How to awaken love within? (Discussion with PETA India CEO) || 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?...    Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articl...  ~~~~~   Video Information: 10.12.22, Interview with Peta India CEO, Mumbai   Context:  ~ What is the relation between Vedanta and veganism?  ~ Why should one respect all forms of consciousness?  ~ How to go beyond one's' physical nature?  ~ What is the solution to climate change?   ~ How can spirituality stop the climate change?  ~ How is veganism related to compassion?  ~ Why is veganism necessary for today's generation?  ~ What is the relation between veganism and climate change?  ~ How could veganism change the world?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00:00Hello.

00:00:06So let me start by narrating my vegan journey.

00:00:12I grew up eating meat.

00:00:15I grew up in the United States, and when my father first moved there in the late 1960s

00:00:24and then my mother in the early 1970s, even though many people in the U.S. are vegan today,

00:00:32the dominant culture at the time was meat eating.

00:00:36And so they're Gujarati, I'm Gujarati, and we traditionally are vegetarian.

00:00:44But after moving to the U.S., my father started eating meat.

00:00:49And so I also grew up eating meat.

00:00:51My brother and sister grew up eating meat.

00:00:56And it was only when I was about 16 years old, and I went on a school field trip, and

00:01:04we stopped at a food court.

00:01:07And my friend, she went to get something vegetarian from somewhere, and I went to get a chicken

00:01:15burger from McDonald's.

00:01:17And then we sat back at the table, and she said, are you really going to eat that?

00:01:25And I was defensive at the time, and I said, of course I am, and that kind of thing.

00:01:29But it made me think, for the first time, that my goodness, I'm eating an animal.

00:01:36Even though my mother is vegetarian, I saw that as cultural, religious.

00:01:44It was only when someone pointed out the ethics to me that I understood, and I started

00:01:51making a change in my life.

00:01:54So I became vegetarian at 16, and then vegan by the time I was 20, after having learned

00:02:02about the violence that's also in egg production and in dairy production.

00:02:08So that was one part of the reason why I stopped eating animals.

00:02:14Another reason was because I met a turkey called Alice.

00:02:19And Alice was a turkey who lived at the Poplar Hill Sanctuary in Washington, D.C.

00:02:26It's a sanctuary for rescued animals, animals rescued from the meat, egg, and dairy industry.

00:02:34And I had never met animals like turkeys or chickens doing what turkeys and chickens should

00:02:42do, live as they want to.

00:02:45But when I went to the sanctuary, Alice was so curious.

00:02:51She came right up to greet me.

00:02:53I had a mirrored Indian bag on my arm, and she was really looking to see what that is.

00:03:01I knelt down so that she could see it better.

00:03:04She was so curious, and she had such a personality to her.

00:03:10I had no idea that when you pet turkeys, they actually purr like cats.

00:03:18And all the other animals at the sanctuary were so busy.

00:03:23We had chickens over there taking dust baths, a curious goat who was following us around.

00:03:31And I thought, these are individuals.

00:03:34They're unique individuals.

00:03:35They don't all have the same personality.

00:03:37Not all chickens are the same.

00:03:39Not all goats are the same.

00:03:41They're unique, just like us.

00:03:43And so that really solidified my decision to stop eating animals.

00:03:49And now my whole family no longer eats animals either.

00:03:54So that's the short version of my journey to veganism.

00:04:01Wonderful.

00:04:02Wonderful.

00:04:03I would extend the same thing by narrating my own journey.

00:04:11So when I was in the college campus, IIT Delhi campus, it was in 95 or 96, I read a

00:04:24Hindi story.

00:04:29It was the biography of a calf, and right from the moment it is born, in fact the story

00:04:43starts even before the calf is born, the way the mother, the cow, is inseminated, and then

00:04:58how it grows up, how it is castrated, then how it is yoked to work in the fields, and

00:05:09then how it is ultimately sold off to the slaughterhouse.

00:05:17So I read that story, a long story, and then I quit milk.

00:05:24That was 96, or 96.

00:05:30And then as long as I remained in the campus, I simply didn't take any milk.

00:05:38However, once I moved out and started working for a few years in corporate, paneer returned.

00:05:51So I read a bit of butter.

00:05:56Then fast forward to 2012-13, I've had a lot of rescued rabbits living with me.

00:06:11So when I began with the Bodh Shivars, which are spiritual tools, I would take participants

00:06:26to the hills, and there they would spend three days or a week with me reading scriptures

00:06:32and such things.

00:06:34And there often we would find the villagers keeping some animals in captivity for some

00:06:47reason.

00:06:51So sometimes we would just pay off the villagers and get the animals released into the wild.

00:07:00And sometimes it was just not possible to release them back because we knew that they

00:07:05are no more capable of surviving on their own, having lived in captivity for long.

00:07:11So mainly rabbits.

00:07:13And then those rabbits would be somehow packed and secured in cartons or something, anything

00:07:24we could arrange right there on the hills and brought to live with us where we stayed.

00:07:32It was a small place back then, but I think the rabbits were happy sharing space with

00:07:39us there.

00:07:41And that thing continues.

00:07:44Even today with me, six or eight rabbits are living, though now the place is far more spacious

00:07:51and they have an entire lawn and a lot of grass dedicated to them and a good bunny home.

00:07:58But at that time it was a small place and the rabbits were sharing space with us.

00:08:04So one of them, one of the rabbits, she had a problem in her leg.

00:08:15So her feet had no hair.

00:08:19So she couldn't properly move and the rabbits need to jump and the hind legs are where they

00:08:29extract most of their power from and that's where she had a problem.

00:08:35So she couldn't jump, but she could move, but not really the way rabbits do.

00:08:40We showed her to a lot of vets and they simply suggested euthanizing her.

00:08:46They said there is pain and there is no way this condition can be corrected.

00:08:51So just let her go.

00:08:52I said no.

00:08:53So I asked for the treatment.

00:08:58There was no cure, but there was treatment.

00:08:59The treatment was to apply the cream, the medicine daily and bandage her daily.

00:09:09So I would do that.

00:09:15But because she was not moving that much, probably her digestion suffered and because

00:09:23she was not moving around that much, so she was not mingling with other rabbits that much.

00:09:28So she would stay with me constantly and this was my table, my work table and here would

00:09:37be my laptop and Nandu would be sitting on her cushion next to my laptop, just looking

00:09:43at me and I would be working and she would be here and if I'm typing something, then

00:09:54she would simply stretch herself and lick my hand.

00:10:02We know cats and dogs to do that.

00:10:07We don't know that rabbits do that.

00:10:11It was very, very human-like affection, hardly a relationship between two different species.

00:10:22And then such were the times that I used to sleep right next to where I used to work.

00:10:28There was a special spiritual period in my journey.

00:10:32So I would work and then I would sleep right next to that place on the floor and then everybody

00:10:40would be gone in the night and then around midnight when there was nobody around, there

00:10:51would be these gentle footsteps and I would know Nandu is coming and she had nobody else

00:10:57to play with.

00:10:59So she would come and I'm lying and she would simply then sit on my stomach, my chest, do

00:11:09her thing and I would fall asleep.

00:11:13So it had kind of developed into a cute and strange love story between me and that little kid.

00:11:31And as I said her digestion, because she was not moving around that much, that was suffering

00:11:37and she stopped eating.

00:11:40It was a very painful period.

00:11:43We tried everything, she would just not eat.

00:11:46Her stomach had bloated and it's a special condition in rabbits where they feel they

00:11:52are already full because there is a bloat and then they don't eat.

00:11:59Then on the fourth day, right in my arms, she expired and I cried like a child for several

00:12:14days.

00:12:15Even to this day I just feel a bit angry at myself at not being able to save her.

00:12:24Then two or three days after that there was this movie I was watching, Ship of Theseus

00:12:31and it had footage of animals in labs and one of the footages had a rabbit being experimented

00:12:42upon in a cruel way obviously as happens in the labs.

00:12:48And that rabbit looked very much the same as Nandu and it was at that moment sitting

00:12:59there in the theater that I quit everything.

00:13:04It was effortless.

00:13:05It just happened and that day and this day.

00:13:14I'm a vegan and I'm glad I've only been able to I think inspire a lot of people, a few

00:13:24lab people at least, to give up on animal cruelty.

00:13:32That's how it all happened, a pretty longish introduction to the whole thing.

00:13:40Well that's an amazing story and I think a lot of people have stories of how either

00:13:46Nandu or Alice opened their eyes to animals and how they're so much like us, more than

00:13:57they're different from us.

00:14:01We have eyes, they have eyes.

00:14:04We have ears, they have ears.

00:14:06We have a heart, they have a heart.

00:14:09They feel joy and pain and jealousy and guilt and all of the same feelings and emotions

00:14:20that we do, even rats.

00:14:25We at PETA, we recently rescued over 150 rats and mice from Jitmar where they were being

00:14:34experimented on illegally.

00:14:38And rats and mice can be so loving when they get to know you and when they trust you.

00:14:49Just like Nandu, they come right up to you, they want to play.

00:14:56If you tickle them, they giggle.

00:15:00And you know, like all living beings, they just want to feel safe and they just want

00:15:09to feel loved.

00:15:12And I think what this reminds us of is that we do so many horrible things to animals because

00:15:26we consider them to be other.

00:15:29We consider them to be different and we focus solely on the differences in order to justify

00:15:38cutting them into pieces, putting them in cages so small that they can't even move or

00:15:45turn around or that their muscles atrophy, you know, suffocating them.

00:15:52All of the things that we do to animals for things we don't even need.

00:15:56I mean, for either a fleeting moment of taste or to turn their skin into a belt.

00:16:04I mean, these are frivolous kinds of things.

00:16:08We don't need to do that.

00:16:10And I think we can understand that it's wrong if we compare it to other things that we've

00:16:19recognized to be wrong.

00:16:22For example, racism or sexism.

00:16:26These are also things that were based on oppressing someone you consider to be an other.

00:16:35And similarly, speciesism is another wrong kind of ism where we put other species, we

00:16:49are cruel to other species simply on the basis that they're not our species.

00:16:57And we also use so many of the same kinds of justifications for being cruel to animals

00:17:05that we once did for being cruel to people of other races.

00:17:13You know, men used to use the same kind of justifications for being cruel to women that

00:17:18oh, you're not as smart as me, you're not as powerful as me, I'm able to do this.

00:17:26And we recognize those things now as completely flawed, not true at all.

00:17:33And similarly, animals are, we now know so much more about them today than we did yesterday.

00:17:41We know that they're intelligent.

00:17:44And it is really wrong to compare their intelligence with ours, because they do so many things

00:17:51that we can't do.

00:17:54And they are intelligent in ways that they require to live in their environment, just

00:18:02as we are.

00:18:03So, you know, we can't always look at them and compare them to human intelligence because

00:18:09it's not fair.

00:18:10They are so much more intelligent and capable than us in many ways, you know.

00:18:16In their own context.

00:18:17In their own context.

00:18:18We can't navigate from one continent to another without maps and without great technology,

00:18:25but birds can.

00:18:27Right.

00:18:28Right.

00:18:29You see, this otherness, the basis of this otherness is body identification.

00:18:39The woman is other, the other, to the man, because her body is different.

00:18:46The black is the other to the white, because his body is different.

00:18:53Similarly, the bodies of other species are obviously very different from those of our own.

00:19:04So, this feeling of otherness and the more we identify with our body, the more everybody

00:19:18will be an other.

00:19:21Even the father will be another, the mother will be another, the husband or the wife is

00:19:25bound to be another because their bodies are not ours.

00:19:31And by the same yardstick, coming from the same center, animals are very distantly others.

00:19:40My neighbor is an other.

00:19:43The body is different.

00:19:45The animal is so far away.

00:19:49And when the animal is so far away, one doesn't feel any commonness or similarity.

00:19:57It is impossible for us to have a feeling of otherness and yet show compassion.

00:20:12It cannot practically happen.

00:20:15So the common ground has to be searched.

00:20:18What is common between us and the animals?

00:20:22And the commonness is in consciousness.

00:20:25It is consciousness that we share with all human beings and also with all other sentient species.

00:20:34But for me to say that consciousness is what I share with a rabbit or a rat or a turkey,

00:20:43I must first identify myself primarily with my consciousness and not with my body.

00:20:50You see, if I am a body and let's say, look at me, if I am a male body, I will be forced

00:20:59to look at a woman as the other because the body is simply so different.

00:21:06But if I can keep my body aside for a while, not that I leap out of my body or something,

00:21:12just give it not the primary kind of importance.

00:21:18If I take myself as consciousness primarily, then it is possible to relate to the black,

00:21:29the white, the Chinese, the old, the young, the kid, the man, the woman, everybody.

00:21:39Because consciousness has no color, consciousness has no height, no form, no shape, no boundaries

00:21:46actually and when that realization comes, then compassion is a natural companion.

00:22:01It does happen.

00:22:03So when we talk of something like specie identification, speciesism as you said, the fundamental reason

00:22:16is body identification and it's curious that the same body identification is also responsible

00:22:25for all the evils that are plaguing mankind today and are leading to the devastation we

00:22:35have wrought on ourselves in the form of climate change.

00:22:39The more I am the body, the more I can do anything to please the body.

00:22:46I can burn fossil fuel, I can have a lot of animal farming, I can continuously allow or

00:22:56force species to go extinct because I am ruining their habitat, I am converting more and more

00:23:04jungles into farmland, arable land, and because I want more food, I want more food so that

00:23:14I can have more food and the animals I want to slaughter can have more food and eventually

00:23:21get slaughtered.

00:23:22Why?

00:23:23So that the body gets pleasure.

00:23:27The more I think of myself as the body, the more violent I would be.

00:23:38So all wisdom literature points towards body identification as the root cause of all violence

00:23:47and also body identification as the root ignorance.

00:23:52So that's the fundamental wrong knowledge, wrong notion that I am the body.

00:23:57If I am the body, I am bound to be violent and violent towards everybody including me,

00:24:04obviously how will I spare animals?

00:24:08So the attitude that we have towards animals is just a reflection of our inner ignorance

00:24:20towards ourself.

00:24:24We do not know who we are, so we take ourselves as this.

00:24:28We do not know who we are, we take ourselves as this and therefore we are violent towards

00:24:32everybody else because this is limited and anything outside of this is the other.

00:24:39Anything outside of this skin sack is the other.

00:24:44Now if the other is the other and this is who I am, then to what extent can I be related

00:24:50to the other?

00:24:51I am fundamentally related, permanently wedded to the stuff inside this skin sack and that's

00:24:59where it all comes from.

00:25:02What alarms me, it was very interesting, your vegan story when you said that you're initially

00:25:07vegetarian because you came from a Gujarati traditional background and there people are

00:25:13generally vegetarian.

00:25:15Most people who are vegetarian today, especially in India, are vegetarian not because they

00:25:22understand, they are vegetarian because of cultural or traditional reasons and that's

00:25:29the reason why when let's say a boy from traditionally vegetarian family, typically a Brahmin or

00:25:40a Jain family goes out to the campus, let's say he gets admission in an engineering college

00:25:48and he's now staying in a hostel.

00:25:51It takes him not more than two or four months to take to meet because that's what peer influence

00:25:58and peer pressure do to him and that kind of thing does not long because it is not coming

00:26:04from wisdom, tradition, culture, ethics.

00:26:11If they are not coming from understanding, they cannot last and I would like to think

00:26:20that is also the fundamental challenge the vegan movement faces today, lack of understanding.

00:26:29Why must one turn vegan?

00:26:31Because the argument is not spontaneous, not obvious.

00:26:36When we counsel someone, please turn vegan, please don't be cruel to animals, they'll

00:26:44have something to say about their choices.

00:26:47Not everybody will quickly agree or understand and then the argument coming from the vegan

00:26:53side is ethically very strong, but then ethics can be something personal.

00:27:06Somebody may not agree with ethics, ethics cannot be absolute, ethical codes as we know

00:27:14vary across ages, continents, people, cultures.

00:27:20So the pace of the whole thing remains slow because we do not see that it's not so much

00:27:28about animals, it's about us.

00:27:33I am not right, therefore I am cruel to animals, I am not right within, that's the reason I

00:27:41am cruel to animals and if I am cruel to animals, there will be so much, my cruelty towards

00:27:47animals is proof that there will be so much that is wrong in my personal life as well.

00:27:55Now when that relationship becomes obvious, it becomes important, rather unavoidable for

00:28:05people to listen.

00:28:09So if we could bring wisdom at the center of veganism rather than ethics or even compassion,

00:28:29then probably we might see greater success, because the compassion that we talk of is

00:28:35mostly an ethical moral thing, when we say well you should be compassionate, it's more

00:28:41of a moral thing, a moral sound it has, please be compassionate, please don't be cruel.

00:28:50Now the why and the where and the whom is not absolutely clear in this, but surely there

00:28:59is a moral authority when we say please be compassionate, that sounds good, but does

00:29:05not necessarily work, because people are selfish and that's not an allegation, that's how we

00:29:11all are, we all care for our self-interest.

00:29:17Can we display to them that it is not a matter of ethics that you display towards others,

00:29:25it is not a matter of your ethical disposition towards others, it's a matter of your inner

00:29:31health, it's a matter of your own life, please be better within, and then you find that veganism

00:29:44becomes simply inevitable, you have to be a vegan.

00:29:56I look at the vegan community and I have been in close touch with a lot of vegans and I

00:30:05really admire the work they are doing in very adverse circumstances, there is a lot in India

00:30:12especially and that is harsh on vegan activists and they work against all odds.

00:30:23I know of a few rescue operations that involved personal risk, I've met those people, I've

00:30:33heard of them, so they are all good people, very nice people.

00:30:43If they could somehow also develop that core of understanding, who we are and therefore

00:30:55what our relationship with the entire world including the animal world should be.

00:31:01I think you've raised so many interesting points in what you've said and I think we

00:31:08see evidence of not being right inside because it spills over not only into how you treat

00:31:18animals but into how you treat other people, how you treat the planet.

00:31:27Now, there is not so much of this research that is compiled in India but abroad they

00:31:35are finding that people who are cruel to animals, who have committed crimes against animals

00:31:42often move on to committing crimes against human beings, there is so much documentation

00:31:50in those countries where people who harm their spouses have often harmed the dogs in the

00:31:59house first, serial killers, school shooters, the majority of them have a history of cruelty

00:32:09to animals, they practiced with animals first, they didn't learn that that was wrong and

00:32:17they extended that self misery you could say onto somebody else and that goes on and

00:32:24on and on and we've even sort of seen that even in a slaughterhouse setting or a laboratory

00:32:33setting where people become desensitized to the cruelty and in so many of our investigations

00:32:41the kind that you spoke about, we've seen that in addition to the cruelty that's already

00:32:47taking place that's inherent at the factory farm or at the slaughterhouse, a lot of times

00:32:53the workers are being even more cruel to the animals, that they are in a laboratory setting

00:33:04they may start by first being cruel to a rat and then they escalate that cruelty to then

00:33:12on to other animals, even more severe cruelty, even more painful procedures and it's that not

00:33:20being right inside that is making things worse and worse as things go on, more victims, new species

00:33:33of victims, even more severe cruelty because it's not being stopped, nobody is addressing it

00:33:41with those people, nobody has perhaps pointed it out to them what the core problem is and it's the

00:33:49same type of thing for the environment, if we see the planet as ours to take from, if we see animals

00:34:00as ours to use for any type of pleasure, I mean you spoke about pleasure but the pleasure really

00:34:08how long does it last? When we eat an animal, the so-called pleasure, it lasts for a few seconds

00:34:18on our tongue, that's it, this animal has suffered from birth unto death for a few seconds on our

00:34:27tongue or if we turn that animal into a wallet, how much pleasure is this wallet really bringing to you?

00:34:36If you look at it from the perspective of a pleasure seeker, he says you are very right, I

00:34:47understand the pleasure that I get from it is momentary, doesn't last, but what do I do? Because

00:34:55we have a consciousness that seeks freedom from misery, beautifully you put it that we are all

00:35:05miserable within and the same misery spills over to the rest of the world, beautifully put, we are

00:35:11indeed miserable within and that misery is there right from the start. I have seen kids like

00:35:20one year old and that kid, there is a procession of aunts going towards the tree, you would have

00:35:28seen red aunts going towards the tree and climbing and it's a huge procession, it's like

00:35:3320 meters long or something and the kid is actually peeing on the procession and he is

00:35:43taking, this has good fun, so the kid is standing, the kid is one or two years old, barely able to

00:35:48walk and he is moving and peeing on the procession and enjoying the fact that the aunts are getting

00:35:54killed, so the seeds of violence are there in us right since birth, that misery that we are talking

00:36:05and because we are miserable, so we seek freedom from misery, we do not know how that freedom will

00:36:17be achieved because we are not only miserable, we are also ignorant, we are miserable and we are

00:36:24ignorant, so we do not know how to get freedom from that misery, so we seek pleasure. Now I am

00:36:31continuously feeling that misery within, continuously, I am a common man, I want freedom from that, so I

00:36:39seek pleasure, even if I get momentary pleasure from let's say the taste of meat, I go for it,

00:36:46the pleasure does not last, after a few minutes then I run towards something else and that's the

00:36:52entire life of the average individual, running from pleasure to pleasure for 80 years continuously,

00:37:03being dissatisfied at all points and still not losing hope and probably that's why hope happens

00:37:11to be such an important word in all cultures, if there is no misery, there is no need for hope,

00:37:18if misery could be brought to a permanent end, again there is no need for hope, we fully will

00:37:27know that any relief from misery is just ephemeral, misery returns and therefore you have to continuously

00:37:34keep hoping and that's why people win elections, talking of US, on the word hope, hope, let's hope,

00:37:42so you go to a meat eater or you go to any kind of an average debauched person and you tell him,

00:37:53you are not getting anything from it, he will say better something than nothing, either give me

00:37:58complete relief from misery or let me have what I want to have, now what is happening is that,

00:38:05it's a consciousness within that's miserable right since birth, the moment we are born,

00:38:12we cry aloud, the child is wailing all the time and the child because of ignorance,

00:38:23I said we are miserable, we are ignorant, because of ignorance is also tied to the body,

00:38:28the child takes itself as the body, when I have to point at myself, I say come to me,

00:38:35here I am, the body is who I am, so I am miserable and I am the body, so how do I remove my misery

00:38:42using the body, so then I give myself bodily pleasures to get rid of my inner misery,

00:38:47the misery is inside, the body is not miserable, you see, I might be very sad, very tense,

00:38:53very depressed, does that make my knees ache, no, does not, my nose is alright,

00:39:00my eyes are alright, I can hear properly and yet I am miserable within, so the body is not

00:39:06a participant in the misery, the body is not contributing to the misery, but because I feel

00:39:13I am the body, so to get relief from the misery, I use my body and how do I use my body, by rushing

00:39:20after all kinds of bodily pleasures, meat eating being one, exploiting animals being one, all kinds

00:39:29of things that we do, because we do not know any other way, so one could say and justifiably so,

00:39:38that we are not really evil, we are just stupid and all evil is just stupidity, we do not know

00:39:45how to get rid of our inner condition of suffering, so we do all the nonsense and wickedness that we

00:39:54do to ourselves and to the world, could we somehow, could we somehow bring this out to the

00:40:04people, that I know you are cruel, because you are miserable, but being cruel won't help you out

00:40:14of your misery, there are other ways possible, if we could display the other ways to them, there

00:40:22would hardly be any need to harm and hurt and destroy everybody else the way we do, we do not

00:40:32see any other option, I am being told killing a rabbit is bad, I will probably agree, everybody

00:40:42would agree, there is the rabbit, you show the rabbit and say, you know it's bad to kill that

00:40:47rabbit or hurt that rabbit, who would not agree, the next day you find that person feasting on the

00:40:53same rabbit, what's happening, he was not being dishonest when he agreed, he agreed it's bad,

00:40:59but by the time, it is the next day, his own inner incompleteness and misery have overpowered him,

00:41:10he is just feeling that vacuum within and he does not know how to fill it up, so he says,

00:41:19bring it on, serve it on the table, the rabbit and that's what is happening, I also see a worrying

00:41:29trend of people retreating from veganism, they become vegans, because they understand to an

00:41:39extent what is being said, at least intellectually they understand and then they go back to their

00:41:46usual ways, that's a small number, I don't know, maybe 10%, 20%, that also might be temporary,

00:41:57like they become vegan and they revert and then they again might, so all that is because as human

00:42:09beings, we are simply not good within, in spite of all the technological progress and all the

00:42:18knowledge that we have and the economic powers, we are far more affluent prosperous today than

00:42:27any other time in history, the per capita income of the world as a whole is many times higher than

00:42:35what it used to be in the 19th century than the 17th and previous centuries, the means of

00:42:44communications are so very advanced, even the ordinary man will be able to think of leaping

00:42:54into space probably within a few decades, look at medical science, the average lifespan today is

00:43:02close to 80 years, if you look at Europe or US, it's nearing 85, 90, we are doing wonderfully well

00:43:10when it comes to the material things, the bodily and the gross things, it is the subtle inner world

00:43:19that is still in despair and it is because of that despair that we are hurting and harming everybody,

00:43:29actually the inner child is saying, I am not happy and if I am not happy, why should I let

00:43:36anybody be happy? And a lot of people are addicted to these foods, they're addicted to the cheese

00:43:47and they're addicted to the milk and but there's good news about that, they say that you can

00:43:53break these addictions in just about a month's time, it doesn't take more than that and I always

00:44:00tell people that when you're trying to go vegan, okay, if you fall off the wagon and you have

00:44:10ice cream or something one day, keep going, don't go all the way back, don't say, oh I can't do it

00:44:17now, you know, keep going because it really only takes one month and a lot of people are really

00:44:24almost vegan already, you know, so many of the foods that we have, the subsies and the dolls and

00:44:31these are all usually vegan, so it's really not such a huge jump to, you know, to drop the

00:44:41paneer or to drop the cream, these are small, small changes and especially nowadays, we don't even

00:44:46have to drop it, we have the oat milks and we have the vegan yogurts and the vegan ice creams which

00:44:52all taste the same but what you were saying about, you know, inner happiness, I find that, you know,

00:45:03when I started going vegan and I've heard this from so many people that you almost instantly start

00:45:14feeling healthier, you know, I never have to go to the doctor and you hear people who've had

00:45:26a heart disease or who've had diabetes, you know, essentially reverse these conditions through

00:45:34eating plants and it's also you feel a sense of control, self-control in your life, I think by

00:45:46being in charge of what you're doing, deliberately eating, deliberately not hurting others, whereas

00:45:55if you're eating meat and if you're just going through the whims and fancies of your fleeting

00:46:03desires, I think you can really feel a lack of control, you know, you can feel out of control

00:46:11and that's another benefit of eating vegan, being a disciplined eater that someone who lives in a

00:46:24disciplined manner and tries to be as compassionate as possible, we can't control everything, you know,

00:46:30if we're walking down the street, we might accidentally step on an ant, we wouldn't

00:46:34deliberately step on an ant but we may accidentally do so, so it's not about perfection, it's about

00:46:42doing your best and if you do your best, from people I've spoken to, they start feeling happier,

00:46:51there's, you know, those feelings of misery, those feelings of, you know, trying to fill a void really

00:46:59start going away. Well said. I would just extend this thing, you see, obviously there is a strong

00:47:08vegan argument when it comes to physical health, it is obvious, you feel better, in fact you get

00:47:19rid of a few ailments just by dropping dairy and meat obviously, you also lose weight, people have

00:47:29lost a few good kgs within a month or so the day they turn vegan, so all that is definitely there,

00:47:40your heart feels better, I am talking about the physical heart, so obviously there are health

00:47:48benefits to veganism but then there can be counter arguments also and there are strong counter

00:47:58arguments, people talk of B12, vitamin D, calcium, iron, so many things, protein, so many things,

00:48:08obviously those arguments are flawed and we can refute them sitting right here, we can talk of

00:48:16alternate sources of protein, of B12, of many things. When it comes to true inner health, when it

00:48:30comes to the argument arising from consciousness, you know what we say, we say even if it hurts my

00:48:40health, even if it hurts my health, why should I harm someone else, even if I have to die starving,

00:48:52why will I kill somebody else, so obviously we talk of the health benefits of veganism,

00:49:02the physical health benefits, I too talk of them and I have experienced them, so I can quite

00:49:07credibly talk of those health benefits, but in my mind it has to be principally another argument,

00:49:18you know life is anyway not unlimited, you live for 80 years maybe, it's okay to live for 60, 70,

00:49:35if you have to lose 10 years of your life, if you have to, you don't have to, but suppose if you have to,

00:49:40but live healthily, live in a way that has dignity, what is the point in extending my life at the cost

00:49:51of little animals, I mean look at the chicken, the hen, the cock, the rabbit, even the goat, the sheep,

00:50:02how does my sense of inner dignity allow me to have a great and healthy looking body and wonderful

00:50:17strong bones and glowing skin at the cost of the life of that little rabbit, I mean is it not

00:50:26indignified, is it not indignified, when it comes to this argument, I found practically this shuts

00:50:38down all other arguments, otherwise there is a whole lot of literature today on the internet,

00:50:49for example, that talks of people suffering neural diseases because they went vegan and the

00:50:57woman was pregnant and vegan, so the child suffered, she was not taking enough B12 and all,

00:51:06all that is obviously false and there are obvious and simple and easy straightforward ways to take

00:51:17care of your vitamin D and B12 needs and all those things, no issues at all, we in the foundation

00:51:25are all vegan, most of us do not even need any supplements, some of us do at times and then we

00:51:34take those supplements, that's all, there are organic supplements available, not expensive either,

00:51:39it's not difficult at all, but I suppose the final argument should be, even if my own health

00:51:47were to suffer, I am still not going to touch the chicken, full stop, there is a life there,

00:51:56there is a life here, to prolong my life, I am not going to cut short her life and if this be so,

00:52:07the discussion is concluded, then that person cannot say much beyond this and it sounds

00:52:17impractical, but believe me it works. Well, I mean, I think that's a beautiful sentiment,

00:52:23I mean, for me the health is certainly secondary, it's a benefit because there are studies that show

00:52:30that vegans live longer, that we are healthier, that we don't suffer from all of these lifestyle

00:52:36ailments to the degree that meat eaters do and so on and you know, there's a whole documentary,

00:52:44The Game Changers, about how athletes benefit from eating vegan and you talked about body

00:52:52consciousness and how, you know, we are so aware of our own bodies and there is one body part that

00:53:01I encourage people to focus on when it comes to animals and it's their eyes because if you see a

00:53:11pig's eyes looking back out at you from a truck where she's on her way to slaughter, you will see

00:53:20a person in there, there is a person behind there and if you look into a chicken's eyes,

00:53:27you will recognize, you will forget the difference between our body and their body

00:53:34because you will see in her eyes that she's got feelings and she is scared and that she

00:53:41doesn't want to die any more than you or I do and so if ever in doubt, look into the animal's eyes,

00:53:50you will know everything you need to know by doing that, by looking into the animal's eyes.

00:53:57Beautifully put, lovely. The only problem is most people do not look into even their own eyes in the

00:54:05mirror. They should. That's what is called as absence of self-knowledge in spirituality. We

00:54:14do not know who we are. We usually don't bother to peep into our own inner self because that hurts.

00:54:23There is, as you said, a mass of misery inside. Everything just beaten into pulp, that kind of

00:54:35hurt within. So we don't care to acknowledge our own inner state. Self-knowledge, Atma Gyan,

00:54:43that's something that we desperately avoid. So we keep looking outwards. We gather a lot of

00:54:52external knowledge. We know about the world. We know about the continents. We know about the cosmos.

00:55:00We know about the origin of the universe, all cosmological stuff. We know about so much. We don't

00:55:06know, we don't want to know how it is within and if we could see what is there in our own eyes,

00:55:15as you said, just one look at the pig's eyes or the goat's eyes would suffice. Much the same thing

00:55:28is there, much the same thing. We are all united, not even united, we are all one at the level of

00:55:38the inner consciousness that suffers. We are all one and that identification would immediately stop

00:55:50us from being cruel, because now me and that one are just one. Being cruel to her is being

00:56:01cruel to myself and that's probably the only way we can bring a conclusive end to this gory specter

00:56:16of, you know, the per capita consumption in India, meat consumption India has risen incredibly over

00:56:26the last 10-15 years and also the proportion of meat eaters. It's still among the lowest in the

00:56:37world, but it's rising very alarmingly. How does one address that? One has to address that by

00:56:48looking the whole thing in totality. As humanity we are going down a slippery slope of consciousness,

00:57:01we are degrading in almost everything. You look at the quality of the output in arts,

00:57:12for example, look at the state of philosophy or poetry and you find when it comes to the

00:57:20products of consciousness, we are not really doing well, especially in the fields where

00:57:25self-knowledge is required. Science we are doing okay, technology we are doing great,

00:57:31but there we don't need self-knowledge. There we need knowledge of the world,

00:57:35not self-knowledge. In humanities one requires self-knowledge and we aren't doing well there

00:57:41at all. Reduction of forest cover, all the COP summits and all, how they are going waste and

00:57:54how we are all just fooling ourselves in the name of doing something substantial towards the climate

00:58:04and you realize all of that has a common center and that common center is that we are just going

00:58:15blind towards ourselves. We are saying, we are suffering, we want to have a good time, let us

00:58:22have a good time, an inner state of drunkenness. I really wonder how veganism can succeed if the

00:58:37climate catastrophe is not addressed. I wonder how veganism can succeed if the consumption binge

00:58:48is not addressed or how veganism can succeed if the buildup of nuclear arsenals is not arrested.

00:59:00So we had the US and the USSR when I was young and they had around 10,000 weapons each and now

00:59:14China too is going to top a thousand weapons and obviously India and Pakistan and Israel can't be

00:59:22far behind and Iran too is in the fray and if Iran is there then Saudi Arabia will want a deterrent

00:59:33of her own and all of these things are related to animal welfare and animal rights. The connection

00:59:40does not seem obvious. Obviously you are saying, yes the Russia and Ukraine are fighting and how

00:59:46is that related to veganism. It is related to veganism. It is related to veganism and all these

00:59:51problems that we are facing, they all have a common center and that common center is human

00:59:58consciousness. We do not know who we are. We take ourselves to be these bodies and we keep rushing

01:00:06after physical pleasure and I have no problem with physical pleasure. It is just that it does

01:00:11not suffice. Not that it is evil. It is simply stupid. Could physical pleasure give us lasting

01:00:22relief? I would be the first one to go after physical pleasure. It says that it fails and that

01:00:28is what is leading to all these things. I am pretty sure but let me just reel off a few numbers.

01:00:36The number of species of flora and fauna that are going extinct per day today is 10 times the

01:00:48natural rate. If you compare the number today to the number that we had a century earlier, it is

01:00:5610 times and even as we talk, even over the last 30 minutes or an hour, about a dozen species have

01:01:07gone extinct. That is the rate. How is that not related to veganism? Obviously it is. So unless

01:01:16we have that awareness, that sensitivity that we are bringing ourselves to a 360 degree kind of

01:01:22destruction because of a central reason of self-ignorance, how will we manage to pluck

01:01:33ourselves out of this mess? Yesterday I was at Bandipur National Park because there is an animal

01:01:44sanctuary next to it where I had to do some work and I saw many animals, elephants, peacocks,

01:01:52langurs and I also saw a tiger and a leopard. The leopard was very fast. I could not see her that

01:01:58much but I managed to see the tiger and of course they are so rare. You are like, wow, what a beauty.

01:02:05And then I realized, well, driving into the forest, it is only that little patch of forest that she

01:02:16has. Everything else has been cut down and most people do not realize that 45%, nearly half of

01:02:26the world's global surface area is now used for raising animals for meat, eggs and dairy. It is

01:02:37a very, very important statistic. So there is a direct link. If you care, so many people save the

01:02:44tiger, save the orangutan, save the elephants. If you care about these animals, then you have to

01:02:52stop eating animals because all of the forests are being bulldozed down to make way for the animals

01:03:03people eat or the crops to feed them. And one third of the world's cropland goes not to feeding

01:03:12ourselves, but to feed animals. One third. One third of our freshwater resources goes into

01:03:25raising animals for meat, eggs and dairy. Instead, we could consume these plants directly. We could

01:03:33address world hunger. And so there is an absolute direct link between the forest and the wild

01:03:43animals. I mean, most of the Amazon has been cut down purely for beef and leather. The Amazon

01:03:53provides us oxygen. So we are, if we're harming animals, we are directly harming ourselves.

01:04:00And that brings us to the flawed definition of development. What is development? Development

01:04:09for us again is something very material. We measure GDP. If animals are feeling good,

01:04:20does that contribute to GDP? It does not. So why should animals be cared for? That does not

01:04:27contribute to GDP. If two people are in love, does that love contribute to GDP? It does not.

01:04:36So why should love be valued? If a person has self-knowledge and is sitting still,

01:04:45does that contribute to GDP? That does not. But if you hack down a jungle and instead start mining

01:04:54there, or build an industrial complex there, or cut a highway through the jungle, that contributes

01:05:07to GDP. And then the economists and the leaders can claim that there is progress, progress of

01:05:18the material kind, and everybody can celebrate. This flawed concept of you see who we are and

01:05:27what we need is at the center of all our problems. We think we need development of the kind where we

01:05:36have more and more material affluence. And elections are won and lost on this plank.

01:05:43I gave you more, I gave you more. Now you have a shopping mall, now you have this,

01:05:50now you have that. The question is, is that what the individual really needs? In fact,

01:05:58so much is the care for material affluence that we are not caring even for physical things like

01:06:07healthcare. Having a shopping mall takes precedence over having a hospital, even though both pertain

01:06:19to the body. A shopping mall takes care of your physical needs, a hospital too does that,

01:06:25but the hospital does that in a more fundamental way. We don't even want to take care of hospitals,

01:06:30we are more concerned with shopping malls, that's our idea of development. And in that

01:06:37idea animals have no space. Even human beings have no space, how can animals have space? We

01:06:45don't care even about ourselves, how will we care about animals, had we known what we really want.

01:06:51Our idea of development would have primarily meant inner awareness, inner fulfillment,

01:06:59taking care of the primary problem. The primary problem is within, it is not outside,

01:07:09it is not from bodies that we are weak or suffering. It is in the minds that we face

01:07:19weaknesses and suffering. That's the reason when we sleep, we might have had a miserable day. The

01:07:30moment we go to sleep, all our problems have vanished, because it was the mind that was

01:07:39facing all the problems. But we don't want to acknowledge the place where the problem is. We

01:07:51instant keep treating it at places where the problem is not. It's so dramatic, like searching

01:08:01for something at a place where it just is not, or treating the wrong patient, not even the wrong

01:08:09disease. We've had so many jokes, when a person comes with a toothache and the stupid doctor

01:08:18starts treating the knee, and we all laugh at such jokes, don't we? But right now the problem

01:08:25is even more hilarious. I've gone to the doctor and the doctor has started treating you. So that's

01:08:37the situation that we have today. We just don't want to acknowledge that it's the mind that has

01:08:43the problem, not the body. So any kind of pleasures that you supply to the body will not suffice.

01:08:50And the entire national-international discourse has to change. We have to figure out who we are

01:09:02as human beings, what is the definition of progress, when do we call ourselves a developed

01:09:09society. We call, for example, the US, let's say, a developed first world country, when it has one

01:09:20of the highest per capita meat consumption rates. Now if we really were conscious people, would we

01:09:28call the US a developed country? We would say no, it's a savage, barbaric country. It's following a

01:09:36very primitive way of living, a very tribal and grotesque and bloody way of living. Why do we

01:09:44call that country a first world country? But we don't. Why? Because the US has, what, 15 trillion

01:09:53dollars of GDP and the biggest military complex, the highest number of nuclear weapons and a lot

01:10:06of prowess, a lot of handle on everything that happens in the world. So, is that what we value?

01:10:15If we value all those things, we will be cruel to animals. Please understand. The same thing that

01:10:22makes us value the US will make us cruel towards the rabbit. What is it that we value? We value

01:10:34somebody's muscle power. We value somebody's ability to hurt us in retaliation. We value the

01:10:46amount of money somebody has. Obviously, the US has great universities as well, but then we hardly

01:10:53go there looking for knowledge. We go there looking for money and prosperity and power and

01:10:59all of them incidentally come through knowledge. So, we value the US because it is big, big and

01:11:08powerful and moneyed and violent and for that same reason we will never respect the rabbit

01:11:16because it has no money, because it is small, because it cannot retaliate and it has no influence

01:11:22even in the jungle. So, if the US is to be respected, the rabbit has to be killed. So,

01:11:33are we raising our kids properly? What's our education system like? What are the values we

01:11:42are instilling our kids? What are we telling them? Because you can't raise a kid wrongly and then

01:11:50be successful in having her as a vegan. It will be very difficult to bring about that kind of

01:11:59conversion, if I may say, and we face that trouble daily. I'm sure you too. Somebody has been on a

01:12:06particular track for 25 years. It becomes difficult now, not impossible. Obviously, we succeed, but

01:12:12there is a momentum that habit carries, and the ego is kind of enslaved to its past. Are we raising

01:12:25our kids rightly? Are we teaching them what to respect and what not to respect? Are we just,

01:12:34for example, let me say, when I was a kid, in my textbooks, we would rank countries on two

01:12:43parameters. One was the countries with the biggest populations. So, please tell us the top five

01:12:53countries by population. That would be a question in the examination, class 3 or 4 or 5, and by

01:13:00landmass. So, the teacher would say, please tell us the top five countries by their area. So, what

01:13:09are we teaching the kids to respect? Numbers and size. How will we respect the rabbit now? And you

01:13:19know, what we teach kids is one thing, but we can learn a lot from our kids, because you gave the

01:13:28example of the child who might urinate on the ants, but there's also so many children who say,

01:13:35you know, when they learn that there's an animal on their plate, they say, no, what is this? I don't

01:13:42want to eat an animal. You know, you see this in cases of animal sacrifice, where the child will

01:13:50protest and say, no, please don't kill this goat, or please don't kill this chicken. And there is

01:13:58this inherent kindness, and sometimes we teach them to be cruel. We teach them to set aside that

01:14:07inherent kindness, and to disregard it. Whereas, that's not the way that many kids naturally are.

01:14:16So, I think there's a lot of times that we should actually listen to them. And about GDP, you know,

01:14:24you were mentioning, well, now we are kind of reaping what we sowed, where we're realizing that

01:14:32the effects of climate change are having a massive effect on GDP and are projected to have a massive

01:14:40effect on GDP. So there goes all this so-called development that we were talking about. And we're

01:14:48learning the lesson that the environment is important, that animals are important, even if we

01:14:54have to learn it economically, we're learning it. And we're learning it the hard way. And the meat

01:15:04industry or the egg industry or the dairy industry will not tell you that there's such a major

01:15:09contributor to climate change, to the greenhouse gases that cause climate change, so much so that by

01:15:17some estimates, it said that the meat, egg, and dairy industries contribute more greenhouse gases

01:15:23than the transport sector. So all planes, trucks, airplanes, you know, ships combined. The water

01:15:31wastage, you know, these are not things that they will tell you. Similarly, the meat, egg, and dairy

01:15:39industries, they use so much advertising power, and so much strength to try to hide from people what

01:15:48they do behind closed doors. And so part of that, bringing about a change, part of that awareness is

01:15:58showing people what actually happens. And that's something that we focus very heavily on trying to

01:16:05do, because most people are kind. You know, most people, like you say, if you ask them, they're never

01:16:12going to say, yes, I want to herd a rabbit. Most people don't want to. But most people also don't

01:16:18really know what happens at the hands of these industries, because these industries will not want

01:16:25to tell you.

01:16:27You know, there's a bit of a spin there. When it comes to the effect of climate change on GDP, the

01:16:37countries that would suffer the most are the ones with the lowest GDPs. So the developed world will

01:16:47suffer, but proportionally way lesser than what a country like India or Pakistan would suffer. For

01:16:56example, the recent floods in Pakistan cost that country around 14% of its GDP. 14% is big. Nothing

01:17:09that happens in the US is going to cost the US 14% of its GDP. So what would happen? All countries

01:17:16would suffer, but some would suffer more than the others. So the power differential would only

01:17:23increase in favor of the developed world, which is the biggest polluter and the biggest contributor.

01:17:29And they shift their pollution to these countries, like India and Bangladesh, you know, the leather

01:17:38industry. So what would happen is that the loss in GDP argument would fall flat, because climate

01:17:48change contributing to a loss in GDP actually works in favor of the polluters, which is the developed

01:17:59world. So this argument is actually not going to work too much. That's what I'm afraid of. No

01:18:06argument is going to work. If we say, you know, that GDP is important, and if you don't take care

01:18:18of GDP, then if you don't take care of climate change, then GDP would suffer. We are still agreeing

01:18:31to the fact that GDP is important, and you must take care of the climate so that GDP is protected.

01:18:38This probably will not go far. We have to have not GDP, but consciousness as the first thing. That's

01:18:48what I want to assert a bit. So I suppose just to intermittently conclude, we could probably just

01:19:06remind ourselves, reiterate to ourselves, that we are in a deep inner and outer mess. Inwardly, we

01:19:16are facing the epidemic of mental health, which is the misery thing that you talked of. Because we

01:19:24are miserable, therefore today we are more depressed and more anxious than we ever were.

01:19:29Huge amount of data, public data, is there in our face to see that the levels of stress and anxiety

01:19:48that an average individual is facing today is many times higher than what even soldiers were

01:19:54facing a century back. So inwardly we are doing very badly, and outwardly we are in the sixth mass

01:20:07extinction phase. Average global temperatures have already risen by 1.5 degrees centigrade.

01:20:15From 280 ppm, we are talking of 450 ppm carbon dioxide now. Not only is the current situation bad,

01:20:27we are getting worse at an accelerating rate. Forget about climate emissions being reduced,

01:20:40they are just increasing. They are still increasing and increasing at an accelerating rate. And even

01:20:48if we are talking of going net zero, we are talking of 2050, and that's net zero, not a

01:20:56reduction, that's just a net zero. And even that net zero, when you read between the lines, is quite

01:21:03deceptive. We are losing so many species every day. I mean, it's catastrophic simply. Doomsday,

01:21:19inwardly and outwardly. All these problems are interrelated and at the center of all these

01:21:30problems is the crisis in human consciousness. Veganism cannot be a direct solution, but

01:21:44veganism is something that would immediately happen when the crisis is resolved. So veganism

01:21:51would be a great symptom of inner improvement, whereas if inwardly we remain who we are and yet

01:22:03try to push veganism, either we will not succeed greatly or even if we succeed, the success would

01:22:13be just a bit superficial, because the person, I am pretty sure you would be seeing a lot of

01:22:22people like those. Vegan and yet not the right person. Vegan and yet cruel towards animals in

01:22:30very indirect ways. I, for example, talk of people who say they are vegan and yet decide to have two

01:22:39or three kids. And we very well know that the greatest danger to forests and animals today is

01:22:48the explosion in human population. So you decide that you will not have a chicken on your plate,

01:22:54but you have had kids and numerous kids and they will require roads and hospitals and schools and

01:23:02shopping malls and everything else and lots of industries. Further the kids you have produced

01:23:07procreate further. One kid being born today is actually death sentence to lakhs of animals.

01:23:20That kind of veganism hardly helps. That's a veganism without a shift in center and when

01:23:29that shift in center, the center of human consciousness, when that shift in center

01:23:34happens, then veganism is a natural, smooth, organic result. So that's what we are looking

01:23:42at and when we probably look at veganism that way, it becomes easier to bring others on board,

01:23:50because now we are not talking only about animals, we are talking about everything in

01:23:55the world including the welfare of the very person we are talking to. Else it's a discussion on,

01:24:02I am okay, you are okay. The poor goat is not okay, she is being slaughtered. I am okay,

01:24:08you are okay. The poor rabbit is not okay, because her fur are being exploited or she

01:24:16is being taken to a research lab and all kinds of vicious experiments, but we two are okay,

01:24:22both of us are okay. It's the animal world that needs to be taken care of. No, I think the approach

01:24:29has to be, we are not okay and if we have killed an animal, the animal is actually gone. We are

01:24:37left to live and suffer. We are not okay. We are not okay, we are not okay both inwardly and

01:24:44outwardly and the treatment therefore has to be within. Otherwise, the kind of atrocity we are

01:24:56heaping on everybody is incredible. Yes, and as you were talking, I was thinking that eating vegan

01:25:06can almost be thought of as a medicine, a daily medicine for self-improvement, because it's

01:25:11something that you choose to do every day, 2-3 times a day, what you put in your body and so

01:25:20it is part of your journey of this self-improvement that you talk about. Wonderful, and a reminder,

01:25:28when you take in vegan food, it's also a reminder that we are in a crisis and much much more needs

01:25:34to be done. So, a daily reminder two times or three times, because we are indeed at a special

01:25:40moment in history, when we are facing a catastrophe like never before and veganism is an important

01:25:48front, very very important front in that struggle. However, the center of that struggle is human

01:25:53consciousness. I think we'll need to talk repeatedly about it and we'll need to have

01:26:02many more such conversations and yeah, many more must follow after this. Yes, it's been

01:26:11wonderful speaking to you today. Thank you so much.

Category

Transcript

Recommended