Video Information: 24.05.2022, Greater Noida
Context:
~Is society more important than the individual?
~Why is individual vs society important?
~Why society is important in the life of the individual?
~What is it called when the individual is more important than society?
~ What is the meaning of individual?
~ Are there anything that we can say Individual?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Context:
~Is society more important than the individual?
~Why is individual vs society important?
~Why society is important in the life of the individual?
~What is it called when the individual is more important than society?
~ What is the meaning of individual?
~ Are there anything that we can say Individual?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Fascinating session, I'm looking forward to the insights, the learning, the wisdom that
00:14we will all share, and of course, mostly coming from Acharya Ji.
00:20Let me take this opportunity to welcome Acharya Prashant, who is a powerful voice of socio-spiritual
00:28awakening in today's world.
00:31He's an acclaimed Vedanta exegete and author of over 80 books, including the national bestseller
00:40Karma, Why Everything You Know About It is Wrong.
00:44Fascinating title.
00:45An alumnus of IIT Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad, and a former civil services officer, he's an exponent
00:54of pure Vedantic wisdom, a vocal warrior against superstition and inner weakness, a promulgator
01:03of pure spiritual veganism, and an expander of essential human freedom.
01:12It is my great pleasure to welcome Acharya Ji and welcome all of you.
01:20Acharya Ji, it is such an honor and a pleasure to have you with us.
01:26And if I might, if you don't mind, I might start off with the first question myself to
01:33you.
01:34That question is, you know, we are doing some teaching and research now, which is a center,
01:42maybe the first of its kind, not only in India, but around the world.
01:47It is called the Center for Complexity Economics, Applied Spirituality and Public Policy.
01:56One of the big challenges that we as anyone else who is interested in making a link between
02:04applied spirituality and public policy will face is that spirituality traditionally has
02:13been something at the individual level.
02:18Individuals seek wisdom, learning, awakening, call it enlightenment, and so on.
02:27Public policy, on the other hand, takes place at the societal level.
02:32It is in a collective, society is engaged, you know, policymakers are engaged, politicians
02:39are engaged.
02:41So the question then is, how can we bridge the gap between spiritual awakening, spiritual
02:49wisdom, traditionally happening at the individual level with the collective problems of public
02:57policy?
02:58Yes.
02:59Thank you for the kind introduction.
03:03And I am really glad to be participating here and see we are talking about spirituality
03:14and public policy here and the peculiar challenge we face.
03:21The first thing that we see in spirituality is that there is hardly anything called the
03:34individual.
03:37So you said that it's the individual that seeks to learn, grow and awaken, whereas public
03:45policy is at the collective and social level.
03:49There is hardly anything called the individual.
03:53We all are simply products of influences.
04:01The biologically conditioned organism is born and then that organism gets further and further
04:14conditioned by what he experiences in the society.
04:22However, there is an innate displeasure, a state of malcontentment, because we are not
04:36merely mechanical or material.
04:40Therefore being conditioned this way doubly, biologically and socially, is not something
04:46we enjoy.
04:50So there is an inner strife and that's the reason why all of us, most of us, are never
04:59quite at ease with ourselves and our surroundings and life in general.
05:06Because our fundamental nature is freedom, whereas our reality is that we are conditioned beings.
05:14So it's not really as if the person, the individual himself is a separate and powerful
05:32and entitled entity that would go on to seek learning, realization and freedom.
05:43Since we are products of influences, hence public policy is of utmost importance.
05:50I am trying to turn the argument over its head.
05:55If people are to be encouraged to seek the truth of their lives, live lives away from
06:07falseness and beliefs and superstitions and spend their time in a liberated way, then
06:16the influences acting on them have to be very carefully exercised.
06:24Whether or not a person would have the urge towards awakening depends a lot on his environment.
06:37That is the reason why we have so many saints and seers and sages in India and not that
06:50many, at least not densely packed in other parts of the world.
06:57It's not for nothing that we talk of India as the spiritual capital of the world.
07:04It's got not much to do with the genes or something, it's got to do with the culture
07:09and the environment.
07:12And these are in the hands of policy makers and leaders and teachers.
07:21So we need to have first of all an education system which comes very much in the purview
07:26of public policy that encourages the student to go within himself and that's got nothing
07:36to do with communal persuasions or particular ideologies or religious beliefs.
07:45It's something extremely universal, we are human beings and there is the mind and one
07:52must know from where two thoughts arise, feelings arise, identities arise.
08:00It's very similar at least in the beginning to the field of psychology.
08:06So there is nothing non-secular or partisan about it.
08:14Then if this thing goes well enough and if it's taught nicely enough, then one comes
08:22to a point almost by himself where one realizes that the mind in itself is just a cage and
08:29therefore one ought to be liberated.
08:35That need not even be very strongly taught.
08:38If just the fact of our being, our life can be exposed to us, a mirror can be shown to
08:46us, then we will be in a better state to live as free thinking individuals, broad minded,
08:58less fearful, more tolerant.
09:03If we leave it just to the individual urge to gain freedom, then we will have one in
09:09a million who will have that kind of a strong urge all by himself to rise against the inner
09:18shackles and try something extraordinary.
09:22And that is the need of the hour, therefore it cannot be left to chance.
09:26We cannot say that spiritual awakening is something that happens purely by grace and
09:31there is no need for any kind of policy measures, therefore.
09:35We need to have policy measures that encourage a certain inwardness.
09:43And you have governments that, for example, encourage a certain kind of tourism just for
09:55pleasure even in spiritual places.
10:00Similarly you see, just an example to show that even taxation has a role here.
10:07We have governments that in the name of generating employment promote flesh consumption and atrocities
10:17over animals.
10:20It is not for nothing that as a society we are turning more and more insensitive, cruel
10:26And you see, the temperatures are already reaching 50 degrees centigrade.
10:39So unless the individual is awakened by means of right social environment and careful public
10:49policy, there would be very little chance.
10:53Right now the condition is such that even if we have a kid or a young person who biologically
11:02and luckily has a certain inward orientation, the culture tears him away from the inner
11:12dimension and pushes him outwards.
11:15If you have an education that is focused totally on developing your marketable skills and earning
11:23your bread, how do you expect people to be self-aware?
11:28And if people are not self-aware, then there is no hope for humanity.
11:32This is really a fascinating perspective Acharyaji.
11:38Very interesting indeed.
11:39A quick follow-up and then we let our other colleagues engage with you as well.
11:48We spend quite a bit of time studying and engaging with and developing insights from
11:57Advaita Vedanta ourselves.
12:00In fact, we have done a background research on the mystical core of the world's religions.
12:17And we find similar teachings to Advaita Vedanta at the core of Christianity, the Sufism
12:25part of Islam, Buddhism, Daoism, and so on.
12:32So we look at this as a kind of a clear essential truth.
12:39Not only is that the case when we look at the most recent research from quantum physics
12:46or cognitive neuroscience, the teachings are very similar, almost the same, the primacy
12:53of consciousness and so on.
12:56So I take your point that truly speaking, we are not individuals per se.
13:03We share a collective consciousness.
13:06But because of our conditioning, we believe we are separate individuals.
13:15So then we end up with a chicken and egg problem because the policy makers tend to
13:23respond to the electorate in democracies at least.
13:31On the other, so if the electorate as individuals are not demanding, you know, the kind of public
13:37policies that are required for the enlightenment in a society, it's not likely we will get
13:45those policies.
13:48On the other hand, your argument is clear.
13:51If the public policies are not there, then it will not foster the environment in which
13:57people will become more enlightened.
14:01So we have a catch-22.
14:02How would you approach resolving this?
14:07You see, that's one of the perils of a democratic system.
14:12The leaders cannot be much more conscious than their voters.
14:24We need now some kind of magic which we cannot actually rely on.
14:36If it happens, it happens.
14:37It's a matter of grace.
14:39And we just said that the probability that someone would be awakened on his own irrespective
14:46of the adverse social and cultural and educational environment is one in a million.
14:53So the probability of that happening by itself is one in a million.
14:57The second thing that would happen, if that does not happen, is that there would be mass
15:04suffering.
15:07And that mass suffering would forcibly expose people to understanding that they are mistaken
15:19somewhere.
15:21The second route is obviously not preferable.
15:26But the first route is simply a function of prayers.
15:31We cannot do much about it.
15:32We will have to rely on certain extraordinary individuals to come up on their own.
15:41And then not merely beg the electorate for votes pandering to their insecurities and
15:49fears and ignorance, but actually enlighten the electorate and lead them towards something
15:59meaningful.
16:01The kind of leaders that we currently have, they move behind their followers because they
16:07cannot afford to annoy their followers.
16:10And the truth always carries the risk of irritating something or annoying something or somebody.
16:27I would rather say that those who understand the urgency of the situation have to do as
16:40much as possible.
16:44And the rest of the work will be done by the deteriorating global conditions.
16:50So one and two will work in tandem.
16:54On one hand, we need individual enterprise to assert itself and do whatever it can.
17:04So that at least a few examples are there.
17:08So that when one is in a position where he has to look to the other side of the fence,
17:15he does not see complete darkness.
17:18He at least has a few role models or ideals.
17:22So individuals must do whatever they can.
17:25But I am afraid that a lot of work here is going to be done by mass suffering.
17:31We will see the results of our misguided ways.
17:39The chicken will come home to roost and will be forced to change.
17:55And if you are not forced to change, then obliteration of this species is not a mammoth
18:00event in let's say cosmological terms.
18:08Species have arrived and departed and that's been happening since billions of years.
18:16So if this particular species goes extinct, that's nothing special.
18:22It's for the sake of our own survival, continuation and welfare that we ought to wake up.
18:30Either we do it on our own or the grand cycle of Prakriti will simply run its course.
18:43This is amazing.
18:44I was trained originally as an environmental scientist and when you refer to the extinction
18:53of species, I myself made that observation about 30 years ago that if we continue along
19:00this path, we are not going to change the world, we will just change the conditions
19:06under which humans are able to survive and the species will go.
19:13And you have come to the same conclusion.
19:15This is quite amazing.