Exploring Mass Extinction: Religious Factors and Beyond || Acharya Prashant, in conversation (2023)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: 12.02.23, Interview with Aarti Tikko from The New Indian, Greater Noida  Context: ~ Why our consumptions are destructive?  ~ What are the facts about destructive consumption? ~ What are causing global warming & climate change? ~ How are food affective global warming & climate change? ~ Has Science lead to Climate Change?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~  #acharyaprashant

Transcript

00:00Does the person you are with encourage you to read?

00:06You have to ask, what does he bring for me?

00:09Roses or books?

00:12If someone has a stake in making you better, that person will push you towards books.

00:17Books are what we all need.

00:30When you say mass extinction, what do you really mean?

00:40We were just some years ago, we were 6 billion people.

00:45Now we are 8 billion people.

00:48I mean, we are continuously growing. What is mass extinction?

00:51There is a certain natural rate at which species go extinct every day.

01:00So there is a rate.

01:02That rate has increased by almost 1000 times in the last 100 years.

01:10Even as we have been speaking over the last hour or so,

01:16thousands of species have gone extinct in just this time slot.

01:25I am not talking of individual members of those species being lost.

01:31I am talking of entire species disappearing forever.

01:36That's what is happening and that's happening because of reasons that are man-made,

01:44anthropogenic.

01:47So we have raised the average temperature of this planet by 1.5 degree centigrade

01:59and the temperature is increasing at an increasing rate.

02:04The carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere should naturally be around 280 ppm.

02:15It has shot up to around 450 ppm now and all that has happened only in the last 50 to 100 years.

02:24I said 6th extinction phase.

02:28Of the previous 5, 3 were caused due to an abundance of carbon dioxide.

02:39The same thing that we are seeing today.

02:42I have to speak of it because nobody speaks of it.

02:47Ideally, if we were a conscious species, this would have been all over the media.

02:56This would have been the thing that organizations, colleges, schools, governments, international institutions

03:05all should have been taking up as the topmost priority.

03:09We are not doing that.

03:11If you just read the kind of forest cover that we are losing every day,

03:22it would come as a horrible shock and a lot of that is exactly because we have gone up from 6 billion to 8 billion.

03:31Every new addition, every fresh addition to our species actually means a death warrant

03:42for at least 10,000 members of other species.

03:48The moment a human kid is born, several thousand other organisms, animals, plants

03:57are condemned to death.

04:02That's where we stand and the global temperature that has risen by 1.5 degrees

04:09is not going to stop at 1.5 or even 2 or probably even at 3.

04:16It might rise to 4 or 5 degrees centigrade and the results are going to be catastrophic

04:23and all that is going to happen within our lifetimes.

04:29I'm talking of the next few decades.

04:32So human species will be wiped out?

04:34Probably not. Probably a few would remain to lament.

04:42I notice that you are simultaneously also lamenting that we are too many, 8 billion people

04:51and at the same time you are saying mass extinction on the horizon.

04:58Are we complaining that?

05:01That's a natural fallout and we are not seeing that.

05:08The earth simply does not have enough resources to sustain 8 billion or 10 billion or 11 billion of us.

05:17How many can the earth sustain?

05:19Depends on the quality of life that you define for yourself.

05:23You see, we don't merely exist.

05:27We exist to consume, right?

05:30That's what a human being does.

05:32If you look at a chimpanzee or a deer or a lion,

05:37its consumption footprint has not changed over the centuries or the millennia.

05:43A monkey today consumes only as much as it used to several thousand years back.

05:50But human beings, today the existence of a human being means a very different thing to the planet than it did 5000 years back.

06:01So it's not as if the earth cannot sustain 8 billion human beings.

06:06It can, but not at the current levels of consumption.

06:08At the current levels of consumption, not even a dozen earths suffice and that's mathematical.

06:15That's not subjective.

06:17That's not something that I'm saying or fearing.

06:21That's pure arithmetic, right?

06:23Anybody can work out the numbers.

06:25Not only that, such a bad philosophy has been fed into us by our education system

06:33that we think that the purpose of life is happiness and happiness comes through consumption.

06:38So not only are we consuming, we want to consume even more.

06:44And the more you consume, the more prosperous you are taken to be

06:49and the more respectable you are.

06:52And if a nation consumes a lot, it is considered a developed nation, right?

06:58GDP has become the criteria of development.

07:02So all that potence, a lot of horror in the horizon.

07:11So what should be the yardstick to measure development of human society?

07:17We live within ourselves, no?

07:19So we require only as much stuff outside as would be conducive to inner development, you see.

07:27So we don't need air conditioners?

07:28You don't need air conditioners?

07:30You do need air conditioners if you think that without an air conditioner,

07:34your meditativeness would be obstructed.

07:38All religions in the world claim to know this truth.

07:45They claim to know the enlightenment.

07:49Like Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, all of them seem to know.

07:55So are we saying that religions across the world

08:01have failed to pass on this knowledge system or this awareness or this consciousness?

08:11When you say religion, what exactly do you mean?

08:15How many people read their religious books?

08:19In the name of religion, what you mostly have is culture and tradition.

08:25How many Christians are scholars of the Bible

08:31or have even gone through the Bible at least a couple of times?

08:34How many Hindus have actually even seen a copy of the Vedas?

08:41Forget about reading, forget even about touching.

08:45How many Hindus have actually even seen a copy of the Rig Veda?

08:49So what do you mean by religion?

08:50Religion is simply hearsay.

08:53Religion is grapevine. Religion is gossip and rumor.

08:56Religion is something that you have seen your parents and their parents do.

09:01So of what good can be such religion? This is just rumor mongering.

09:06Somebody says, oh religion says this, religion says that.

09:09Where does religion say that?

09:11And to top it all, you have a class of priests who have their own vested interests

09:16and that class exists across all religions.

09:20And they present religion to you as it would suit your ego and their interest.

09:28So there is no religion.

09:30Religion can possibly provide an answer if one can penetrate the outer shells of religion

09:39and enter its core.

09:42That's where you find stuff that is life affirmative, that is joy giving.

09:48But nobody is going there.

09:53So in a way, are you saying that science has encouraged more materialism,

10:01more consumption and taking us to the path of mass annihilation?

10:06Science is beautiful. Science is lovely.

10:09In fact, people are uneducated even in science.

10:13We need much, much more science.

10:15See, the problem does not lie in the fact that science exists.

10:22In fact, science needs to be strengthened much, much more.

10:29Than religion?

10:31Please understand, these are two different domains.

10:34In the external domain, if you want to know, you need science.

10:37If you want to understand how this screen functions, that camera functions,

10:42that gadget functions, how are these pillars able to hold this ceiling where it is,

10:51then you need science.

10:53Science has its own legitimate domain.

10:57We live within us. Third, fourth time we must return to this fact.

11:03And that's a domain that science very respectfully refuses to enter.

11:07Science does not go into the state of the subject.

11:12Science studies the objective universe.

11:16This object, that object, that object.

11:18The subject, that is me, is something that science respectfully refuses to touch.

11:25That's where spirituality begins.

11:28When you want to ask, who am I?

11:31Who is the one looking at science?

11:33Who is the one wanting to reap the fruits and rewards of science?

11:41So, science is a great thing in my hands.

11:46And what I'll do with science depends on my inner state.

11:51My inner state.

11:53If you allow a madman to hold the keys to a nuclear arsenal, you know what you'd get, right?

12:07And that's the condition of humanity.

12:10A lot of destructive potential, a lot of power in the external world,

12:18without any wisdom to know what to do with that power.

12:25So, as would be obvious, we are using that power to annihilate ourselves

12:31and all other species along with ourselves.

12:36So, science and religion, as you rightly pointed out,

12:43they pertain to two different aspects of mankind.

12:48If that is the reality, I want to understand,

12:54why does Acharya Prashant call himself, or as you are known,

13:02to be a practitioner of Advaita?

13:05What does that mean?

13:09In very simplistic terms,

13:13Advaita means

13:20that the trueness that you experience,

13:24that makes you rush again and again towards the world,

13:29will be of very little use to you.

13:33Advaita is non-duality, right?

13:36So, even non-duality is defined keeping duality at the center.

13:42Advaita, non-duality.

13:44We all experience duality, trueness.

13:47So, there is me, I think, I think there is me,

13:51and I think there is that banana, and that gold,

13:56and that something else, and that woman, and that, and that.

14:00There is this trueness, there is me, and there are those goodies out there.

14:05And the natural biological urge is to say,

14:08if I get those things, then my restlessness would be healed.

14:14That's trueness.

14:16Advaita is to realize that the cure does not really lie out there.

14:24Your relationship with the world

14:29has to be founded on a different ground.

14:33It cannot be founded on the ground of desire.

14:36You cannot say, I am restless, and if I get that,

14:41that would give me peace.

14:43Hence, that constitutes or that founds my relationship with the world.

14:48If that is a relationship with the world,

14:51then that's a very exploitative kind of relationship.

14:54And that's what we all have, right?

14:56An exploitative relationship with the world.

14:58And because the world consists of, as we see, other people,

15:01they want to exploit us back.

15:03So, mutually it becomes a game of violence.

15:06Advaita would mean,

15:10my relationship with the world has to be

15:14in a way that helps me enter my interiority.

15:21The world is not an end.

15:25The world cannot be my destination or target.

15:29The world can at best be a means to help me penetrate into myself.

15:34And that constitutes a healthy and fair relationship with the world.

15:39That's non-duality.

15:41One can speak of non-duality in very sublime terms as well,

15:46and very esoteric, very mystical.

15:49But that would not be very useful.

15:51So, in this non-duality, science and religion, in a way, are one.

15:56In this non-duality, science finds its proper utility.

16:01Now, science does not exist to appease me.

16:06Now, science exists to help me fulfil myself.

16:11You see, this mobile phone, right?

16:15It's a product of technology.

16:17If I do not know myself, I'll use the mobile phone for all the wrong purposes.

16:24And what do I mean by wrong?

16:26Not morally wrong, not legally wrong.

16:28Wrong in the sense that the use will decimate me.

16:33I'll be using it to just reduce myself to an animal.

16:40And that's what most of us do, right?

16:42Products of science.

16:44And we use them in very self-destructive ways.

16:49On the other hand, that mobile phone can be used in very, very sublime ways.

16:55Ways that elevate the consciousness.

16:58You pick up the phone and there's the internet.

17:01And all the great wealth of wisdom is available on the internet.

17:06So, you could use the mobile phone for that as well.

17:09But we don't do that.

17:11When you are clear inside, when there is non-duality inside,

17:16then you know what to do with science.

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