Video Information: 30.08.22, Interview Session, Greater Noida
Context:
~ What is the solution to climate change?
~ How can spirituality stop climate change?
~ Climate change have no scientific solution
~ How is veganism related to compassion?
~ Why is veganism necessary for today's generation?
~ What is the relation between veganism and climate change?
~ How could veganism change the world?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #veganism #climatechange
Context:
~ What is the solution to climate change?
~ How can spirituality stop climate change?
~ Climate change have no scientific solution
~ How is veganism related to compassion?
~ Why is veganism necessary for today's generation?
~ What is the relation between veganism and climate change?
~ How could veganism change the world?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #veganism #climatechange
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00I am Periyan Sajdeva. I am India Lead with Climate Healers and I have organized the tour
00:08that we are on. When you stated that veganisms are somewhat distanced from spirituality,
00:16I like to think of myself as an intersectional vegan who is not looking at the subject of
00:21animal rights in exclusivity and in fact is trying to understand those from a perspective
00:28of human rights as well and how they are intertwined. When you said that veganisms
00:35are distancing themselves from spirituality, I think that that is happening because a lot
00:41of vegans of course are not getting the necessary direction that they need to accept that the
00:51whole reason we need to do this is because we are distanced from spirituality and what
00:57is happening is when you are faced with the reality of the way we treat animals as well
01:03as humans, people are losing their faith in humanity itself and to some extent in spirituality.
01:12So how would you say… I didn't get the logic. When you have not even tried spirituality
01:18one, how do you lose your faith in it? How do I lose my faith in something? I have not
01:23even tried this once in my life and then I say I have no faith in it. How have you
01:28lost your faith in it when you never had any faith in the first place?
01:33Because of the way traditions have co-opted religion.
01:36So have you no information or knowledge or access or insight to see beyond that?
01:43Precisely. So how would you say that…
01:45There is enough material on the net to see how spirituality is something way beyond tradition.
01:51How is it possible then that a well-read person with access to information technology
01:57continues to believe that tradition is spirituality?
02:03There is enough material on the internet and there are books and they are all very easily
02:07accessible.
02:08They are in the public domain.
02:09Many of them are particularly famous.
02:12How is it still possible that a young person, a well-read person says that traditions are
02:19all very exploitative and I thought that religion is nothing but traditions, therefore
02:23I turn my back to religion.
02:24How is it possible?
02:25Absolutely not.
02:26The issue that we are facing, you have correctly put it, the way traditions are co-opting religion
02:33and spirituality is the problem.
02:37So how do you…
02:38Traditions can do whatever they want to do and remember traditions are not conscious
02:41on their own.
02:42It's vested interests of selfish people who use traditions for their own selfish gains
02:51in the name of religion.
02:52So all that is happening and that is being done by dumb and mediocre people.
02:56But don't we know better than that?
02:58Don't we have access to resources to see that it's some kind of a very lame conspiracy?
03:04So lame that you can just push it and it will fall.
03:08There is nothing in it.
03:10So how are smart and sharp youngsters not able to see through the problem of tradition
03:19co-opting religion as you said?
03:21How is it possible?
03:22I'll add another dimension to what you are saying.
03:26You know, it is very very comforting to the ego to keep spirituality at arm's length.
03:41That might be the real problem.
03:43Because if you accept that spirituality is the solution, then you will have to self-correct.
03:50Spirituality is about looking into yourself, figuring out all the nonsense that keeps circulating
03:56within and owning the responsibility to correct, impure, purify and improve yourself.
04:05That's what even the well-read population, even the intellectual population does not
04:11want to do.
04:12Because irrespective of how much knowledge you have and how deep your intellect is, the
04:17animalistic tendency to consume, to exploit, to be afraid, to be greedy, to be envious,
04:25that remains the same.
04:27Even if to promote veganism, even if to save animals, if you turn to spirituality, you
04:36will have to feel uncomfortable.
04:38You will have to live with an inner conflict and that's the reason why vegans want to keep
04:45these two very separated.
04:48Well, Climate Healers is one of the founding organizations for the Interfaith Vegan Coalition.
04:54So we did that in 2016.
04:57You see, even when we say we are going to have an interfaith vegan conference or something,
05:05what we say is veganism is at the center and now let's use faith to promote the cause of
05:12veganism.
05:13That won't work.
05:15You have to keep faith at the center and when faith is at the center, then veganism happens
05:20on its own and that is the only way veganism can happen.
05:23I would have turned, very humbly I am submitting to you, with no sense of vanity in it because
05:32we still have a long, long, long, long, long way to go.
05:34So how can I start feeling proud at such an early stage?
05:42More than a lakh, probably 5 lakh people would have been turned vegan by our humble efforts.
05:48They have not been turned vegan, they have been turned spiritual and because they have
05:53been turned spiritual, veganism has just happened.
05:56Just happened.
05:58Once you are spiritual, you just cannot bear to consume dairy or meat.
06:05That is precisely what happened with me as well and because I agree with you, that is
06:10why I am not able to accept that this can be applied to veganism as a blanket thing,
06:18that all vegans are away from spirituality.
06:21Obviously see, nothing is blank.
06:23That's what happened to me.
06:24I became spiritual and then this automatically happened.
06:29Obviously nothing can be applied in a blanket sense, in a 100% perfect sense to anybody.
06:34But what is happening largely to the vegan community, that's what I am stating to you.
06:40You know of the intensity of our efforts, so you would have known that we probably have
06:44deep experience with the vegan dynamics in this country and it is from there that I am coming.
06:50So from your experience, what is your advice on bringing this alignment back into the movement?
06:57India has religiosity in its soil.
07:01You cannot talk to the Indian people in a language of ideology.
07:05Indians won't listen to ideology, but Indians will listen to the language of love, compassion, spirituality.
07:15I understand it might be important to make a documentary in English.
07:19You have to speak to the people in their language and in their metaphor and that's the reason
07:24why the vegan community in India is still so small.
07:28We are talking down to the people, we are treating as if we are at a higher intellectual
07:37station and those people down there need to listen to us.
07:41This won't work.
07:42Yeah, it's unfortunate because a lot of the learnings of the activist community is coming
07:46from a more western narrative and it doesn't apply.
07:50That western veganism simply won't work in India.
07:53It has not worked, it will not work even in the future.
07:57But Indians will turn vegan on their own because they have that sentiment already by virtue
08:07of their pre-existing spirituality.
08:10The sentiment that animals are living beings, that even our gods have taken forms of animals
08:18often.
08:19You have Matsavatar, you have Kurmavatar, all kinds of improbable animals have hosted
08:25our gods.
08:27Think of fish, think of a tortoise and the gods in the heavens decide to take the shape
08:32of a fish or this or that, birds, even crows, think snakes.
08:38So Indians by their very spiritual training are already ripe to very quickly turn vegan.
08:50But you cannot impose imported western ideologies on them and hope that they will listen.
08:55They will not listen.
08:56Exactly.
08:57Thank you so much.
08:58If I may, just a couple of follow-ups too.
09:01So when you, in your understanding of religion and spirituality, do you see religion as a
09:07path towards spirituality or do you see them the same?
09:11And one more question and then you can take them together.
09:15So you say that, you know, gods and goddesses and, you know, spirituality, it's taken the
09:21shape and form of animals as well.
09:24But there is also, please pardon my lack of awareness, but there is also some understanding
09:28that humans are in some sense superior because we are closer towards enlightenment.
09:33So what is your thought on that as well?
09:36The one who is superior in the spiritual tradition is vested with a lot of responsibility.
09:42Like the superior one in the family.
09:45What will the superior one in the family do?
09:47Eat up the small ones or bring them up?
09:50So that's the answer.
09:54Unlike in Abrahamic folds, where the superior one is probably supposed to consume the smaller
10:00one.
10:01So that's how it is interpreted.
10:02Though there again, I advise, specifically the Muslim community, when they say that it
10:08is mentioned in the Holy Quran that all the little creatures and all these, they are made
10:12for man.
10:14I ask them, what does it mean made for man?
10:17It means that they are made for the compassion of man.
10:21They are made as the responsibility of man to take care of them.
10:26We are the trustee.
10:28And the trustee is not supposed to consume what he has been entrusted with.
10:33Right?
10:34You are supposed to take care of them.
10:36Not assault them, not kill them, not consume them, not exploit them.
10:41So that's the thing.
10:43You see, we worship, and she put it very cutely in that thing, Bhoomi Devi, but it was written
10:49as Mummi Devi.
10:50When it was Mummi Devi, it sounded so nice to me, that the Devi is the mother.
10:59The Devi is the mother and the mother is all this, where the cycle of procreation, life
11:08and death happens.
11:09We worship it.
11:10So obviously we cannot be violent towards it.
11:13How can you be violent towards the article of your worship?
11:18So we are already in that condition.
11:22It's just that spirituality has to be shown as different from the existing traditions of religion.
11:35That brings me to your original question.
11:39The relationship between religion and spirituality.
11:42Religion is the outermost shell of spirituality.
11:51It is there so that the uninitiated ones might be somehow introduced to the basic principles
12:00and initiated on that long road that passes through firstly spirituality and then ends in liberation.
12:12So religion was designed to be conducive to spirituality.
12:20You could say religion is the, in terms of, in a model including concentric circles, religion
12:28is the outer circle, spirituality is the inner circle and these two are concentric and liberation
12:37is the center.
12:39The outer circle is religion, the inner circle is spirituality and liberation is the center.
12:46The problem is that the outer circle has moved infinitely outwards.
12:53The outer circle must be somewhat close to the inner circle, right?
12:58Only then can there be some communication between these two circles.
13:02Now what has happened is that the outer circle has been sabotaged.
13:06The outer circle has been co-opted, taken away by our own animalistic tendencies.
13:15So as it was said that tradition has simply walked away with religion and that is what has happened.
13:25That's why you see such a great difference, even dissonance between religion and spirituality.
13:33I was, in fact you just returned from OP Jindal University and in the last session
13:40that I had with them, one of the questions that was asked to me was, is India too religious
13:45to be spiritual?
13:47And there is an entire video with the same title, that India is too religious to be spiritual.
13:53Such has become the degraded condition of religiosity in India.
13:58So I fully understand that we have to fight all the impurities that have sneaked into
14:08religion and in fact totally owned it up, possessed it.
14:16But fighting the impurities is very different from fighting religion itself.
14:23Along with the impurities, if you discard the essential religiosity, is that not the
14:28same thing as throwing the baby away with the bath water?
14:35The bath water is dirty, so throw it away and along with that you also throw away the
14:40baby in the bath water.
14:41How wise is that?
14:44And you cannot have veganism sans Vedanta.
14:47Let me put that very very clearly.
14:50I want that message to go out clear and loud to the entire vegan community in India and
14:54abroad.
14:55You cannot discard religion and still hope veganism to succeed.
15:01Your ways have not succeeded today, in the past you have been trying since 10 years,
15:0520 years you have not succeeded, you will not succeed even in the future.
15:10In fact veganism without spirituality would be quite dangerous.
15:16Are you implying that religion is the exclusive way towards spirituality?
15:22You can be very spiritual without being religious.
15:26You can be very spiritual without being religious.
15:30And if you are spiritual without being religious, then you are truly religious.
15:34Yeah, the dharma.
15:36Exactly, the definition of dharma is to constantly remember that the mind has to be brought to
15:47a realization, to a relaxation, to a point free of its own impurities.
15:51That is dharma.
15:53That is dharma.
15:54Nothing more than that, pure and simple.
15:57Keep the mind pure.
15:59This is dharma.
16:00Thank you so much.
16:02And it's interesting that you brought up the baby and the bath water because Dr. Sailesh
16:06Rao has come up with a model of solving climate change which is the climate bathtub model.
16:12So if Dr. Rao, please explain, if you could briefly explain the model.
16:18Yeah, it's just looking at fossil fuels and I just modeled it with the baby sitting in
16:23a bathtub and with water as the equivalent of the CO2 in the atmosphere, CO2 equivalent,
16:29CO2 methane equivalent.
16:32Let's please look at the spiritual life.
16:37It is obviously minimalistic because you understand there is not much point in consuming and consuming
16:42and consuming.
16:45There is a bit of antinatalism involved there because just as you don't want to consume
16:51a lot, you also don't want to procreate a lot.
16:56All the values that you can revere and admire, they are anyway emanating from the spiritual
17:09life.
17:11Therefore it is the spiritual life that will be conducive to, even give birth to, to non-violence,
17:21to veganism, to compassion, to communal harmony, to all the nice things we can talk of.
17:30All the goodness comes essentially from spirituality, otherwise why do we need to be spiritual?
17:38Because we are not already good.
17:41Man as he is born is a wild thing.
17:44The baby that is born carries so many millions of years of baggage, evolutionary baggage.
17:51Look at the just born baby, full of ignorance, crying, full of filth, attached, afraid, deluded.
18:02That's the condition of the baby and that's the reason why we need spiritual education
18:07because we are not born all right.
18:10And as you go on correcting the baby by addressing his, her inner animalistic tendencies, life
18:21is set right.
18:23Veganism will happen even without making any specific or targeted or dedicated efforts.
18:32It will just happen, just happen.
18:37I have a question, one second.
18:39So Guruji, in my journey, the spiritual I got, I saw God in every bird, every tree,
18:48every butterfly, the lake, everywhere I see God in the cow and her baby, I see God everywhere.
18:56How can we now uplift India through this spirituality?
19:01Help us, we are doing that, attempting that, kindly support us.
19:07You have to bring the basics to the people.
19:13Let people realize that another way of thought and life is possible.
19:20What is happening is that the mainstream current is extremely strong.
19:25The common man is totally unable to resist its speed, its flow, its power.
19:34So we all just get swept away.
19:38There has to be an alternate current, there has to be something else you can opt for and
19:44that has to be brought to the public domain.
19:47So which brings me to the idea of creating a vegan university.
19:51Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
19:54Just as you had that vegan temple in the movie, it's wonderful, obviously.
19:59So complete education system that's around non-violence.
20:04Why not just as you have named the movie on Ahimsa, why not name the university on Ahimsa,
20:09Ahimsa University.
20:10When you have Ahimsa University, then it remains not merely about animals.
20:16Then it starts including that one central animal as well.
20:22So why be partial against human beings when you say that veganism is a great value?
20:29Why not include human beings in the fold?
20:31It's not only animals that we exploit, or do we?
20:35We exploit fellow human beings as well.
20:38So when you name it Ahimsa, then you are being fair to human beings as well, exploited human
20:43beings as well.
20:44When you say that I am a vegan, in some sense you have said, okay, I can be unfair to human
20:49beings but I will be fair to animals.
20:51Is that possible?
20:53Ahimsa is all-inclusive.
20:56It includes your relationship with animals, with human beings, with trees, with plants,
21:02with the river, with the mountain and also with yourself.
21:07Ahimsa includes your relationship with yourself as well.
21:10So Ahimsa is a far more inclusive and more powerful and more fundamental word.
21:16Yeah, we were calling it until now the Jeeva Karuna Vegan University.
21:22Lovely, lovely, lovely.