Dogs and personal enlightenment || Acharya Prashant, in conversation (2022)

Questioner1 (Q1): I remember you were surprising the dogs and the cows of the street; I know this is a very big cliché about India.

Questioner2 (Q2): Yes, but I guess it's always different to see things live, but yes, even there I mean, the dogs, one can feel sorry for them, no? Some are obviously probably living in very bad conditions and with very little nourishment. But still even there, that kind of shade of some spirit, the way they just, you know, coexist with all the commotion. There's something really, what's a good word? I don't know, something serene, you know, just to see how they are there.

Acharya Prashant: In some sense our dogs are like us. In many senses you know, unfed, undernourished, homeless, breeding all the time, generally harmless, very loyal, all over the place.

Q1: Notice another observation you had made was that, in public everything seems chaotic and dirty, but when you go inside a private space it's very clean and well cared.

Q2: Yes, and that's actually a real shame, because even here in Greater Noida, I mean, some of these places they would look really nice, if they were up kept or was the word?

AP: That, too, comes from distorted spirituality, like everything in India. You see, we have this rather unfortunate concept of ‘personal enlightenment’, in the Indian culture.