Video Information: 22.02.23, SPA College (Online), Greater Noida
Context:
~ Why do people commit suicide?
~ What is the end of suffering?
~ Are we actually living?
~ What is the worst that happens when I die?
~ How to develop compassion?
~ Do we really care about the poor?
~ How long should one live?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant
Context:
~ Why do people commit suicide?
~ What is the end of suffering?
~ Are we actually living?
~ What is the worst that happens when I die?
~ How to develop compassion?
~ Do we really care about the poor?
~ How long should one live?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00So, my question is that, so as we currently know, the earth is overpopulated and you know
00:18sometimes people around me very loosely say that the people who are physically, you know
00:24mentally or economically not so well off, they are better off dead. So, I want to ask that what
00:33is your take and what do you think is the reason of such insensitivity?
00:44Basic lack of love towards life which is consciousness, what else?
00:48You know, this question should be accompanied by the query, how do people manage to kill so many
00:57animals for flesh every day? Billions of animals every day. And someone who gleefully
01:08gloats over animal flesh and stuffs it in, how far is he from demanding that all the disabled and the poor
01:24and the destitute people be simply jettisoned?
01:31We are cruel people. We are very animalistic and if we can't see that, that's just because of our animalism.
01:46That's the problem, right? The more animalistic you are, the less you see that you are an animal.
01:52And then we are doing that every day. I mean, we call ourselves
01:56cultured and civilized and whatnot and look at the way these trucks and carriers full of
02:13chicken and goats and lambs, they weave through our cities.
02:21So many times, your own vehicle would have stopped behind one of those
02:32vehicles that carry those small cells in which chicken are stashed. Have you seen one of them?
02:42And you would have seen those birds and you would have just gone on, continued with your day.
02:53That's the kind of people we are. And you visit a great restaurant, a very expensive one
03:01and the more expensive it is, the more you have food items marked with red dots on the menu.
03:09In fact, it's becoming difficult to get even vegetarian food, leave alone vegan.
03:19I was traveling by this
03:28important airlines and they brought the food menu. This was just three days back. I was returning from
03:36IIT Guwahati and it happened both ways, to and fro.
03:42First of all, there was just one vegan option and that too was not available.
03:50So ultimately, in their vegetarian section,
03:57they had chole and paratha and the paratha too was made of ghee.
04:05So I said, just give me the chole, that's all, nothing else and some salad if you may.
04:14That's the kind of people we are. Think of an aircraft, a sophisticated piece of technology
04:28flying at 37,000 feet.
04:30Think of that, 37,000 feet above the clouds.
04:39And yet, we kill like beasts.
04:44That's what it is. In absence of self-knowledge, our intellect has fallen prey to the inner beast.
04:53The inner beast is commanding the intellect. So we have come up with
05:00sophisticated methods to kill.
05:07If you look for a modern slaughterhouse on the internet, it is very well managed, very professionally run
05:17and uses state-of-the-art technology.
05:22That's the kind of people we are. Now, how does it surprise you that if we look at
05:29someone who is debilitated and needs help, we start wishing that this person is gotten rid of ASAP
05:40because we don't want to take care of him and
05:42yeah, it's all quite bad and all very violent. Yes.
06:04Though there is something I would like to say,
06:07though there is something I would like to add to this.
06:18If I ever get terribly sick,
06:24obviously, I hope I have, I would have lived the kind of life
06:32in which I would not have surrounded myself with people who wish me
06:41an early exit just because they don't want to take care of me.
06:47So,
06:51obviously, there will be people around who will say, let him stay, let him stay, let's take care of him,
06:56even if he's on his deathbed, even if he's turned almost a vegetable,
07:03even if he has to be on the ventilator for long, let him be.
07:10That's what those people must say, if I have lived rightly, right? That's their dharma,
07:16that's their love, that's for them to say.
07:19But if I am that critically and that chronically and that irretrievably ill,
07:28my dharma probably would be to choose my own departure.
07:34That's my dharma, not yours. If you are by my bedside, you should be, you should be
07:41prepared to invest everything in my return. You should say, it does not matter how much money it
07:47takes or whatever, but I want this person to survive, and it's not about me in particular.
07:56It's about anyone you truly love.
07:59The role of the caretaker is to say, I want to see him back, I want to see him on his feet.
08:07Even if there is a 0.1% probability that this person can be retrieved from his deathbed,
08:16I want to see him on his feet. Even if there is a 0.1% probability that this person
08:23can be retrieved from his deathbed, I am prepared to bet.
08:35But the one who is in that kind of terminal state,
08:41hopeless state, it is upon him to then say, I am choosing to go.
08:55But those words must come from the one who is ill, not from the ones who are to take care of him.
09:07And both must follow their dharma. The one who is so ill that he sees that there is no point living
09:14on. It's just that too many resources, too much resources are being spent on me, and my life
09:24itself is now a waste on the time and energy of so many caretakers. So money is being wasted on me,
09:34time, energy is being wasted on me, and my life itself is of no good because I can
09:39not do any creative work anymore. He should all by himself then say,
09:46rather declare that it's time for me to go. Give me a loving and respectable farewell now. I am going.
09:59So it's not as if being compassionate would mean that the society must necessarily be full
10:11of old and sick and comatose people. No.
10:20If you have a society that has real compassion, and real compassion arises only from true
10:25understanding, then the dying one would also have the compassion to say that I want to now go.
10:36And I think this is something that each of us must necessarily choose.
10:45We are conscious beings, you see, and consciousness is choice.
10:49Death is not something that we should ever leave to chance.
10:54Just as all scientific progress is a choice to improve the quality of life,
11:03and so much progress in medical science is a choice to elongate both the quality and the
11:10length of life, similarly, you should exercise choice in the matter of your departure.
11:19Never leave it to chance.
11:23When you know for sure that you are not redeemable anymore,
11:29then it is my personal conviction that you should not just
11:37needlessly keep hanging on. You should have the courage to say goodbye at the time of your choice.
11:49That decision obviously cannot be made in a moment of desperation or despondency.
11:54You are feeling very ill or there is a lot of pain and then you say I want to die. No,
11:57not that kind of a choice, but a very informed and calm
12:06choice made with a still and sound mind.
12:19Such double standards we have. When it comes to others, we want to see them killed
12:27for the smallest and the
12:32lowest kinds of reason possible. I want to kill a little lamb because the meat is tender.
12:40What stupidity! It is not even a grown-up sheep, you are talking of a little lamb,
12:48sometimes just a few months old and you are saying the flesh is soft and juicy. I hate to
12:54use that word juicy for flesh and you want to see it killed and the lamb is just what three months,
13:03five, six months something. And when it comes to your own life,
13:09you want to keep hanging on even if you are 95.
13:14The three months old lamb is to be slaughtered and you are 95 now, go!
13:20You have overstayed your time, go! And it's not about being 95, it's about being useless now
13:27and it's not about being useless to the society, it's about being useless to yourself now.
13:32You are of no use even to yourself. Half the time you are unconscious,
13:38the other half you are preparing to be unconscious.
13:42What is this life? Purely on medicines you are surviving. Go and make an honourable exit.
13:52Let there be dignity even in death. Do not drag on.
14:22Yes, thank you.
14:24Thank you, sir.
14:26Hello, sir. I am Rashi and following up from the previous question, my question is about euthanasia.
14:33As we know, there have been many movies made on mercy killing and euthanasia has also been
14:38legalized in seven countries now with Canada recently extending the law to people with
14:43mental illnesses. I wanted to know what your views regarding this were and if there is a
14:49moral justification for it or not.
14:55Obviously, it is and it should not even be called as mercy killing.
15:01It's a part of your fundamental right to be alive.
15:09Today itself one of your batch mates queried me on article 21.
15:14Article 21 is not just right to live, it's the right to a dignified life.
15:22That's what the courts have said, the right to a dignified life.
15:26And a dignified life includes the death of dignity.
15:33There is no mercy in that. It's my right to die.
15:38It's my right to die.
15:40Obviously, I repeat, the decision to depart has to be made in equanimity, in calmness of mind,
15:50with due attention, deliberation. It cannot come from an emotional state.
15:55It cannot come from a state of pain. It cannot be akin to suicide.
16:04There has to be a difference between dying by suicide and choosing a death of dignity.
16:18When you say suicide, usually that comes from an impassioned state of mind.
16:24Usually that comes when you can no longer bear the suffering that life is.
16:30So, I am differentiating this thing, the right to go, the right to depart.
16:36Just as article 21 says the right to live, it should include the right to depart.
16:45So, the right to depart, it must be a very inalienable human right, a very fundamental right.
16:54Yes, it should be there. It should be there and if we live rightly,
16:58live rightly, then we will find that we are not leaving our death to chance.
17:08I repeat, consciousness is choice. If everything in life must be subject to your conscious choice,
17:15then so must be your death. Why must death be random? Why must death be accidental?
17:19The more medical science progresses, the more you will have control over everything that is
17:28accidental, you see. We have already increased our lifespans so much. The number of octogenarians
17:39and nanogerarians is at an all-time high. We never had so many old people in history.
17:44The number of people who are living beyond 100 is rushing into an unbelievably large figure.
17:53Average life expectancy in many countries in Europe, for example, is well beyond 80.
18:01Even in your own country, it is entering mid-70s.
18:07When we will have the census, it is due. We will have more precise figures.
18:14So, you have extended life and it is possible that average life expectancy can be stretched to
18:23even 100 or 125. Medical science is at its job. Researchers and scientists are doing what they
18:35must. So, you can be made to live for many more decades even after 100.
18:44Then it will become even more imperative that you get the right to depart.
18:53Choice must not lie only in extending life. Choice must lie also in ending life.
18:59Life is not just about being able to breathe or see. Life has to be purposeful.
19:07When you are alive, there has to be a purpose to life.
19:11It is another matter that those who have known life,
19:13they say that the purpose of life is to come to a point of purposelessness.
19:18What is the purpose of life? To come to a point where you laugh at this question.
19:39Coming to purposelessness is the purpose of life. So, there is a purpose. You cannot just
19:45randomly start saying that you are purposeless.
19:50At your stage where you are, you cannot be purposeless. You ought to have a purpose.
19:58And when you find that you are no more in a state to pursue that purpose,
20:03come on tell me why do you want to live any longer?
20:11Just lying somewhere like a vegetable. For what? For what?
20:23Let your life be high and let your death be an equal to your life.
20:33I just hope I am not encouraging those with suicidal tendencies.
20:44People can misinterpret anything.
20:47What I am saying is live a great life and when it's your time to go,
20:54then don't just stick around and delay and weep and what not.
21:03Yes.
21:05Thank you, sir.