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कोई अमीर कोई गरीब क्यों पैदा होता है? कोई कमज़ोर कोई बलवान क्यों? || आचार्य प्रशांत (2021)
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4 years ago
Prakriti (Nature)
Justice
Consciousness
Biodiversity
Vivartavada
Brahman
Maya (Illusion)
Description

Acharya Prashant responds to a question about why nature seems to discriminate, making some people strong and others weak, some intelligent and others dull. He explains that nature is not concerned with your consciousness; it only produces bodies. Nature creates a wide variety of bodies, as if it is conducting an experiment. He draws an analogy with the plant kingdom: when you see one tree grow tall and another remain small and crooked, you don't call it discrimination, but rather diversity. Similarly, when one flower is large and another is small, you don't see it as injustice but as biodiversity. This same principle of biodiversity applies to humans; the physical and mental differences are not a matter of injustice but a display of natural variety, just like the differences between an African elephant with large ears and an Indian elephant with smaller ones. The speaker clarifies that the concept of justice belongs to the realm of consciousness, not nature. In nature, there is no justice or injustice; there is only a system. A lion eating a deer or a large fish eating a smaller one is not an act of injustice; it is simply the way of nature. To seek justice in nature is foolish. The talk of justice arises from human consciousness, and the higher the consciousness, the more it will speak of justice. For consciousness, justice means putting things in their proper place: the lower things below and the higher things above. This is derived from the Sanskrit root 'nyas', meaning 'to place', from which the word 'sanyas' (renunciation) also originates. If the feeling of injustice arises within you, it is a positive sign, indicating a desire to reject the given natural order and rise to a higher state of being. This rejection is the beginning of spirituality. The speaker cautions against selectively using nature to justify certain behaviors, such as eating meat because lions do, while ignoring other natural animal behaviors like being naked or not attending school. This is a flawed and hypocritical argument. Humans, endowed with consciousness, must live with understanding, not merely by natural instinct. Regarding the creation of nature, Acharya Prashant explains that the question itself assumes that nature, as we perceive it, is fundamentally real. He introduces the Vedantic concept of 'Vivartavada' (the theory of apparent transformation), as opposed to 'Parinamavada' (the theory of real transformation). The world, or Prakriti, is an appearance (vivarta) of the ultimate reality, Brahman, not a real product or transformation. Since the world is an illusion or a dream-like appearance, asking who created it is a misplaced question. The spiritual path is not about questioning the creation but about correcting one's own perception. When one's consciousness is clear, the world is seen for what it is. He concludes by addressing a follow-up thought: if the virus is unreal, why worry? He states that the virus is as unreal as the body it affects. One can only call the virus unreal when one has realized the unreality of their own body. Until that state of consciousness is reached, it is foolish to use spiritual concepts to justify carelessness.