Acharya Prashant addresses the questions surrounding the suicide of actor Sushant Singh Rajput. He begins by referencing the 15th chapter of the Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, where Shri Krishna describes the world as an inverted Peepal tree, implying that everything in this world is the opposite of what it appears to be. He notes that while people are expressing sympathy, they are also labeling the deceased as mentally ill, thereby subtly blaming him for his own demise. The narrative being pushed is that he was a talented artist who couldn't handle his mental disorder and that he would have been saved if he had sought help. Acharya Prashant calls this a way of blaming the victim. Quoting J. Krishnamurti, "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society," Acharya Prashant argues that if society itself is sick, and the film industry even more so, it is difficult for a healthy person to survive there. He points out that the deceased was an intellectual artist with a keen interest in spirituality, philosophy, and science, citing thinkers like Van Gogh, Kafka, the Upanishads, and Swami Vivekananda. For such a person, living in an industry that thrives on superficiality and the physical body would be torturous, making him feel like an outcast. This suffering is a natural consequence of being in a sick environment. Acharya Prashant further explains that mental disorders like depression and anxiety are 'diseases of modernity.' He highlights a direct correlation between a country's per capita GDP and the prevalence of mental illness, noting that in India, the so-called backward states have lower suicide rates, while intellectually advanced states have higher rates. This is because modernity, while based on reason and logic, has rejected spirituality. It is anti-religious, not merely secular. Without a spiritual foundation, the intellect becomes self-destructive. The film industry, he states, produces shallow and titillating content, and the people in it are often just as toxic as their products. He concludes that humanity is suffering in two ways: the majority are lost in darkness, and the few who see the light are tormented by the surrounding darkness. The only real solution is spirituality and self-knowledge, as science and reason alone cannot provide love, compassion, and peace. Modernity's mantra to 'challenge everything' is flawed because it challenges what is high and sacred but never one's own base desires. The real pandemic, he asserts, is mental illness, which stems from a lack of self-knowledge and spirituality.
