If I do not know what I want, what can be sold to me? Anything. How do you know you need anything you aspire for? No, no, that need is artificial. And not knowing yourself, you are blissfully unaware that the need is an implanted thing. Remember, the seller is not selling you just his goods. He’s also selling you the need to buy his goods.
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Questioner: Namaste Acharya Ji. So my question is, if I fix myself, we all fix ourselves. So if I start refusing the simple life, which now we can call stupidity.
So, sir, there is 1% of people who are ruling this world, right? They are causing a lot of problems. So we know all the problems. But is there any way that we can solve this problem? I don’t think so, because no power can overpower them. They are the greatest power; we cannot do anything about it. So even when we know the problem, we can’t do anything.
Acharya Prashant: What exactly is the question?
Questioner: The question is about those 1% people who are ruling this world and causing all the major problems. And we are here, we start our life doing all the simple things. That is not what you call stupidity. If we start refusing all those things, they are not the major thing that is causing all the problems. The original problem is created by all those 1% people who are ruling this world, right?
Acharya Prashant: No, you’re not quite right in this. You see, there might be a big billionaire. Does he mint money? Does he print currency in his personal printing press? Where does he get his wealth, his fortune, from? His billions come from the billions of his customers, right? If not billions, millions; millions of his customers enable him to afford the billions in his wealth. So it’s not the billionaire versus the common man. The billionaire and the common man are part of the same system.
Questioner: It’s their curiosity, and they are all such innovative people. If they are doing all these things for people only.
Acharya Prashant: If they are really innovative, then let them have their billions. What’s your problem? If they are really good and great people, they probably deserve whatever they have. Then there should be no problem. Instead, you are saying they are the cause of the misfortune of the planet. So first of all, be sorted about that.
Questioner: Sir, this is creating a problem also, but they are the reason we have come so far.
Acharya Prashant: So this is the problem, you came so far.
Questioner: That is not the problem. The problem is, because of that, we are…
Acharya Prashant: They are the reason you came so far, but they are also the reason for the destruction of the planet.
Questioner: Yes.
Acharya Prashant: So you coming so far means the destruction of the planet, right? And that’s something great.
Questioner: So, sir, if we stop doing that, we are stopping the creativity and innovation mindset.
Acharya Prashant: Maybe you do not know what creativity is. Maybe you do not know what innovation is, because these two things can’t go together. You cannot say that your billionaires are the engines of all creativity and all goodness on the planet, and they have enabled mankind to come to the great point we presently find ourselves at, and then, in the same breath, you say they are the ones causing the destruction of the planet. These two things can’t go together, can they?
First of all, you decide, are they good for you? Are they good for you, or are they the reason behind the planet’s problems? How do you look at them?
Questioner: No, sir, both the things are there.
Acharya Prashant: No, both the things cannot be there. You cannot say he is making me healthy and he’s killing me.
Questioner: It’s not about just being healthy. It’s about we are growing.
Acharya Prashant: If you are growing, then it’s great. Why are you blaming them?
Questioner: But, sir, this is right now causing a problem.
Acharya Prashant: Then this is not called growth. This is called cancerous growth.
See, the problem is he doesn’t want to let go of the temptation of so-called growth, and that growth is being bestowed by the so-called billionaire. At the same time, he cannot deny the fact of environmental collapse and climate change and such things. So even if the facts are there, he still wants to stick to the position that what the billionaires are offering is actually good.
Questioner: Sir, we just stop like we used to.
Acharya Prashant: You are rushing to a conclusion, and you are deliberately making the conclusion so unacceptable that you are left with only one option. And that one option will be: “Oh, the billionaire is actually doing something good, because if he’s not doing something good, then this is the solution, and this solution is unacceptable. So let’s simply accept that the billionaire is doing something good.”
Do you see how your inner mechanism is conspiring against you?
Questioner: Yes. So, is there any way?
Acharya Prashant: Now, that’s a question. That’s a question after all, and it took me 15 minutes just to extract a question.
Way and all those things are meaningless if you do not know where you stand. You ask me, “I’m stuck. Is there a way out?” The first thing I’ll ask you is, what’s your location? What’s your location?
Questioner: Location-wise?
Acharya Prashant: The billionaire didn’t teach you that? And without telling you your location, he has been selling you fancy maps and such things.
Questioner: Sir, I want to ask, like, is there any way?
Acharya Prashant: I’m asking, what’s your location?
Questioner: Sir, my location is, we are here, we are sitting here comfortably.
Acharya Prashant: I’m not talking about the location of your limbs.
Questioner: Sorry, sir.
Acharya Prashant: Your limbs don’t have a problem currently. Sir, your location is that you do not know where you are. That’s your location. And because you do not know where you are and who you are, therefore it becomes possible to sell you anything.
If I do not know what I want, what can be sold to me? Anything. And therefore, the billionaire has a stake in preventing you from knowing who you are and what you want, so that he can keep selling you anything.
His money comes from you. Remember that. He doesn’t invent money; he gets it from you. He manufactures not just goods but also consumers of the goods. Just manufacturing goods in a factory will not make him a billionaire. He must also manufacture consumers of his goods. Only then will he make his money. So the human being must be turned into a consumer, and only then can the billionaire remain a billionaire.
Which means that he is selling you two things: one openly and the second covertly. The open thing he sells to you is the product. And what he sells to you invisibly is a philosophy. What does that philosophy say? The philosophy says you do not need to know your location. That’s not needed. That’s of no importance. You only need to consume my product, and that will make you happy.
Remember, the seller is not selling you just his goods. He’s also selling you the need to buy his goods. If first of all he does not implant that need in you, his goods will go unsold. But you do not see the secret implant. You start thinking you actually need those goods. And if you need those goods, then you offer the billionaire money, and the millions of customers together turn him into a trillionaire.
How exactly do you know you need all the things you run after in life? How do you know? Please tell me. Please tell me, how do you know you need all that which you aspire for? Who told you? Also tell me, had you not been told to consume X and Y, would you have consumed it? Would you have consumed it?
What you call innovation might actually just be a new way to sell you something that you never need in the first place. But because the old product has already been sold to you, therefore fresh sales can come only from selling something apparently different, and that you call innovation.
Orange 13 is there now, orange 14 is out. But you never had a problem with Orange 13 in the first place. But now that Orange 14 is out, and that gorgeous model is displaying it, and because you are so terribly self-unaware, you do not know what attracts you to the phone, you go for it and you say this is progress. What exactly has progressed in this transaction? Please tell me. What has progressed?
You are closer to destroying your own home, your own planet, than ever before. This is the Anthropocene. What progress are you talking of? And that which you call progress is directly responsible for the destruction of the planet. In fact, it is the only cause.
If your culture favors consumption, that seller will have a great stake in turning your culture into an industry. If weddings involve a lot of purchases, that seller will have a stake in selling you the philosophy that you need a man or a woman to feel complete. In many ways, through various channels, he will keep repeating this philosophy: “Where is your special one?” Because ultimately that will lead to market dynamics. The moment the special one enters your life, you’re set to make purchases. And after that there would be kids, and that would spawn another round of huge purchases, unending purchases.
How do you know you need anything you aspire for?
No, no, that need is artificial. And not knowing yourself, you are blissfully unaware that the need is an implanted thing. How exactly do you know you need a bigger car? How exactly do you know? How exactly do you know you need one more vacation?
Listener: With ego, or the population increase in your house.
Acharya Prashant: No, sir. There is somebody preparing destination resorts and sneaking their temptation into your mind without your knowledge, and then you start saying, “This is my desire.” No, sir, that’s not your desire. It’s a surgical operation. You didn’t even get to know when that desire penetrated your interiors, and there is somebody sitting to benefit from your desire. Don’t you see that?
All right, let’s just conduct a very quick experiment. Think of any five desires you have. You don’t need to write them down; it might embarrass you. Think of your top five desires and just see how each one of them benefits the market. You cannot fulfill your desires without benefiting the market in some way or the other. Think of it.
Want to go out with your girlfriend? The hotel will definitely benefit, definitely. In fact, they’ll overcharge. Think of any desire you can fulfill without fattening somebody’s pocket. Think of it. That’s the fact of our desires. They exist to fatten some shrewd billionaire’s pockets. Your desires are not yours.
Questioner: But to survive, we need very minimal things, right? So how do we understand what we need?
Acharya Prashant: Those are your needs, right? Only you can know. How do I suggest?
Questioner: But everything is imparted from somewhere. No?
Acharya Prashant: How do you know? Within five minutes of this interaction, you are convinced. If I can convince you so easily, that billionaire will return very soon to reconvince you.
Questioner: We need very minimal things. If we are going from there, it means we are…
Acharya Prashant: No, I’m not taking you back to the cave. I’m not saying you need just one pair of clothes and a little pitcher containing some water. That’s what is called the simple life. I’m not taking you there. I’m not taking you to any conclusion. I’m just asking you: where are your desires coming from?
I’m not suggesting an alternate desire. I’m not giving you an alternate image of the future. I’m asking: where are your hopes for the future coming from? Please tell me. How many of you wish to have a sleek car at some point in your life? Please tell me. Do you know the kind of profit margin that exists on luxury cars? Do you know that? And do you know how much they make after selling that car?
The car has to be kept at least somewhat affordable; otherwise, you won’t buy it. But a big proportion of the total expense happens after-sales, service, repair. Your dream is actually somebody else’s dream. He wants you to dream so that his dreams can be fulfilled.
Alright, let’s examine other desires. Fat weddings, we have already talked of. The car. Yes, the hotel room. Yes. What else?
Listener: Job.
Acharya Prashant: So, I’ll have a fat salary. If you earn 10 rupees, how much will you be making for your employer? If he gives you 10 rupees, how much must you definitely be making for him?
Listener: 10x.
Acharya Prashant: Do you see this? And he wants you to dream big, because if you earn 10, he gets 100. If you dream big and you say, “I want a package of at least 50 lakhs a month,” he is delighted. He says, “Yes, he’s the man.” You make 50 lakhs a month; he gets 50 crores a month. But you never thought of this, right?
Questioner: So, sir, I don’t think we come from very simple families. We are not like, we don’t have two, three cars in our family, not like that, luxurious cars. Let’s say, right now in our family or many of us, we don’t have two, three, four cars.
Acharya Prashant: But that’s what you want to have.
Questioner: Maybe.
Acharya Prashant: Why are you so sheepish about that? Simply acknowledge: yes, I want to have four cars.
Questioner: But sir, the majority of people, even if they want to, they cannot afford it.
Acharya Prashant: If they cannot afford four cars, they want four bikes. The equation remains the same. Irrespective of what you desire, somebody else benefits from it. Therefore, implanting desires in your mind is a basic prerequisite for any business to prosper. Which means the human being must be reduced to a stupid customer.
They are not just making a consumer out of you. They must reduce your consciousness to something very trite, something very feeble, something very impressionable, something very vulnerable, something very weak.
If you are somebody who can see for yourself, why would you fall into a seller’s trap? So what would a seller want, independent thinkers or gullible idiots? Who is a seller’s dream: independent thinkers or gullible idiots? Please tell me.
Listener: Gullible idiots.
Acharya Prashant: Therefore, what would the seller want to produce in society? Gullible idiots. And that’s done through various ways and methods and propaganda of all kinds, including the propaganda that all this is leading to progress.
Questioner: Sir, continues to his question only. He has talked about the 1% population controlling the industry, and they make us fools. We are dreaming their dreams, and so we are sleeping, they want us to sleep.
Similarly, a few countries, if we go to particular topics, if we talk about sustainability, we come into the picture of Europe. We talk about they reuse water, they sustainably reuse their solid waste, and regenerating energy, and they are acquiring waste from nearby countries, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and all that.
So through this ideation or idealization of these countries, I got the opportunity to visit there. I have been to three or four different institutes, top institutes there, and checked their labs, their work, and all things. What I really found out on the ground is really, really pathetic which they show on a top ground on the international market.
I think the kabadi system or the waste collection system in our country is very, very good, and far better than those. The thing is, their population. They have only 69 lakh people living there. There is even a meme that they have more cattle or pigs there than the population of Denmark.
So how do we think about this? How do policies and policymakers keep idealizing those who have no ground reality at all in terms of mass? We are almost 200 or 250 times stronger than them. So how is it that, still, blindly, our policymakers and many researchers are taking things from there?
I have been to their labs, and I think we are doing far, far better in terms of research, in our labs than them. So how do we stop this idealization, this sleeping pattern in research, this sleeping pattern in terms of sustainability, to idealizing those countries?
Acharya Prashant: The first thing is obviously discovery of facts. If facts correspond to what you have just said, that must be known, and that must not be too difficult to discover. Right? You said a single visit sufficed. If it is that straightforward, it must be attempted. So that’s the first thing.
Second is: before I look at some other country for solutions pertaining to my country, I must know what my own condition is. Before I talk of sustainability, I must ask: what is it that makes the whole game so unsustainable? But that question is seldom asked. We say: this is the human being. These are his patterns. This is his life. This is what he wants to do in life. Let’s make it sustainable. Let’s allow him to do whatever he does, but let’s come up with something that makes the whole process sustainable. How will you do that? How exactly?
You look at the per capita consumption of an American, you require six Earths! Six Earths! If the entire population of the planet reaches that level of per capita consumption. The whole population of the Earth taken as a whole, we are already consuming, on a per capita basis, 70% more than what the Earth can afford. For Americans, the ratio would be five to six. For the planet as a whole, it is 1.7.
How will you make it sustainable? Please tell me.
Everybody on the planet wants to consume like an American, and you say, “I want to make it sustainable.” The human tendency is exactly in the opposite direction. You want to reduce waste and such things in percentage terms, whereas the desire of every single person is to increase his consumption in multiple terms. How will percentages compete with multiples? Please tell me.
You reduce something by 30%. You make a process more energy-efficient by 30%. And consumption increases by three times. What have you achieved?
Today, if you look at the vehicles that we have, our vehicles are far more fuel-efficient than what we had on our roads five decades back, right? Then why do we have so much pollution today compared to what we had in the past, when our vehicles are cleaner, greener, more efficient, and such things? Please tell me.
Just the number of vehicles. You are, for example, reducing fuel consumption in percentage terms, right? You will say that the old Ambassador or Fiat used to consume so much fuel per kilometer, and the modern vehicle consumes 0.6x, you have reduced it by 40%. And the number of vehicles has gone up by 40 times. What have you achieved? What do you mean by sustainability?
When human desire itself is militating against sustainability, what kind of tech or policy measures will save you? And these are the two things you talk of, right? Let’s have technology. Let’s have systems. Let’s have policies. How will they save you?
The sheer force of the boiling desire of mankind will defeat all policy measures.
The first thing is: the human race has to be quietened. And that’s the only thing we don’t want to even think of. We don’t want to think of that. We say, “Let’s have green cars. Let’s have EVs.” We never say: do we know the right destination to drive these cars to? Yes, you have a car. What will you do with it? Do you know where to go? You can have five cars, fine. But you are the driver, right? You are the owner. What will you do with those cars? This question alone can offer sustainability. Without this question, no sustainability is possible.
And in the name of sustainability, we are trying everything except this question. You want to consume like an American. What will that give you? What has that given the American in the first place?
If you want sustainability, you must first of all censor the sellers of ignorance, the sellers of dreams. Because only dreams can be sold, and nobody will buy dreams if there is no ignorance. Therefore, those who have a stake in selling will also have a stake in selling you dreams. And to sell you dreams, first of all, they have to sell you ignorance.
It is that ignorance that is at the center of all climate catastrophe, all environmental destruction. Have we not already tried out everything and failed miserably? Please tell me. Look at Paris 2015. The COP is still underway, right? Close to the burning forests of the Amazon. We said that by 2030 we would reduce our carbon emissions by 44%. And 2025 is about to end. Instead of reducing emissions by even 1%, we have actually increased our emissions. And the second-biggest emitter has happily dropped out of the negotiating table, “No America this time.”
Don’t you see what he wants? They say we’ll be great again by consuming more and more. So let’s dig out more gas, more fossil fuels. Even Alaska has to be dug out. Why? Because, you know, you are great only when you are a great consumer. You are great only when your plate is bigger. It is this philosophy that is unsustainable.
We need education, and we need to stop those who de-educate us, the sellers of ignorance. That’s the only thing, I repeat, that can save this planet: the right education.
And just as you know we have laws against quacks. Do you understand quacks? Random fellows posing as doctors and selling you medical remedies, disastrous remedies. You have laws against them. They can be arrested.
Similarly, you must have laws against those who sell you false hopes, because it is much the same. Somebody says, “Buy my new shoes and you will be a complete man.” This fellow ought to be arrested. He’s a quack. Similarly, some religious teacher says, “Buy my new mala and you will experience deep contentment.” Arrest this person. You are selling ignorance. The ad says, “This fellow was roaming about totally dissolute and lonely, and then he bought my new undergarments, and see, now he has a happy family.” Arrest this person. He’s not selling undergarments; he’s selling a perverted philosophy.
Human beings are identified by their consciousness. Somebody destroys your body, that is a crime. Somebody destroys your consciousness, that is an unpardonable crime. Do you understand this?
We need these two processes running parallelly. One, a process of solid inner education. Second, a process of legally checking those who sell false philosophies to you. And this is, from where I look at it, the only recipe for sustainability. Otherwise, in the name of meetings and negotiations and policy discussions, you can keep having a great holiday in Brazil. The New Year is around, right? Many of those delegates will return in January. They’ll say, “We are here to save the planet. Let’s save our own comforts first. We too are part of the planet.”
Questioner: In continuation to this, how do we save our policymakers or politicians who are buying policies from the West, or from wherever they are selling it, like the Basel Convention and such things? We are just having their scrap into our country, Indonesia and this thing.
Acharya Prashant: They are buying their policies from the West, but they are buying their mandate from India. You are the voter, right? You are the one affording them their authority, their seat, their privileges. Why do you vote for such people? Why?
Questioner: As an individual, I can think of different things, but the mass, who are…
Acharya Prashant: The mass too is just a body of individuals.
Questioner: But they are thinking of cars, as you say.
Acharya Prashant: So why don’t you educate them? That would be sustainable. Attempt that.
Questioner: Because the West, every time they talk about sustainability, will just take the data and say, “India, Indonesia, Bali, these are the countries producing more plastic waste into the ocean.” But we are not the fresh producers; we are the consumers, which by default goes into the oceans because we are covered with this thing.
Apart from this, those countries which are generating virgin plastic at the highest cost are not counted at all. So that’s the difference in showcasing things on a mass scale.
Acharya Prashant: See, it’s not as if one country is better than the other, because you are continuously trying to imply that the developing world is in some way better than the developed world. No, sir, no. It’s just that right now you don’t have the means to consume; otherwise, your desires are much the same. Right now, because you can’t afford it, you don’t waste as much or emit as much. But the moment you get the money, you’ll be much the same, maybe even worse off.
So see, if you are poor, obviously you are not going to waste much or consume much. But being poor is not a virtue in itself. Illumination is virtue. When you know who you are, and therefore what you must do, the biggest threat to sustainability is population itself. When you do not know why you exist, then all you do is just get hold of a woman and produce kids, or get hold of a man, vice versa, and produce kids.
Can you tell me one factor more dangerous to this planet than the human population? Think of it. We are already, even at the current levels of consumption, consuming 70% more than what the Earth can afford. And still we want to increase both the toxic variables. One: per capita consumption. Two: number of consumers.
The number of consumers has to increase. I will multiply by number, because that’s the desire, a full nest. And once you have fullness, it must also have furniture, and more beds, and more cars, and more goodies, and such things.
That’s what any effort towards sustainability has to target. Apart from what I’m calling inner illumination, there is no possibility. But that’s the only thing we don’t want to try. Everything else is admissible, but this.
Questioner: You just talked about sustainability, and now I remember one incident. I was reading an article, and in that article there was a billionaire who had multiple kids from different girls. He was advising people to have more and more kids. And people follow their advice blindly, because they are billionaires, we want to be like them. So they are saying, we will do the same.
Now I remember you once saying in one of your videos, when I asked a question in the beginning, that a common man does not want to live with philosophy. But in that video you said everyone is living with some philosophy. So now I’m getting it. The common man is living with a philosophy, the philosophy that rich people give them. They are implanting desires into them, and with that philosophy he is living the life.
Acharya Prashant: If the population declines, the number of his customers declines. And that’s why he’ll keep advising: have more kids, have more kids.
