Suicides in Educational Institutions || Acharya Prashant (2023)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?... ~~~~~  Video Information: 29.09.23, IIT-Madras (Online), Greater Noida  Context: ~ Why do students commit suicide? ~ What harm are pupils suffering from having unrealistic goals? ~ Who is to blame for these suicides? ~ What does true success entail? ~ Why is parental qualification required to raise the kids? ~ Why is inner education crucial for children? ~ Which psychological needs are the most basic?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00Hello Acharya ji, I wanted to ask about the recent suicides, multiple suicides which happened

00:09in top institutes of the country, which included our institute as well.

00:14So I wanted to know what is the reason behind these suicides which are occurring in the

00:18country and is it due to societal pressure or academic pressure?

00:24You see, a kid is a very dependent being, very dependent so the kid is heavily exploited.

00:39You tell the kid that your life is worthless if you do not attain such and such goals.

00:50And then you keep the goals so unrealistic and make the competition so severe by telling

01:02the same thing to every kid that practically only 1% can attain the goals they have been

01:13conditioned to attain.

01:15What will happen to the remaining 99%?

01:23One of the most fundamental needs of the mind is to know itself, who am I and why do I exist?

01:33Parents and educators never bother to address this question, let alone answer it satisfactorily.

01:44They let this indirectly, unconsciously supply you with a ready-made and junk answer.

01:52They say you exist to achieve, achieve what?

01:55Stuff that we tell you to achieve.

01:59Who told you that working for some MNC and earning fat dollars is the purpose of life?

02:08Left to yourself, would you have ever come to this conclusion?

02:11Please tell me, any of you?

02:14In fact, left to yourself, most of you would have never bothered to appear for the JEE.

02:23But you have been told that such and such things are non-negotiable.

02:26You need to have these and everybody is telling you the same thing.

02:34And even that would have been alright.

02:37Had you been helped to awaken your own capacity to inquire and know, if that capacity is awakened,

02:52then it does not matter what the entire world is telling you.

02:58Then you can keep everybody's opinion aside and say, I know on my own.

03:03I do not need to believe because I know.

03:10But the constant bombardment of propaganda is accompanied by an equivalent dehumanization

03:22of consciousness.

03:26Your consciousness is turned mechanical and animal, dehumanized.

03:32So these two things happen in tandem.

03:34One, you are told what things are all about.

03:38Secondly, you are actively discouraged from knowing on your own.

03:46If you know on your own, then you become some kind of a renegade, unacceptable, an uncontrollable

03:55rebel or something who needs to be straightened.

04:03So now the fellow comes and he has been given impossible targets to achieve.

04:14And he has been told if he does not achieve those targets, then life is meaningless.

04:22Some of them buckle, very sadly.

04:28All links in any chain do not carry the same strength.

04:32There are weak links, right?

04:35If you put undue pressure on the ends of the chain, some link will break.

04:42The fault does not belong to the link.

04:45You must question those who put the pressure.

04:58Great talent, great talent and what is that talent being told to do?

05:03That talent is being told, you know, you go somewhere and write code, random code.

05:12And if that random code is for one of the top companies, then you are successful.

05:18What success is there in this?

05:22Somebody is being told you go and work in a bank and you just do data all your day.

05:28What success is there in this?

05:30Had you not been being paid those big dollars, would you ever choose this kind of work?

05:36Please tell me.

05:42What success is there in all this?

05:45Somebody is selling shoes after doing computer science B.Tech from IIT Madras.

05:50What success is there in this?

05:53It's just that the company is a footwear giant, MNC footwear giant.

06:06And then you take pride.

06:08You don't take pride.

06:09Your parents take pride.

06:11Your parents take pride and the entire society takes pride.

06:16And then a few girls can come to you or their parents rather.

06:25The fellow is earning so, you know, how about a match?

06:32From all the directions, the message that is coming to you is there is this particular

06:38definition of success.

06:41And if you cannot measure up to it, then life is not worth living.

06:50Some of our friends, unfortunately, take it very literally.

06:55They say if life is not worth living, why should we anyway continue living at all?

07:00You could say they are more logical than the rest of us.

07:07Everybody has to be fixed.

07:13Everybody who has been continuously teaching you that life exists just for the sake of

07:18material gratification is the culprit.

07:22Catch him.

07:25Justice needs to be done.

07:27Otherwise, this kind of trend will continue.

07:29It's not just about your campus.

07:31It's happening everywhere.

07:38Pressure by itself might not be necessarily a bad thing.

07:41But pressure for such nonsense?

07:46One fellow gave up his life because his elder brother was a super achiever.

07:52The elder brother was actually from an IIT.

07:54This fellow did not manage into an IIT.

07:56He was at some other place and there too he was not getting the desired kind of job offers.

08:05He quit.

08:07On one hand, I commiserate with the parents.

08:10On the other hand, one needs to have a straight word with them.

08:19What exactly are you feeding your kids on?

08:24Do most parents even deserve to be called parents?

08:29For any small project, you require at least some qualification.

08:36But for the project of raising a kid, you require zero qualification.

08:41All you need is, you know, one night of physical encounter.

08:48And then you say, I am a father and she is a mother and the two of us are qualified to

08:52raise the kid.

08:53How exactly are you qualified to raise the kid?

09:02This is nothing but symptomatic of a society where inner education is considered dispensable.

09:11Where we say that if you teach the student in history, geography, maths, science and

09:19the languages, that is sufficient.

09:22The student does not need to be given education in life, education of the self.

09:28That is not necessary.

09:30If that is not necessary, this will be the outcome and sadly this outcome might keep

09:37getting repeated.

09:41And that inner education, mind you, cannot come just naturally from the family or somewhere.

09:50Just as you require experts, professors to teach you maths and physics, similarly you

09:56require experts to deliver life education.

10:02If that is not there, then the mind will remain very cluttered, very confused and ultimately

10:10sometimes suicidal.

10:15What a wastage!

10:20And what makes the wastage worse is that the lives of those, even those who survive are

10:29rendered waste.

10:31We talked about the fellow who is working in a footwear MNC, post is electrical engineering.

10:40Why should that not be considered an equal wastage of life or the fellow who decides

10:48to sell fizzy drinks?

10:52If you look at the IIMs, for example, they attract a lot of crowd from the IITs and what

10:59do these ITNs do passing out from the IIMs?

11:04Somebody is selling fizzy drinks, somebody is selling home loans, that's an equal wastage.

11:17But we don't want to talk of that.

11:19We talk of that as gainful employment.

11:21In fact, we gloat over that.

11:24We say this is heroic.

11:28My journey has attained a three crore package and that sometimes comes to the newspapers

11:36as well.

11:43That should indeed come to the newspapers as a thing of tragedy, not as a matter of

11:50celebration.

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