Grandpa says teenagers must not date || Acharya Prashant, at Mithibai College, Mumbai (2022)

Questioner: Good afternoon, Sir! I am Hia Shah from FIGCR. My question is – according to Indian society, it is not permissible for teenagers to date. What are your thoughts about it?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Thank you for the question, please sit. Society is not one thing, right? In one sense, we are born in a society, we get raised in a society; in another sense, as adults, we not only choose our society but also build our society. That’s what discretion is all about. That’s what free will, free thought, and free choice are all about.

You are not condemned to live in one particular society that surrounds you purely by chance, or are you? There are multiple societies, and if you can’t find a suitable society, come on, build one, and be at the center of that creation.

What do we call as society? Let’s consider it, please. Probably your contact list in your phone. That’s what your society is, isn’t it? That’s a fairly approximate but correct representation; that's what you call as a society.

Now, how long exactly is that contact list, how long? How many friends do you have on Instagram or Facebook? A few thousand? You combine everything, put everything together, your contact list, your friends, your followers, anybody and everybody you know of, or even know the name or face of; that stretches to at most a few thousand people, am I right? Or do we have mega influencers here? We don’t have them, right? So a few thousand people.