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Video Information: 13.04.23, IRMA (Online), Greater Noida
Let's understand Nationalism and Indian Nationalism
Context:
~ What is nationalism?
~ Is nationalism good or bad?
~ What was the rise of nationalism?
~ What is nationalism in India easy?
~ What is the origin of Indian nationalism?
~ What is called nationalism?
~ Nationalism and Vedanta
~ Nationalism can be a force for good
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #nationalism #nation
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquiry-gita-course?cmId=m00046
📚 Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?cmId=m00046
📝 Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles?cmId=m00046
~~~~~
Video Information: 13.04.23, IRMA (Online), Greater Noida
Let's understand Nationalism and Indian Nationalism
Context:
~ What is nationalism?
~ Is nationalism good or bad?
~ What was the rise of nationalism?
~ What is nationalism in India easy?
~ What is the origin of Indian nationalism?
~ What is called nationalism?
~ Nationalism and Vedanta
~ Nationalism can be a force for good
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #nationalism #nation
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Does the person you are with encourage you to read?
00:07You have to ask, what does he bring for me? Roses or books?
00:12If someone has a stake in making you better, that person will push you towards books.
00:18Books are what we all need.
00:30Acharya ji, Namaskar once again.
00:39So, we the students of Irma are organizing an event Parichintan.
00:47And the idea is basic that we want to make the school going students aware of our freedom fighters.
00:55Because we feel that they are going away from them.
00:58And we also see that less and less students are getting known to the freedom fighters, to the nation builders.
01:07So we want to know, especially from your perspective, how can we make our school children more inclined towards the nation building approaches?
01:17How can we make them more nationalistic if required?
01:22Because we need leaders, we need real heroes, not real heroes. How can we do this?
01:34See, first of all, the very meaning of nation and nationalism needs to be clarified.
01:47We assume as if nationalism is a virtue in itself, as if it's an honorable goal in itself,
02:10unconditionally, unexceptionally.
02:18That's not true.
02:21A lot of thinkers, philosophers have repeatedly told us that like any other ideology, nationalism can be very divisive
02:49and can therefore be very violent.
02:56Think of so many wars that have been fought in the name of nationalism.
03:04Think of the Second World War.
03:06Closer Home, Rabindranath Tagore, was one very powerful opponent of nationalism
03:23because he had seen the horrors that blind ideology brings along with it.
03:32So, a nation is a group of people brought together, sharing something in common.
03:54Now what is it that they share in common?
03:59What is it that binds them together? That has to be investigated first of all.
04:04If the basis of the nation is race or ethnicity or language,
04:27colour, creed, then you would see very clearly that there is a big problem
04:41because then nationalism is founded on the basis of man versus man, me versus you.
04:58We have the same skin colour so we are one nation or we share the same language so we are one nation.
05:07And therefore somebody has to be the other.
05:14Somebody has to be treated as the outsider or the enemy or the pariah.
05:23Do you see this?
05:26If I say that we can be together as a nation only because we share a certain common language
05:35or a certain common religion, do you see the dangers that come with it?
05:41Or we are one nation because we are Aryans.
05:50That's how much of Germany wanted it in the 30s and 40s.
05:59So that's the reason why nationalism like any other ideology becomes problematic.
06:14However there is a very distinct kind of nationalism that can be very virtuous.
06:24But only that kind of nationalism, a nationalism that is not divisive,
06:32a nationalism that is not founded on what separates the two of us,
06:40instead founded on what unites the two of us.
06:46Think of the various kind of nationalities you know of.
06:54Are they not all founded on divisions?
06:59A group of people they get together and they say we are a nation.
07:07We are a nation because we have a common shared characteristic.
07:11And therefore we are separate from somebody else.
07:14Think of why India had to be politically divided.
07:18What was Jinnah's argument?
07:21What was the two nation theory?
07:24He said Hindus and Muslims they are not just two different religions.
07:29They are two different nations because everything about them is distinct, exclusive.
07:41So when you have a nationalism that is founded on differences,
07:54then nationalism becomes toxic, violent and leads to horrible consequences.
08:00So we are saying let there be a nationalism that is not founded on
08:06the differences between man and man.
08:11Instead it is founded on what is common between you and me, man and man.
08:19Now what is it that we share?
08:24Now that takes us into philosophy rather metaphysics.
08:31What is common between the two of us?
08:33If you look at one person and then at another, you would only perceive differences, right?
08:40Even if you say that they share a common language, the dialect or the accent would be different.
08:50Even if you say that they share a common religion,
08:55yet they might be investing themselves in different stories or different verses or different gods.
09:09So by definition one person is always very distinct from the other and the differences are countless.
09:21Man is different from woman, is he not?
09:24The young person is different from the old person.
09:28The rich says he is different from the poor, right?
09:36The ones living in the East say we are different from the Westerners.
09:43Pakistan got made on the basis of religion but then had to be divided on the basis of language.
09:53So differences never end.
09:56You find one commonality and behind that commonality there would be ten differences lurking.
10:03The moment you found your nationalism on something that is not absolutely universal,
10:13you are just inviting discord, strife, hatred, limitations and none of that is any good obviously.
10:30Are you getting it?
10:34So the Germans say we are one people, the French say we are another people.
10:41The Brits say we belong to Europe but we still are a distinct class, we don't even want to be a part of the Euro.
10:54Why do we do that? Because the ego thrives only in differences.
11:01The ego loves to have boundaries.
11:05Ego is another name for boundaries.
11:12The bounded self is called the ego.
11:18So most of the nationalism that you see actually arises from the ego and is therefore not auspicious at all.
11:27You need a nationalism that arises from something beyond the ego.
11:38And therefore I say let there be a nationalism based on the unifying principle.
11:51That unifying principle as far as I have seen is enunciated most clearly in Vedanta.
11:58I do not say it is not mentioned or pointed at anywhere else.
12:09But Vedanta spells it out quite neatly.
12:12That unifying principle is called the borderless self, Atma.
12:24That clarity which is not tainted by personality.
12:34When you say you know something, when you say you believe in something,
12:39when you say you understand something, that is never pure or absolute because that is colored by, marred by, spoiled by your particular personality.
12:52So the Hindu has one belief, the Muslim has another belief, the Christian has another one.
12:58So the Hindu has one belief, the Muslim has another belief, the Christian has another one.
13:05You believe in one thing when you are 15, by the time you are 35 your beliefs change.
13:12So our thoughts, our ideologies, opinions are not absolute.
13:18There is a long shadow of our personal self over them.
13:22And therefore all ideologies we said are not really worthy of being given a very high position.
13:38They cannot be seated as the absolute.
13:41Vedanta talks of that which dissolves the differences between us, that which dissolves the ego itself because the ego is what separates the two of us, right?
14:03When I say I, I mean that I am distinct from you.
14:07The ego is the divisive principle.
14:12I implies separation. The moment I say I, I mean me versus the world. I am there and the world is separate or distinct.
14:24So I say I, you too say I and the moment we utter I, we mean that the two of us are not the same.
14:33I-ness is separation. Therefore I-ness is suffering.
14:46Hence can we have a nation that is founded with the objective to dissolve I-ness?
14:58No, remain patient. Let's not declare this as too absurd or impractical or utopian.
15:14Can we have a nation founded with the very objective to create conditions in which the ego is dissolved or sublimated or purified?
15:30Only that kind of nationalism is proper.
15:35Let's create a nation that does not exist to quarrel with the others, that does not exist to stand separate from the others.
15:48Let's create a nation that does not take its identity from resistance to the others.
16:05Where does Pakistan for example take its identity from?
16:10It says I am different from India and that's my identity.
16:13And that's the reason they have to be compulsively hostile against India. Do you see that?
16:22The same thing applies to all the nations of the world.
16:27The same thing applies even to India as it currently exists.
16:33There have to be borders, there has to be discord, acrimony, strife, the threat of war and the threat of war pleases the population so much, does it not?
16:49In fact nationalism would lose its charm and romance if there were no wars. Wars consolidate the feeling of nationalism, do they not?
17:09When an enemy attacks you, you feel so much more of a national identity, right?
17:29Now none of that is good, obviously not good.
17:33So the basis of nationalism has to be an inward approach that takes care of the ego.
17:47The constitution must say that the state exists to uplift its citizens internally.
17:56Obviously internal upliftment would require conducive external conditions.
18:04To that extent the physical world has to be taken care of.
18:10You cannot say you want to address somebody's ego problem without taking care of his or her environment.
18:19You will have to take care of education, health, media.
18:25You will have to protect the genuine interests of the various groups of citizens as they exist, no?
18:35And then you will say ultimately everything has to boil down to the pure self.
18:46Yes, there is the legislature, there is the executive, there is the judiciary, all these would function.
18:54There is the media, there are the laws and the sub-laws, there are the various houses of the parliament,
19:04there is a federal structure, all that is there.
19:08But the purpose of all that has to be the inner freedom of the individual.
19:15That's the proper nation in which everything functions with the purpose of liberating the individual.
19:25Now is that not a worthy goal?
19:30Should not the nation be founded on that basis?
19:35So that's the kind of nationalism you have to bring to the new generation.
19:42Are you getting it?
19:46If you bring the militant kind of nationalism to the new generation, you are not doing them any good.
19:52When you talk of freedom fighters, you must talk of those who strove for political freedom.
20:02Equally you have to talk of those who strove for inner freedom.
20:06Otherwise it becomes just a case of one people fighting the other people out of hatred, resistance and otherness.
20:21And that leads to a lot of falseness, artificiality, then you have to ignore the facts, you have to rewrite history,
20:31you have to weave narratives, you have to somehow manage to cast imagination as facts.
20:46And all that is quite childish and funny, right?
20:51Except for the fact that it can lead to terrible consequences.
20:55So bring the reality of life to the young.
21:08The reality of life as we live it, as we see it, is the reality of the ego.
21:15If they can see how the inner thing operates, they will also see its futility.
21:22Are you getting it?
21:27You don't need to then teach nationalism as something separate from life.
21:35If they can see how life is founded on division and strife and suffering, then they will want to end it, right?
21:50And when men get together in their common mission of ending suffering, a noble nation is born.
22:01Don't you want that kind of nation?
22:05People are getting together so that they can together eliminate the suffering of mankind.
22:12And since they are getting together, they constitute a nation.
22:14Will that not be a very, very noble and desirable nation?
22:21Please tell me. Yes?
22:25Or would you want people to get together to pelt stones on some other group?
22:31Is that the kind of nationalism that you want?
22:33It could be stones when it comes to small groups and it becomes missiles when it comes to large and powerful groups, right?
22:3920 people on one side pelt stones on 20 people on the other side.
22:45And when these 20 people become a nation, a nation of 20 crore people, then they pelt missiles on the other 20 crore people, right?
22:54And they also then get together and form groups and coalitions.
23:00So, Russia is scared of the NATO and different kinds of groupings are happening, all with the purpose of defending the self and defeating the other.
23:20And the more that happens, the more we come closer to catastrophe as a people.
23:33Are you getting it?
23:36We do not want to repeat history.
23:40In history, nations have never been founded on the right basis.
23:44And therefore, those who could understand life, like we said Tagore, had to reject nationalism.
23:55They said nationalism is the worst kind of toxicity.
23:59Let's not reject nationalism per se.
24:06Let's just say, let there be an all-embracing nationalism.
24:11Let there be a unifying nationalism.
24:14Let there be an enlightened nationalism.
24:20Let there be a nationalism that is not founded with the object to inflict suffering on the other.
24:29You can inflict suffering on the other only if you do not see that you and the other are the one.
24:36The moment you start seeing the underlying oneness, it becomes impossible to inflict suffering on the other.
24:43Can we, as Indians, come together on this noble basis?
24:53And that would be the real Bharat.
24:57India cannot be about geographical frontiers, a location on the world map.
25:12India is just too big to be contained on a world map.
25:20India is just too transcendental to be marked as a piece of earth.
25:40Who is an Indian?
25:44An Indian is someone who understands the very basis of life.
25:57The one who sees that you are born to be liberated.
26:05Only such a fellow deserves to be called an Indian.
26:10Because India, not the political country India, I am talking of the real India.
26:17I am talking of the very concept of Bharat.
26:22The real India is founded on understanding, realization, both.
26:32We want to understand.
26:35India is the place where the urge to understand hit the human for the first time.
26:48India is the cradle of religion itself.
26:53And true religiosity is about understanding life and therefore getting liberated from its bondages.
27:00That's who an Indian is.
27:07Who wants to understand what this thing called the self is?
27:10What is meant by relationships?
27:12Who am I? Who is the other one?
27:14What is this thing called life?
27:16Why am I alive?
27:18What is death?
27:19Only someone who is conscious enough, keen enough, and courageous enough to go into these questions deserves to be called an Indian.
27:32And that's the kind of nationalism we need.
27:35A nationalism founded on understanding.
27:37From where I am looking, you know, 140 crore people do not deserve to be called as Bharatiya.
27:50They may continue to hold the Indian passport, that's a separate matter.
27:55But when it comes to being Indian nationals, well, that's a very elite thing.
28:08That's a thing that requires a lot of qualification.
28:13Being a citizen is another matter.
28:16Desh and Rashtra are not the same.
28:22So when you say that you want to invoke nationalism in young people,
28:29you must know what is it that you want to educate them in.
28:38Kindly do not indoctrinate them in some sectarian or divisive ideology.
28:47That's not nationalism.
28:48Real nationalism takes you within.
28:55And only that kind of nationalism is deserving enough to survive.
29:01Otherwise the world has seen the perils of blind and violent nationalism for good.
29:12Are you getting it?
29:16Acharya ji, I have a follow up question on this.
29:21Am I audible?
29:23Yes, yes you are.
29:25Acharya ji, in one of your sessions, one of the seekers asked,
29:29we are the proponent of Vasudev Tutankhamen.
29:32And on that you mentioned that first to talk about such a big idea,
29:37we need to know, first at home we have to take him clear off.
29:40Now when we are talking about such ideas that need to be spread all across the globe.
29:47But we see that students or in general the educated class are not interested on reading
29:55or not paying the amount of energy towards it.
30:00We are seeing that they are moving towards the ideologies that are not ours.
30:04So how do we deal with this?
30:06We want to spread this idea but the other side is not that much interested.
30:12But if that side is not that much given awareness to that side,
30:18how should we tackle it?
30:21I don't think it's very difficult to bring this simple thing out to the other person.
30:28Provided if first of all, you as the spreader understand it.
30:34Why am I saying that?
30:40Because internally we are all one in terms of our disquiet, misery, suffering.
30:47Does not matter who the other person is.
30:51He suffers just as you do.
30:55And all human activity is some kind of an effort,
31:00conscious or unconscious, to get rid of one's suffering.
31:04Why will the other not listen if you can show him a way out of his suffering?
31:10He is trying to somehow gain peace and fulfillment in his own way.
31:17Can you display to him a plausible way to attain peace?
31:26Can you diagnose him correctly?
31:34But that will not be possible if you approach the other with a fixed set of thoughts of your own.
31:46To be able to look at the other, you have to be impartial.
31:53You cannot say the other is the other and is therefore despicable.
31:59He does not listen, he does not pay attention, he is violent, he is fallen.
32:06If you approach the other with such thoughts, then it will be very difficult to see the other's reality.
32:14And if you will not be able to see his reality, how will you be able to help him?
32:19And if you fail in providing help,
32:23why will he agree that your path is suitable for him as well?
32:30We all are in need of help, are we not?
32:36And because we do not see where to get help from,
32:43we keep trying crazily in our own distorted ways.
32:50We do not understand why we are not restful.
32:57We do not understand what is wrong with life.
33:00Why do we get angry? Why do we get anxious?
33:03And this is the story of entire mankind, right?
33:07We do not understand that and therefore we try out all kinds of shallow and rather counterproductive solutions.
33:24That's what everybody is doing.
33:27So if you can display to a human being
33:33who he is and why he suffers,
33:37he is bound to listen to you.
33:41Irrespective of where he comes from, what his religion is,
33:46what his age or gender is, what his economic status is,
33:51his ultimate objective is fulfillment, joy, peace, is it not?
34:00So if you can bring him closer to his objective, he will listen to you.
34:09If the youngsters of today are not listening to your advice,
34:16it is probably because we do not understand the youngsters.
34:21We do not see where they are coming from and what they are trying and where they want to reach.
34:30Their ways appear to us different from ours.
34:35So we treat them as the other, sometimes we want to treat them even as aliens.
34:45But they are human beings, right?
34:48And they want the same thing as each of us does.
34:57Is there anybody in the world who does not feel thirsty?
35:04Could be an African, could be an American, a Christian, a Buddhist, a man, a woman.
35:15We all need water, right? That's what, we all need water.
35:21Irrespective of what the color of our skin is and what the color of our ideology is,
35:27we all need water.
35:31And that is the reason why I am trying to bring Vedanta to the masses.
35:36Water is possible.
35:39And a nation that does not divide is possible.
35:47A nation that is good for all is possible.
35:53And remember, you cannot have goodness in isolation.
36:02You cannot have the welfare of one people
36:05at the cost of the other people.
36:12It is the law of existence. When we will rise, we will rise together.
36:17If you find people rising by subjugating somebody else,
36:23then you are not seeing clearly.
36:27If you really have to do well for yourself,
36:31that cannot happen at the cost of others.
36:36It's not a zero-sum game.
36:40You cannot colonize a country as the colonizers of the last few centuries did
36:51and hope that the result will be great for you.
36:58Don't we know that the Second World War was fought
37:02because the great colonial powers were competing among themselves?
37:09Don't we know that?
37:12In fact, it was an urge to have more and more colonies
37:18that brought these European powers face to face.
37:24Britain had the early mover advantage and had colonized much of Asia
37:35and France too had colonies.
37:39And Germany just didn't like that.
37:44So when you look at the bigger picture, you realize
37:48that if you exploit someone,
37:51it's not just the so-called other that suffers.
37:57The exploiter will soon discover that he too is the exploited one.
38:06We believe in duality. We lead dualistic lives.
38:12We behave as if by hurting the other, we can benefit and prosper.
38:17That does not happen. We need a non-dualistic nationalism.
38:23Non-dualistic, Advaitic.
38:27Therefore, the greatest philosophy that looks inwards is Advaita Vedanta.
38:42Namaste Acharyaji and good evening to all of you.
38:46My name is Praveen Sharma.
38:49I am currently in the final year of the PGDRM program.
38:53My question is that if you look at the current scenario,
38:58how the AI tools like chat, GPT will help students
39:05who are in UG or PG or even in B school.
39:10So they are taking help from the AI tools and making their work easier.
39:16So is it becoming a barrier or hindering our creativity basically?
39:27And the question is, is it someone who is trying to intensely
39:32making the AI tools to limit the creativity of the people?
39:40Is it some entrepreneurs who are doing this intentionally?
39:46And if yes, then how can we prevent from this?
39:49And how can we maintain our creativity in our daily routine life?
39:52Nobody is hatching a conspiracy to turn you uncreative.
40:04It's a piece of technology and it depends on you how you want to use it.
40:15It's a very far-fetched thought.
40:17Somebody or a group of people or a consortium of companies,
40:23they got together to turn the entire population of the world uncreative.
40:29And to rob you of your creativity, they gave you AI and its products like chat, GPT.
40:39None of that.
40:40None of that.
40:45AI is anyway not creative.
40:49Then how can it rob you of your creativity?
40:54AI at best,
41:02it stops your thinking.
41:06No, that simply means that your thinking was already mechanical in the first place.
41:19Therefore, another machine could supplant it.
41:26A machine can be better than another machine.
41:32A machine cannot be better than consciousness itself.
41:38So if you feel that AI is making your task easier,
41:46it simply means that the task that you were doing was anyway not creative.
41:56AI cannot create something original.
42:02Originality is an exclusive virtue of consciousness.
42:13Some are asking you, if you ask chat, GPT something,
42:21can it choose not to answer?
42:24So that's what.
42:29But consciousness can choose to remain silent.
42:33And consciousness can know that silence is probably the best response in certain situations.
42:39AI will never know that.
42:46But AI also is created by us only, some group of people.
42:51So I'm asking that, is there any intention from them?
43:22So that we stop using our legs and very soon we all will become lame.
43:30So there is no conspiracy.
43:33And even if there is a conspiracy, let's hypothetically accept that.
43:41Why do you have to fall to that conspiracy?
43:44I mean, you have to write a song, let's say for your girlfriend.
43:47Why do you want to depend on chat GPT for that?
43:52And that software can write you a song.
43:57But you'd be a very poor lover if you depend on machines to write you a song for your girlfriend.
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