Technology has amplified human power, but not human consciousness. The real crisis is not a lack of scientific progress but the unchanged, ego-driven center using it. Education today trains people to consume and achieve, not to understand themselves. Unless self-knowledge grows alongside external knowledge, every technological advance risks becoming a more powerful instrument of greed, violence, and planetary destruction.
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Questioner: Hello, sir. My name is Sudeep. I'm a technologist from Bangalore, so I came here for this session.
My question is related to technology. If we look at the last 200 years, let's say, we have made a lot of progress. Our life expectancy has doubled or tripled in some places. Infant mortality is gone. The conveniences that we have are incredible food, shelter, all of this. But despite all of this, when we look at what's happening in the world, we have multiple wars raging. We have wars between countries, religions, castes, I don't know, all kinds of identities. But we've made so much progress as well at the same time.
So my question is: How do we deal with, or how do we understand, this dichotomy that is there? And also, personally, as a technologist, what should I be doing to ensure that we're not just progressing in some way, but we're making progress in all of these other very important aspects of our society, our life?
Acharya Prashant: Think of a destructive beast caged in its ancient cave. The beast is there. The beast is as beasts are, but it's trapped in its cave. It is frustrated. It is sad. It is angry. But one thing is certain: it cannot cause much damage to anybody because the beast has been limited by its ancient old cave. Right?
