center is sexual, the periphery is spiritual.
07:12This is before.
07:14And then after.
07:16Spiritual center, sexual periphery.
07:21What you do on the periphery is your business.
07:25You mind it.
07:27You are not answerable to anybody.
07:29But the center must be spiritual.
07:32It is the center that counts.
07:35What you do on the periphery is Mother Nature's business.
07:45Let the center be rightly placed.
07:48And forget about what happens on the periphery.
07:52If the center is right, the center will take care of the periphery.
07:57The center will take care of the circumference.
08:09These are trivial questions.
08:12Do not be weighed down by these.
08:16Red shirt or white shirt?
08:26How is that a spiritual question?
08:36Is there no better way to look at a human being?
08:40Are we so damn internally sexual that the only way we can look at a human being is through his sexual preferences?
08:55You do not ask a person, do you read, do you dance, do you love?
09:07Do you care? We don't ask.
09:11We ask him, are you gay, are you lesbian, are you straight?
09:15What kind of assessment is this?
09:21What kind of value standards are these?
09:36If there was somebody called God and could he be met?
09:41A lot of our purists, the first thing they would ask, are you straight?
09:58Is there no better question to ask?
10:02Is there nothing more important to look at?
10:06Body, body, body, sex, sex, sex. Nothing else.
10:31So a couple of days back in a session, you said that you must be listening to you, for example, and not elsewhere.
10:39But I think one thing which got revealed today is that even if, for example, we are not listening to so-called, but we are always listening to ourselves.
10:48As you just said.
10:50So I think that is as dangerous to listening to.
10:56I mean, because in our own minds, we were saying we're not listening to anyone else, but then we're always listening to.
11:02And at the same time, but when we talk about self introspection.
11:07But will that also not lead us to self-talk?
11:12Not introspection, I said observation.
11:15Observation means looking at the self, but not as the self.
11:20At the self, but not as the self.
11:25Looking at yourself, but not as yourself.
11:31Looking at Rohit, but not as Rohit.
11:36Because if Rohit looks at Rohit, everything is alright.
11:41Rohit has to look at himself as nobody, as an independent observer.
11:50It has to be freedom looking at Rohit, not Rohit looking at Rohit.
11:54Rohit has to be free to look at himself.
11:58Rohit looks at himself, everything is already alright, no change.
12:11Introspection and observation are not the same thing.
12:17Introspection is more or less the same like self-talk and getting into.
12:27Actually, even purer than observation is witnessing, but it has become so loaded.
12:33I try to avoid using it.
12:36The moment I say witness, people start having notions.
12:44But the essence of observation is witnessing, which is detachment.
12:53Look at yourself detached from yourself.
12:58Right.
13:03So one more question which came from the first response.
13:08Like Shri Krishna, as you were saying, was looking to get Arjun to throne because he would be the one who would then make policies and all.
13:18In that case, why didn't Shri Krishna himself want to be on the throne?
13:22Because that could have been the best possible.
13:25We will have to ask him.
13:31Maybe it was not practical.
13:35The teachings tell of the absolute, but the implementation has to be in the domain of what is practically possible.
13:43I do not see how Shri Krishna could have taken the crown for himself.
13:58It looks a bit difficult for Muniyashtava because of the way he has.
14:02But then for Shri Krishna, it looks probably he could have.
14:07He would have thought about it.
14:10And having seen that it does not look feasible, he would have discounted it.
14:20Were it possible, he would have done it.
14:23See if it were practical, the teacher would personally pick up each single one of the students and put them in some basket above.
14:42But it is not practically possible.
14:54Maybe he didn't want to come to a situation where both Kauravas and Pandavas were fighting against Krishna.
15:13Moreover, if that were to be done, how would you get the Gita?
15:24For the teacher, it is not so much about doing the right thing himself.
15:31It is about getting the student to do the right thing.
15:41The Gita is possible only when there is a student who is unwilling.
15:46And he has to be brought to the right center and the right action.
15:56There are limits to the teacher's power as a person. You have to understand that.
16:02You know what happened to Krishna's own clan after the war.
16:08Krishna could not stop that.
16:10If we are to believe the legend, the Yadavs all died in fighting.
16:25They didn't even need an external enemy.
16:30They all fought among themselves and got victory.
16:33Krishna couldn't prevent that.
16:37It was a very sorry closure to the entire story.
16:43And that tells a very important lesson.
16:49In the world of Krishna, there is no such thing as an eternal war.
16:55And that tells a very important lesson.
17:01In the world of people and persons and Maya, the teacher is a very helpless entity in fact.
17:13He knows everything but has power over nothing.
17:19And that's a very very frustrating situation to be in.
17:25People are sovereign individuals.
17:35What becomes of their life is what they decide to make of themselves.
17:43The teacher can at most speak, guide, show, demonstrate.
17:48At most hand hold.
17:53But he cannot kidnap people and place them at their destination.
18:03So he is pretty helpless in that regard.
18:05Even after the war, not only on Krishna's side, there does not appear to be a happy closure even on the Pandavas' side.
18:36In spite of the great sermon of the Gita, after the war, you know how destructive the war was.
18:59The kingdom took several years to somehow recover.
19:03And it was not just Sastanapur.
19:06So many other kingdoms had fought and had lost their armies, their kings, sons of kings, entire lines of descendants, they were all lost.
19:21And then one day Dhritarashtra and Kunti and Gandhari, they say we are going to the jungle because we are just restless.
19:32We do not know what to live for.
19:35And these three together go to the jungle.
19:38And they are burnt alive in a forest fire.
19:41That's how they end.
19:46How is that a befitting closure for the mother of five victorious warriors.
19:56That's how Kunti dies.
19:58In a forest fire.
20:02Then once these three are gone, the Pandavas themselves become very listless.
20:12They find they cannot operate in peace for long.
20:17So they say now that the descendant is ready.
20:32They hand over the kingdom to him.
20:39And they say we are now going towards the hills.
20:43And it's a very poignant story.
20:46They keep climbing the hill and they keep dropping dead one after the other.
20:56The mighty Pandavas who could not be slain by thousands of warriors, they are just falling like nine pins.
21:11Dropping like dead leaves.
21:17And ultimately who is left? Yudhishthir and the dog.
21:25Only these two are left.
21:30Even Draupadi falls.
21:35That's how the story comes to an end.
21:37This in spite of the fact that Krishna was by them.
21:49Not only through his teachings but actually in person.
21:55Still.
22:07This is a beautiful quote.
22:17That's how the world ends. Not with a bang but with a whimper.
22:25That's how one of the greatest stories, an epic story comes to an end.
22:38What is left of the entire story? Abhimanyu's son who has been saved by Krishna.
22:48Only he is left from the entire story and then from him a new story begins.
22:59Everybody else is gone.
23:02Pretty melancholy trail this.
23:17So there are limits and when you see that the teacher has limits,
23:22then actually you should be even more grateful that in spite of his limits, he tries and does what he can.
23:31If you start taking Krishna as some kind of omnipotent God,
23:39then there is nothing to learn from him.
23:46You have to look at him as an individual, a person who tried his best.
24:01With regards to the question on homosexual rights of homosexuals and LGBTQ questions,
24:09I was just looking at some data and it shows here that there is a strong correlation between
24:18LGBTQ inclusion and a country's level of economic development.
24:22For example, countries with greater legal rights and social acceptance of LGBTQ people tend to have higher GDP per capita.
24:29Also, it says that exclusion of LGBTQ people leads to economic inefficiencies including lost labor productivity etc.
24:38Also, over time countries that have increased LGBTQ acceptance such as Brazil, Canada, UK and US
24:46have seen improvements in economic development.
24:49They did some research and they found some correlations.
24:52So in summary, it basically says that protecting LGBTQ rights and promoting social inclusion
24:59is not only a matter of human rights but also has tangible economic benefits
25:04for countries seeking to maximize their human capital etc.
25:08In general also, I think there is a perception that more liberal, more developed countries have more acceptance.
25:15It's like this, it's not that for the sake of economic prosperity that you must become liberal in thought
25:21or have a more tolerant and accommodative attitude towards diverse sexual orientations.
25:33Economic growth etc. are a fallout.
25:39Even if economic growth were to be compromised, a liberal attitude must still be promoted.
25:50Now, why do we see the kind of data that you are quoting?
25:55It's simple. Usually, LGBTQ minorities are small.
26:05I don't have the figures but I don't suppose any country has more than 5 or 10% representation
26:20of these communities in its population.
26:24No, not more than that.
26:26Not even that much?
26:283-4%
26:31So it's not about the economic productivity of these 3-4% people.
26:36It's about the remaining 95 or 97%.
26:42If those 95-97% are not having a healthy attitude
26:50towards these minorities, that tells about their priorities in life.
27:00There are 3 people in a country of 100.
27:08One is a lesbian, one is a gay, one is a trans.
27:14And if the remaining 97% are all obsessed with just harassing these 3,
27:23what does that tell about those 97% keeping these 3 apart?
27:29That tells that those 97% do not have anything purposeful to do in life.
27:35How would they be economically productive?
27:37It's not about the productivity of these 3.
27:38How would they be economically productive?
27:40It's not about the productivity of these 3.
27:43It's about the productivity of those 97%.
27:4697% people chasing these 3 on basis of their sexual orientation.
27:54These 97% have to be pretty jobless.
28:00Nothing to do in life except catch someone and start looking at his genitals
28:06and whatever.
28:12Leave people to do what they want to do. You focus on your life.
28:17Write, sing, create, run.
28:21If nothing else, eat and sleep.
28:25Why hound others?
28:30And if you are someone who has to look at someone
28:33principally on the basis of his sexual choices,
28:38that means inherently you are very sexual.
28:42And if you are so sexual, what kind of creation would come from you?
28:49Only procreation.
28:55You cannot be creative.
28:58Go back to that God thing.
29:00Go back to that God thing.
29:02If I look at even God and ask him,
29:04Sir, just convince me that you are not gay.
29:13That basically means that you are just a sexual beast.
29:18And anybody you look at,
29:22you are looking at him from sexual eyes.
29:28This kind of person cannot create good literature, cannot do good science,
29:34cannot come up with good technology,
29:37cannot be a good athlete. There will be a problem.
29:40Cannot be a good politician.
29:42Cannot be a good anything. Cannot be a good parent, a good father, a good mother.
29:47If you are so sexual,
29:53you cannot be good even at sex.
29:57If you are so obsessed with sex,
29:59sex will become a mania for you.
30:08So these are small things and they must be kept small.
30:12Focus on the bigger things in life.
30:18Creation is big.
30:21Exploration is big. Inquiry is big. Science is big.
30:25Arts, literature, these are the really big things.
30:30This is what you should give respect to.
30:42There is an entire universe to explore.
30:46And all you are interested in is some cavities of the body.
30:55That's a general observation.
30:58Countries that have very intransigent attitudes towards sexual matters
31:08are usually not economically successful.
31:12Are usually not economically developed.
31:17Economically or socially.
31:19On any parameter or index of human development,
31:24these countries don't rank among the top.
31:30So how well developed a country is,
31:32that can be kind of approximated
31:35through its attitude towards sexual minorities.
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