What you eat is eating you out || Acharya Prashant, in conversation (2022)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00Dear Guruji, we are so honored to be here today.

00:07Thank you.

00:08I'm glad.

00:10Can you tell us the truth about the dairy industry?

00:15A lot of Indians might not know what's going on, and for the ones that do know that's going

00:21on, they usually respond by saying, well, Lord Krishna had milk or it's our tradition

00:28or we have to do abhishek, it's in the culture, things like that.

00:33Could you explain?

00:35See, even if one is not in possession of facts, there are a few basic rules of thumb.

00:46Let's say, let's say I have this, right?

00:51And it yields me money.

00:53And who am I?

00:55I am the usual, normal, average, greedy person.

01:03That's how we all are since birth.

01:06And if this is yielding me money and comforts and whatever, first thing, secondly, what

01:19all will I do to extract more money from it?

01:22Thirdly, will I not want more and more of such money spinners?

01:29So I may not know what we do with the buffalo or the cow, in the factual sense, I might

01:36not know what is happening exactly inside that dairy or that farm.

01:40But don't I know how man is?

01:43I may not know the facts of the dairy industry, but do I not know the facts of our inner self?

01:51We are greedy people.

01:53And if an animal can give me something that gives me money, I'll do anything to extract

02:03more and more of that stuff from that animal, which happens to be a female mammal.

02:13So I'll do everything to get more milk, which means I have to keep her constantly pregnant,

02:24which means I have to artificially inseminate her, and I don't need to have video evidence

02:30for that.

02:31I probably don't even need to visit the dairy to see whether it is actually happening.

02:36It is bound to happen because that's the way we are.

02:40And we are the ones who run that dairy.

02:43So how is it possible that when we are corrupt and greedy and exploitative in all aspects,

02:49all walks of life, at all times, we'll just spare the poor animal?

02:54We don't spare our relatives, we don't spare our own family, we don't spare our own selves.

02:59Why will we spare the animal?

03:01So you can just, using your own example, extrapolate what we would be doing to the

03:11cow or the buffalo or the goat or to the hen, and you won't be wrong, provided you are extrapolating

03:19with some honesty.

03:25Why will you want to show, forget compassion, even basic mercy to the animal, if extending

03:34mercy reduces the productivity of that animal resource?

03:44Even at the time of slaughter, you will slaughter the animal in the worst possible way, provided

03:52that worst possible way is financially beneficial to you.

03:56Is that not so?

03:57And I don't even need evidence to corroborate what I am saying, though plenty of evidence

04:02is already available, and it's not confidential.

04:06You just have to Google or search for videos and you will get it.

04:11So if giving an animal painless death requires an additional two minutes, why will I spend

04:21even those additional two minutes, even in the moment of slaughter?

04:28So it's obvious what we are doing to the animal and they don't have a voice, so they won't

04:32never come out on their own to narrate their story.

04:38A lot of people think we have a cow in the backyard or these cows are being respected

04:45or it's a goshala, the calf is getting some milk, it's okay.

04:52A lot of people are talking about this A2 milk.

04:55Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

04:57You see, it does not matter what the name of that particular species is.

05:03It's obvious it's not the human species, right?

05:08Is there any other species that consumes the milk of anybody other than its own mother

05:15and that too for a limited period of time?

05:18First question, a very basic question.

05:21Any species that consumes, any mammalian species that consumes the milk of anybody other than

05:29its own mother, that too for a very limited period of time.

05:33Secondly, is goat milk useful to, let's say, a tiger cub?

05:43Can you raise a tiger cub on goat milk?

05:47And the tiger, being the tiger, has all the prowess to subdue the goat and consume her

05:55milk.

05:56Does the tiger do that?

05:57Even the tiger knows that it's nonsensical to even attempt.

06:03And how can the milk of one species be useful to the kids of another species?

06:12The buffalo milk is constituted to bring up a huge, mindless buffalo weighing 500 or 800

06:26kilograms.

06:27It is not a fluid designed by Prakriti to be useful to a human kid, it's obvious.

06:37That's the reason why buffalo milk is not the same as human milk, else the two would

06:43have been the same, which means human milk is for human babies and buffalo milk or cow

06:50milk is for their own calves.

06:54You exchange the two, it won't be suitable.

06:56In fact, you take, you just flip the example.

07:02If you give human milk to a tiger cub or to a goat kid, it won't be beneficial.

07:13Now that was as far as kids go, but the thing is we consume milk, we continue to consume

07:20milk long after we have ceased to be kids.

07:25What does a 40 or 60 year old mean by consuming so much dairy?

07:31And I watched your well made movie yesterday, there was this figure that Indians are consuming

07:38what 350-370 grams of milk per day, which is the highest in the world or way above the

07:43global average.

07:46What is a 50 year old doing, consuming so much dairy?

07:50You are not even a kid.

07:51First thing, you are not a kid.

07:53You don't even have the right enzymes in your body to process, to digest the milk protein

08:00and then again that milk that you are taking in is not coming from your own species, it's

08:05coming from somewhere else.

08:07So just a little application of mind tells that it means nothing, it does not matter

08:13whether it's the milk of a two or a goat or a yak or a camel or it doesn't matter.

08:25And I don't think I have answered all parts of your question, there was something else

08:29you added to the question.

08:31I think you covered it.

08:35You said something about Lord Krishna?

08:37Yes.

08:38I think people will make excuses for the ones that do know there is cruelty in milk, but

08:44they will say Lord Krishna had it or it's tradition or Abhishek.

08:49Lord Krishna consuming milk in his childhood, in his childhood, only in his childhood.

08:56Do you hear or read of him consuming milk after he was grown up?

09:01First question.

09:02When you have an avatar, that avatar is constrained by the limits and conditions and conventions

09:18of his time and age.

09:23So he was brought up in a clan of cow keepers, cattle rearers.

09:38That was the profession that entire neighborhood was following, right?

09:46And Balkrishna is just a little baby, he will do what the entire surrounding is doing and

09:53he will wear what everybody else is wearing.

09:58So saying that little Krishna used to drink milk is just like saying that little Krishna

10:08used to wear the costumes of his time.

10:12Just as he is bound to wear the costumes of his time, similarly as long as he is little,

10:20he is bound to follow the customs of his time.

10:24We are talking about avatar, we are not talking about Atma or Brahm or Satya here and all

10:31the avatars are definitely limited by the conditions of their time.

10:40It is believed that you take birth, sambhavami yuge yuge, you take birth in a particular

10:49milieu and if you are taking birth in a particular milieu, of course you don't expect Krishna

10:54to walk around in western formals.

10:56He will wear what they did, his parents and relatives and the entire area and he'll speak

11:03the language that they spoke.

11:06Just as he would speak the language as was spoken by the people of his time, similarly

11:13as long as he is young, he will follow the customs of the people of his time because

11:21the avatar is not supposed to be perfect in the first place.

11:26The avatar is not purna satya, the avatar is not even supposed to be the perfect truth.

11:36Since the avatar is embodied, the avatar has come to be born, so he is supposed to

11:42have the bearings, attributes, characteristics of his particular time and age.

11:50Now that is the reason, now does he play the violin?

11:55He plays the flute.

11:57Why the flute and why not the violin?

12:00Does he speak French?

12:03He speaks the language of that place and time.

12:05Now why doesn't he speak French?

12:07Because he was born at a place where there was no French.

12:11He was born at a place where there was no violin.

12:16If an avatar today takes birth in France, he will probably play the piano and speak French.

12:27So these are time bound attributes.

12:31These are not to be taken as timeless.

12:33These depend on the time in which the avatar was born.

12:38That's the reason why different avatars show different characteristics.

12:41Now truth is one, then why are the characteristics of the different avatars so much at variance

12:47with each other?

12:49Somebody is very composed, somebody talks in one way, somebody wears one kind of attire,

12:54somebody is carrying around in another way.

12:58Why are such variations seen?

13:00Because those are the variations of the time and place of their birth, Desh-Kaal.

13:07They are not variations in the truth.

13:10Now what depended on a certain time and place must be left to that time and place.

13:18What is it that must be carried forward, that which is timeless?

13:24Learning habits, sartorial habits, linguistic preferences, where do all these come from?

13:32They come from that geography and that age.

13:38And geography and age are not timeless, they are limited.

13:45Such habits, such characteristics belong only to that period and must not be carried forward

13:51to the coming centuries.

13:54What is it then that must be carried forward to the coming centuries up to time eternity?

14:02The Bhagavad Gita.

14:03Because in that you have something which time can never besmear or blemish.

14:13The Bhagavad Gita alone is timeless in the entire narrative of Shri Krishna.

14:19All else is time bound and that which is time bound has very little utility.

14:25When we go to the scriptures, when we look at our honored avatars, so when we look at

14:31our avatars, we look at them to have a glimpse of that which time can never touch.

14:41We do not look at them in a historical sense.

14:46We do not look at them to follow the things that they did at that point in history, in time.

15:00We do not look at them because we want to emulate what was happening in the 10th century BC.

15:07The 10th century BC is gone, however the Bhagavad Gita shall never turn stale and it is to

15:15Gita that we offer our love, our respect, our salutations.

15:21All else is just time and place and what is there at one point in time shall be turned

15:34useless by another point in time.

15:39Time is just the flow of Prakriti and that exactly is the message of Bhagavad Gita.

15:46Now at what place is it mentioned in Bhagavad Gita that to follow the teachings of Krishan

15:54you have to be a dairy consumer.

15:58So Arjun is unwilling to fight, Arjun does not know his dharm and Krishan tells him Arjun

16:05have some Lassi.

16:07Is that how the Bhagavad Gita proceeds?

16:10Is there any mention of dairy in the Gita?

16:14So when you look at Krishan, please look for the essential.

16:18That would be the only respect that you can offer to Shri Krishan.

16:26All else is just time bound Bramitics.

16:30It fades away very quickly, no point trying to hold on to it.

16:35You cannot stop the flow of time but definitely you can bow your head down in front of that

16:42which is timeless and that should be our attempt.

16:47Can you explain what a mother is going through with her calf is the same thing as what we are going through.

16:57Obviously, very obviously.

16:59But then first of all we have to first admit that the human mother too in her attachment

17:07to the child is very much an animal.

17:12We don't admit that.

17:14We believe that the human mother and the cow are separate beings, they are not.

17:22Because attachment is very much an animalistic quality.

17:29What happens is we treat the mother's relationship with the kid as love, don't we say that?

17:36The mother's love for the child.

17:39The moment you say mother's love for the child, you have artificially raised that animalistic

17:47relationship to a conscious level.

17:51Because attachment is animalistic, love is conscious.

17:55The fact is that even the human mother is just attached to the child.

18:01Why?

18:02Because even the human mother is an animal and similarly the cow or the buffalo or the

18:07goat is attached to her child.

18:11Now when you admit that human beings too are just animals, now you see that the human mother

18:22is just the same as the cow.

18:26And if you treat with great respect the relation between the human mother and her baby, then

18:34how can you treat with disrespect the relationship between the cow and the calf?

18:38Are you getting it?

18:40As long as you do not see that the woman equals the animal equals the cow.

18:47How are the woman and the cow same?

18:51How are the woman and the cow same?

18:52Because they both are animals, right?

18:55But if you admit that they both are animals, you will have to substitute the word love

18:59with attachment.

19:02Because animals can have attachment but no love.

19:06Instead we want to call the relationship between the human mother and the child as love.

19:12You want to call that love, therefore you will not admit that the human mother too is

19:17an animal.

19:18Therefore you will be forced to declare that the human mother and the cow are different.

19:24The cow is an animal, the human mother is divine.

19:27Now this is a bad, false and artificial division.

19:32It is imaginary, it does not exist.

19:36Man and animal are normally one, they become different only when man walks on the spiritual

19:44path and raises his consciousness, otherwise man and animal are just one.

19:52Even if man and animal are just one, my argument is, have the same standards for them.

19:59If you treat the relationship between a human mother and her kid with so much respect, we

20:06have so many songs in adulation of Maa's Vamta, then why separate the poor cow from

20:17her calf and milk her and make fancy statements like the calf cannot digest so much milk and

20:23therefore we are doing the cow a favor by taking away the extra milk.

20:27All kinds of extraordinary arguments are made.

20:32By milking the cow, we are doing her a favor.

20:34Because the calf will die if it takes so much of milk.

20:39So Prakriti has gone totally wrong.

20:42Prakriti has filled up the cow's udders with extra milk for the benefit of mankind.

20:56Even the greatest poets will be belittled by such imaginative heights.

21:01Prakriti decided that man is my favorite kid, so for the sake of man, let me bless the cow

21:07with extra milk, otherwise how will man survive?

21:12Man is such a little baby that he needs to have milk even if he is 80 years of age.

21:19Even at age 80, what you are doing is milk, milk, milk.

21:24And that is so symbolically powerful, no?

21:28The fact is even at the age of 80, most of us are like 3 months old.

21:33Therefore we need milk.

21:35Mental age is not more than 3 months.

21:38So you need milk.

21:39Otherwise is it not so absurd, you are 80 years old and you are consuming a baby's

21:47diet, milk.

21:50What kind of, we could have laughed over it, it is just that it is very violent, we cannot

21:57laugh over it.

22:04Man is such a little baby that it must steal the food of actual babies.

22:10We are such babies that we must steal the food of actual babies.

22:19Perfect.

22:20Thank you so much.

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