Who are You Without the Algorithm?
Interviewer: Hello, and welcome to another episode of one fascinating conversation that we are having with Acharya Prashant ji — a philosopher, author, somebody who is a lifelong student of Gita and of Vedant. He's been followed by millions of people, and we are fortunate enough to have him here at this moment with us. Thank you so much for speaking to NDTV.
You know, I just wanted to start with a random thought today. We are talking about people who keep speaking about doomsday scrolling. You are endlessly scrolling. There was a news report a couple of days back which said that an average person scrolls about four Mount Everest in the time that they are using their thumb. So, four Mount Everest are being scrolled, but it's taking you nowhere. It's not taking you over Mount Everest.
Everything these days seems to be… you know, you're completely surrounded by algorithms. If I right now say that I want to eat, maybe my phone will start giving me options already with what I should be eating and guiding me towards that.
Earlier there used to be a concept, and people used to talk about free will versus destiny. Now it's free will versus algorithm. What do you think? What do you make of that? Are we really exercising our free will, or have we already become that artificial intelligence, being pushed by algorithms towards whatever we are thinking, whatever we are doing?
Acharya Prashant: The free will is only for the free ones. And the free one has always been a rarity — today, yesterday, historically, ancient times. Those who have really been free in the inner sense have been extremely rare.
Free will is some kind of consolation we accord to ourselves.There is no free will.
Just that it becomes very obvious when the dictator is in the form of an algorithm sitting in your mobile phone or a server somewhere. But when the algorithm is in the form of systems, processes, institutions and human beings, and your relationships, then the mechanical nature of it is not so easily visible.
You see, two persons are relating to each other, right? Are they exercising free will really, or has the code of conduct between these two been decided in advance? Please understand, how is that not very algorithmic?
We have relationships, right? This one is my brother, so I have to behave with him in a particular way — plus minus 10%. Some variation is possible, so that the mirage of free will can be maintained. This one is my wife. That particular person is my father. That person belongs to my country, and that one does not. That person belongs to my religion, and that one does not. And we immediately know how to conduct ourselves and how to relate. How is that not algorithmic?
We were always algorithmic. We were always driven by instruction manuals. There was always some preset logic — inauthentic logic, borrowed logic — behind our conduct. And that’s why all that could be taken, consolidated, and put in the form of a code. Otherwise, where would the code come from?
You see, what does an algorithm do? You talked of endless scrolling. The algorithm detects what gives me pleasure and feeds the same to me endlessly, and in return, it makes me watch a particular ad or set of ads, advertisements, expecting that I would then click or proceed and display a certain consumer behavior. Right?
Is that not how everybody behaves more or less to the other one? I mean, he comes to me — how do I speak to him? I know what pleases him, and that’s how I speak to him. How does one speak to his friends, to his bosses, even in intimate relationships? Do we dare bring up the truth? No.
Ask the same question — not just social media — ask the same question to ChatGPT on your own phone and on your friend’s phone, or your wife’s phone, or some other phone logged in from a different account, and you will get a different response. Even AI is not really serving you the facts or the unbiased truth. It sees what you have been looking for, what your chat history is like, and based on that, it serves you a certain response. Right?
And that’s what we have been doing to each other since long. I ask you a question — you respond to me in a particular way. He asks you the same question — don’t you respond to him very differently? Don’t you?
We say, no no no, this is an aspect of being a human being. We relate differently, and there is diversity, and we look at people and we say, you know, “When in Rome, do as Romans do,” and “horses for courses,” and all those things we’ll come up with. But the fact is, behind all of this is just the urge to suit one’s own ends. I have a certain need, and the need will be fulfilled only when you are kept happy. So, you will be kept happy in one particular way, and that’s what I’ll give to you. He will be kept happy in another way, and I’ll give that to him. And the end result of all this is supposed to bring me gratification.
We were always operating this way. It’s just that those invisible lines of communication, those invisible rules, have now been taken up and very rigorously put down in the form of code. Of code.
Interviewer: So, basically we are saying that, or if I understand it correctly, that we are always being bound by a code — that could be our upbringing, the set of rules that we follow as a nation, or XYZ. So we are always bound in a certain code of behavior that is either expected or we have learned looking at our parents and so on and so forth.
Acharya Prashant: Yes.
Interviewer: Does that then mean that none of us — none of us — are living the life like the way we want to?
Acharya Prashant: There is no “me.”
“I want to live a particular way.” What is this “I”? This “I” itself is a complicated piece of code — layer upon layer. You understand? And it’s an organic piece of code that just keeps growing and evolving. It doesn’t even grow — because growth appears like something innate. It doesn’t grow. It just accumulates. It just piles up things. There is snowballing. So, there are influences, and you keep getting conditioned, and all that you call as “I.”
And if the “I” itself is a borrowed and unfree entity, how can the “I want” — the desire of the “I” — be called as free will?
Free will is for the free. I’m supposed to be free. If I am free within, then my will can display a certain freedom. But am I free within? I’m not.
And the brute aspect of my inner bondage is being ruthlessly now exposed in the form of social media algorithms. We need not think of it as something modern or novel or just recent. It’s been happening throughout.
Interviewer: Two very interesting things that you said that I want to talk about. Number one, like you said, how do I set myself free then? Because, like you are saying, that I'm always looking for self-gratification. So, how do I reach a point where I can start exercising my free will?
Acharya Prashant: You know, I reach a certain age and then I say, "You know, I want a girl, I want a boy." Now, is that you or is that your hormones? And if those hormones are taken away or you’re injected with an extra dose of them, then your libido or your desire or your love thirst just moves proportionally. So, are you in love or is it just the age this physical system, the body, has attained and the chemicals it is now internally secreting through certain glands? Is it that?
I can die for something — for my caste, for my religion, for my country, for my belief, for my ideology. I can do so. You know, is it really yours? Did you always have it or has it been implanted in you? And if it’s been implanted in you, then you are a mere servant, you are a puppet. Somebody else is pulling the strings. The fun fact is the one pulling the strings is himself probably a puppet.
Interviewer: So you are a puppet of a puppeteer who is also a puppet of a puppeteer.
Acharya Prashant: Yes, I have great goals and desires and ambitions, and I say, "This is my target for this quarter." Now, is that your target? Really your target? Do you want it, or is it coming from somebody else? How has it become yours? Are you free? Where is freedom?
Interviewer: It’s very interesting what you’re saying, and when you break it down to your hormones, then it comes to the world’s most perpetual question: Who am I?
Acharya Prashant: It might be the most perpetual question, but it’s also the most ignored question. Nobody wants to get into it because that’s a very destructive question. This is the question at the heart of the Vedant, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and they say, Unless you are confronting this question, you may not be able to answer it, but at least face the question. Unless you learn to live with this uncomfortable question, you are not alive at all. You’re a machine. You yourself are an algorithm." Now, why do you complain against algorithms?
Interviewer: That’s interesting. Do you think that because we’re talking about being truthful, do you think truth is the biggest casualty of this self-gratification?
Acharya Prashant: the very center of my being is a big lie. What relationship can I have with truth? The only relationship can be one of avoidance, ignorance, or even hate. When truth knocks on my door, my entire structure starts shivering because it is made of all kinds of lies and deceptions, self-deception. So I cannot have any constructive or loving relationship with the truth. Most people avoid truth like death.
Interviewer: Like the very famous movie dialogue said, "You can’t handle the truth."
Acharya Prashant: You can’t handle the truth. And then, truth is not something you can really handle. When the truth comes, it is the master. It owns you, it lords over you, it possesses you, whereas we are accustomed to being our own masters, and we have allowed something very petty, something very non-existent to become the center of our life. And that’s all the influences and all the lies that we want to secure. We say we don’t want to challenge them, we don’t want to talk about them. We can talk about everything in the world, but we don’t want to talk about things that matter.
Even in relationships, there are certain questions or topics that are forbidden, and those are the topics that really matter. They’re not supposed to be raised. You raise them, and the entire structure again will start.
Interviewer: Can I then ask you? I’m sure a lot of people must be asking you this question: What’s the first step? Will I be consigned to a life of being attached to these threads, which would be artificial intelligence algorithms or the preconditioned one that we have already, that we got brought up with? Is there a way I can make a start somewhere that starts helping me see that truth, or at least helps me in the process of, you know, detaching myself from these strings?
Acharya Prashant: Don’t easily call anything as me or mine. Remember those long sideburns? Remember the bell bottoms? Someone wants to keep a particular kind of beard without the mustache. That’s not you. Don’t easily call anything as the self. That’s not you. Don’t invest yourself in places that will yield you nothing. If you have to invest yourself, invest yourself in the true self.
Somebody else’s thought — why should I lay down my life for it? Let it come from within me, organically, authentically. But the real thing, which is authentic, your own, cannot show up unless you first of all discard what is not yours. That’s called the process of negation — “Neti Neti” in Vedant. So before you own something, before you identify with something, before you associate very intimately with something, ask yourself, "Is that me?"
The way, for example, you look at people conversing, you look at people, even in their most sacred moments, sometimes you can pick up which particular movie it is coming from. But that fellow will be very serious about the whole thing, and he’ll be damn annoyed if you tell him, "You know, this is the way you are holding your girl’s hand. The way the two of you are walking, that’s coming from that particular western movie."
We raise gods and goddesses based on trends. You come up with a movie showing a new goddess, and that has very recently happened in the last few decades. A new goddess, and you’ll find millions have actually started worshipping the new goddess, raised temples, and become faithful devotees — whatever that means.
So, where are you in your faith? Where are you in your devotion? Where is I in your life? Once you start seeing that, then there is a fire within, then there is a great rebellion within.
Freedom is natural. Just that you have to identify first of all and acknowledge that you are unfree.
And then there is a fire within, and then something happens spontaneously.
Interviewer: Is it that easy?
Acharya Prashant: How is it any easier to live without freedom? I don’t know whether it’s easy. What I know is that it’s the only option. Easy or difficult, it’s the only thing.
Interviewer: Do you think that you’ve been able to do that?
Acharya Prashant: You see, there is nothing called a summit, a culmination, perfection, or an endpoint. One constantly strives, and that journey is what justifies life.
Interviewer: That’s beautiful. Because I think the problem, at least I feel, I can’t say for others, I should stop saying for everybody else, but I think it’s about, we are always in a hurry to reach, it’s just about making it there. There was this, when we were talking about it, and you said, "when you said that for any idea, why should I kill myself or why should I die?" This thought that came into my mind: Do you think that all these algorithms, systemic algorithms, artificial algorithms, all of them have been created because if people start looking within or with their free will, then the so-called system will collapse? I mean, there won’t be any discipline.
Acharya Prashant: You don’t need discipline, you need consciousness.
We are not disciplined people here. I hope we are conscious people. Nobody comes to tell us, "You sit this way, you behave this way, you cross your legs, you don’t throw your hands." Nobody comes to tell us, you know, we are relating to each other at a particular level, a particular elevation, and that suffices.
There are many of us in this hall right now, and when we walk, we don’t want to be disciplined. We just want to have our eyes open, and that suffices. We won’t collide. That suffices.
It’s not as if it’s a grand conspiracy by an external power to keep us in bondage. No, no external agency wants to keep you disciplined like inmates in a jail. That’s not the way the system has been created by us and is being nurtured by each one of us. Because that system is first of all an internal thing. The system exists within. What you see outside is just an external manifestation of the internal bondage.
And when you start turning inwardly free, your systems also become correspondingly freer. Then you don’t need systems to keep you in check and keep telling you all the small things. You behave this way, you don’t marry this way, you should eat this way, you should walk that way. Why should anybody tell me that? That appears so juvenile, so childish when I’m internally grown up.
Interviewer: It's like you peel the onion layer by layer. You can just keep going and keep talking about it. It’s so fascinating.
I will end this by just asking you a very, you know, just blast one thing. Do you, you know, because a lot of focus is on the addiction of the internet or the algorithms and so and so forth. But now, I’m constantly thinking of the other dimension that you’ve spoken about, that we are programmed in a certain way right from the time we are born. Which one of these two, if you compare, you find more dangerous, more, you know, binding?
Acharya Prashant: They are one. They are exactly one. Just that it becomes ruthlessly honest when we find ourselves enthralled by a machine. But when you are enthralled by a woman and you start saying, "I’ll lay down my life for her," or "I’m in love," that’s much the same thing. You are being driven by an algorithm. You are being controlled by a code. Just that, in this case, the code is genetic. What else is the genome project? It is to unravel the genetic code. So, there is a code inside us. Why do we want to be servants to that code, first of all? And because we are servants to the inner code, that’s why it’s so possible that an outer code can be written, manifesting the inner slavery.
Interviewer: You know, I can keep going on and keep talking about this. It’s fascinating when you start discussing that. It’s just like that moment where you have to take the red or the blue pill, and then you decide what happens with the matrix. But fascinating to have you here. Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure.
