Life cannot be transformed by knowledge of the external world alone; it also requires understanding the one who experiences it. Science, technology, and logic are powerful, but they remain incomplete without self-knowledge and inner honesty. Lasting solutions to personal and global crises emerge when the same rigor used to study the world is turned inward, examining one's motives, intentions, and consciousness with equal seriousness.
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Questioner: Acharya ji, my first question to you. Yesterday in Kathmandu, while receiving the Kalinga Literary Award 2026, Jnanpith Awardee Dr. Pratibha Ray described you as a son of Bharat. So, today you are speaking at Oxford, the world's top-ranked university. Do you feel the responsibility that comes with carrying India's civilizational voice onto such global platforms?
Acharya Prashant: First of all, that was very generous of Dr. Pratibha. Secondly, yes, I think it's a tremendous responsibility to be carrying the eternal message of Vedanta, the Upanishads, to global stages. Not just because it gives patriotic pride, but because today it's a planetary requirement.
You see, the West has already done well in all kinds of external endeavors. When it comes to exploring the universe, when it comes to breaking into the atom, when it comes to discovering the secrets of the body, the West has already done very well. And yet, today, what we are experiencing is something more catastrophic than mankind has ever seen. We are actually into the sixth mass extinction phase, and this is totally of man's making. This is not a natural phenomenon of any kind. We have done it, and we have done it using exactly the tools that we have acquired with our knowledge, with our endeavor, tech tools, and with our economic prosperity.
