Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, I watch stand-up sometimes to check what's going around, I see comedians using satire and sarcasm for India in their comedy. Big companies like Amazon, Netflix are hiring big content creators for promotions and making videos and they are shifting from their channels to the company's channels and those with individual channels who have their content also say that they do comedy to explain misery of India which is just comedy and an exaggeration which is their profession.
Recently there was a controversy of a comedian who performed in the Kennedy center who compared “two Indias” and which looked like true to me some of the points. Do they not know about India as a nation since they re-travel (1:26) and they know the impact that will create to the followers including in the foreign soil or they have they sold themselves for the content? How to understand this? So if you allow, I would like to share a few lines that he spoke in the Kennedy centre.
“I come from two Indias where children in masks hold hands with each other, and yet I come from an India where leaders hug each other without the masks, I come from an India where the AQI is 9000 but we still sleep on the roof and look up at the stars. We scoff at sexuality, yet we produced a billion people.”
“We have largest working populations under 30 on the planet, but still listens to 75 year old leaders with their 150 year-old ideas. We kicked out the British and called the government the ruling part. Women wear sarees and sneaker and yet have to take advice from the old men who have never worn a saree, and will never get to take one off in their entire lives. India that self serves and self preserves. India that does not shut up and yet does not speak up.”
Acharya Prashant (AP): I have not watched that show. But in the lines that you have quoted, I do not see much that is worthy of big condemnation. As far as these particular lines go, people have right to express their views and I do not see much ignorance in these lines. May be more was said by this person?
Q: yes.
AP: I do not know of that. You have not quoted that. If it comes to me, may be my opinion will change but in these five or six lines there is hardly anything, one can object to.
Q: If I ignore these lines, then the comedians who make fun of India with respect to comedy, how should we see that?
AP: See, that’s the cheapest thing to do, no? To make fun. So that's what so many people do. Putting in serious concerted effort to better the situations is not something, everybody has the guts for and because we are a frivolous audience, so frivolousness and flippancy sells with us.
At no point in the history of mankind, there was so much comic content available to us. At no point in the history of India were there so many comedians. You could take that as a proportion of the population or as a proportion of digital content creators, you will find that the share of comedy and comedians is steeply rising. Why is that so? Because that's the easiest, the laziest route to take.
Scoff at somebody, taunt, make fun and especially when you know that there is going to be no reprisal. If you know that there are going to be consequences, then making fun is not so cheap. Price has to be paid. So pick a target, that's not going to retaliate and keep poking fun, keep humiliating. This is just falseness at so many levels. There is ignorance in it, there is violence in it.
But I want to ask you something, would these people continue with what they are doing, if their tickets do not sell and their videos do not get views? They do this for a living, right? They are making money either from the tickets or from Amazon or Netflix or YouTube. Where's that money coming from? It's coming from us. That's the kind of content, we enjoy.
What the fellow in question is saying is market-driven. Because there exists a big market for such content, so such content will be supplied. That brings us back to Vedanta. Unless you know what your reality is, you will be attracted to all kinds of nonsense. You'll keep doing things that hurt others, and hurt you.
A certain frivolousness is the very mark of this age. A certain lack of respect towards anything and everything. A complete absence of sacredness, nothing is to be held as sacred. Therefore there is nothing to be serious about.
And if find something sacred, spit at it. In fact hunt for everything, that is blemishless, pure, holy and spotless, and then spit at it. That's what generates the maximum laughs, that's what is the most fun. Turn the holy into the joke. So that you can continue living your petty and ugly life. That's the intention.
If you treat the sacred with respect, then you cannot continue being what you are. If you take something as high, sublime, worth your respect, then how can you honestly still continue to lead a pathetic life? You will have to improve, you'll have to rise.
So what do you do? You destroy all the ideals. You become a self-declared iconoclast – “what do I do? I bring down the deities. Why? Because I do not want to rise up. I'm such a lowly fellow, I do not even want to rise, so what do I do? I pull down the Gods from the sky and bathe them in excreta” – And it sells because that's what we all want.
Please understand this is the age of mass production. You have machines, you have technology and technology is improving by the day. The fellow who is owning and running the machine, the corporation, the empire, out of his greed wants you to consume because the production of the machine is of no use if there is nobody to buy it and consume it and the rate of production is exponentially rising. Is it not?
The output of the factory is rising very steeply. Therefore a market has to be created equally swiftly. And how do you create a market? By turning people into consumers. “I am producing so much but people are not buying it. Why? Because they do not need it. So what do I do? I change their entire value system. I bring them to a lowly level of consciousness which tells them that the purpose of life is consumption. And when they are brought down to that low level of consciousness all, they will do is consume and then my things will sell and then I can make profits. How do you bring down their consciousness? – by dissociating it from the sacred.”
That's what comedy is doing. It's destroying the sacred. So that there is nothing holy, nothing worth worshipping left in your life, nothing worth looking up to is left in your life. All that you have is profanity. You can laugh at anything. “Haha”. Upnishads, you can laugh at, Ram and Shiv, you can laugh at; everything is the butt of a joke. And especially if you treat something as important, it has to be turned into a joke.
The new chap enters the hostel and he is reciting some verses; make fun of him. Equally a new boy enters the hostel and he is parroting some lowly rapper, nobody will make fun of him. Some illiterate rappers are acceptable but if you are chanting religious verses, you will be mocked.
In fact, I don't have the stats, but I suppose more than half so-called youtubers are just comedians. Let's call them jokers. An even more blatant version of this comedy is roast, humiliate. If there are people who are sensitive to their values, hit them where it hurts the most, mock their values.
Somebody respects his mother, mock him. A rapist is acceptable, a devotee is not. When he'll come to a rapist, he'll say “you know, let's look at everybody as a human being. Why are we ostracizing this person? All are equal.” But a devotee cannot be forgiven. We will poke jokes into his Heart till he succumbs.
There is a particular value system that is being sought to be imposed on everybody. If you subscribe to that value system, you will not be made fun of and if you deviate from that system even by an inch, by a millimeter, life will be tough on you. You will be killed and the weapon will be laughter. He was laughed to death.
He was joked and mocked to death. What kind of death? Not physical, obviously. The death of the value system. What kind of value system is being preferred? One that suits consumption. You don't eat animals, you'll be made fun of. You live an austere life, you'll be made fun of. You do not belong to the mainstream, you will be made fun of. You love the nation, you will be made fun of. Hegemony of the evil. Why? Because you are prepared to tolerate it.
Amazon or Netflix or YouTube do not pay these people from their own pocket. Amazon is not a charity. Where does Amazon get its bucks from? From you and me. Amazon gets it from us and then pays a part of that to them. Why do we subscribe? Why do we watch? Why don't we boycott?
These people are not operating from any deep value system. They are not idealists, they do not even have an ideology. All that they want is money. For the sake of money they can sell anything – their nation, their God, their mother. Cut off their financial supply lines and they will be no more. They are not ideology-driven. And of course they are not driven by the Truth. Let alone the Truth, they don't even have idealism.
You are sitting here, talking of these things, your own younger brother or sister might be a subscriber. Where do these people get their millions and millions of subscribers from? Please tell me. That's what runs their business. Those subscribers aren't dropping from mars. They are coming from our families. Why do you allow that to happen?
Your foundation is made to spend 80 percent of the donations it receives on just promotion and publicity. We are left with hardly anything. Everything is devoted to making these words reach people. Why? Because you will not help reach these words to others.
Some nonsensical contents and everybody is watching it and if we want this to be watched, then we have to pay through our nose. Because you will happily watch that content and share it and propagate it. This you’d not watch; and if by chance you happen to watch it, you'll feel ashamed of sharing it. You'll say, “You know my friend circle, what will they think? I have ideals or something. They'll say “Oh my god, you know this chap, he talks of the Truth. He's infected by reality. Don't go close. Maintain social distancing. He is infected.””
So all that you send to the foundation goes back in just ensuring that more and more of you are watching the content that you watched to come to the foundation. That content didn't reach you by chance, that content didn't reach you organically. That content reached because we cut down on all our other expenses to ensure that the content is reaching you.
See the thing is competitive, a fellow can watch only one video at a time, so either he watches that trash or he watches this. You have made your choice and that will decide your fate and the fate of this nation.
The day you decided to turn absolutely worthless, junk people into superstars on Amazon and YouTube, that's the day you sealed the fate of this nation.
Just go and check who are the top 10 or 20 Indian youtubers and you will know what is happening. It's not only happening, it's being promoted. Remember the man who runs the factory, he wants this to happen, he's ensuring this happens.
