Video Information: 15.06.2019, Shastra Kaumudi, Advait Bodhsthal, Greater Noida
Context:
What is the solution to climate change?
How spirituality can stop climate change?
Climate change has no scientific solution?
How to identify that I am choosing the right action?
How to do it correctly without any distractions?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #climatechange #rightaction
Context:
What is the solution to climate change?
How spirituality can stop climate change?
Climate change has no scientific solution?
How to identify that I am choosing the right action?
How to do it correctly without any distractions?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #climatechange #rightaction
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00There is only falseness everywhere in my life.
00:18After the last satsang, I realized that I don't understand or internalize your teaching
00:22correctly.
00:23I work in a decently paying job which has no use for liberation except to help my aspiration
00:30to become financially independent and luckily have a few free hours which I spend with your
00:37videos or in spiritual shopping, which is another trick of my mind to run away from
00:48the present and honest observation.
00:52I have an aspiration to farm or garden and be out of the corporate world, but that too
00:58feels like false after the last satsang.
01:01My question is how to identify or choose right action.
01:05I am sharing some of my personal incidents with you, apologies as this might take more
01:11of your time.
01:12I have joined as a volunteer in a local community garden and I have a small space where I sowed
01:19some seeds directly and tried growing a few plants by starting them indoors.
01:27My mind can conveniently misinterpret and selectively forget and choose manipulate words
01:32to satisfy itself.
01:33I don't want this.
01:34I pray please guide me to act correctly and bless me to remember correctly as well.
01:41You want to do something good Gudhaman, right?
01:45And you want to do it in your spare hours.
01:49You have started a bit of a community garden it seems and there you are trying to sow some
01:58seeds and get a few plants and such things and you are asking, you know, what do I do?
02:10Alright, where is that graphic that was sent to me that showed the impact of various activities
02:28on global climate change?
02:44You all have this, right?
02:48This is there on the group as well, right?
02:51It is there.
02:52So those who are watching it may just look at it.
02:59So you see Gudhaman, this is how we live, you know, trying to do small small good things
03:22so that we can conveniently escape away from the fact that there is something humongously
03:28evil that we are doing.
03:33There is a lady who has been with us previously and she's into organic fruits now, selling
03:49this organic stuff, that organic stuff.
03:53If you go to her Facebook page or profile, you will find only two things.
04:00One, things about the organic fruits that she sells, I suppose, or distributes.
04:13And secondly, pics of her kids and very fond descriptions of what the kids are doing and
04:23this and that.
04:28There are two or three kids, I suppose, at least two are there.
04:37That's how we live.
04:39This graphic clearly shows the impact of various activities on climate change.
04:54What are those various activities?
04:56Going car free, activity one.
05:01Two, avoiding one transatlantic flight.
05:07Third, choosing green energy.
05:10Fourth, switching from electric car to car free.
05:15Fifth, choosing a vegan diet.
05:20Then replacing typical car with hybrid.
05:24Then washing clothes in cold water rather than hot water.
05:29Then recycling.
05:31Then hang dry clothes.
05:35Then upgrading to energy efficient light bulbs.
05:41And the title of the graphic is tons of CO2 equivalent saved per year for one person undertaking
05:47each action.
05:49And if I sum up the tons of CO2 equivalent that are saved from these ten actions, it
06:01comes up to hardly ten tons of CO2 equivalent.
06:15Even if I combine all these ten activities, it is not even ten, it is around eight.
06:27So combine these ten activities and all that you save is eight tons of CO2 equivalent.
06:38But all these ten activities are so popular.
06:43All the do-gooders are busy doing all these ten activities and they walk around with great
06:50missionary zeal and even greater missionary pride.
06:58We are trying for a clean world and green world.
07:03We are the do-gooders.
07:09We are responsible citizens.
07:12We are trying to save the earth from annihilation.
07:15We are doing all these ten things to make the earth livable.
07:21And how much do you save?
07:25Even if you do all these ten things, eight tons of CO2.
07:30And then there is this huge bar that corresponds to around 60 tons of CO2, which comes from
07:44doing a single action, which is having one child.
07:50We will not talk about that because this is where the ego lives.
07:56This is where the physical bodily tendencies live.
08:06The great elephant in the room will not be talked about.
08:12We will talk about killing cockroaches in the room.
08:15We will say, oh, there are mosquitoes in the room, or there is a lizard as well.
08:24And do you see those cockroaches hiding behind the almirah?
08:31And do I sense that the wood has termite?
08:37Let's remove all of this.
08:39They are occupying the room.
08:41But we do not talk about the elephant in the room.
08:46That's how do-gooders live.
08:51Let's plant two trees.
08:55Baby now that you are pregnant, let's go and plant one more tree.
09:05This is in the name of our would-be baby.
09:13How we want to hide our complicity in the great crime of killing this planet?
09:22By doing all those little, little good things.
09:28In fact, doing those good things is a great indicator that you are doing some great evil
09:36that you want to hide by doing some little good things.
09:45So all the elites living in the posh colonies and having a greatly big carbon footprint
10:01would be at the forefront of a tree plantation drive.
10:11Mrs. Mittal would get down from her swanky Mercedes and plant a tree and say,
10:21now let's see how climate change occurs.
10:29And after planting the sapling, she would get back into the swanky Mercedes and feel
10:38proud that she has done something for environmental conservation.
10:52All the liberal girls of Delhi University and JNU would say, you know, let's not use crackers.
11:08Let's not use polythene.
11:13Let's recycle.
11:17Let's bicycle.
11:21But ask them, are you prepared to go childless?
11:24No, no, no, no, no.
11:26If that means 60 tons of CO2 per year, so be it.
11:35I'm not going to fight against my hormones, my uterus and my body.
11:43That is something I'm not going to do.
11:45But otherwise I must be seen as very, very progressive and liberal and earth loving and green.
11:53I must be seen as quite green.
11:56But the one thing that is needed, really needed, that I will not commit myself to.
12:03The elephant in the room will not be addressed.
12:09About everything else, I will be liberal, very progressive.
12:21I will say, let's do carpooling.
12:24Let's do carpooling.
12:27And when I'm going to the maternity ward, I will use the pooled car.
12:34But going to the maternity ward is something that I would not compromise on.
12:40At best, I will use an electric car to go to the hospital.
12:47See how green I am.
12:51That's how we live, Gautam.
12:59Working in a firm that is denuding the earth, we work for 10 hours a day in a firm that
13:08is directly or indirectly denuding the earth, cutting down forests.
13:14I assure you, there is hardly any firm, any company that is not complicit in global warming.
13:27There is hardly any aspect of human business, international markets, production, distribution,
13:40logistics, shipping, marketing, that does not contribute to climate change.
13:48So you work in those firms throughout the day, and then you come back and devote two
13:53hours a week to running a community garden.
14:00And then you want to absolve yourself of the guilt.
14:03You want to give yourself a clean chit.
14:10This goes out to all the do-gooders who think that by donating two hours of their week to
14:17some green NGO, they will be able to wash the blood off their hands.
14:22You will not be able to wash the blood off your hands.
14:27You are killers, you are criminals.
14:33And on top of that, you pretend to be lovers of the planet.
14:37You pretend to be pro-life, progressive and liberal.
14:41You are not.
14:55You must be wondering why I'm speaking about this thing regarding procreation, regarding
15:01having kids, because this is the single most important issue facing you and me and the
15:08planet and the millions of species today.
15:13This is the one thing that man immediately today, this moment, this second needs to address.
15:21There is no greater challenge in front of mankind, not the third world war, not nuclear
15:25proliferation, nothing at all.
15:28This is the biggest challenge.
15:30Can you please either stop or limit having babies?
15:39This is the one challenge that nobody wants to talk about.
15:42If you can address this, then everything would be addressed.
15:46And this cannot be addressed merely by way of litigation.
15:49You require a spiritual movement.
15:52You require a deeply spiritual consciousness to understand what I'm saying and act on what
16:04I'm pointing to.
16:11Babies just don't fall from skies.
16:16They come from deep body identification and that deep body identification is the curse
16:23of this planet.
16:26Spiritual problems are not merely spiritual.
16:30They are biological, ecological, financial, international, everything, every problem of
16:36the world is arising from man's body identification.
16:44And the direct fruit of that body identification is the production of kids.
16:57You cannot limit the number of kids without firstly putting an end to this body identification.
17:08And if you don't bring an end to this body identification, even if you limit the number
17:14of kids, man will keep killing and being violent in other ways.
17:28So you have to address the root, Godhaman, and you cannot address the root by devoting
17:35two hours of your spare time and planting saplings that can at best give you some kind
17:51of inner satisfaction that you are doing something, that you are not entirely on the side of the
18:02marauders.
18:08Do the real thing.
18:10If you have been with this course since a while now, please do the real thing.
18:26Help bring about a spiritual revolution.
18:29Only that can save you, me, everybody, this planet, man's consciousness.
18:40Help bring about a spiritual revolution.
18:44Without that, planting two seeds and two flowers will not help.
18:57When the global temperatures rise by three degrees, four degrees, all these little baby
19:03flowers will wilt.
19:07Anyway, not too many species of flowers are going to remain to be planted.
19:16Do you know how many species we are losing every day, Godhaman?
19:20We are losing 200 species of living beings every day.
19:31Even as I responded to you, we probably lost 30 of them, 30 of them irretrievably, never
19:39to come back, gone forever.
19:49So do take pics of the little saplings for posterity's sake, if there is going to be
20:04any posterity at all.
20:14We do not see the linkage between body identification, consumption, procreation and devastation.
20:28We look at them as different things.
20:33This urge for development, what do you think, it has nothing to do with the devastation
20:41of this planet.
20:44What is exactly the definition of development?
20:48That which brings pleasure to you, that which brings comfort and convenience to you.
20:54That's how you define development.
21:00You want to fly rather than use railways.
21:07You want to use a car rather than, and most importantly, you want to have a full nest.
21:16You want to be husband-wife and Munnu-Munni.
21:21And if Munnu-Munni feel a bit lonely, then Tunnu as well.
21:32Don't you see how all these things are related?
21:36Don't you see how an absence of a spiritual consciousness is at the root of all problems?
21:45Even though the problems appear diverse and unrelated to each other, they have one common
21:51root.
21:54In the history of mankind, the time has come when without addressing that root problem,
22:01you cannot address any of the problems.
22:04And if you do not address the root problem now, there is going to be no tomorrow.
22:15Do you want to keep busy planting two saplings two hours a week, Kothaman?
22:20Or do you want to get into something real?