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~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Video Information: 04.04.23, ITM-Mumbai (Online), Greater Noida
Context:
~ What is women empowerment?
~ How to empower women?
~ Why we need power?
~ What is the potential of women?
~ How should a woman live a successful marriage life?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #womanpower #womenempowerment
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquiry-gita-course?cmId=m00056
📚 Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?cmId=m00056
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Video Information: 04.04.23, ITM-Mumbai (Online), Greater Noida
Context:
~ What is women empowerment?
~ How to empower women?
~ Why we need power?
~ What is the potential of women?
~ How should a woman live a successful marriage life?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #womanpower #womenempowerment
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Good evening to all, to one and all present for the session.
00:06Today, we truly feel blessed to have Acharya Prashanth ji, who is a, who gracefully agreed
00:15for an interaction with our students at ITM Kharghar.
00:20A strong proponent of veganism, a climate change activist, an advocate for gender equality
00:27and women empowerment.
00:29These are just few ways to describe Acharya Prashanth ji.
00:34He is not only one of the, one well-known Vedanta teacher of our times, but also one
00:41of the most relevant and reliable wisdom teacher, who is followed by ten of million of people
00:47through his various online and offline platform.
00:51From authoring over hundred best-selling books to receiving the most influential vegan
00:59of the year award by PETA, Acharya Prashanth ji has been instrumental in bringing social
01:06spiritual transformation across the globe and especially amongst the youth.
01:12Sir, it's an honor to welcome you and address our students at ITM.
01:18On behalf of all of us, we would like to thank you for accepting our invitation.
01:23Sir, to start with, since this is an interactive session, I would like to ask one question
01:31to you, which is on women empowerment.
01:36In last few years, we have seen that this word women empowerment, it's been used in
01:42our society to a very large extent.
01:45To some extent, I feel that by this, you know, the empowerment that has been given, there
01:51has been some kind of social turbulence.
01:54I would like to know, in your words, what exactly is the meaning of women empowerment?
02:00You see, when we say a person is to be empowered, we need to first of all understand who the
02:22person is and therefore what is the meaning of power and what is the requirement of power
02:34for that person.
02:38So we are talking of a human being.
02:41More specifically, we are talking of women.
02:48What is the fundamental desire that a human being has and what's the most fundamental
02:59suffering?
03:02The desire is freedom that comes from realizing the nature of bondages.
03:15So freedom and realization, these are our fundamental desires.
03:24This is what we all want, men or women.
03:30And if we do not have freedom, if we do not realize what our bondages are, then that's
03:41the fundamental suffering.
03:44So you see, power is needed only to bring about a change, right?
03:54Power is energy.
03:56We need to change the situation as it currently exists.
04:02The status quo is unacceptable because it includes a lot of suffering.
04:09And that's the reason we need power.
04:12If we do not know who we are, what our situation is, what our problem is, and why we need power,
04:20then power becomes counterproductive.
04:23Is that not so?
04:26So I must know where I'm stuck.
04:28I must know what is it in my current situation that I need to change.
04:35In my current situation, it is the lack of understanding of the very nature of my bondage.
04:45That's what I need to address and change.
04:49That's what in my current situation is totally unacceptable.
04:57So what then is empowerment?
05:01Empowerment is understanding.
05:05Empowerment is illumination.
05:07If I want to empower someone, or if I am to be empowered, the first thing is to know where
05:16I'm stuck.
05:19The first thing is to realize the nature of my bondages and consequent suffering.
05:26And then I'll have the urge and the wisdom to challenge things as they stand inside me
05:42and outside me.
05:45And when there is that challenge, there is change.
05:52And that change brings me to a point of peace.
05:55That's the entire purpose of empowerment.
05:58You come to a point of peace.
06:00You come to a point of freedom.
06:03You come to a point where your potential to be realized takes material form in the shape
06:14of your life.
06:17So that's empowerment.
06:19The woman is a conscious being, exactly as the man.
06:28And obviously both need to be empowered.
06:32But here the question is more specifically in the context of women.
06:36So that's the conscious being, the woman.
06:40And she does not realize the nature of her bondages.
06:47The outer and the inner conditions are not favorable to realization.
06:52Now we are going into the nature of her suffering, her weakness.
07:00So there is an outer condition in the form of the world she inhibits.
07:05And there is the inner condition in the form of her mental environment.
07:11And both these are not conducive to strength.
07:17Both of these are not very illuminated conditions.
07:21So if we want to empower the girl or the woman, we have to work on these two fronts.
07:30We have to create external conditions that tell her that first and foremost she's a consciousness
07:38waiting to attain heights and she's not to spend her life by the dictates of her body.
07:54So she has to be saved from social influences and biological imperatives, these two things.
08:05So this discussion so far has brought us to the two important pillars needed to uphold
08:14any kind of empowerment.
08:16One, take care of all the things that influence her from the social point, from the legal
08:28point, from the religious point, educational point.
08:36From all these places influences come and they shape her mind.
08:43You could say they distort her mind.
08:47So empowerment of the woman would involve taking care of these points, these institutions.
08:56You have to take care of the religious influences.
08:59If you have a girl and she has been told since childhood that the very success of the woman's
09:07life lies in taking care of the household and the husband and the babies and she does
09:15not need to accord priority to anything else.
09:19She does not need to read much.
09:21She does not need to explore much.
09:24Her own ambition and potential is of secondary importance.
09:33That knowledge is secondary to, let's say, daintiness.
09:41That servility is more valuable than curiosity or inquisitiveness.
09:51If these are the values that have come to her from religion or family, then that's a
09:56huge problem.
09:58So empowerment would involve challenging the so-called religious institution.
10:06It's actually not true religion that teaches such things, but in the name of religion such
10:15things are drilled into the girl's mind.
10:19So empowerment would mean that you do not let the folk kind of religion do such things
10:27to the girl.
10:29Then there is the educational thing.
10:31What is it that's being taught in the schools?
10:37That involves the content of the textbooks where there might be subliminal messages that
10:50are gender insensitive in nature.
10:58For example, if you want to show what a kitchen looks like, you have shown the kitchen.
11:08And a woman in a sari is standing there.
11:12Now technically what you have shown to the kid, and let's say it's a class three kid.
11:17Technically what you have shown to the kid is, all right, yes, that's the kitchen and
11:20there is the lady standing there.
11:22But what you don't understand is that you have also in the process sent across a dangerous
11:31message that the kitchen is for the woman and that the place of the woman is in the kitchen.
11:40So that's regarding the content of the textbook.
11:46And then there is the attitude of the teachers.
11:51How are the teachers looking at their boys and girls, the students?
11:57What advices are they rendering to the students?
12:02And it often happens that the teachers, even in their good intention, end up giving dangerous,
12:13even toxic advice to boys and girls out of their own ignorance.
12:23If it's not a problem of intention, then it's a problem of the teacher's ignorance.
12:29So that institution has to be taken care of.
12:32We are talking of the educational institution, the religious institution, then the law.
12:37The law, first of all, has to take care of the interests of the woman.
12:48And that does not merely mean talking of equality in a blind way.
13:02If you really care about equality, then you will, first of all, want them to be equals.
13:11You cannot have equal laws for two sections that are fundamentally and historically unequal.
13:24So the legal community has to go into that and take care of that.
13:31And to a great extent, that has been done.
13:34In fact, some people allege that it has been overdone.
13:38Equally, some people say that what has been done is not very meticulous.
13:46You have taken care of the woman's interests, where you could see her interests placed.
13:57But because you are yourself not very insightful, you do not see where her real interests are.
14:04And where her real interests stand, there you have not been able to provide any legal protection.
14:11Take for example the instance of very prevalent marital rape.
14:19And even till date, the law does not seem to be able to do much when it comes to that.
14:33Then there are the institutions of the media.
14:38You have the movies, you have the television, you have the social media, and all of these
14:42are affecting the girl's mind.
14:46And if you are making her mind feeble, and you are distorting her consciousness, then
14:52obviously there is no empowerment.
14:56So these have to be taken care of.
15:00And then it comes to the girl's insides.
15:04We said empowerment would include two domains, the domain within and the domain without.
15:11The domain within is her own biological tendencies.
15:17The domain without comprises of the forces, factors, institutions that affect her mind.
15:26We have spoken of all the external factors, now let's get to the internal one.
15:34So you see the girl has been evolved by nature in a particular way.
15:46And evolution is a very gradual and tedious process.
15:55In historical sense, on a historical time scale, just till yesterday, we all were residing
16:01in the jungle, right?
16:05It's been just a few thousand years since we have totally and completely moved out of
16:14the jungle.
16:17Before that, since millions of years we were in the jungle, and the woman's body has been
16:24trained over these millions of years of evolution to play her biological role only.
16:34And that training of a million years cannot be undone or offset in a matter of a few thousand
16:44years.
16:46So even as today we say we are cultured, we are civilized, we are urban, we say we are
16:56not animals anymore, we say we are not jungle dwellers anymore, but still our body belongs
17:04squarely to the jungle, right?
17:08And what is it that the body wants to do in the jungle?
17:13Look at the body of any jungle creature, look at the body of a wild beast.
17:21What does it want to do?
17:22It wants to secure itself, it wants to eat and it wants to procreate.
17:30Nobody in the jungle cares for any kind of realization or understanding or illumination
17:35or empowerment.
17:38So the body of the man and the body of the woman, both these bodies are coming from the
17:44jungle, but we are specifically talking of the woman here.
17:48Coming from the jungle, all that her body cares for is the biological imperative.
17:56And the biological imperative is to relate with the male in a certain way and to procreate
18:04a lot and to perform the same role that she has been historically performing since millions
18:13of years.
18:15The thing is that those millions of years are just too far behind us now, right?
18:31In a very short span of time, in just a few thousand years, around let's say 60-70 thousand
18:39years, we have been able to put the jungle far behind us.
18:48But the body has still not come to terms with that fact, right?
18:57Even as our lives have changed a lot, our bodies have not.
19:02The bodies continue to remain the same as they were, let's say, 10 million years back.
19:11Not much has changed.
19:13Fundamentally the body is the same.
19:15Though consciousness has changed, life has changed, obviously we know how much science
19:19and technology have changed, thought has evolved, but the body has not evolved because as we
19:28said evolution is a very slow process.
19:32So the body has remained the same, body has remained the same.
19:37Evolution has been outpaced by the growth in thought, understanding.
19:46What does that mean?
19:48That means that there is a huge lag.
19:52Even as we have great books available, the sharpest products of intellect are available
20:03to us for use, the urges of the body remain very animalistic.
20:11What does the body want?
20:13Attachment, possession.
20:17And when it cannot have what it wants, there is anger and jealousy and such things.
20:25And especially the woman's body has been raised or evolved in a way that there is a lot of
20:35insecurity because the historical, prakritic, natural role of the woman was to raise kids.
20:45And in the jungle, that's a very important role.
20:47In fact, that's a central role of one's life.
20:51We are talking of the woman.
20:54If you look at the jungle, the woman exists to be pregnant.
21:02The woman exists to breed.
21:05That's how it happens in the jungle, right?
21:08The woman does not exist to become an artist, a painter, a dancer, a scientist, an explorer,
21:13a thinker, a meditator.
21:17No.
21:18In the jungle, she exists just to survive and to give birth.
21:23So she will eat, she will seek physical and mental protection, security, and she will
21:32seek a mate who can impregnate her.
21:38Now that is continuing even today.
21:41And if that continues, no empowerment makes any sense.
21:48Even if you change all the institutions, the external ones, we have talked of the religious
21:55one, the educational one, the legal one, we have talked of the role of media and so many
22:00other things.
22:01Even if you take care of all those institutions, the woman would still not be free.
22:12Even if you bestow all kind of powers on her, she would still either refuse to wield those
22:20powers or would misuse those powers.
22:26Because internal bondage is way more severe than any kind of external bondage.
22:35If you give her external freedom without caring for her internal freedom, external
22:41freedom will make very little difference.
22:45In fact, external freedom will become dangerous because it will create an illusion of freedom.
22:51She will think she is free, she will claim she is empowered, whereas she is as much in
22:56bondage as she always has been.
23:01And that's the case of a lot of so-called empowered women today.
23:09They say we are empowered, but internally they are still living in the jungle variety
23:17of bondage.
23:21So that's where self-knowledge comes in.
23:31She needs to have self-knowledge and that's where wisdom literature comes in.
23:39That is what is Atma Gyan or spirituality.
23:42That's where Vedanta comes to the woman's rescue.
23:47Vedanta tells her, oh come on, learn to keep the body aside, you are not the body.
23:53The body is at most a resource that you can use to attain some legitimate objective.
24:07But what is a legitimate objective?
24:09That has to be known by knowing yourself.
24:14When you know yourself, then you know what your goals must be.
24:19So self-knowledge.
24:21You know yourself and then you know what your goals must be.
24:25And in the pursuit of those legitimate goals, you can use your body, that's fine.
24:31The body includes everything.
24:32It includes memory, it includes the wholeness of your brain, intellect, your power to argue,
24:43creativity, everything.
24:46And it includes your muscular strength.
24:50It includes everything that you are physically.
24:56So you must know yourself and then you can use the body for the right purpose.
25:02And then you will not use your body just to seek security or sometimes attract the other
25:09gender so that you can have a comfortable nest.
25:14All those things will then appear very childish to you.
25:20You will say I'm not born for that.
25:22I'm a human being.
25:24I exist to realize.
25:27I'm a human being.
25:28The purpose of my life is liberation, illumination, understanding.
25:34That's why I'm born.
25:35It does not matter what my gender is.
25:38The gender is just a thing of the body and I'm not the body.
25:42I'm a consciousness seeking to be liberated.
25:48That's who I am.
25:51So these things, in my view, constitute the empowerment of women.
26:01Modification and reform of external institutions, the institution of family, the institution
26:06of religion, society, law, education, media.
26:14These have to be taken care of.
26:17And more important than that, the woman has to have self-knowledge and to that end you
26:25require specialized courses in schools and colleges.
26:31You require wisdom literature to be a part of the standard curricula and you need perspective.
26:40You need a society that gives importance to spiritual understanding.
26:48So that's from my side.
26:58Thank you so much, sir, for such an insightfulness on what women empowerment exactly is all about.