Jainism

The Bhagavad Gita is often accused of supporting caste and misogyny through selective quotations that ignore context, grammar, and the text's central teachings. A closer reading shows that its emphasis is on inner qualities, conscious action, and spiritual equality rather than birth-based hierarchy or gender discrimination. Misinterpretations arise when isolated verses are detached from their broader meaning, while the Gita consistently points toward self-knowledge, freedom from ego, and the universal possibility of liberation for every human being.

Women are often valued not only for their abilities but also for their appearance, desirability, and conformity to social expectations. This conditioning begins early and is reinforced through family, workplaces, media, and culture. As a result, many forms of discrimination continue not only because they are imposed from outside but also because they are accepted and normalized from within. Real freedom begins when a woman refuses to define herself through roles, approval, or standards created to keep her dependent on external validation.

Human beings are born into uncertainty, surrounded by beliefs, identities, and social conditioning that offer ready-made answers to fundamental questions. Real spirituality begins not with accepting collective or personal beliefs, but with honestly examining one’s own suffering, fears, and false identities. The journey is not toward comforting ideas, but toward self-inquiry, where truth is discovered through questioning, observation, and the gradual rejection of illusion.

Women's oppression survives not only through external control but also through the internal acceptance of identities imposed by society. Freedom cannot be permanently granted from outside; it must arise from an individual's own sense of dignity, agency, and responsibility. While laws, institutions, and support systems matter, lasting liberation begins when people stop defining themselves through inherited limitations and choose to assert their own consciousness, freedom, and self-worth.

Curiosity and honest questioning do not oppose love; they deepen understanding. Blind obedience creates dullness, while genuine inquiry keeps the mind alive and engaged. True questioning is not self-defense but a sincere search for clarity. Most people remain psychologically hypnotized by fear, entertainment, and ego, yet a small conscious voice within always seeks truth. Real change begins when one chooses love and self-realization over fear and self-preservation.

Todays educated and financially independent woman says, “I am free,” yet still feels deeply confined within. Why? Because external freedom alone does not dissolve inner conditioning. The old idea of “womanness” still sits at the center of identity. Real liberation begins when one stops seeing oneself merely as a gendered body and starts living as human consciousness first.

Acharya Prashant (AP): That which you call “Vipassana” today, is a very recent phenomenon. They claim that it comes from the Buddha, actually, it is not. The stream flowing from Buddha got extinct around the 8th or 10th century AD. This modern Vipassana came up in Burma, just around a…

The one who is religion-less. A real Hindu does not have any religion. To go beyond all religions is to be a Hindu. There are religions that are on one plane, and then there is Sanatan Dharma, which is another dimension — the eternal religiousness. Liberation from religion is religiousness. Sanatan Dharma is awakened intelligence.

Listener: (Reading a quote of Acharya Prashant from a quote-calendar)

What lies beyond mind?More mind.What is more mind?What and lies and mind.Questions, perceptions on the concept of the mind.

Acharya Prashant: Any question about beyondness would be a useless question because the question itself is coming…

Questioner: All the forms of multimedia, the film industry and advertisements, have presented images of both sexes that are very often unrealistic and debatable. The very quality of femininity has been portrayed in the film industry, ironically, as victimizing them, merely pretty faces, and sidekicks. Why do you think women…

If you are religious, then shouldn’t you be truly religious? Religion is about a total commitment to the Truth. You’ll have to recognize that the objective of religion is not to attain heaven, not to please a holy figure, but to come to your own inner Truth. All good books exist to awaken your consciousness. When it comes to you and the Truth, do you want somebody in between? And wherever you spot fakeness, falseness, hollowness or ignorance, drop it.

There is a search within the human being, always for the greatest, the absolute, and that is what differentiates humans from animals. India was fertile, and there was abundance. You had ample leisure, and in that leisure there was space for intellectual inquiry. The sages and the seers would talk to each other purposelessly. And from that purposeless discussion, from silent observation of life for hours, days, months, and years, came those insights that you today recognize as Indian philosophy.

Women do not need sympathy, reservation, or compensation; they need awakening. Victimhood may offer temporary advantage, but it slowly erodes dignity and strength. Education that stops at jobs and numbers fails both men and women. Unless education addresses the inner fear, insecurity, and ignorance that sustain oppression, no policy can truly empower the girl child.

This has always been a hugely profit-making sector of all economies, just that it has always been a small sector controlled by the priestly class. Now the attempt is to make this sector really big and on an organized scale, because the profits are very tempting, and there is no quality control. There can be no external auditor. All kinds of objections, audits, and scrutinies are ruled out. Getting it? So it’s a very tempting sector.

Shri Krishna is saying: the mind is conditioned to move towards objects and perceive only their surface, periphery, or form. Develop the practice of penetrating further. Let Truth be your practice. The moment you would look at something, and you are in no position not to look at things being embodied, you would look at things. Nobody said that you have to practice lust. Lust just comes. You might be a total fool, an utter retard, and still you will find yourself getting sexually excited once you reach a particular age. Did you need some practice? No, you didn’t. It just happened. But if you are to understand lust, if you are to cross over, if you are to be a master of your body, then it will require a lot of practice, and that will necessarily and obviously tell you about your predicament.

The point always to be proven and maintained is that the woman is weak and fragile, because that is exactly what patriarchy always sought to prove: “She can’t work.” Coming from a man it will appear harsh, but being a human being much like a woman, what I can broadly say is that I will not trade away my freedom for the sake of avoiding physical inconvenience. Even if favors are offered to you for free, refuse. There are no free lunches.

If the woman really understands herself and therefore her choices, why would there be a need to be affected by others? But we bother. That happens because we have borrowed our sense of self from history, tradition, and society. When dependence is glorified, be it physical, financial, emotional, or psychological, it definitely coexists with bondage. If you feel bulldozed or forced, there is only one reason: you’re not walking on your own legs. Go out and earn. No price is too big for freedom.

Drop the center of confusion, come to the center of clarity. Drop what the masses practice, come to the direct route of self-realization. That’s what it means.

“That brother is such a rascal. He roams all over the city and does this and does that. But this one is such a nice girl. She follows all the parental instructions, does her homework properly, gets good grades in school, and the brother is a rascal.” But the brother will end up in Silicon Valley, and the sister will end up in the kitchen. Don't be a good girl with your mother sitting next to you. That's the advice I'm offering.

Irrespective of her station in life, it has been drilled deeply into the Indian woman that her life is foremost about the husband, kids, bed, and meals. But how can this be the primary reason for a conscious human being's existence? We use decorated phrases like “Queen of the House”, but the moment the "queen" gets some money, all her queenly tasks are dumped onto somebody else. So, we are just deceiving ourselves. Give yourself the courage to question things and not accept them blindly — it will give you a blossomed personality and a great life.

Remember, if you want men to look at just your body, they would actually always be looking down at you. But if people, men or women, look at you because of your qualities, they would always be looking up to you.

Religion is the way that brings the lost mind back to its center, its home. That is religion.

Stray dogs need garbage, and with waste reducing, their populations in urban areas are bound to decline. Not just humans, even dogs suffer — crushed by vehicles, beaten up, falling ill, etc. They can either be integrated into our homes with care and responsibility or face extinction from our streets. It is heartwarming to see humans supporting one species, but why doesn’t our heart bleed for the crowds of animals we are slaughtering every day, making many of them extinct forever? Climate change is the biggest threat and is responsible for the maximum misery to animals.

We have images of peace. When you look at the image of Shri Krishna rushing towards Bhishma to attack him personally, going beyond his brief as a charioteer, you don’t think that this is peace. You feel as if Shri Krishna is being violent. The expression of peace often looks very much like violence. Truth, Peace, Love, Freedom — these must never be searched in ‘actions’. Peace and Truth are no different. Peace is about the right action.

For you to benefit from the darshan of Shri Krishna's statue, you should already have a relationship with Shri Krishna and the Gita. If you have had no prior connection with the Gita, then darshan makes no sense. Darshan is a great way to immediately bring back all that has been hidden under the dust of time. You could either re-read the entire Gita or simply look at Shri Krishna’s statue. It’s a fantastic method — but only for Gita lovers.

Overview

Fighting Duryodhana is Dharma. Fight Duryodhana in the way you can, that is swadharma. Dharma is the same for everybody, but swadharma varies according to your physical, social, temporal conditions.

But remember that swadharma can never be in contradiction of Dharma; swadharma will always be something…

A lot of negative attitudes towards women today are claimed to be sanctioned by religion. The reason is that religion has been a victim of contamination. And this contaminated, mainstream, and false religion becomes a tool to exploit women. On the other hand, real religion is a woman's best friend because its effects are emancipation and empowerment. Therefore, when real religion shows up, it will deeply frustrate the traditional kind of religionists.

The human mind suffers because it does not understand what’s going on within itself. The mind longs for understanding and liberation from bondage. And the responsibility is on the human being to gain that understanding and that freedom from bondages. This responsibility is called Sanatan Dharma — founded on self-inquiry, ‘Atma-Jigyasa.’ It is a philosophy of the mind that gives a purpose to life.

Love, for the one who is at a low level of consciousness, is to aspire for a higher level. And love, for one sitting on the Himalayan peaks of consciousness, is to be compassionate towards those at lower levels — and, for their sake, if needed, lay down your life.

Millions of working women are continuously carrying the guilt of neglecting an important duty in the household. This is emanating from centuries-old conditioning. In the jungle, it often did happen that, especially during long periods of pregnancy, the woman couldn't really gather for herself, so the man became the provider. But where is the jungle today? Why are we still behaving as if we are still in the jungle? There is no disadvantage that the woman has today, so there is no need for her to feel that her primary commitment is at home.

There is no morality really there. Though, being human beings, you want to frame it in moralistic terms. We want to kind of pretend that the action has some kind of moral basis to it. But there is no moral basis. Really, there is no moral basis.

Freedom is not an ideal. Freedom does not mean conforming to certain notions. Freedom does not mean that you have to be a superwoman — the kind of things that they show in the movies: "See, look, this is the modern, liberated, progressive woman. And this is what she does. She's a super boss. She's a super mom. She's a super wife. She looks fit and sexy. She is everything all at once." Freedom does not mean conforming to these things. Freedom is about knowing what is not me.

It has been a tradition in India that when you donate, you bow down to the one you are donating to, because he has done you a favour by accepting your donation. Being what we are, it is hardly possible for us to do anything for others. Kindly get over this notion that we live for others. That is the privilege granted only to a Buddha. Only in a state of inner fulfilment can one really do something for others.

What’s happening in the Israel–Iran case is mostly about religion. Israel–Iran relations were far more cordial until 1979, when Iran got a new Islamic constitution, and Iran declares Israel as the “Little Satan” because Israel is a Jewish country. Had both these countries been Muslim, would there be a strife? Had both these countries been Jewish, again, would there be a strife? But we want to close our eyes to the bare fact that religion gone wrong is the worst thing possible to human beings.

Acharya Prashant: You will see that I'm repeatedly stressing on Shri Krishna as the demolisher, on Shri Krishna as someone who not only does not accept our prevalent definitions of right-wrong, true and false, humility, authority, right action, non-violence but, in fact, unabashedly and actively demolishes them. It is one…

Now comes the deeper symbolism of Shivlinga. It says—look, if you have taken birth, then you are there in the body. But even while living in the body, you have to live as if you are without a body. So, the shape of the Yoni that you see in the Shivalinga is actually the world or the body, and this Lingam that you see in the middle of it is the Consciousness—the Consciousness which is located in the body.

When you look into the eyes of an animal, and if you are really awake, you will only see your own deep innocence, which might be hidden from you. It is impossible to see anything or anybody else when you really look. That thing that you look at, and that which looks back at you is most prominently visible in the eyes. Look at the animal, pause and meditate for a while — and then go ahead and slaughter it, if you can. You’ll only be slaughtering yourself.

If God stands for innocence, trust, surrender, then animals are closer to God. But man values himself by his ability to exploit. If you always feel hollow and hungry, then the entire universe is but a resource for you. One then wants to exploit the man, the woman, the child, the animals — everything. So, someone who does not want to look at the universe as a resource will not want to kill or consume anything in a violent way.

Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, do you think that bringing the focus to our diet is going to change anything?

Acharya Prashant (AP): In what sense?

Q: Do you see us heading in the direction of this perfection, completion, along with our diet?

AP: I am seeing that.

You…

Religion concerns itself with ‘Ego and its liberation!’ That’s all. In the name of religion, if you are talking about planets and stars, about fruits and vegetables, wear this, don’t wear that, eat this, don’t eat that, the house should face this direction, and a thousand other things that you associate with it, then all that is some kind of tribal superstition. Religion has nothing to do with these things.

If you start living your life founded on emotions, you won't go very far. You would go only in the direction of your bodily constitution. That's where your biological life wants to take you. And the places where your biological life intends to take you are not very glorious or dignified places. Do not let those things happen to you.

Women are physically a bit weaker, and men could coerce them using sheer muscle power. But those days are behind us, because now we have institutions, the law, and the police — systems that do not listen to muscles. There is something in you that agrees to the demands being made by the patriarchal system — question that. What is it in you that surrenders — and that thing is called greed and fear. So that's what you need to fight against — your greed and fear.

Buddha had some core traits which remain the same today. A sharp mind and a certain curiosity in knowing the depths of life, not feeling that ‘I already know.’ Deep compassion, detachment, and an unending desire to reach the ultimate knowledge, not lazily concluding at one point. He shared his knowledge with the world. A practical man — raised an organization that became the dominant religion of the land. Today, in an age where religion has distorted, we need hundreds of Buddhas.

Religious violence is not about a handful of terrorists; it's an entire ecosystem of passive toxicity supported by lakhs of people. When toxicity is beamed to you on TV and social media, you don't resist. And one day, it explodes into active violence. This is because we're still animals who live without understanding ourselves — this is called ignorance. Therefore, we need wisdom literature to help us transcend our animal disposition.

Dr. Ambedkar stood for the oppressed, and there is nobody more oppressed in the world today than these little kids from various species. If you're an Ambedkarite, you should be the first one to turn vegan, because oppression should not see caste, gender, color, or species. It is very bad when a human being is oppressed. Is it also not equally terrible when a sheep, a goat, a chicken, a fish, or a pig is slaughtered?

The way Prakriti has made the two genders, and the way we are conditioned by society, girls have turned out to be more emotional and more reactive. And that’s a serious handicap they face in life. Many women take their emotionality as their strength, whereas it is not. It is something very untamed that arises from the body. One ought to understand it and stay at a safe distance from it.

Before you go to the Quran, you must first be in a condition to understand what it is saying. The center of the Quran is Tauheed – Oneness. The Quran can be understood only when you, as the ego-mind, are connected to the same source that blessed the Prophet. Otherwise, you will misinterpret it. You are so full of ego that you want to remain what you are. By remaining what you are, if you apply your intellect to the scriptures, you will obviously distort them.