In Conversation with Acharya Prashant (@ShriPrashant) Spirituality, Hinduism and Success

just before we start one thing that uh came to my mind and bl I forget it given the amount of uh Superstition and pseudo science uh I admired what you're doing so probably that's uh usually the last thing that said uh at the end of a conversation but let this be the first thing I want to say why why would you say that I'm curious because I'm fighting the same thing the kind of uh bias M subjectivity ill-placed belief in oneself and uh dogmatic uh yeah self-confidence that's going around right I suppose that's what is

uh killing everybody including the very planet right so we need much much more of uh what you are attempting right and we need many many more professionals to come out and uh and speak for the facts otherwise everybody is uh doubting his opinions and that is no good right doesn't take anybody anywhere yes we can start thank you for that um and in fact that makes it a great starting point for our conversation yes because um I am I have always been a scientific student M I did my mbbs my MD and then I did

three years in neurology and all of my belief systems are informed through what I have read in my medical textbooks and through scientific textbooks right and now when I think about spirituality and I have been thinking about spirituality the first problem that I came across was is this a soft science is this is there any way I can confirm this can the same principles of science be applied in my study of spirituality so today I have this golden opportunity to sit with you you are one of the foremost Experts of spirituality in our country most

welcome so I would like to start this conversation in that point which is for a scientific student how should they approach spirituality you see science uh is hard hard in the sense that it uh leaves no scope for subjective feelings or emotions or biases right a fact is a fact and a fact is a fact if uh it is uh verifiable falsifiable replicable replicable somebody else can come and test it and it can be tested not just today but at any point in time and if there is even a single observation that negates my hypothesis

then my theory stands rejected yes so there is a constant attempt a very rigorous attempt in science to not to let the ego interfere the self interfere right I might like the fact I might not like the fact that doesn't matter right I'm measuring the time period of a simple pendulum and I might be running a fever right that doesn't alter the reading I might be in a very bad mood a man measures the thing a woman reads the observation they are they are supposed to be the same Black or White young or old in

that sense the the person doesn't count and if that be the definition of hard then spirituality is harder because you have to be your own witness here you are witnessing something that you might only be very superficially connected to you know that's a pendulum yeah and I've inherited that from my grandmother so there might be some relationship yeah and you're observing the pendulum yeah but what is spirituality spirituality is self- knowledge spirituality is not about spirits it is about the self right so Adat is atan spirituality is self- knowledge so what is to we observe

the self right and with the self the self has a relationship of identity I am that I am myself yes it is harder because all kinds of biases and prejudices are bound to creep in yes witnessing is the heart of all self-observation you know absolutely if you if you cannot look at yourself neutrally without attachment without conclusions without biases without your images if you cannot look at yourself there can be no self- knowledge you would be in an Eco chamber you would be just listening to what you already think about yourself right you know you

never come to see who you really are so in that sense spirituality is harder but that leads us in into a problem H the problem is that if you mess up in science somebody else would come and catch you H if you publish something there is always a provision for peer review for example yes in spirituality there can be no peer review because you are to be your own Observer and if you are adly insisting you know I'm already good no no I'm not afraid no I'm not greedy right huh there is no way somebody

else can come and conclusively prove to you that you are misplaced so while spirituality is harder it is also vulnerable to being inexact biased and corruptible M and we see that all around us don't we M how the whole field gets corrupted yes and uh that is why science is luckier and that's why we could have a linear progress in science one could build on the knowledge of the other fathers you know we are standing on the shoulders of giants as somebody said in spirituality it is not possible to stand on somebody else's shoulder you

have to do your own work every human starts from the Stone Age so to speak wonderful very well said very I have debated this question multiple times with myself and with others and I have to say that is one of the clearest answers to that question that I've ever gotten thank you so much because that correlation between spirituality and science where spirituality is the study of the self all the problems that science faces a somebody in a spiritual Pursuit also faces right in science when somebody's publishing a research paper in the end every author is

supposed to write conflict of interest ah wonderful wonderful but in spirituality when you are observing yourself when do you declare conflict that disclaimer has to be Perpetual you know because I am my own Observer so I'm very very likely to be biased yes in spite of my best efforts some degree of bias would creep in and that's that's the very definition of humility yeah to know that you are imperfect that even if you are trying your best you know some degree of evolutionary physical psychological baggage will make itself felt you know I have noticed and

this is a common thing around doctors which is that you could be a great doctor a great surgeon as long as you're operating on people you don't know H but if I have to operate on my wife my son my daughter yes my hands will shake right so at the highest level of Science and knowledge also when things get personal right all science right starts becoming shaky right I Now understand why spirituality is difficult what is the way out then because nobody else can do my spiritual journey for me right right to see that all

signs will become not only useless but actively harmful if there is absence of self- knowledge you see science gives the one within tremendous power especially after science evolves into usable technology so there is me there is this world let's start with this dualistic model there is somebody in here who is the perceiver of the world who is the doer of deeds and uh who is the user of Technology there is somebody in here and there is the world out there science means I know this world more meticulously now which means I can use these resources

towards the appeasement of my desire m in a more intense way but since I don't know myself I'm not spiritual since I don't know myself hence I do not know where my spir desire is coming from therefore it's like monkey now having access to the nuke button M I remain that same primordial thing within but externally I have gained a lot of power right so as science progresses it becomes all the more uh important uh rather uh how should I put it mandatory that spirituality should progress in equal proportion science without spirituality is is disastrous

and that's what is happening on this planet today what else is this entire Spectre of climate change correct you know we we we know so much about the world we today are scientifically economically more progressed than we ever were in our evolutionary history right and what has been the result of that progress we probably are entering the sixth mass extinction phase and this one is man made the previous five were not right so in the era of great scientific progress spirituality becomes mandatory something that just you know cannot avoid indispensable so here I have a

conflict on the one hand yes absolutely if I think about the SCI scientific progress that has gone behind say me eating a chocolate cake right so cocoa seeds from Africa flown here big Industries making that cake making sure it's shipped to me but in the end the final result is me eating that cake to give me a dopamine Spike to make the monkey in me happy right all of this technological progress just for that one pleasure right but on the other other hand isn't that core motivation what is driving technology forward aren't we doing things

because we are basically monkeys at heart yeah so then we aren't doing anything for ourselves then you see if the net result of that entire scientific Endeavor was to raise the dopamine level then everything was done by dopamine for itself I didn't do anything h whatever was done was done by dopamine M because the net result was an increase in that pleasure that dopamine level yes the dopamine level yes right so we know how systems operate we also know that within systems variables can have a tendency to maximize themselves so this two is a system

and within this system uh a variable can have a tendency to maximize itself right so because you come from that background the r example might be particularly instructive mhm you know the the virus is now there in the dog's body and uh the virus makes the dog bite someone correct so that the virus can enter the other body did the dog bite the other person no it was the virus that made the dog bite the other person similarly did I opt for chocolates no I didn't it was a dopamine that made me opt for chocolates

H so so the dog has done nothing it's the virus that is commanding the dog similarly who am I if I am being commanded by my physical composition I'm then nobody M and then there is no dignity in life because then I a slave to my chemicals my hormones and other things there is no there is no consciousness then at the heart of consciousness lies the ability to witness yourself lies the ability to not be dictated by your mechanical chemical biological uh composition right we have reached Consciousness way too early in the conversation because I

have realized that this is the hard problem of science once we reach Consciousness um there are very few paths to go from there I want to I want to take a slight step back to understand some core aspects of I'm going to say Hinduism because you said a word adhyatma and I have there are a few terms like this which do get used but I feel people might not know their uh the root meaning so can I ask you the meanings of some words like this wonderful Wonder so adhyatma you mentioned was knowledge of knowing

oneself deeply Atma so ADI Atma no not not Atma okay the one that you are the self huh Atma is a pointer towards the purest self possible adhyatma does not refer to knowing the Atma Atma is is conceptually so pure that it cannot be known M it's unknowable a m so Aatma refers to knowing who you are as a fact not who you are in the utopian sense in the idealistic [Music] sense so Adat is about knowing the very uh basic facts of your existence for example yes I am nvs that's adhyatma oh yes I

am coetus that's adhyatma ADI ADI what does ADI refer to more more that's uh from where adik comes adik so Atma the self not Atma not at self you as you are in your in your normal day-to-day life is that what is referred to as mindfulness not really because man mind is just the aggregation of objects around the Atma so this Atma is more correctly referred to as aam I me ahankar right and this aam is a basic uh sense of psychological incompleteness so to fill itself up it gathers stuff around itself right for the

sake of feeling secure or feeling complete so those objects all you know sit in the mind and the aggregation of those objects and the relationships between them all that taken together is defined as the mind or man so man is the entire structure around aam aham is the center M and man is the universe around that Center M there is a uh there are levels to reality I had read this somewhere that there is a subject subjective reality and there's an objective reality so that mind that we create around us seems to be the subjective

reality that we create yes the a branch of Hinduism is AD am I saying it correctly is it a branch of Hinduism it is the very basis of sanatan okay so I don't understand this concept at all so could you I I'll bring it to you using uh the subjectivity Paradigm that you just initiated yeah you see there is the subjective purely subjective Universe in which you are the Lord and you can think of anything you know subjectively I feel I'm a better tennis player than Federer and I'm entitled to do that nobody can dispute

that so that is taken as the lowest level of reality that you could call as the IM imaginary reality but even that is real to me even that is real to me yes then a higher level of reality is the factual reality it is a reality that you would probably collaborate if I say for example there stands a wall you would attest that yes I agree that's all and such things that different beings at different time s can verify to each other are known as facts what else is a definition of a fact I to

have only my senses to finally determine that something is that something exists yes and the same thing you two do so that is uh factual reality right and then there is the highest reality in which you say fine that's the wall out there but who is the one in here who is looking at the wall and here you want to look at both of these together and when you can look at both of these together that's taken as the highest reality truth SATA sat sat so you you start from KPA that's uh called theic level

imaginary level you move to a higher level that's called the tatm factual level or viic level practical level and then you come to the highest level that highest level is the level of Truth SATA or parar paric level so ad that what you said ad is the topmost level okay the entire spiritual journey is about ascending from these two to the highest so ad is the very end of the entire sanatan Journey understood in biological terms uh when I read Neuroscience I had this one moment where the walls broke for me because I suddenly realized

while I was reading and I remember the chapter I was reading about eye physiology so the how light goes into the eye and then how does those electric signals travel through the brain until finally we are aware of what we are seeing and I was reading it from the perspective of a medical student but I suddenly realized that oh which means that what I'm seeing and what is actual reality is separated by a lot of electric current yes yes and time and time and time so I'm always looking at the past always looking at the

past I can never look at the present I am never in the present there's nothing called living in the present it's not possible in not the conventional way at no biologically impossible to live in the present and I had to put the book down because you know you have a bit of existential crisis that wait what is real um so after I went through that I I I think I went through these three levels in half an hour uh which made me think that maybe a lot of what is written in these textbooks actually refer

to these very real biological phenomenon but because they were using different words scientists are not referring to those books right because now all of this makes sense to me even from a neuroscience perspective right now in ad what is the path in ad to reach the highest level the path is to examine any path you have chosen for yourself that is the path so so ad is the pathless path ad says anybody and everybody at any given point is on some path or the other and what is a path about a path is about your

mental complexes your desires your choices that's your path right so so at this moment for example one might be very concerned about oh I have to go and shop and the whole thing closes at 9: yeah so so that's the path somebody is saying I want to meditate for that person that's a path somebody's on some other way some other desire some other project that's a path right a path is not necessarily religious or whatever path simply means the direction that the mental space is taking now that space in everybody does have some direction because

none of us are settled beings none of us is yet on the mountain top so we are constantly in a flux we are moving the way of ADW is observe your movement observe your path and that's all so there is no particularly prescribed path and there is no prescribed path either there is nothing that a vant specifically negates or prohibits it says you are here is your life here is this moment here are your choices look at yourself look at yourself I could be on my path right now just by knowing that I am here

talking to you and this is how I feel and this is the truth the truth is when you can see how these two realities the one within and the one that you are experiencing outside are one otherwise there is an artificial sense of Separation m one feels that there is this universe and there is me mhm and we two are distinct but when these two can be seen together then the separation Falls and that is non- Duality no no I we will not go into non Duality we'll understand what Duality includes first of all and

that will probably help us uh with a pointer towards non-duality you see if I do not know myself if I do not know myself and some wonderful delicious Aroma com wafting I would insist I want that food item yes I want that food item yes in the sense there's that food item and there is me and the two of us are separate and it's my decision to want that food item M or if I'm walking down a road and I look at a holding carrying an advertisement yeah and there is a new model of a

mobile phone displayed I'll say I want that phone yes it's a sovereign decision I have made to be able to look at these two together means I'm able to see how my internal processes have all been governed by that external fact that I do not exist independently of that Aroma or that holding H that what I call as my desire is nothing but a function of what I am perceiving on the outside you're responding or reacting to just reacting like a chemical there is no difference M there is just no difference chemical a falls on

chemical B does chemical B have a choice no similarly I smelled that food item and I said I want it did I really have any choice potentially probably I had potentially maybe but the way we live we have no choice M since we have no choice therefore I could say we are enslaved M and that's where human suffering lies you so so so that's the usual Duality we live in MH and then this was a case of that informing this that making this a function of itself that is the food item or the advertisement now

that has been able to canalize this or that has been able to penetrate here and get implanted the whole thing can be seen uh in a reverse way as well I want something I want something or let's say I'm looking for somebody M and there is an entire crowd somewhere there what do I I end up looking at only that face that I have been looking for yes if somebody asks me who all are there in that crowd I won't be able to answer cor because it's somebody particular I'm looking for yeah so what has

happened the nature of that crowd to me has been determined by me to me that crowd is that one person yes to somebody else that crowd could be some other person somebody else yes so what is happening now is that this is informing that yes so in in the first circumstance uh the advertisement is informing you and the second circumstance you are informing the environment and in Practical life these two do not happen alternately M they both happen together they happen together m and that's Duality M where I am dependent on that and that is

dependent on me and at least one of us two thinks that he's independent and this is called Maya illusion you think you are independent you're not you're not and it's not just a matter of fact that you're not independent it is a matter of suffering because you're not independent Therefore your desires are not yours therefore you spend your life chasing something that you never actually needed to chase right anyone who has been through a relationship and has broken up uh will see the face of their ex everywhere they go even somebody who looks slightly like

that person they will remind them of them because now the brain is constantly walking around with that reference in mind I'll give an example somebody quoted it to me I found it instructive he said I'm about to buy a particular model of car now he says when I'm traveling down the express way yeah all I notice is that particular model there are so many cars but my eyes is always come to rest on that particular model yes so that's how we determine the external reality yeah and nobody could could could authentically claim that uh there

is an objective Universe really yeah this universe that we think of is a function of who we are right uh science would uh very very openly agree to that you see the colors that we are looking at are determined by the capacity of these eyes and the optical nerves yes 4,000 angstrom 8,000 angstrom right less than that more than this yeah the the universe does not exist not that we cannot see we will say the universe does not ex exist yeah less than 20 Herz more than 20,000 Herz nobody said anything no sound nobody said

anything not that I cannot hear not that nothing is being said nobody said anything so we we remove the existence of that thing itself yes and we superimpose something on the nature of the universe itself we do not say that it is my projection we say the universe is an objective reality in which only 20 to 20,000 hers exist yes put it this way M interesting question you'll relish this one if there is something you can neither see nor hear nor smell or touch and not even think of does that thing exist no so the

definition of existence itself depends on my sensory capabilities the definition of existence itself so what is the universe then an objective reality correct can there anything be objective there's nothing called an objective reality you know everything that is objective owes its existence yeah to my senses and if s something Falls totally outside the purview of my senses it ceases to exist the universe is gone correct somebody would say but you know if I cannot look at something does it not exist suppose I close my eyes and walk into a pillar won't I be hurt I'm

saying let's let's uh let's tighten the conditions yeah something you cannot see not even hear and not even touch touch and not even mentate not even think of now does it exist no so the universe is very much dependent on my senses there are so many levels to this um this this phrase that if a tree falls in the middle of the forest and there's nobody there to see it did it really fall who knows uh If You observe a child a child is very entertained by this game called peekaboo okay because in that child's

brain for those few seconds when you close the child's eyes or you disappear behind a curtain the child's is not able to grasp this concept that something can exist when it is not in front of me so when you come back out the child is filled with surprise gigles andig because it has in it in its brain it has solved a riddle right right so according to the child it has solved a major problem yes I realized now that you are saying this that you never outow this out of side out of mind is is

something that is always going to exist when if you if you were to think of if our eye if our eyes became capable of seeing even a few wavelengths left and right of the spectrum the world will look very different oh the universe would expand the universe would expand the universe would expand if my eyes could look at a wider Spectrum the universe itself would expand if my mind could think differently in different dimensions again the universe would expand so is there something called an objective universe or is it all dependent on me yeah I

think physics is coping with this uh when it is trying to deal with dark matter and it is trying to deal with subatomic particles because these are things that don't lend themselves to let's say easy measurement they don't lend themselves to the framework in which there is an objective reality right now physics has come to a point where observations are being altered by the very present of the Observer yes so so what do you do now you cannot say this thing is you will also have to write the name of the Observer and mention the

specific conditions under which the observation took place correct which is very new to science we never used to do that you know thing is a thing irrespective of who made that observation and such things we all right for the purpose of humanistic uh gratitude and expression we a new n's laws yeah but it could have been anyone could have been anyone and you remove Newton the laws remain as they are correct but now physics has come to a point where you cannot say that the thing exists independently of the Observer so what you saying is

you can only avoid subjectivity up to a point you'll have to fully endorse subjectivity that's he Kum all this is the great self and nothing else is so ad vant is a is surrender to total subjectivity and that complete total subjective unit that that ultimate unity is called Atma or brah or SATA the truth small little conf here is that in the journey towards surrender the words sound a lot like self-indulgence because we think of the self initially as me so it sounds almost narcissistic that I am everything but at the end also the words

are the same but the meaning seems to be very different right right that's why in language here was taken to differentiate between these two one was called aam that which you call as yourself my identity my identity my personal self my little self yeah so that was the aam and that absolute self that was Atma and when the Learned ones wrote about that in English they said self with a small s and self with a capital S capital S because these two must be seen as distinct otherwise as you very rightly said narcissism is just

around the corner exactly you will equate these two and say I am the one exactly I am the one that absolute reality is me me so so that me Sid me sidhart me sidhart me this embodied one this one this one I have a proposal I feel English needs to get updated and we should use small I and big ey yes I mean small eye would suffice because even the idea of using a big eye for the self is quite uh I now realize it's quite narcissist quite narcissistic you see this eye that we talk

of is actually not I M it is just uh a play of chemicals right so there is no way this is to be confused with the Pure or absolute self right this that we call as our existence isn't it so much material I mean uh for example where is the personal Consciousness sense the body doesn't exist doesn't exist is it possible to alter the body and yet let Consciousness remain unaffected Ed you know one drinks and what happens to Consciousness yeah changes changes one Falls and bangs his head and for 10 minutes one does not

know what's going on yes so even simple physical events affect the Consciousness so much this Consciousness that we have is just a thing just a thing so there is no way this thing can be equated with the self H this Consciousness that we have I mean since you come from that field you know are you not able to measure it yes it's called glasgo Coma Scale you can measure right you can put a number on it very unfortunately witnessed somebody's number fall and it slipped from 6 5 4 3 and by next morning we lost

that person yeah three is the lowest yes yes yes we lost that person yeah and it was measurable yes just like temperature is measurable yes just like pressure is measurable just like any physical quantity is measurable so this Consciousness is certainly not me because I'm not a thing but this Consciousness is definitely a thing it is affected by things it is made by things just like things it reacts to other things man looks at woman and reacts yes uh I touch something hot and it bul away yes I mean it's a thing it's a thing

so it's not to be confused confused with that and that's why the path of non-duality is the path of self-observation the more you look at yourself the more you are astonished by your material nature who am I I'm just material and the funny thing is the more you can see that you are material the more you are coming upon something that is beyond material the path towards non-material is through true material this is all that there is there's nothing nothing Beyond this there's me there's you we have these bodies there's nothing called Supernatural reality right

this is the world we inhabit and this is all that we have right but this world makes us suffer and puts us in bondage we know the Human Condition here in America everywhere we know what we are doing so this is the path this world is the path when we talk about the path there is and you also mentioned about what we are doing to the world there is a lot of harm that is happening climate change is one um violence seems to be a very core Instinct of I won't say human nature I would

say animal nature violence is there in nature lion hunts a deer there is violence through the food chain so why is it different when a human being participates in violence no that's not violence that's that's chemicals dancing with each other H you mean the intent your there is no intent there is no intent there is no intent a lion has no intent biologically a lion is Cap incapable of making a choice in favor of eating grass so how can there be intent M The Loon by its physical biological composition is not equipped to make a

choice so there is no violence when a lion hunts down a deer M that's not very different from a a large polymer chain absorbing a small molecule into itself right and that happens all the times you know right molecules merge into each other they bond with each other they do a lot of things with each other yes what the lion is doing to the deer is much the same because the has no choice and in the absence of choice the word violence is absurd right violence is only when I had a choice and I made

the wrong one so human beings can be violent a lion can neither be violent nor nonviolent ahinsa is not something that you can apply to any creature in the cosmos except man because of our ability to choose because our AB ability to choose and because of the fact that only we suffer if we don't choose rightly have you ever seen a lion suffering and repenting the Life Choices it made got it you talked of the A and the breakup right lion I I don't suppose suffers in the same way and to the same intensity yeah

huh so man is the only one who has choice and the man is only one by man I mean human beings not really man as in male or female so so man is the only one who who who who is equipped to make choices and therefore man is the only one who greatly suffers if he does not make the right choice nonviolence is when you resolve to yourself I'll make the right choice that's nonviolence or ainsa so that includes not uh exploiting others for your petty gains that includes that but that's uh not limited to

that nonviolence goes much Beyond uh your relationship with others nonviolence is first of all about your relationship with yourself so there's often this argument advanced in favor of for example flesh consumption right that uh the you should you consume nonvegetarian food yeah people say you know the big fish is all the time eating the small fish and had the had had the Creator God really wanted that animals should never be killed then he should have never made any carnivores that's a very flawed argument why we are products of evolution no God ever made us first

of all and second thing all the other products of evolution they are built differently they built differently lions for example probably don't even have any idea of their lifespan if a lion daer I'm not I don't think it would think in whatever way it thinks right that it's coming to an early death right uh they behave in very very programmed and conditioned ways they do what their body tells them to do they are pretty innocent beings in that sense right you know no lion would ever save money right no lion would ever coet a throne

they do what they have been doing since uh yeah they coet a thr in the sense they fight among themselves for the leadership of the pack but that's what they have been doing since millions of years yeah nothing has changed nothing has changed and nothing can change because they they are like toys they do what they are built to do human beings are the only ones and I'm not saying out the out of sense of entitlement of belonging to my species right I'm saying this out of my observation human beings are the only ones who

have this special thing called a Perpetual restlessness we are born Restless we want to know we gather knowledge we we feel around we ask questions curiosity we are we are curious yes and we do not like our inner state of incompleteness or discontentment right huh and therefore therefore the word called Liberation applies only to human beings right we have never seen a cow earing for liberation a cow is all right as it is it would graze and so nonviolence applies only to us and nonviolence is the only way to lead the right life or the

right life is called a nonviolent life you could put it this way a nonviolent life meaning you are causing you're not causing harm to other living creatures no you know who you are and therefore what is in your best interest how can I not cause harm to you if I do not know who you are and if I do not know myself will I know you as a fellow human being MH know this is a difficult concept to grasp because um for one I believe most people when it comes to food at least because it

is such a core Drive um there is more of an animal instinct when it comes to food as oppos to Life Choices so maybe they can make more mindful choices when it comes to buying a car or a phone but when it comes to food maybe the animal in you does seem to act more which is why the conversations around food are never polite there's always this uh tribal nature that comes out that's true but equally the kind of importance that food has in an animal's life m it does not have in a human being's

life think of what a monkey does the entire day it looks around for food yes we don't do that we don't do that I mean sometimes we in fact skip meals and don't even remember we have skipped a meal yeah there are other more meaningful things in life and that's where lies the hint why climber so much for food when life has been enriched with so much more can't we find satisfaction in higher Pursuits it's a monkey that has to care so much about food I mean as human beings food probably occupies 2% 5% of

our Consciousness and I don't suppose we would particularly like a person M if he's all the time dreaming of food mhm and if we do that then we W won't go too far in life so here's a ult question which is from a spiritual perspective is there reason to become a vegan you see first of all it's not about the other okay it's not about the chicken or the goat or the cow or the animal being milked yeah spirituality he said is atan self observation so it's about the self so I suffer I'm a human

being I'm born in this body I suffer and if I if I can see why I suffer if I can see why I suffer I realize there is a sense of incompleteness Within M and that incompleteness makes me look at the entire world as a consumer as an exploiter I can look at the entire world as a hunter as a consumer which is all right I can do that what is not all right is that irrespective of the level intensity magnitude of my consumption the incompleteness within just remains just remains yes just remains I add

this to my life I accumulate that so much I have gathered no moral problem with that one can gather the universe is not run through moral principles you can do whatever you want and ultimately you can die and all that fine the problem is not uh in the fact that you will die one day the problem is you are alive and suffering and you are giving yourself a false treatment as a doctor you do note with that I not diagnosed my problem correctly and therefore I'm offering myself one false treatment after the other and what

does that do to my condition it worsens it worsens this holding tendency that we have to everything just everything just everything I want to consume this I want to consume that and because an animal is helpless so it can be consumed or milked M or skinned whatever the moment I see that the very inclination to exploit the animal disappears that doesn't really mean that you have to be an animal lover that doesn't mean that I I I for example won't won't consume a lot of things that doesn't mean I love those things and hence I'm

not consuming them the problem is I kill animals and I do all kinds of vicious things because there is a hole in my heart and when I start seeing that killing or whatever I'm doing grabbing clutching all this is not in any way helping my condition then I do not want to put my energy in that direction I don't want to put it it's not it's not about having Mercy on the animal right it's not about going and hugging the animal it's about seeing that this thing won't help won't help you have been doing this

since ages it never helped anybody and you want to continue down the same Lane of Agony I think that that makes sense because there is a lot of um confusion both from a medical perspective and from a climate change perspective but my curiosity was how do we approach this topic from a spiritual perspective of course when you look at it from a climate perspective the arguments are very very forceful extremely forceful you probably can do nothing to arrest the whole thing of climate change uh without reducing the level of animal Slaughter and animal farming and

these things so that's from that direction but from a spiritual perspective you know there's just a general disinclination M towards hurting you for my sake not because I fallen in love with you but because I know that I'm needlessly hurting by hurting you I will not gain anything in fact my condition would further deteriorate that's why it makes me think that just like how there's a carbon footprint there should be a concept of spiritual footprint how much harm are we causing over time require a very enlightened Society it's a beautiful thing you have just said

and just hope we as a process of evolution and resolution come to a point where we could have a society that thinks on these lines wonderfully put there is um there is this term called sanatan Dharma I have never fully understood it but uh it's maybe it has come up more in public conversations recently could you explain what that term means very scientific very scientific in fact it has nothing to do with the kinds of arguments and biases and you know byot that uh it is associated with so here we are as a species human

beings and our defining characteristic is curiosity or as I have repeatedly said today a feeling of uh discontentment and we have the required apparatus to support our curiosity in the form of the uh very well evolved brain compared to other beings so right uh from day one day one of the life of the first human being ever I know there's nothing called the first human being ever it's a continuous process yes but just you know hyp thetically what has been present what has been the one thing in continuity unbroken continuity there's you there's me we

have had our parents there were people before them and then there are great and great and great ancestors irrespective of who they were and where they came from if they qualified to be called human beings what is it that they had and we too have what is it that is that one thing that that that we definitely share as human beings M so biologically there is a lot of organs brain psychologically psychologically probably an increasing sense of agency I would say um because let's say 10 million years ago there were monkeys and somewhere around 3

to 4 million years ago we had homoerectus so they were using tools yes and they they had opposable thumbs in so somewhere around that time maybe we had more agency we could control our right so so so everything has changed right yes they were not wearing any clothes they were just beginning to use tools they were just beginning to hold things yes huh and they were exploring the world on two legs yes and these things were happening Everything Has Changed what has not changed or just emotions what is it that you and I H would

have in common with that great ancestor of ours fear of death yes and not have in common with any other species in the world okay so there is something that three of us share you me and that an and that ancestor and we don't share it with the with the fish with the birds with the dinosaurs with the insects we don't share it with anybody okay it's it's something private to our species what's it thoughts yes and what the Bas of thoughts um love what I mean when do you think when you when you are

deeply in love do you think no you don't in in your deepest moment of Joy do you think no when do you think when you are contemplative you are able to and why do we think if we don't think in Joy what does that tell us about thought when do we think when there is a problem when there is a problem when there is a problem and we are all the time thinking we are a thinking species yes we think much much more intensely than a monkey does they're thinking even if it exists is very

primitive yes so we think a lot and we are saying we think when there is a problem yes so you and I and that great ancestor we all are problemed problemed huh man is born with a problem yeah and that's what makes him think no other species is born with a problem it's the hard problem of existence H the existentialist said to be or not to be yeah why should I live at all and then there were people who thought about it and meditated and said you know the purpose of life is Liberation Liberation from

all this entire [Music] thinking so that's sanatan sanatan means Timeless Eternal unending the aams the self's Quest for Liberation that sanatan Dharma wow I have to say that in all the context in which that word has come out this meaning has never come out but there can be nothing but this right sanatan means that which is unbroken since the beginning of time euphemistically right and this is the only thing that is there we want Liberation aam wants Atma the falseness within wants to be relieved there is something uh within that's constantly crying for the truth

because it feels entrapped right and that's San D to live life in a way that liberates you okay so how do we term these words Satan ad philosophy is one a subset of the other they are the same thing they the same they are the same thing because Liberation itself is Liberation from imagined Duality right right we are born with a feeling that I am and the world is and there is this dualistic separation right and I exist to consume the world and gain happiness from it right is that not our normal philosophy yes you

are born to be happy we say the purpose of life is happiness and how do I be happy by by consuming the World by consuming the world so that's the that's the Primitive dualistic principle embedded in the body yes as you born yes non-duality is The Pinacle one has to reach Duality is that you are born with so the very phrase hunter gatherer assumes that there is something to hunt and gather I got it we have remained hunter gatherers in that sense psychologically we have not evolved we remained hunter gatherers right and so the purpose

of sanatan Dharma or ad is to move Beyond hunting Gathering move hunting Gathering wonderfully put and then so you are both the you are the one that is being gathered you are the one that is being yes yes so as long as we remain in the way we are Dharma Dharma Dharma means that which is essential for you that which you must be and do that's Dharma that which you must carry literally that's a literal word that which you must carry the obligation to be liberated is what you must carry always that's Dharma I'm going

to repeat that the obligation to be liberated to be liberated we have an obligation you have an obligation towards yourself H towards yourself M otherwise you are wasting your own life M and it's not for anyone else not anybody actually there is no one else there is no one else is no you have to keep catching yourself there is no one else so if you are obliged it's only towards yourself right and do you think it is possible to live like this you see there there is no template no model as I said we all

are on our paths so there is nothing to copy when you say live like that then one is referring to a template to be copied correct there's nothing to be copied we we are here yeah there's this tea in front of me the last time I sied it it has already gone cold and I must catch myself reacting to the coldness which I find unpleasant and I must see what's what the way this chemical is reacting to the temperature of this chemical yes you know there are chemicals that react only at certain suitable temperatures don't

they yes absolutely yes and this chemical found the temperature unsuitable so the reaction was not as per the desire and I could I have to catch that and have to do that all the time now if you were to do this with emotions I'm sad I'm happy I am jealous I'm angry I have realized that in modern psychology a lot of therapy is exactly this which is if I am struggling and I don't know why and I sit in front of a therapist that therapist he or she will make me observe my emotions maybe make

me write it down as a journal uh until I have Clarity over what I am going through lovely lovely lovely right there is no other therapy because there is no other disease the only disease inwardly is identification with what you are not I'm not my hand I'm not my arm and I am not there for my chemicals and therefore I'm not my feelings or emotions but if I pretend to be my feeling or emotions that's as absurd as pretending to be my nail I cannot be this nail fine there is this nail and I might

have some relationship with it but being in a relationship is very different from being that being that now as a doctor I have a Dharma conflict which is my DH ma is to treat that collection of cells and chemicals and I have to heal that body I have to heal that person and that person identifies with the disease that they have this conversation is almost impossible to have in a hospital right when somebody is coming in the midst of suffering they are to intertwined with the disease so it's not that they have experienced a heart

attack eventually they are the one with a heart attack because that is their must have the conversation there there is no need that's why we talked of the three levels of reality M it's there is no point initiating this conversation there but if this conversation becomes Common Place the number of people coming to the hospital with heart attacks is likely to reduce can you tell me why would you say that we know I mean you know actually much better than I do what cardiac uh diseases are a result of stress our lifestyle yeah I identify

with my car so much something happens to it I feel pressure here M but if I can see the right relationship between me and that car which is Possible only if I first of all see the right relationship between me and this body that occupies the car then I'm likely to feel feel a little less stressed irrespective of what happens to the car therefore the probability of me falling into the hospital would be reduced yeah there is a there is a lot of truth to this because that conflict between uh self and outside is actually

what our brain is going through all the time all the time the source of stress is that my objective reality objective reality does not match with my subjective reality and that causes conflict conflict and that conflict will always be there as long as there is an attempt to align the two now aligning two things is one thing seeing that the two are one is is totally different totally different I see the difference there is a unique struggle that the youth in our country are going through which is um on the one hand they are deeply

involved into social media so they are into their phones uh into YouTube all of that on the other hand they're also struggling with conflicts inner turmoil and I have seen certain movements where they go towards spirituality and at least I feel that maybe they're not being guided in the best way possible with one recent example that came in our conversations was this this it's called noap it is about this demonization of sexual thoughts and there is a lot of correlations around it which is that you should not indulge in any sort of self-pleasure and U

this has been banned or this has been prohibited by our um our first of all is there any truth to that somebody who knows the anatomy and has studied medicine would be better place to say that but what I what I feel is that Cen retention in itself sounds a pretty stupid term the body knows what to retain and what not to you cannot tell the kidneys what to retain and what to expunge you cannot tell your or epidermal cells what to keep and what not similarly usually no fap goes by the name of brahmacharya

now that's where the problem is you see brahmacharya is about living in a way that leads you to brah I I'll I'll explain that brah is not a thing brah is not a place no destination is [Music] brah brah is to be understood only by a negativa brah Atma same same thing that's no difference at all brah simply means that which is not false not that which is truth because the truth as we said right in the beginning is unknowable aay therefore the process of V or Adat is n negation so live in a way

that does not reinforce your foolishness that is Braha Chara refers to living practically living all the V that you do throughout the day that's Chara Chara CH means movement when you say ch ch is movement so cha comes from there it and brah is negation of falseness so live in a way that continuously negates the false do not fall prey to the false that's brahmacharya beautiful H and your own mind is continuously in an attempt to befool you yes or rather you are your own enemy you are your own enemy yeah so be on guard

against yourself here in the foundation we often say so so that's brah that's brah be cautious you you will fool yourself that that prachar now at least directly that has nothing to do with vaka no no what these people have done is that they have equi Bindu with semen now Bindu drop bond that is a euphemism for something that is but is not spatial just as you have a point right you can define space around the point you can draw a circle around the point but and you can also specify the point using coordinates yes

but can you ever put your finger on a point that's impossible can you ever say here is a point so a point defines space yet does not exist spatially right so in that sense as a pointer not as not in a very exact way but just as a pointer Atma to was called Bindu that it is present everywhere every point in space is a point is a point so it is present everywhere yet you cannot locate it anywhere right present everywhere yet not detectable anywhere so that way the truth is Bindu now from that position

they brought it down to mean a drop of Simon and they said that brahmachary is about vaka brahmachary is not about vaka that does not mean that you have to go on masturbating endlessly right huh all that is quite stupid but brahmachary is something very high very Sublime it has a very beautiful and tremendous connotation it cannot be equated with not masturbating no fap so it almost sounds like there was a simplistic answer to a complex yes yes issue yes and that was a peripheral response to something that demanded that uh you treat the very

core now instead of treating the core that is full of desires let's say for women because the term is used mostly for men Nob now you don't want to examine why your mind is full of lustful thoughts yes instead you are directing the other in a very moral way not directing you're dictating actually to not masturbate how exactly is that going to help is that is that not stupid one should go into the mind and ask why don't I have something better to do in life why am I always thinking of women that's the core

problem you know and why do I have so much spare time you know think of someone who is living rightly right if he has Spare Time spare energy he would probably attend to his work or go and run or go and swim or do something yeah as a young man because this again is something that is uh pertaining to young men as a young man there is so much you have to do in life and also you have the energy to maybe spend in a gym or do something and then you come and you crash

you you are already half asleep correct so if you're living rightly you're living rightly no fap and Other Things become redundant and if you're not living rightly then again these things are not going to help uh but um that bads come and go that actually makes sense because if um because I have had patients who've come to me having seen some of these videos and they're very frustrated they can't sleep and um they have had they've gone through NOAB for 2 months 3 months and uh I've really had to explain to them the biology of

how what happens in the body you know you are approaching [Music] brahmacharya when you probably forget that you have not masturbated if you are constantly remembering to not to masturbate then you are already masturbating you know you don't always have to ejaculate to masturbate it's going on in the head right that's that's very much masturbation just that the body is not yet climaxing but the mind is full of lust and that's masturbation is that not you are approaching brah when all this lust Etc becomes secondary you come upon something so demanding so beautiful so urgent

so important so meaningful that you forget all about uh nonsense and other things in life that's prahar right finding something that adds true purpose finding something that adds true and when you are engaged in something purposeful who thinks of lust and such things you know you you you need to have a pretty Barren life to be constantly thinking of uh women and lust right today in the in the nation and across the world Hinduism is going through a sort of a transition which U I'm struggling to understand where is it going wrong with of course

the core terms being Hinduism versus Hindu where where did that turn happen and what is it that is going wrong and what should be the way back it started with the emergence of uh dualistic interpretations of Vidant in the 11th and 12th centuries that process of dualistic interpretations continued right till 15 16 centuries what is the dualistic interpretation it's very interesting so vant which is actually ad vant that's how the entire world knows this ad is the vant but as you know ad is not the only Vidant there are other interpretations of vant yes so

ad is total subjectivity there is me there is me and I do not need anybody to attest that because that is the only thing I do not need anybody else for if there is no me who is asking this question if there is no me who is the sufferer so this much and only this much is certain I am I might be false or whatever but I am even if I am false I am in dualistic interpretations which exist in India which also exist across the world if you look at for example the abrahamic streams

they all are dualistic there you don't say only I am there you say I am and there is the Creator God In AD even that is not in there is no Creator God there is no Creator God no God created this not at least at the top level paramar level at the vhic level you can worship your favorite God which is fine so here at the lower level it might be polytheistic yes yes but at the higher level at the highest level there is just monism nothing else it's not even monotheistic monistic it is atheistic

definitely atheistic in that sense if you want to you know otherwise it can be used in a very disparaging sense also right but but Adan says at the at the middle level you are free to worship your favorite gods and goddesses but a point comes when you have to realize that it's just you the Supreme self and accept that there is no reality so sat which is Atma and Brahma that is beyond all the gods and goddesses that you worship but that's not the way of the dualistic interpretations what do they say they say I

am and I am this body I'm not the one who is looking at the body I am the body itself so that's the point from where all the dualistic schools start in India and abroad M and because I am the body therefore the universe has to be material yes because if I am the body the sofa has to be real if this sofa has to be real this stage has to be real so the the the ground beneath it the Earth has to be real other people have to be real the other people have to

be real and the entire universe then has to be real so everything is real and if all this is real where do this all this come from if all this is real it has to come from somewhere because if I am real then the shirt that I'm wearing came from a factory a Creator therefore if I am real the entire universe comes from a Creator God logical logical very logical the next problem is nobody has seen that God but I came from that God so I need to have some history so then I weave stories

about my God M and the stories that you we about your God will never align with the stories that I weave about my God even if it's the same God even if it's the same God right therefore there will be conflict right now that's what is happening with Hinduism today it is moving more and more in direction of stories you have your stories and you want them to be believed as the truth and if you do not believe in my story then you are enemy even inside Hinduism because there are many so there is Chism

there is Vishnu ISM there is shaktism different people will follow different set of stories and teachings they are fighting oh there is tremendous conflict tremendous conflict between the Vash and the shavs tremendous conflict and the reasons for the conflict almost same thing I have my favorite God I know what the god did I have complete belief in my God and my God is better than your God because he's God he is the god the God he is the God your God is in fact not God at all not God at all out of this courtesy

I might say V your God but in my heart I believe mine is the god and you are mistaken you are mistaken obviously and someday you will realize someday you have to realize and I have to be a missionary who is out to proze you therefore I'll I'll I'll be on a conversion spre and that's what Christianity and Islam has done that's what people in India also want to do now and this this applies to my belief systems also so the way I live my life is how you should live your life how you should

live your life and AD does not it is basically an expression of my ego you see because he's my God therefore he is the real one you know ego extending itself to that extent he is the God because he is my God my God H this kid is the best because he's my kid he's my kid this house is the best because it is my house this country is the best because it is my country same thing my national anthem won the best Anthem award same thing same thing just an expression of that good old

ego the old Olympic system playing its role playing its role at the highest stages the highest stages with disastrous consequences m I think that made a lot of things click for me you know we we talk of liberalism sanatan D talks of Liberation not just Liberty unfortunately that same religion is turning into a den of [Music] Dogma we said in the early parts of our talk there is nothing prohibited really in in Adat vant all you are told to do is look at what you are doing M after that it's your own game your life

your choice but please do honestly look at what is happening MH so ours really is The Pinacle of liberalism when it comes to the various religions and it's a sad thing to see that we are turning more and more uh you know what so my theory is that everyone will go towards the least effort path and I feel that understanding non Duality takes effort cognitive effort it it not just cognitive effort hurts it hurts it tells you that that which you think of as your life is not your life that which you think of as

your choice is not your choice that which you think of as your love is not your love it is just a chemical thing so it is almost violent it's almost violent it humiliates it strips you down to the core yes and people run away I experience it every day yes irrespective of how much you want to Sugar quat it it it really bites yeah it is not easy there was that story of Shankar aara who had to uh who had to leave and his mom was yes yes yes yes uh and the crocodile comes in

and there was a story of he has to he has to give up his mom his his family in order to truly uh go down that the mother has to relieve him if his life has to be saved and only then the mother says Fine son go go so that's the story yeah yeah just I just remembered that so that is hurtful that's hurtful there's a reason why people will not go down that path but if you do not go down that path it will hurt you all the more what's the alternative you know we

might opt for the easier route it takes us nowhere yeah so that's the only route and and it's not a route we said it's the pathless path nobody is dictating any terms any paths to anybody that's a Buddhist that's a Buddhist thing that's a Buddhist thing yeah so you have to look at it yourself and uh but the thing is if you're honest in looking at at yourself what you will see would not be pleasant at least initially but one must have the the the the guts to stand that no it's like entering into your

own self and discovering there is a dungeon u in there with a lot of rotten things and a basement with with full of primitive stuff that has decomposed and that needs to be cleared away so it's it's it's that kind of thing which which brings us back to the first point that you said which is spirituality self-observation without bias without bias without bias and with a lot of love and courage if you don't have that that love if you don't have that then the bias would inevitably creep in yeah that has brought us incidentally to

a very beautiful word that we have not used so far not looked at so far love we often think of as something dry you know and we have spoken of it in uh uh those terms even today it hurts it bites there is rigor and such things it is it's born out of love all those things the hurt the bite you can beer only if there is love love for the truth love for yourself love to know love to know only when you have that that pulsation within that the beating heart within can there be

unbiased self-observation so it's not as if the the path of self-observation is a path devoid of love no no no it's a path that is founded on love I think this is the feeling I would like to leave everyone with who's watching this which is when you step out into this journey of self-observation the the feeling that you should have in you is one of love and curiosity to get to your own truth nothing else you're not doing this for anyone else as you said there is no one else and also you you need to

be a little jial not too serious you see because you you'll see unpleasant things when you come upon them yeah if you become too serious about them that's a beautiful thing about irony if you can appreciate irony you'll have to smile at it you see otherwise you will turn a hypocrite right it's the nature of ego the nature of ego you you will look at things that stink now unless you just make a joke of them or you'll have to deny their existence and get into all uh kinds of subversions yes H so one must

be able to accept oneself as a fool I'm an idiot I'm a fool and I'm happy with that I laugh at myself uh yes I do things that are very stupid and an even greater stupidity is that I often do not see things as as stupid and uh ha correct there is this Instinct in all of us to be so prim and proper all the time but there's not one has to take himself lightly right who am I I love it as soon as it said that I relaxed oh man AAR G thank you so

much for this um I realized that we could have an entire night of conversation between science and spirituality there is so much to intervene you know I have spent so many nights doing just that so many nights so many and I have been privileged to have people who could tolerate me all night incredible I'm I'm going to be having another conversation with you um it'll be a shorter one but that'll be specifically on bhagwat Gita uh to dive into my own Curiosities we are going to take a little tour down chapter 1 to 18 but

I will see you in that one