Video Information: BITS, Pilani - Goa, 28.01.2022, Greater Noida, India
Context:
~ What work to choose in life?
~ Should one seek social validation while choosing work?
~ How important is money while choosing work?
~ Why do we often underestimate the circumstances?
~ What is the right thing we can do in the Life?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Context:
~ What work to choose in life?
~ Should one seek social validation while choosing work?
~ How important is money while choosing work?
~ Why do we often underestimate the circumstances?
~ What is the right thing we can do in the Life?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:00Namaste, Acharya ji. My name is Harihant Jha. I am a third year mechanical engineering
00:00:14student at BITL. My question is regarding abortion. So there are basically two schools
00:00:21of thoughts regarding abortion. The first one is it's the woman's body. So she's the
00:00:26one who would decide. The second thought is that you can't take away someone's life on
00:00:33your own. Who are you to decide whether this particular life should be taken away or not?
00:00:39So this brings me to a place where I cannot decide in my mind that what is the right thing
00:00:46to do in that place in cases of suppose unwanted pregnancy. So what are your views on this?
00:00:54See, it's again not for you or me to decide. We may keep saying a thousand things. Ultimately,
00:01:05it's the mother who's going to decide. Unless you know you overrule her jurisdiction through
00:01:13law or something. So it's the mother who's going to decide. The more pertinent question
00:01:22should be how would the mother with deep consciousness, deep self-awareness decide
00:01:33versus the decisions and line of thought of an ordinary mother, an ordinary human being,
00:01:44unconscious, bodily, just materialistic. That's where the difference comes. You are trying to
00:01:55look at the issue of abortion as if it is an objective matter. You want to know my thoughts
00:02:03on abortion. You want to probably create a consensus on abortion. And there are so many
00:02:10countries in the third world, in the first world, in the Christian world, in the secular world,
00:02:19in the Islamic world. And they have all been struggling with the issue of abortion since
00:02:27decades now. Even in the most liberal of countries, the issue has hardly been settled. And it's not
00:02:37likely to be settled soon. Because there are dissenting voices. There are varying viewpoints.
00:02:46The church is saying one thing. The liberals are saying one thing. Feminists are saying one
00:02:52thing. And time and again medical science comes up with a new discovery and that has an impact
00:03:02on the discourse. All that has led us to believe as if it is an objective matter. It is not an
00:03:12objective matter. It is a thing in the domain of the mother. What's the relationship between the
00:03:28mother and the child, the fetus that is? That will decide whether the mother nourishes it,
00:03:35kills it or whatever. In fact, we talk of abortion so much because we are very body-centered people.
00:03:49The mother terminates the pregnancy and it bothers us so much and probably rightly so. But the mother
00:04:03remains unconscious. The mother remains as most human beings are. Gives birth to the baby. And
00:04:15being as conscious, unconscious as she is, she just ruins the entire life of the kid. We don't
00:04:24bat an eyelid. Do we? Because what's happening in the inner domain of the kid does not matter so
00:04:35much to us. Why? Because what happens in our own inner domain does not matter too much to us. What
00:04:44matters to us is our physical being, our bodily welfare. Bodily if we are alright, we feel we
00:04:51are alright. What's happening to our insides, we are hardly very conscious of. Similarly, when it
00:05:00comes to the mother and fetus relationship, we are very bothered if the pregnancy is terminated.
00:05:07But if the mother carries through the whole thing, gives birth to one kid or five kids or whatever,
00:05:16and as I said remains as how most mothers and most fathers and most people are, we say it's
00:05:28the normal state of things. Why do we need to talk about it? I'm not saying we do not need to talk
00:05:34about abortion. I'm saying the way we approach abortion itself rules out any decent in-depth
00:05:45understanding of the matter. We think of pregnancy as something that yields a body. A body is to be
00:06:01given birth. Now, if the body is safely given birth, we celebrate and congratulate. No? That's
00:06:11what we do. The new body has safely come to the planet, plus one. We feel happy. When the body
00:06:23does not come to the planet, some of us get concerned. Who is the mother? Who is the child?
00:06:36What is really happening there? What do we mean when we say somebody is giving birth to someone?
00:06:42Now, get into the mind of the mother. And when I say mother, I mean the human being. Get into her
00:06:53mind. Sometimes it might just be right to abort. Sometimes it might not be right to abort. Only
00:07:05a conscious decision-making entity is rightly pleased to decide. There can be no objective law.
00:07:18Your declarations and damnations are not going to work. You know, it might sound very strange,
00:07:30very cruel. But it might just be very right to not terminate a baby, even if the baby is known
00:07:41to be medically unfit. This decision has to be made by the mother and for the right reasons,
00:07:48for very conscious reasons. And in other circumstances, it might just be right to
00:07:56terminate even a normal healthy pregnancy. So, the entire debate has to shift to the education
00:08:09of the mother. Forget the issue of abortion. It's not merely abortion that's the thing between the
00:08:19mother and the baby. The mother has to be with the baby for several years even after the pregnancy,
00:08:27right? Her relationship with the new being is much wider than those nine months. Keep that
00:08:40thing aside. Abortion is just one of the things that happens or may happen between the mother
00:08:46and the kid. A thousand things happen between the mother and the kid and they are decided by
00:08:53the mind of the mother. So, let's pay attention where it is due, to the mind of the mother. That's
00:09:03what needs education. And once you educate it, leave it free to decide. Do not make certain
00:09:14things mandatory. Do not outlaw certain things. If a healthy mature adult has been decently
00:09:25educated in the self, only that person then is in the right place to make certain decisions. Who is
00:09:35anybody else to talk of those things? Only that person knows what the circumstances are and only
00:09:43that person has the light, the clarity to make the best decision. Are you getting it please? We
00:09:55want to take sides. We want to be partisan. We want to be either on the side that says no, no,
00:10:02no, all life is divine and everybody deserves to take birth or we want to be on the side that says
00:10:08no, women's rights are supreme. It's easy to take sides and it's lazy to take sides. What we require
00:10:20is a self-aware woman and once she's self-aware, neither you nor I have any locust and eye.
00:10:35Leave it to her. But before you leave it to her, ensure that your education system is robust,
00:10:49wise, efficient, really purposeful. The issue of abortion is not significant. What's much
00:11:02more significant is how we are educating our girls. Educate the girls well and they'll know
00:11:09whether or not to abort. But we don't talk of the education of girls. We keep talking of thousand
00:11:18other things. Should girls wear long or short? Should single motherhood be encouraged? A thousand
00:11:40issues related to women are in circulation and there is so much debate, so much noise really
00:11:47and nobody seems to understand that the lady can decide just as any human being can decide,
00:11:57provided you have empowered her enough to decide and the empowerment that I'm talking of is spiritual.
00:12:07I'm not talking of the empowerment that gives her the legal right to terminate the pregnancy,
00:12:22not that kind of empowerment. I'm talking of self-awareness. Who am I? Why do I need
00:12:37to bring a child to life? Where is the child coming from? How am I placed? The very decision
00:12:50to get pregnant will change. Abortion comes much later. The matter of abortion arises only if there
00:13:01is pregnancy. Even the decision as to whether or not to be pregnant might change and if there
00:13:11is accidental pregnancy, she will know how to deal with it. I have two things to say on this. First
00:13:26of all, I think that educating every single woman on the planet enough that she will be able to make
00:13:35decisions on this complicated topic, I think that is possible in an ideal world, not in a real world.
00:13:41How do you know? Because giving that level of consciousness to every single person. How do
00:13:54you know? I don't know. If you don't know, then what kind of education are you coming from to
00:14:02think that this is merely utopian? Please understand, we all are coming from a certain
00:14:09level of spiritual education and it is that level that decides our opinions on critical matters. So,
00:14:17right now you are displaying a certain opinion on a certain critical matter. Now,
00:14:23that opinion is coming from where you are coming from. Right? So, lack of spiritual
00:14:30education is making you think that spiritual education is merely a utopia. Lack of spiritual
00:14:38education is making you think that spiritual education can't be for all. That's the thing.
00:14:45No, no, like basically, let's take an example. If we go on a mission to teach every woman to
00:14:53jump three meters high, suppose if we go on… No, it's a bad example right in the beginning.
00:14:58We are not talking of jumping three meters high. If we go on a mission to teach every…
00:15:06Why will I go on such a mission? Am I uneducated? Am I uneducated enough to go on such a mission?
00:15:13No, no, I mean, you are saying that we will get everyone past this threshold.
00:15:19Yes, I am saying that depending on what I am seeing and where I am coming from. You see,
00:15:25if you keep insisting, you know, taking your three meters and five meters analogy forward,
00:15:32if you keep insisting that your height is one meter and I tell you, you know,
00:15:39touch this point, that's just 1.5 meters high, you will say it is impractical. Just as you said
00:15:45that educating all girls is impractical. So, what is impractical depends on your own self-awareness.
00:15:52Do you even know yourself enough to decide what is practical and what is not? What you decide to
00:15:57practice becomes practical and what you decide to practice depends on how much you know yourself.
00:16:05It's a decision, not a situation. You know, corrupting an entire population seems so easy
00:16:15to us, right? Corrupting an entire population never appears like a utopia. But educating an
00:16:24entire population and you are so dismissive and resistant to the idea. No, I am not resistant to
00:16:32the idea. Even if you said corrupting an entire population, I don't think you can corrupt 100%
00:16:37of the society. You may go about corrupting 95%, 96%. I don't think it is even practical to reach
00:16:44100%. Right, so your question then is about the 4% of women who cannot be educated? Yeah. Then
00:16:53the question is worthless, you see. Leave those 4% aside. Abortion as a matter becomes big enough
00:17:02only when it concerns the entire 100%. If you are talking about the 4% outliers, then you have
00:17:08outliers in every field, then the question becomes irrelevant. No, the question I am asking is on a
00:17:16micro level. I am trying to understand, does the mother have the philosophical right to decide what
00:17:26to do with the child? Depends on the mother. All rights are carried by certain individuals. Your
00:17:31first right is to be conscious and once you are conscious, then you have all the rights to do as
00:17:38you please. And if you are not conscious, then irrespective of what the constitution bestows
00:17:45upon you, existentially you actually have no rights. That's the thing with laws and law books
00:17:51and constitutions. They give rights to everybody equally. They forbid everybody from doing certain
00:18:03things irrespective of considering the internal level or the internal station of the individual.
00:18:11Not everything is out of bounds for everybody. It cannot be existentially, it just cannot be.
00:18:18But that's the problem with laws. They become universal, very general. And when it comes to
00:18:30touchy things like abortion, that's a big problem. Big, big problem. So, focus on raising a conscious
00:18:42society. Do not dismiss this thing as just idealistic blabber. It is not. It is the only
00:18:48solution you can have. And once you have invested enough in rightly teaching your girls, do not
00:19:00interfere. It's their life and their body. They'll know. But you have all the rights, rather the
00:19:08great responsibility to raise your girl well. Once you have raised her well, leave her.
00:19:14Yes, I am not advocating the other side. I am just trying to understand myself.
00:19:21See, without, please understand, without consciousness, without developing her ability
00:19:33to decide rightly for herself, that's what I mean by consciousness, developing her ability
00:19:38to decide rightly for herself, all that you can have is external intervention in some form.
00:19:46External intervention in some form, either a form that says it's alright, a form that says it's
00:19:54alright till certain months, a form that says it's alright in certain cases. Would you like
00:20:02such a thing to happen to your body or to your personal life?
00:20:08Just trying to understand. I don't know yet.
00:20:10Yes, I am with you when you are trying to understand. Even I am trying to understand
00:20:13along with you. We are together in this. It's a very intimate thing. Would you like someone,
00:20:22anybody to decide or dictate who you are going to sleep with?
00:20:27Definitely not.
00:20:28Definitely not. Now, do you see that the issue of pregnancy is very closely linked to this?
00:20:33Yes.
00:20:34So, how can we allow someone else to have a say in this? You know, can you have a law,
00:20:42statute, a constitution telling you, you should sleep with such a person, not marry such a
00:20:47person, definitely marry such a person. Would you like that?
00:20:52No, definitely not.
00:20:54And that's when it concerns a body outside of your body, right?
00:20:58Yes.
00:20:59There is the girl and she exists physically outside of your body and even then you do
00:21:04not want the state to interfere. As a young man, you would be ferociously against such
00:21:13a situation. Somebody is coming and telling you, you know, you definitely fall in love
00:21:16with this girl.
00:21:17Yeah, maybe I will rebel.
00:21:19You will rebel, you will live it, you will slap that person. If I were you, that's what
00:21:24I would do. Now, think of a situation, the two of us being men, have to actually exercise
00:21:30some imagination. Now, there is a body inside your body and somebody else is telling you
00:21:36what to do with it. Why should you tolerate?
00:21:43Why should you tolerate? The only thing that you can do is, I am saying, internally empower
00:21:50the woman to make the right decision for herself. Do not try to bind her in laws or something.
00:21:58That won't work, that's stupid.
00:22:01Yeah, I understand that. So, going forward with our thought experiment, suppose the woman
00:22:10gives birth to a child and then later she realizes that she is neither mentally nor
00:22:17financially ready to raise this child. So, how is killing that child in that position
00:22:23different from abortion?
00:22:25Depends on the mother, beta. Depends on the mother.
00:22:28Will she, like, given on the current society, she does not have neither the legal nor the
00:22:35philosophical right to kill the child she has given birth to right now.
00:22:39See, see, philosophical right you can know only when you know philosophy. So, keep that
00:22:43aside. As far as legal rights go, legal and other things can be changed.
00:22:50Yeah, definitely.
00:22:51Right? So, all that can be changed. So, don't say that she doesn't have legal rights. Legal
00:22:56rights can be granted to her.
00:23:00I am not in favor of abortion, obviously. If, first of all, if it was not proper, then
00:23:12it should not have come into being. But once it has come into being, I would definitely
00:23:19want it to take birth and be alive. But then, equally I know that that's not a decision
00:23:31I can take or you can take. And I also know that there will be situations when it is not
00:23:40right to take such a decision, when it would be rather better to terminate the pregnancy.
00:23:48And these are very nuanced things, very subtle things. There are several dimensions to every
00:23:57such situation. So, let the woman be educated, let her be decently counseled, let her at
00:24:07least be educated enough to accept counseling. You said it is just too idealistic to think
00:24:16that all the girls can be raised internally to that level where they will be able to decide
00:24:22rightly for themselves. Let's raise them at least to the point where they are open to
00:24:27receive sane counseling, where they are able to have the discretion, the right sense to
00:24:35know who is the right person to listen to. At least this much of education can be given,
00:24:41you would agree, right? So, let's do that and then trust the women.
00:24:47Yeah, I am not saying that we decide, I am just, you know, taking a, I mean just doing
00:24:55a thought experiment. How is killing a newborn different than abortion? Are they not different?
00:25:03No, they are not different, not different. It's just that the situations are different,
00:25:08but in both the cases, consciousness is being terminated. That's true.
00:25:13So, till what age can you kill a child? You cannot decide that way, beta. Tell me,
00:25:21what does euthanasia exist for? The consciousness can be terminated when it is 4 months of age
00:25:33within the body of the woman. Equally, consciousness can be terminated when it is 80 years of age
00:25:38or 40 years of age. Equally, a very conscious being in his conscious domain can decide to
00:25:48terminate his own life for a greater goal. Just being physically alive does not mean
00:25:56much. Think of the sacrifices of those who put themselves on the altar. Think of all
00:26:06your freedom fighters. Were they not in some sense deciding to terminate their lives? Think
00:26:12of Bhagat Singh. So, how is bodily extinction the final test of right or wrong? Sometimes
00:26:25bodily extinction can just be the right thing rather the greatest thing to happen.
00:26:33No, my question was something different. My question was, like you said before, but if we
00:26:43agree that the child is inside the woman's body, so maybe she has the right. Then we agreed that
00:26:49if she kills a newborn, it's in a way the same thing. No, I didn't say killing the newborn is
00:27:00the same thing. I said consciousness is getting terminated in both the cases. In that sense,
00:27:06it is the same thing. I am not saying abortion is the same as murder. So,
00:27:17what I am trying to say is if you abort a child in the fourth month, let's say fifth month, I don't
00:27:26know when the heart starts throbbing and all. How is that different than killing a child in the first
00:27:34week of his practical life? In both the cases, a living being is coming to a physical end. They
00:27:44are the same thing. Now, what's the question? They are the same thing. Yes. Now, what's the
00:27:48question? My question is, in the first case, you said that the mother has the right to decide.
00:27:57Does she have the right to decide in the second case as well? How does a soldier get the right
00:28:03to kill a terrorist or a criminal or an enemy? Is killing another person, even outside of your body,
00:28:11not within your womb, is it always a crime? No, it's not always a crime. So, that's what,
00:28:20consciously you have to decide when to terminate even the other's life, just as consciously you
00:28:26decide when to terminate your own life. But like the example you gave for a soldier,
00:28:32that particular enemy is a threat to you and therefore a threat to your offsprings and
00:28:38therefore a threat to your tribe, I mean your culture, your nation. No, no, it's not that way.
00:28:43The soldier is not thinking so much. Not as a person, but as a unit. The army decides to kill
00:28:50someone. Is the army always right while deciding to kill someone? Is the army always right while
00:28:57deciding to kill someone? The army operates on orders. There was a German army. It was killing
00:29:04in droves. So, why are you trying to justify killing when it happens through a soldier and
00:29:10the same? I am not trying to justify. See, what I am trying to point at is, understand this,
00:29:17even one person killing another person is neither necessarily right nor necessarily wrong. Even one
00:29:27person killing another person is neither necessarily right nor wrong. So, just as a
00:29:35mother, just as a soldier can be very right in killing another person and a soldier can be
00:29:45horribly wrong in killing another person. Similarly, any person can be either right
00:29:52or wrong in killing any person. It could even be a mother-child relationship. Have you watched
00:29:58the movie Mother India? Mother India, when I was a child, I don't remember anything.
00:30:04Yes, yes. So, good that you have watched it at least. So, you know, the climactic piece was a
00:30:13mother killing her son and the son was actually rebelling against the injustice of the money
00:30:24lender and other exploitative people in the village. And yet that's what made the movie so
00:30:32great and it became a classic. It still is. So, a mother can kill the son or the daughter or the
00:30:41husband or anybody or herself. It's not the act per se that you can have a viewpoint on. The act
00:30:53does not matter, the consciousness behind it matters. So, if we first decide that killing
00:31:08someone is fine when that person is a threat to you. No, no, I am not saying that. No, no,
00:31:15it's not about threat or something. No, it's not about threat or something. It's far more nuanced,
00:31:20far more nuanced. If we consider humans as, first as a biological primate. No, no, you don't have
00:31:30to consider them that way. Why do you want to proceed on your set line? Start here and then
00:31:37build upwards towards consciousness. No, no, no. If you want to look at yourself just as a body,
00:31:45then that's exactly what, then that's what the laws anyway do and then they give you definitely
00:31:54the right to kill someone in self-defense. So, that right is anyway granted to you by law itself.
00:32:00If someone is becoming a physical threat to you and in the process of defending yourself,
00:32:05you kill that person, the law will not punish you. So, that is another thing.
00:32:11So, in that matter only, I am asking, what do you think the law should be? Until what point
00:32:24does the mother have the right over the child? The law should be, educate everybody. Educate
00:32:32the mother and now I am saying, educate not only the girls but also the boys.
00:32:41No, I am saying, what happens if she kills a 20 year old?
00:32:45She can kill a 20 year old if the 20 year old deserves to be killed. What's the problem?
00:32:50Does she have the right to kill a 20 year old? Obviously.
00:32:53If I am wrong, who are you to kill me? Who is a soldier? Who is a soldier to kill another soldier?
00:33:02That is a different thing. How is that a different thing?
00:33:05A person is killing another person. Yeah, but if you look into the nuance of it.
00:33:12No, no. The nuanced approach is something on my side. So, you have to look into it.
00:33:20Pranam Acharyaji. So, this question was on abortion and I was reminded of an incident
00:33:28and I wanted to relate it to you and then ask your thoughts on it. So, I was in California
00:33:36at some point and sir, I'm relating an incident from California. So, when I was like at my workplace
00:33:47there will always be a tussle at the dinner time because everybody wanted to go to a restaurant
00:33:53which would serve very good non-veg vegetarian delicacies and I was the only vegetarian rather
00:34:00a vegan person in the group and one of my colleagues one day very surprisingly asked me
00:34:08given that you do not subscribe to meat consumption or animal cruelty. Are you also
00:34:14pro-life? And this is a big statement in California because everybody is a liberal and everybody
00:34:19believes themselves to be pro-choice and if you say that you're a pro-life then they sort of
00:34:24don't look at you really well. Now, this was really rich coming from her that it's very
00:34:31ironic that most meat consuming people in the United States are also the people
00:34:37who are pro-life, who say that the child has a right to live and therefore women should not get to decide
00:34:42and they are also conflating my right over my sexuality to meat protecting animals
00:34:50or disparaging animal cruelty. So, this is a very paradoxical view and unfortunately lot of
00:34:57people have it. So, I just wanted to talk about this. It's very much in line with the
00:35:03discussion we are having. You see, when you really do not understand, when you don't have insight,
00:35:12then that's what you have. Fragments within the mind and fragmented views and opinions
00:35:19on so many things. There is no wholeness, no integrity in everything. On one hand, you are
00:35:26so full of compassion for the yet to be born baby and on the other hand, you are busy
00:35:34chewing at the flesh of another baby. So, this kind of fragmentation is
00:35:47there because we do not understand. When we do not understand, then we just imbibe something
00:35:53from here, something from there and we develop opinions and we don't even have the
00:36:00wits to know that one opinion is just not consistent with the other one.
00:36:10It's like me not having any interest or ability or sincerity in the field of mathematics.
00:36:21Right? So, you come to me and you show me a right angle triangle
00:36:29and you tell me, well, a square plus b square is c square, right? a square plus b square is c square
00:36:39and I take that and I do not know where it's coming from. I have never even bothered to ask
00:36:46for a proof whether it's really happening. So, and then someone else comes to me. Someone else
00:36:53comes to me and he says b square is c square minus 2a square and I take that as well.
00:37:03I have agreed to a square plus b square is c square, but I do not know a thing about abc.
00:37:13I do not even know what a right angle triangle really is.
00:37:18Even if I know what it means to have a 90 degree somewhere, I have not asked for a proof.
00:37:24Where does it come from? So, someone else comes and this fellow is saying b square is equal to c
00:37:31square minus 2a square and I am agreeable to even this way as well. I just do not have the integrity
00:37:40to call out the inconsistency. That's how most people are, inconsistent, divided,
00:37:47one thing at one place, another thing at another place. They have multiple faces. They have
00:37:54multiple faces because none of the faces are real. Everything is borrowed and when you borrow things,
00:38:00they don't really harmonize with each other. You know, you have a car, you have a car coming from
00:38:08Toyota and you try to put in a headlight coming from Hyundai, a bonnet from Mercedes.
00:38:22None of these things are really talking to each other or agreeing to each other
00:38:27and some kind of really comic specimen we manage to assemble and that specimen is our life.
00:38:35That's how most of us exist. Something from here, something from there and the
00:38:42very amusing and ugly assembly of all that is called the self.
00:38:52So, on one hand, you love your dog. On the other hand, you love chicken.
00:39:00Exactly. I love my dog and I love chicken. You tell that to an alien and he'll definitely think
00:39:06that you love your dog exactly the way you love chicken and he'll ask you a dog delicacy or
00:39:14something. I love my baby. I love chicken. We don't see the inconsistency.
00:39:24I shed tears when something happens to my dog. I feed chicken to my dog.
00:39:30We don't see the inconsistency, not at all.
00:39:36Self-awareness, it might sound boring, it might sound repetitive, it might sound unexciting,
00:39:43but I'm sorry that's the only solution. Without spirituality, all that we are
00:39:51without spirituality, all that we are is a bogus conglomeration of unrelated
00:40:00things, not in sync, not in harmony, not in any kind of pretty association.
00:40:11In the language of music, think of what happens when an orchestra goes bad.
00:40:18The drummer is drumming away to his own glory. The guitarist is busy in his own world.
00:40:27And what do you get as a sum total of all of that? Noise. That's how our lives are.
00:40:34Nothing is really resonating with the other. Your religious beliefs are one thing.
00:40:48Your interest in commerce is in another dimension. Your attitude towards your
00:40:54woman or your man is one thing. Your attitude towards money is in another dimension.
00:41:00And we manage to still exist.
00:41:09And say I, as if there is a singular I somewhere. There is no I.
00:41:21Absolutely right.
00:41:22It reminds me on the question of this very amusing dissonance.
00:41:34This particular teacher, no need to name, and
00:41:42and he is distributing these exquisite fruits around the country.
00:41:55And of the many claims that are made related to the glory of the fruit,
00:42:00one is that it will bestow you with scientific temper.
00:42:12That's how deeply fragmented we are.
00:42:19You take this thing, this part of a plant, some fruit or nut or something, I don't know what.
00:42:30You put it on your body and you will get a scientific temper. You'll become more logical.
00:42:41More inquisitive. You will get deeper in your inquiry.
00:42:52We just don't understand anything.
00:42:57So the discussion regarding abortion and all, we as a family went through that at one stage.
00:43:05We were not very conscious to decide rightly and we just went based on various medical reasons and
00:43:12things like that. But slowly as we started learning things, as we started understanding
00:43:17a lot of things from you, if the same decision would have come to me right now,
00:43:22maybe I would have decided totally differently. So it clearly resonates how important it is to
00:43:30be conscious to take any decision, either to abort or to continue.
00:43:34So now what I also noticed is a lot of youngsters take into giving birth to a baby
00:43:44as unconsciously as they say not to take birth. So I have seen, at least in my family and friends,
00:43:54few people who have just given birth without even, I know their decisions are not at all
00:43:59conscious enough. Entire their life is not conscious enough. But I also have some friends
00:44:05who decided not to go to give birth to a child. Again, equally unconscious.
00:44:14Every decision that they make is not very conscious. They don't inquire enough. They
00:44:19don't validate enough. But then it has become a kind of a revolutionary trend or something,
00:44:25I don't understand. But they just decide that, okay, we won't have any babies. But again,
00:44:32further they are ready to go to any level of battles. And I also see that they are not
00:44:36prepared to face those battles as well. And you have mentioned about bringing
00:44:41women to a level where at least she can question, get counseled, get to understand certain things
00:44:50before taking any decision. So when I face with such people, when they come and try to
00:44:58seek help regarding such decisions, I get confused how to tell them that lot needs to be changed
00:45:05before even coming to this decision. So it would be like, they will be in a very hurry to take the
00:45:12decision and I kind of find myself in a position where I have to say to wait and they won't have
00:45:19enough time to take the decision and they end up getting into a bigger battles without having the
00:45:26enough understanding of taking up that courageous decisions. So how do you deal with such things?
00:45:33I, to some extent, I would say that, okay, you are not ready for it, just go with it for now,
00:45:39but keep learning. I end up in a situation where I couldn't answer in any direction.
00:45:46A child is not a guinea pig. You cannot say I am giving birth to a child so that I can
00:45:53keep learning as it grows up. That's not, that's just not how it can happen or it should happen.
00:46:01This is cruelty and a lot of people say that indeed. They say we become mature after giving
00:46:09birth. So giving birth is a prerequisite. Let us be mothers, be fathers and then maturity will
00:46:18come on its own. This is so cruel. You are trying to experiment on the kid, right?
00:46:25You are trying to experiment on the kid. That's not how it can happen. Even if you
00:46:35remain without having a baby your entire life, that's far far better than giving birth being
00:46:44unprepared. And if at the age of 55 you find you are prepared to have a baby but your body
00:46:59doesn't allow, go adopt one. What's the problem? What's so exclusive and heavenly about
00:47:11having a baby of your own DNA?
00:47:18Is that not violence? Are you not using somebody's body to further
00:47:28your own body? Think of this. When you say that I want a kid of my own,
00:47:37coming from my cells, coming from the mother's cells, are you not using somebody's body
00:47:44to further your own body? Is that not the worst use of somebody's existence?
00:47:53You are saying the kid should exist to carry my DNA forward. What the hell is this?
00:48:00What the hell is this? It's like saying somebody has to exist so that he can keep carrying my
00:48:08luggage. How loving is that, please? So, I am extremely unambiguous on this.
00:48:23When you are doubly, triply sure that you know what parenting means
00:48:37and you find it now essential to have a kid of your own, only then must you give birth.
00:48:43Otherwise, not at all. And I repeat, having a baby is not something
00:48:53really constrained by temporal limits.
00:49:00Life is a flux, you are continuously learning. If at 55 you feel that your time to
00:49:09grow up a kid has come, that you are in the right position, that it will do great things to the kid
00:49:18if you father him, and it will deepen your own compassion if you sire the kid,
00:49:27and it will deepen your own compassion if you sire the kid, then I am saying go adopt.
00:49:40But then Ajayji, I also have seen like, especially women, when they decide,
00:49:47they are already in the marriage, let's say, and they have entire this family set up from
00:49:52from the husband's side, entire family, and this entire family, which is, you know,
00:49:56in the hope of having this next generation being born in the family, all this kind of
00:50:03mindset is there in the entire family. But when a woman decides, or she, for some reason,
00:50:10she feels that, okay, I don't want to go ahead, then it becomes a very big battle for her to face
00:50:18this entire challenges, because husband or parent…
00:50:22Battle is there only when you are engaging with the enemy, right? Only then a battle happens.
00:50:30Disengage, why do you need such a family? Even to be in battle with someone is to be
00:50:37engaged with that person, even to be in battle is to be intimate to an extent.
00:50:43If there are people who take the woman's body and her life as being centered on her fertility,
00:50:55then those people deserve immediate disengagement. They have no respect for the woman.
00:51:04Somebody who is constantly pestering you to get pregnant and such things,
00:51:13how can you even look at such a person's face? Just disengage.
00:51:19Yeah, but what I also notice is the woman herself is not, you know, disengaging enough to get that…
00:51:31Anuragji, there is nothing called the woman herself. The woman herself is a
00:51:37hodgepodge, a very unseemly medley of impressions. There is nothing called the woman herself.
00:51:46She is just a collection of imprints. So, the moment she disengages, it will do her a lot of good.
00:51:55When you say the woman herself holds such opinions and these things,
00:52:00where are those opinions coming from? Those are not her own. Nothing called woman herself.
00:52:08Even those opinions are coming from the movies she has watched, the mother-in-law, the mother,
00:52:13the father, the husband, the entire gang. That's where she is collecting all her rubbish from.
00:52:22Disengage. So, even the other thought of not having the baby is also coming from such influences.
00:52:29Obviously, obviously, very well said, very well said.
00:52:33So, that is what I am trying to see, like even…
00:52:35But then, but then, a rider here, please.
00:52:40Not having a baby entails running a far lower risk than having a baby unconsciously,
00:52:53in your unconscious self. Please see this. In your unconscious self, what is worse?
00:53:00You go out for a drive, you don't go out for a drive. The weather is pleasant. If you don't
00:53:09go out, then you are missing out on the pleasantness. That's the risk. That's the downside.
00:53:18Right? You are drunk, you are not conscious, you are not conscious and there is an option
00:53:25to go on a long drive. If you decide not to go on the drive, what are you missing out on?
00:53:30What's the downside? You miss out on the pleasant experience.
00:53:36But if you do decide to drive, then what's the downside? What's the risk? You know the risk, right?
00:53:44So, if you are not certain, then it's better to not to run the risk.
00:53:52If you are not sure whether you are sober or not, if you are not sure whether
00:53:57the liquor has still abated, then it's better to play safe. Because we are talking of life here,
00:54:07your life, the kid's life, and many other lives due to be impacted.
00:54:16Yeah. Thank you.
00:54:25Pranam Acharyaji.
00:54:26I'm taking forward this discussion on abortion. I have a certain doubt
00:54:43on the question Arihant was asking. So, from the same, on the same
00:54:52thought process.
00:55:00So, how a conscious, I think the conflict was how the conscious being can
00:55:09ever take a decision to decide on other person's life. I mean, if the, as you said,
00:55:20it is very well in the rights of the mother that she can decide to end the life of the child. So,
00:55:36how a conscious being can actually come to a decision that this being should not come into
00:55:47existence. So, and how, when he asked, if the same child has come into life now, and now maybe
00:55:58he's three years or four years old, and now the mother has come to her senses, probably she's
00:56:06seeing that it is not, it is not possible for her to raise this child. And then she decides,
00:56:12maybe I should end the life of this child. So, how she could, how her action, and we are talking
00:56:21about that this is a conscious woman, how this action can ever be justified and… One by one,
00:56:29one by one, there are just too many questions in a flurry here, one by one. First thing,
00:56:36please understand, consciousness does not count numbers. It has love for depth.
00:56:45Forty good for nothing bodies walking around are good to make a pack of animals.
00:57:00In the animal kingdom, numbers mean a lot. Wolves, hyenas, even lions, they go around
00:57:10in numbers. Without those numbers, they'll starve.
00:57:19With a pack of wolves, a pride of lions, there are many of them. Numbers matter a lot to them.
00:57:25Human beings are different. It's not numbers that matter to us.
00:57:30Numbers can be sacrificed for the sake of depth.
00:57:37Please understand this. Numbers can be sacrificed for the sake of depth.
00:57:41This is a beautiful story, I don't know where I read it, long back, one of the Purikams, I suppose.
00:58:02So, this is the teacher and the disciple, the guru and the shishya, they are stranded on an island,
00:58:09stranded on an island, and there's just nothing to eat, and both of them are very compassionate
00:58:20people, both of them are extremely loving people, they have never hurt animals, never even thought
00:58:31of eating flesh for survival.
00:58:37And there's a lot that happens there, and ultimately, when they come to see that
00:58:45they are probably going to starve,
00:58:50the teacher calls the disciple and says, I'm killing myself, and with my flesh,
00:59:00try surviving another few days, because I anyway had only a few years left, I can go.
00:59:12You must live because you are illuminated,
00:59:16and with you there is the chance that the illumination can reach many, many people.
00:59:22Numbers don't count, illumination counts.
00:59:27For the sake of illumination, lives can be laid down, persons can die.
00:59:40Are you getting it? So, you're very premised that how can a conscious woman decide to terminate
00:59:46pregnancy, how can a conscious man decide to wear protection during sex?
00:59:55Is that not the same in some sense as terminating pregnancy, given that we very well know
01:00:03that there is nothing called the soul or something that enters the fetus one particular day.
01:00:11The man's cell and the woman's egg are already alive.
01:00:15They are already alive, life is already there, right since day one.
01:00:21It's not as if the thing gets alive on one particular day in the second month or the four month.
01:00:31Your cells are already alive even as they enter the woman's body.
01:00:34Your cells are already alive even as they enter the woman's body.
01:00:38So, when you are wearing protection, are you not then disallowing life from taking shape?
01:00:50But then this question doesn't arise. It doesn't arise why? Because we are body-identified people.
01:00:55The sperm cell is hardly bodily, even if it is, we are unable to look at it.
01:01:01So, then we don't beat our chest saying murder, murder, murder.
01:01:06But wearing a condom is in that sense full-bladed murder.
01:01:14Is it not, please? Or even forget about condom or even the withdrawal technique
01:01:22that amounts to murder because life could have taken shape, you didn't allow it.
01:01:28In human beings, life does not mean numbers so much. It means the depth of consciousness.
01:01:37And for depth of consciousness, lives can be laid down.
01:01:44If killing per se is bad, what do you say of Ram and Krishna? Both killed.
01:01:53Both killed. Killing per se is not bad at all because we are human beings.
01:02:03One illuminated soul is far better than a thousand dark caves extremely resentful to any light.
01:02:14So, that's one part of my response. There are other things you were talking of, please.
01:02:29So, I was saying, even in her rights and we are speaking from a spiritual perspective,
01:02:40being a conscious woman, she's taken this decision. Is there any
01:02:50remote chance that law would ever be able to understand this? Like the law, what we are…
01:02:56It depends on the lawmaker, Alokji. You are constantly on the action,
01:03:01not going to the Karta, the actor. Talk of the lawmaker, you are the lawmaker.
01:03:06The day you are illuminated, all laws will be fine and rather removed.
01:03:13Which conscious being needs an external law to dictate his or her life?
01:03:20We need laws only because we are living in dark caves.
01:03:26Otherwise, you need laws to tell a Buddha to do his life, to do his stuff.
01:03:37And will he listen to your laws? Seriously?
01:03:46The lawmaker has to be right enough, bright enough. Minimal laws are needed.
01:03:57You can know the state of a society by measuring the thickness of its rule book.
01:04:06The thicker your rule book is, the thicker your constitution is, the more depraved and dark
01:04:20and unconscious that society is.
01:04:25Think of an arrangement between lovers and what do they do? First of all, they sign a 44 page
01:04:30agreement. What is certain? There is no love. If as a society, as a people, you need a thousand
01:04:45laws to govern your conduct, surely there is no consciousness.
01:04:51All you need is one law with a capital L. And when you don't know that one law with
01:04:59capital L, then you are condemned to follow 20,000 laws with a small l.
01:05:07The choice is yours. Know the one law and be freed of the thousands of laws
01:05:14and be freed of the thousands of laws or remain enslaved to the thousands of laws
01:05:22by actively resisting the one law. That is the law of consciousness,
01:05:28the law of truth, the law of liberation, liberation with a capital L.