Video Information: 25.01.25, Vedanta: Basics to Classics, Goa
Description:
The video delves into the essence of India, portraying it as more than a political construct or geographic entity. Acharya Prashant emphasizes that India’s foundation lies in relentless inquiry, freedom, and a commitment to truth. Unlike nations built on superficial bases like religion, language, or ethnicity, India stands for liberation from dogmas and principles. Its true strength lies in self-transcendence and detachment from ego-driven ideologies.
He explains that being Indian is not defined by birth or location but by one’s dedication to truth and freedom. This spirit, rooted in Vedanta, fosters unity and love beyond material boundaries. India’s greatness is in its quest for ultimate freedom and its ability to rise above divisions. Acharya Prashant urges individuals to embody this spirit through courage, inquiry, and devotion to truth, making India a symbol of eternal strength and vibrancy.
🎧 Listen to Acharya Prashant on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/2QmVEAAnsNE7Xs0MW0Li8Y?si=09fbcbc7c99c469b
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~
Description:
The video delves into the essence of India, portraying it as more than a political construct or geographic entity. Acharya Prashant emphasizes that India’s foundation lies in relentless inquiry, freedom, and a commitment to truth. Unlike nations built on superficial bases like religion, language, or ethnicity, India stands for liberation from dogmas and principles. Its true strength lies in self-transcendence and detachment from ego-driven ideologies.
He explains that being Indian is not defined by birth or location but by one’s dedication to truth and freedom. This spirit, rooted in Vedanta, fosters unity and love beyond material boundaries. India’s greatness is in its quest for ultimate freedom and its ability to rise above divisions. Acharya Prashant urges individuals to embody this spirit through courage, inquiry, and devotion to truth, making India a symbol of eternal strength and vibrancy.
🎧 Listen to Acharya Prashant on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/2QmVEAAnsNE7Xs0MW0Li8Y?si=09fbcbc7c99c469b
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00The question that I wanted to ask was, because we are on the cusp of the 76th Republic Day
00:10of India tomorrow.
00:12So on this occasion, I wanted to ask you about the idea of India.
00:19So right now, when we look at news, and anyone who is reasonably aware would know that we
00:26are living in a world of identity politics and societal changes.
00:30And everyone you talk to, they have their own idea of India, based on what side of political
00:35spectrum they are on and so on.
00:37So I wanted to ask you, in this day and age, how do we preserve and evolve the idea of
00:43India?
00:44And what it is, according to you?
00:45India is not really an idea, first thing.
00:55Ideas are things of the ego.
01:01Ideas are things of desire and imagination.
01:09Behind every idea is an ideator.
01:13And the ideator is looking to get something for himself via the idea.
01:24That's not what India is.
01:27Nation, we talk of the Indian nation.
01:34What is a nation, first thing?
01:39Basics, fundamentals.
01:41What is a nation?
01:46Nation is a set of people.
01:52It could be a very large set of people.
01:56It could be a billion people.
01:57It could be five billion people.
01:58The number doesn't matter.
02:02It's a set of people who are together on some ground.
02:13Look at this, who are united on some basis.
02:25Now that doesn't seem like a very deep thing to say, because whenever people are together,
02:35obviously there is some or the other basis present.
02:47That basis is the basis of nationhood.
02:53And just as all the reasons that bring people together are not of the same quality, similarly
03:11the foundations of all nations are not equally deep.
03:24How deep is the foundation of a nation depends on the depth of what keeps those people together.
03:41Five people may come together to have a good time in the evening, nothing else to do.
03:52They may have a spare hour, let's just go out and gossip and that's what is keeping
04:00them together at this hour.
04:02Now this is togetherness on a very flimsy basis.
04:09A basis is indeed present, but the basis has no depth.
04:13These five people have come together due to some little shallow reason.
04:23This togetherness will bring no goodness to these five or to the others.
04:35Similarly nations have their basis.
04:43After all, all that you need is a set of people, a community, where people identify with each other.
04:51They say we are one, we are together, we have something in common.
04:58I am more like this one than that one.
05:03I identify with this one.
05:06What is the basis of that identification?
05:11Why do these people think of each other as brothers and sisters or members of one community?
05:28That's the question to be asked and that's a very very important question because mind
05:35you we have seen history tells us that nations can even be founded on very narrow kind of basis, very shallow foundations.
06:01There are instances of nations where the founding principle was food habits.
06:11We all eat the same way therefore we are a nation.
06:19There are a lot of nations in the modern world where one of the important basis is language.
06:27We speak the same language therefore we are a nation.
06:33And what to say of geography?
06:38We live in areas that are geographically close by or adjacent to each other, materially contagious.
06:55Therefore we are a nation.
07:01Are you getting it?
07:04So you live in the house next to mine, hence you are my brother.
07:10This kind of a logic.
07:13What makes you all call each other brothers and sisters?
07:18Well you know we all live within one kilometer of each other hence we are brothers and sisters.
07:26There are so many nations that are founded on this.
07:31We all live at places that lie next to each other therefore we are a nation, one nation.
07:42And why are those people not the same nation?
07:47Because they live far away, hence they are separate.
07:52We can even call them enemies because they live at a distant place.
08:00Does this make any sense?
08:01It makes no sense.
08:02Color of the skin, I am green, you are green, so we are a nation.
08:16We all are little green men and women, therefore we constitute a nation.
08:25And they are tall blue ones, so they are aliens.
08:34What kind of unity is this?
08:37What kind of identity is this?
08:40Ethnicity, genetics, purity of blood, whatever that means.
08:57Of course religion, the huge elephant in the room.
09:06We follow the same belief system, the same dogma, the same books, the same God, therefore
09:14we are a nation.
09:16Are you getting it?
09:25So mostly nations are founded on such things.
09:32We follow the same tradition, hence we are a nation.
09:36You look at the seven of us, we believe in the same superstitions, therefore we are a nation.
09:49Now this is divisive, this is violent, this is full of ignorance, this leads to suffering
10:00for one and all.
10:05Unfortunately, India has a much deeper national foundation and hence I said India is not an idea.
10:27What is the foundation?
10:31India was wise enough to realize that anything coming from the human mind is going to be limited.
10:44That's what India did, went into itself.
10:49When the entire world was taking an outward direction, India went into itself.
10:59And going within it realized the limits within, the pettiness within, the constraints within,
11:06the darkness within, the ideator within, the one who keeps coming up with these smart ideas.
11:16How stupid is that ideator?
11:19You realize only when you develop the courage to look at yourself.
11:26So India said, you know, two people coming together on the basis of an idea or thought
11:35or principle can never be a truly great thing.
11:45I believe in something, you too believe in something, we share thoughts.
11:49So we come together and we call ourselves a nation.
11:52That can never be a good thing.
11:56You know, once you say that, all possible principles that could become the foundation
12:06of Indian nationhood, they go out of the window because everything is mental and what is coming
12:15from the mind would be little and divisive.
12:20I'm saying India saw that.
12:25So what did India then put above all nationalistic principles?
12:30India said, ruthless inquiry into the self.
12:36We will not stand for a principle, we will stand for a detached investigation into all
12:50principles.
12:51We will not stand for a dogma, we will stand for freedom from all dogmas.
13:00We will not stand for a particular idea, we will stand for examination of all possible
13:11ideas.
13:16We will not stand for anything under the sun, we will stand for liberation from everything
13:23under the sun.
13:29We will not stand for any product of the mind, we will stand for freedom from the tyranny
13:39of the mind.
13:40Are you getting it?
13:44This is the foundation of the Indian nation.
13:46This is what India stands for.
13:52So all nations are governed by principles and India is governed by freedom from all
13:58principles and that's what makes India free, liberal, accommodative, tolerant and therefore
14:10inherently extremely strong and vibrant.
14:16But only as strong and only as vibrant as is the depth of the Indians understanding
14:28about the reality of India.
14:37What I am talking of is in some sense a utopia.
14:45You go to most people and they will say, you know, this is this particular ideal that
14:49governs India or these principles that are at the foundation of India, no, no, no.
15:02India is an ever existing quest to rise higher, never stopping at any principle.
15:15Yes, this movement, some principle might look good, socialism looks good, but I am not stopping
15:25here.
15:26I am not turning it into a dogma.
15:31I am not turning it into a belief system.
15:36I'll keep striving for something yet higher, that is India.
15:47The upward glance, the innocent child looking at the sky, do there have to be limits, no,
16:04no, no.
16:06Ultimate freedom that is India, that is at the base of the Indian nation and as long
16:13as that remains as at the base of the Indian nation, India will remain eternal.
16:26India is not a political construct.
16:28India is not a thing on the world map.
16:32These are small things.
16:36The maps of the world keep changing, no.
16:42In 1947, the map of India didn't have Goa and Sikkim.
16:55Pre-1947, British India included Peshawar and Dhaka and there have been times when even
17:11Kabul and South East Asia and Burma, politically, they were integrated into India.
17:28All that is the flow of time.
17:31India stands for the timeless.
17:40As a nation, India is extremely unique.
17:48All nations have a principle to govern them.
17:55India has inquiry to govern itself.
17:58India realized all principles are limited.
18:03All principles will ultimately breed violence and all principles will ultimately be destroyed.
18:12All principles contain within themselves their own destruction.
18:26The typical dialectics, you have a principle and some opposing principle will come up and
18:33then you will have something else.
18:37And if you are invested too heavily in the principle, you will have heartbreak and you
18:43will suffer.
18:501947, political independence, East Pakistan, West Pakistan and they said the basis of our
19:03nationhood is religion.
19:07We are a nation, why?
19:11Because we are all Muslims.
19:15So even though the two wings, East and West Pakistan are separated by thousands of miles
19:21of Indian territory, yet we are one united nation, Pakistan.
19:28Did that last?
19:31Can that last?
19:35Can that last?
19:39You had Muslims here, you had Muslims there in East and in West.
19:44The ones in West didn't give much importance to the fact that the ones in East were fellow Muslims.
20:01When elections were held for the Central Assembly, the parliament, the Pakistani parliament and
20:11Mujib got a majority.
20:17The fellow Muslims in the West refused to let him form the government.
20:23But you are a nation and you said that if we follow the same religion, then we are brothers.
20:31That didn't happen.
20:34Ego trumps everything.
20:39Ego does not care for any principle.
20:41All principles are for the ego.
20:45No principle is bigger than the ego.
20:47Whenever there will be a clash between the ego and even the most, most elevated, most
20:53sublime, most refined of principles, the ego will win.
21:01And how violently did it win?
21:0671 has been one of the biggest genocides of the last century.
21:15Obviously, we know of the Holocaust.
21:18But what happened in Bangladesh was terrible.
21:30It's not just that the Hindus there were butchered.
21:36Hindus and Muslims were slaughtering Muslims.
21:38That kind of basis of nationhood does not hold.
21:41You know, we are a nation because we are one religion.
21:46That's what Jinnah came up with.
21:50Hindus and Muslims are two nations, no sir.
21:58Religion does not suffice to really hold a people together.
22:08People can live truly together only when they are united by the truth, an unwavering commitment
22:18to the truth.
22:20And that's what India stands for.
22:25That's what India at least should stand for, an unwavering commitment to the truth.
22:36Not to fanaticism, not to hooliganism, not to some nationalistic idea, but to the truth
22:53itself.
22:59And to a great extent, India has successfully done that over the centuries.
23:05And that's why even when we did not politically exist as a state, yet we always existed as
23:13a nation.
23:16Isn't that beautiful?
23:20They could come and take political control of our territory.
23:24That's fine.
23:26We fought back.
23:32But would have been much worse had we allowed them to take control of our insides.
23:40The foundation of India is freedom itself.
23:45We do not want to be dominated on the outside.
23:50But much more than the outside, it is extremely unacceptable that somebody dominates us within.
23:59I do not allow even myself to dominate me within.
24:08My interiors are a space so clean.
24:11I do not allow even myself to step there.
24:15How will I allow anybody else to intrude?
24:19That is India.
24:20So, a lot of people, this would be obtruse, they will say, this is all just too abstract.
24:34It is not abstract.
24:38You must understand this.
24:40If you want to truly call yourself Indian, India is the I that wants to understand.
24:51I want to know.
24:52I do not want to dream.
24:54I want to know.
24:55That's what India is.
24:59That's the beauty and greatness of India.
25:05And if Indians refuse to see and know, then Indians can no longer call themselves beautiful
25:16or great.
25:18India will always remain great and beautiful.
25:23But there is no guarantee that Indians would be automatically great and beautiful.
25:35It's a choice.
25:38It's a price you have to pay.
25:41It is always very comfortable within your belief system, within the paradigm of your
25:51assumptions and superstitions and desires.
25:59It requires guts to be a true Indian.
26:02One has to fight the battle within, else you can develop any kind of random way to
26:12separate man from man.
26:21You have lived in campus hostel, haven't you?
26:26Yeah, two campus hostels.
26:30Two campus hostels.
26:31So have I.
26:32Now you enter the campus as a fresher and you are allotted a particular hostel.
26:40And the allotment is often quite random.
26:42It depends on your entry number or your rank or some other random criteria.
26:51Maybe the letter your name begins with.
26:56Some criteria and you are allotted a particular hostel.
27:01But then you are supposed to be loyal to the hostel and you are supposed to fight the other
27:04hostels down.
27:07What kind of basis of unity is this?
27:10Random, so random.
27:14And you are supposed to commit your energies to this.
27:18And you are supposed to really take the other hostels as your enemy.
27:26Did that happen at IIT Bombay?
27:31That was one of the first thing that happens in first year.
27:34Same at IIT Delhi.
27:37Just that, obviously, we all knew it was for fun.
27:40But then some of us did take it way too seriously.
27:51Then you are a kind of traitor if you did not participate in inter-hostel wars.
28:01There were instances in which people were actually beaten up.
28:12You can find any random way to divide people.
28:19In the hostel, there were regional groups.
28:24There was this group from Bihar.
28:27There was this group from Andhra, obviously from Tamil Nadu and all the places, Gujarat.
28:36You name the region and you have groups there.
28:46You didn't even have to have an entire state.
28:53We had a Lucknow gang.
28:56Even a city suffices.
28:57We are together because we belong to the same city and hence everybody else is an alien.
29:07Let's be divided.
29:12The ego is always looking to create boundaries.
29:17Only within boundaries can the ego survive.
29:22Now, there is a kind of nationalism that deepens those boundaries and there is a kind of nationalism
29:37that destroys boundaries.
29:40India stands for the latter.
29:42Are you getting it?
29:49Just because you are born on Indian territory, the subtle fact is that you do not qualify
30:01to be called a real Indian.
30:05Obviously, technically you will be an Indian.
30:08You will hold the Indian passport and the entire world would call you an Indian.
30:20But you do not become an Indian by your place of birth.
30:23You become an Indian by your heart.
30:30Do you value freedom?
30:32Do you have love for the truth?
30:37Can you lay down your life for something beyond yourself?
30:41If yes, then you are an Indian.
30:44If no, then you are just an Indian in name.
30:52The kind of Indians who think Indian-less lies in cheering for the cricket team or beating
31:04other people down or berating other countries
31:21and avoiding to pay taxes while doing all that.
31:43India is a spirit.
31:47The spirit that you find in Vedanta, the spirit that does not impose anything on the
31:56mind, a spirit that just asks, the spirit that says I want to know, does not say I already
32:05know, does not say my beliefs are correct, says no, I am prepared to question everything.
32:13I will not let any consideration be too much on me.
32:18Nothing is bigger than truth.
32:25And that's why you see India knows love.
32:31Because true love can only be towards the truth.
32:35All else is just attraction born of desire.
32:46Because India respected, and I hope it still does, the truth, hence India has known love.
33:04A love beyond territory, a love beyond ethnicity, a love beyond materiality.
33:23The true Indian would be a fighter and a lover.
33:30He fights what is untrue because he loves the truth.