The Biggest Act of Cruelty Today
Questioner: Being born with some impurities that need to be corrected...
Acharya Prashant: Lots of, only impurities are born.
Questioner: Another way of looking at this could be that a baby when they are born, they are still not corrupted by the impurities of the present world. They may have some, from their past reincarnations.
Acharya Prashant: Who brought impurities in the present world? Did they rain from the skies? You would say, 'The elders', but the elders were babies one day. Where did they get the impurities from?
First of all, spirituality is about realizing that all nonsense emanates from the DNA. You are born with nonsense that body identification is the fundamental problem and the root cause of all violence. It’s the body that is violent because it is the body that is coming from the jungle. We share this body with the chimpanzees, with the dinosaurs, with the lions, tigers, every single animal in the jungle is this body and therefore, all the problems of the jungle are contained in this body.
It’s just that jungle does not have the weaponry, the ammunition to execute all the nonsense that arises as some kind of impulse from this body. So, they only have impulses but they cannot execute those impulses. When we have impulses, we have missiles to execute them because we have intellect. Animals only have animalistic prakriti but they don’t have missiles and guns and computers. We are animals with missiles and guns and computers, so we are far more dangerous.
Questioner: Isn’t that a guilt-ridden way to think of life?
Acharya Prashant: That’s a factful way. If that gives us guilt, fine. To me that gives us responsibility and to me that gives us a glimmer of hope. I might be born an animal, but the potential to die free of the animal is possible. In some sense then, veganism is about gaining freedom from the animal. It’s not about protecting the animal. When you say, “You are dependent on animal products,” what are you doing? You’re dependent on somebody.
So, veganism is about gaining freedom from the animal, the outer animal and the inner animal. Presently, because we are dependent on the inner animal, so we are dependent on the outer animal as well. When you are truly spiritual then you are not dependent on the outer or the inner animal. You are free of both and you can’t be free of just one of them. When there will be freedom, freedom will have both the sides.
Questioner: I personally believe in anti-natalist philosophy and I do not intend to procreate myself although I would consider, perhaps, adopting children at some point but how do you, what kind of world, do you see with majority of people being anti-natal, and then do you see the human civilization coming to an end at some point in the future or how what…
Acharya Prashant: This is what I’ll say if not considered rightly will appear either vile or hilarious. There is no great virtue in the human civilization continuing, first thing.
If the child is born suffering, why do you want to bring more child to the world to make them suffer. What is the point in ensuring that the cycle continues? What is the great need or the great virtue and what is the great catastrophe, if at all?
Second thing, not everybody is born to be self-realized, right? The average kind of people will always out number the ones who understand. So, the human race will continue, don’t worry. There will be always enough people who will never understand what I am saying and therefore, they will keep on bearing two kids, four kids, twenty kids, so don’t worry human race is not at the risk of annihilation. I will never be totally understood and the race will continue.
Questioner: So, then eventually do you think the average minds will, you know, overpopulate as compared to the reasonable or the self-realized one…
Acharya Prashant: Do you think that has not been happening till this date?
Questioner: It has.
Acharya Prashant: The ones who understand lose interest in procreation. Therefore, who is left to procreate, all the ones who do not understand and that has been happening since the beginning of time. So, it’s not a new thing that will happen.
Questioner: If I might ask a question here, you know James Lovelock said,
If the earth improves as a result of human presence, we will flourish. If it does not, we will perish.
So, he is imagining a system in which the Earth improves as a result of human presence. In that case, aren’t human beings then, an asset to the planet.
Acharya Prashant: No that’s the improvement that we can bring to the Earth. The improvement is, that human beings have taken the status of Earth down from zero to minus two hundred. So, what do you do when you want to improve from a point of minus two hundred. You being yourself up to zero. So, let us reduce to zero.
The improvement that we can bring to Earth cannot be positive or affirmative. It can only be reductive. There were these twin towers in Noida, right? And they were wrongly made or something. I do not know the nuances of the case. How did you improve the situation in the locality? By bringing them down. That’s the improvement we can bring about, dismiss, demolish, finish it off. Sounds so very annihilistic! No?
Questioner: It does.
Acharya Prashant: It does, it does, it does. So, then please remember it is only when you clear away the nonsense, that there is some room, some space created for something beautiful or clean. You know what the situation of this studio was, just yesterday night? You won’t want to look at that picture. It was all cluttered and chaotic and in the worst shape possible. Then it was brought into this form because you were arriving. What did we do in the first place? We cleared away the nonsense. That’s what this Earth today needs. It has too much nonsense.
First of all, that needs to be annihilated. We need Shiva for pralay. That’s the fundamental requirement and after that we can have a great beginning. So, do not think that zero means zero. Zero means beauty. The entire philosophy of Buddha is Shoonyawad, Shoonyawad. Let it all be reduced to zero and then you will see something magnificently beautiful.
What that thing would be? We do not know and we cannot even predict but what we know is that what we have currently is extremely nonsensical. So, let’s do what we must and clear this away.
Questioner: What is your advice for a self-realized individual to reconcile with this clutter and still, you know be able to live a relatively happy, content life?
Acharya Prashant: To begin with, create a little clean space from where you can operate. That little clean space then, becomes your war room. And then, you operate from there and you want to somehow expand that space of cleanliness.
Questioner: And so that is the purpose no. Just do what you can. Right?
Acharya Prashant: What else, what else, what else.
Questioner: Thank you.
Questioner: This is Arjuna, that is being called to battle.
Acharya Prashant: We do not know whether anything would come out of it but this is the minimum and the maximum we can do. So, we do that, you know. If you start thinking of the results, it hardly energizes you. If you want to lose then start thinking of the results because common sense and normal extrapolation tells you that the battle is just too impossible to win but the battle is too essential to be ignored. So, you fight it. Impossible to win and impossible to ignore. What do you do? You fight it without caring for the results. What else can you do?
