Mass extinction, Ocean depletion and Blind consumerism

Questioner: Pranam, Acharya Ji. I’m Atul Kulkarni, I’m M.Sc. Physics student here in IIT Patna, and first of all, thank you very much for accepting our invitation. Sir, my question is a little contextual, so I’ll read it out if you allow me.

Acharya Prashant: In context of?

Questioner: Contextual questions so I’ll read it out for you. I have recently watched a Netflix documentary on overfishing in the ocean called “Seaspiracy,” which claims, and I quote, “If current fishing trend continues, then we will see virtually empty oceans by the year 2048. And if all aquatic animals vanish, then we will vanish too.”

So, I got goosebumps when I heard this phrase, and I have two questions. So, why does any person in power or position, be it from the government, or media, or anyone in general, not even, speaking about this human activity, which is gradually leading us to sixth mass extinction? And second is that what apart from spreading awareness, we can do, as individuals, to stop this exploitation? Thank you.

Acharya Prashant: See, why is nobody talking about this? Because you cannot talk about this and yet continue with the person you are, being in the same job, in the same relationships, in the same circles, with the same beliefs, with the same kind of religious practices. Everything will have to change. Why? Because everything has come together to give you this crisis.

For the sake of this discussion, let’s assume that what the documentary is claiming is real, that by 2048, if the current rate and trends continue, we’ll have virtually empty oceans, and if the oceans go empty of aquatic life, then we all will disappear. And that is indeed true. That’s indeed true. That’s very factual. This is not just scaremongering. We know that is indeed the scenario.

So, this is there, but who will bell the cat? Who will call it out? If you call it out, then the owners will be on you to list the factors contributing to this depletion of aquatic life, and those factors will converge right to your personal self because the oceans are the way they are because you are the way you are. And if you want to bring a change in the condition of oceans, you will have to bring a change in your own condition.

But our facilities and conveniences and beliefs and illusions and dreams and hopes and ambitions are all tied to our current condition. If you dare to challenge your current condition, you will have to dare, to challenge your beliefs and dreams and relationships as well, and your comforts and conveniences.

We do not want to do that. You see, whatever you are talking of, is anthropogenic, right? What does anthropogenic mean? Caused by human activity. So, we caused it, we caused it, right? So, if that is to change, if the effect is to change, the cause must change. It’s simple.

Wherein lies the cause? (Points to himself) The cause lies here, but the ego cannot afford to change, ego cannot afford to change. Let me give you a very simplistic line of argument. I’ll be constructing it as I speak.

So, you tell someone that excessive fishing is killing the oceans, and that fellow is a flesh eater. Ah! Fish eater. The moment you tell him, “Listen, sir, your consumption of fish is killing our oceans,” he will say, “But look at yourself. See how you enjoy your chicken and mutton. And how is one kind of flesh really different from the other kind? So, if you will point a finger at me saying that I consume fish and fish products, aquatic products, then you will have to change yourself. You must stop your consumption of chicken.”

But, if you stop your consumption of chicken, you find your entire family goes against you, because your entire family eats chicken not just for taste but for religious reasons. And your girlfriend happens to be coming from a sect or a community or a cult where sacrificing chicken and goat is a part of essential religiosity.

So, if you tell her that, “I do not consume chicken because I do not want the oceans to go dry, and if you want to be with me, girl, you too will have to stop all this chicken business,” she will leave you. So, to preserve or protect the oceans, then you will have to tolerate a girlfriend less life.

Do you see how it’s building? It’s all imaginary. I’m just very like back of the envelope calculation. In a very approximate sense, I’m building it up. But do you see where it goes? Everything will crash and crumble if we start talking about it. Governments will fall because governments themselves are subsidizing flesh consumption and meat production and export in a huge way.

If you want to set up a slaughterhouse, government of India subsidizes the setup to the extent of 50%. 50% Imagine! And why do they do that? Because the population is burgeoning, and the governments cannot tolerate unemployment. They will be voted out of power. Two things the governments fear in a deadly way. One, unemployment. Two, inflation.

So, to provide employment to the people, governments will do anything. If it means killing the oceans, the governments will kill the oceans, and the governments have been voted to power in a democracy by the very people who will go extinct when the oceans dry down.

Do you see how everything is related? How your democracy, your religion, your relationships, your dreams, your beliefs, how everything comes together to kill the Earth? And that’s why if you want to save the Earth, you must have the heart to challenge everything. Everybody will be against you because all these self-interests have accumulated, have converged, to bring us to the disaster that we currently stare at.

It is not a one-off event. It’s not a coincidence at all. It’s a manifestation of all that which is wrong within us and all that which shows up in everything that we do, we think, or that we are related to.

You see, take another example. If you stop being exploitative towards the fish or the octopus or the turtle, you have to stop being exploitative towards your neighbor, towards your employees, towards your kids, towards your wife, everybody, right? But being exploitative towards everybody has become your life, and if you continue to remain exploitative towards everybody, how will you spare the mere fish?

This fellow exploits even his own kids as so many parents do. If he continues to exploit his kids, do you think he will spare the fish? Would he want the fish to be saved? If you want the fish to be saved, you will have to change the father that this person is, but his entire ego-self is related to what he has been.

Even if he has been a villain, he wants to continue as a villain, because that’s what his very identity, his existence is. He feels as if he is dying if he changes. In some sense, if you want to save the Earth, Man as he is, will have to die. The two cannot live together simultaneously. Either the planet will survive or human beings as they are.

And as we are, our time is up, 2048 is tomorrow. How long does it take 25 years to pass? It’s tomorrow. We are done, we are finished. But that is the nature of the ego. It can tolerate even physical annihilation, but it cannot tolerate dissolution. Don’t you see people die for their beliefs?

Look at what happens in communal riots. People are prepared to lay down their lives. “I will get killed, but I will not change.” And if you look at the course of history, people have agreed to get killed for all kinds of stupid reasons. We have killed and we have been killed for all kinds of nonsense. We find that easier. We find physical annihilation more acceptable than inner improvement. We sometimes think that a person loves nothing more than his life. That’s popular wisdom, that a person values nothing more than his physical life.

That’s not true. That’s true in the case of animals. Human beings for the sake of their ego can accept to get killed. For human beings, ego is bigger than even life. We do not really live body centered lives. We live idea centered lives. The ego is an idea. For the sake of that idea, we will let our entire species perish, and that’s what is happening.

Anything that you look at, be it- the markets, the banks, the flow of capital, the use and abuse of technology, social systems as they are, the entire politics, all of that is just one. All of that is an expression of man’s misplaced and violent and stupid ego. I do not know what kind of miracle we need to bring some light to that ego. We are trying, we are trying, but the whole thing looks next to impossible.

This species of ours has gotten so mad — it’s suicidal now. The name of that suicidal mission is development, progress, happiness consumption. We just want to get finished off and we don’t know how to talk about it. We want to pretend as if everything is okay. People are still marrying and dreaming of having kids. And I wonder, I just don’t wonder, I go aghast, we are coming to a catastrophic end and you are thinking of bearing kids. You really think the kids are going to live in this world?

If I being on the Titanic. You had that man and the woman on the Titanic and they’re thinking of raising a family, and the ship is 25 minutes from sinking totally, but the two of them are together lying on their bed, weaving their silky dreams, “We will have three babies.” What? In the next 25 minutes? There, they had 25 minutes. Here, we have maybe 25 years.

We don’t want to accept the obvious, and it’s a mark of utter impending destruction when you go into denial mode. Entire humanity has switched to the denial mode. We are acting as if everything is okay. Look at your summits and declarations and conferences and agreements pertaining to aquatic life, or climate change, or environment. Look at the sheer hollowness of all that. We are cheating ourselves. All that is just an utter sham, a total fraud to oneself.

Yet, we engage in all that, and all that is duly reported in the papers, as if we are really doing something concrete in terms of saving the planet, as if!

(Picks up phone) This person has brought this to me and there is a very scary pic here. Indeed, very scary, and I hope that this link will be shared with the audience that we have today.

And there is this place, I suppose, Menindee is the name in Australia. Millions of dead fish wash up near an Australian town. Do you see the entire white patch here, at the center, here? (Displayed on screen) That’s fish. That’s dead fish. The report says millions of dead fish.

I have not read the report, but I think I’ve seen so many similar ones. It’s going to be full of very bloody, very horrible details, but we continue to live merrily, like that Arabian ostrich, you know of that, right? It sinks its head in the sand so that it cannot see the cat approaching. That’s how the entire humanity is behaving.

We continue to talk of the next Olympics and the next World Cup and all that. And very soon, you will be in a position where there would be nothing called — “next.” The “next” would end, and the tragedy is that we will be the special generation that would see all that, and we will be left with the blame of inactivity to bear.

Obviously, there would be no history left. History belongs always to the future. When the future is gone, history is gone. But just metaphorically thinking, history will ask us, “What were you doing?” History will ask our generation, “What were you doing when the Earth was coming to an end?” And there would be no answer because there would be nobody to answer.

Questioner: Sir, you said, “To change the situation of the Earth, we as humans need to change.” Now, to change ourselves in itself is such a big task and time-taking, and it’s really tough. Now when we think of changing ourselves and then trying to make others aware, it is a time taking process and also doesn’t guarantee anything. So, how like in a few decades, we all are going to die, so I don’t see any hope or point of hope.

Acharya Prashant: Atul, It depends on the urgency you see and the intensity of your love. Let’s say you are addicted to something, something, but if it’s required, that to save your brother or your mother, your sister, you give up on that addiction, don’t you?

Questioner: Yes, sir.

Acharya Prashant: So, it depends on the depth of your love, right?

You love to watch movies late at night in your own personal home theater. In your room, at your home, you have a huge screen, and you love to watch some Netflix movie beginning at midnight, every night. And you discover that your father is ill, and he’ll continue to be ill, something chronic, and you just cannot disturb him, his sleep at nights. Would you still continue with your interest in the movies? No. You know what is more important, and therefore, you know what can be dropped. In fact, in some way it’s a very opportune situation.

Self-improvements sometimes happen best under the pressure of adverse situations. If that adversity is not there, maybe you will cite some kind of excuse and postpone the change. But because the pressure is there and the situation is emergent, you know that you have to change or disappear or lose something very precious. And then you can say, “There is no way I can continue doing what I do, being what I am, and liking what I like. So, here I am. For the sake of something very important, I declare that I am changing myself.”

So, you are saying 25 years is too little for human beings to change themselves. I’m saying, “It depends on how deeply you love yourself, and this existence, and the blessing that you inherited in the form of this planet, and the millions of species that live along with you on this planet. It depends on how much you love and value all these. And I rather want that we value all these. And if you value all this, change can happen in one day, because no great external change is needed. The change that we need is internal.”

Our fetish for consumption has to drop. Our stubborn insistence to latch on to ignorance has to drop. After all, the fish are not being dispatched to the heavens. The fish are all landing in our stomach or at some other place in our home in industrial form.

The end product of all industrial output, the place it lands at, is the human home. Do you see that? Even if it is a business-to-business transaction, ultimately, there has to be a retail consumer irrespective of what the business is. So, if the fish is disappearing from the ocean, it is landing in our homes. So, if we can decide that we change, then all this fishing and the troller business and all this can stop in one day. It’s all demand-led, and you are the demand.

The human being is the demanding entity. Right? If the human being can be changed, everything changes — The politics changes, the economics changes, the relationships change, the society changes, and then the future changes. And if the human being does not change, nothing changes.

Questioner: Thank you, Acharya Ji.

show_less