Social Media's Mirror: Reflecting on Your Life Online || Acharya Prashant

Acharya Prashant

Video Information:   Context: ~ What Role that social media plays ? ~ What is importance of real spirituality ?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~  #acharyaprashant #socialmedia

Transcript

00:00 The outcome of the conversation would decide actively the fate of many million residents

00:23 of the kingdom, not just figuratively, literally.

00:27 Life and death depend on this discourse, therefore this discourse has so much potency.

00:31 Arjun is the real life student, not the ideal disciple, therefore Krishna's persuasion

00:40 has the cutting edge mastery.

00:43 That's what happened with Arjun as well.

00:46 So the Bhagavad Gita is such a real and captivating.

00:49 I am a PhD student in my fourth year in the design department and I am mainly working

00:54 with educational games and how we can use games to harness some sort of education because

00:59 I have seen a lot of children learning vocabulary through playing games like PUBG and other

01:05 things.

01:06 So I thought why not try to intentionally harness that.

01:09 So that is what I do.

01:12 My question to you was, so I was reading somewhere that Chanakya in Arthashastra and I might

01:18 be mistaken, so sorry about the specifications, apologies about that, pointed out the fact

01:23 that a king, if he needs to be successful and wants to rule his kingdom successfully,

01:29 not just with dictatorial absolute power, but successfully, he or she needs to pay attention

01:35 and extract the power of alcohol.

01:37 So Chanakya did not pass judgment on whether alcohol is good or bad, but he did understand

01:42 that a tool which is powerful has to be understood by the person who is leading the kingdom.

01:50 So that is when I was struck with the idea that ancient texts might have ancient texts

01:54 and knowledge that has been written in olden times might have some answers or some insights

02:00 into the contemporary problems that we have.

02:02 So I was wondering that in the contemporary current intellectual discussions that happen

02:07 in India, I often see a lack of or at least an inadequate importance that is put upon

02:15 the role that social media plays in our current consciousness.

02:18 I see that they do discuss it, but they hand wave it as a technology that it is there and

02:22 it has some influence, but I rarely see that in Indian discussions, we really dive into

02:27 it of what the problem it is creating or benefits.

02:31 I understand my question here is that do the Vedantic teachings have any insight on a spectacle

02:38 like this or if it did try to comment on such a contemporary phenomenon, how would it perceive

02:44 social media and its ever increasing role in our current society?

02:48 Vedanta investigates the mind and whereas the deepest desire and the ultimate destiny

03:05 of the mind is liberation, yet it is habituated to all kinds of bondages.

03:26 That's the condition of the mind.

03:32 You can call that as human consciousness.

03:36 Our inclinations, our tendencies, our habits are at odds with our welfare.

03:53 We need to be liberated, but we want and slip towards bondages.

04:09 So that's what the mind is.

04:12 An entity at odds with its own real interests.

04:26 So the mind is very easily attracted towards pomp, show, sexuality, display of riches.

04:50 It likes to be entertained so much that it sometimes even deliberately wants to keep

04:58 itself in illusions.

05:06 That's how the mind is.

05:08 The mind slips easily towards falseness but requires discipline and deliberate effort

05:20 to rise towards knowledge, understanding and liberation.

05:34 With the mind being like this, you have the social media technology in front of you and

05:46 it is one of the things of the mind to feel lonely since birth and clamour for company

05:58 and social attention.

06:02 And now you have Facebook or Twitter and you want attention.

06:11 You want attention, that's your mind.

06:16 The others want to be entertained and titillated, that's their mind.

06:25 You do not really want the truth.

06:28 You need the truth though but you do not want the truth.

06:33 That's your mind and the others too equally want to avoid the truth even though they equally

06:45 need the truth.

06:46 That's the other's mind.

06:48 Everybody has one mind, its expressions are varied but fundamentally the tendencies of

06:59 the mind are the same and equally the final destiny of the mind is one.

07:12 So what do I do?

07:16 I feel lonely, what do I do?

07:19 I look around for attention.

07:22 I look around for attention, the easiest way to gain attention is to peddle mischief.

07:29 Why?

07:31 Because the others too are attracted towards mischief.

07:38 The lowest common denominator has a tendency to catch on spread like wildfire.

07:50 All that is worst about us will be the fastest to spread and we just said that that which

08:04 is sublime in us, worthy within us, requires first of all effort, time, patience, discipline

08:16 to cultivate and a lot of equal effort to propagate.

08:26 Whereas mischief spreads on its own, falseness is contagious.

08:39 One person with the inclination to spread false ideas or information can do it very

08:51 easily whereas somebody with the intention to counter falseness will have to work ten

08:59 times as hard.

09:03 So now you see when we get a propagating machinery like social media in our hand, what use is

09:15 it going to be put to?

09:20 It has amplified the worst within us.

09:24 Though it's just a technology as you put in your question, but we being the users of that

09:33 technology, we have put it to the worst use as is our habit to put everything at our disposal,

09:47 at the service of our lowly tendencies and so social media too has been made a servant

09:58 to our lowly tendencies.

10:03 So you rightly put it there is no accountability, anybody can say anything and that gets magnified

10:13 very soon.

10:16 In fact, the worst the kind of content, the faster the speed with which it spreads and

10:30 that becomes known to all and we all are hungry for recognition, prestige, attention.

10:45 So we very quickly take the hint, we very quickly see what is it that sells, what is

10:54 it that brings instant rewards and also a lot of money is at stake.

11:02 If you can become a good YouTuber or a recognized social media personality that fills up your

11:13 coffers as well.

11:16 So now a very easy, a very cheap formula has been revealed.

11:26 Do the worst kind of nonsense and make a fortune out of it and this formula has been picked

11:37 up by the society in general, by politicians, by corporations, by everybody.

11:49 So that's what is happening.

11:51 When you had regulated bodies, then they were answerable and you knew the names and faces

12:04 of those who were in charge.

12:08 When it comes to social media, hardly anybody is in charge.

12:13 Now the mischief maker is faceless, anonymous because there are just so many of them that

12:19 you cannot call out or point out one single face.

12:27 Anonymity does not consist of nobody having a face.

12:38 These days anonymity really means billions of faces.

12:46 When there are billions of mischief makers, how many will you block?

12:54 How many will you call out?

12:58 So that's what has happened and regulation cannot be the answer now because regulation

13:07 is now impractical, impossible.

13:11 You cannot regulate so many people and you cannot have laws that punish people for their

13:20 intentions.

13:23 Of course, if there is explicit content, you can punish it.

13:27 If somebody is saying something that is factually misleading, you can punish it.

13:32 But then mischiefs can be of thousand kinds and those kinds are all very subjective.

13:41 You cannot identify them.

13:45 So regulation has become impossible.

13:49 What then is the way ahead?

13:54 The only solution then is individual responsibility and individual responsibility cannot come

14:01 by way of legislation or regulation.

14:09 Then the only solution is a cultural environment with spirituality at its centre.

14:24 Only then can people be self-regulated.

14:31 Or you could have a situation similar to one in China where the state has a million eyes

14:45 and hands and is clamping down on everybody and anybody who dares to transgress.

14:57 But obviously we do not want that to happen.

15:00 Firstly, that benefits no one.

15:03 Secondly, that will very soon prove ineffective.

15:10 So then you need people with their minds awakened.

15:23 You need people who can operate from a position of internal discipline.

15:34 And this is not a mere utopia.

15:37 I am not talking idealism.

15:40 I am talking of the only practical solution possible now.

15:48 So what do we do then?

15:52 Individual spirituality has to be promoted.

15:56 You cannot leave it at the mercy of blind social forces or market forces or even the

16:10 whims of democracy.

16:15 A few things have to be recognised as being fundamentally important and therefore be patronised

16:28 by the society.

16:32 I am talking of Vedanta here.

16:34 I am talking of core self-enquiry here.

16:40 That has to become a part of mainstream education.

16:49 Education cannot now remain a means to just earn your bread.

17:00 Education cannot be just about building a career.

17:07 We are into rough terrain and choppy waters now.

17:21 Humanity does not have much time left.

17:27 We need to be awakened very quickly.

17:33 It's a historical emergency.

17:37 The problems that you see with social media are but a tiny reflection of the real catastrophe

17:47 we unfortunately have at hand.

17:54 So that needs to be done.

17:58 The real inner centre being promoted, self-enquiry being promoted is the most important need

18:13 of the hour and I am saying that not as an exaggeration but with very careful deliberation

18:21 over long years.

18:24 There is nothing more important today than awakening the individual.

18:33 It was always important historically but today it's a do or die thing.

18:39 [MUSIC PLAYING]

18:42 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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