00:00Pranam Acharya ji. My name is Akshaya and I am 14 years old. I have been doing sessions
00:12and watching you with my mother since 2 years. And my question is that I have seen a lot
00:22of pro players, mostly tennis players, that they use tennis rackets of cow's gut strings.
00:33And they are actually vegan. And some people, a lot of people appreciate that they are vegan
00:41and they don't do any animal cruelty. So I want to ask if they are turning vegan for
00:49their own reasons because of their improvement and instructions from their coaches. Are they
00:55changing anything at all? Even those things are happening. Sports equipments are undergoing
01:04a change. Also, the guts, the cords, they were called guts specifically because they
01:11were made of animal's intestines. That's the reason you used to call them guts. But sports
01:18technology has advanced and more and more you have these strings that are no more made
01:25of animal material. I do not know of specific players who are vegan and are yet using these
01:33animal strings. But technology has provided the choice that you don't need. See you have
01:42to understand something. Human history hasn't exactly been of compassion. You look at arts,
01:57sciences, any field of human endeavour and you will find animal products are everywhere.
02:05Because that's the way we have been. When a large animal like a buffalo, a cow, a bull is
02:11slaughtered, every part of its body is used somewhere, mostly industrially. Which means
02:20that everything, almost everything that comes to you contains or is likely to contain some
02:29animal product. Even if it's not having an animal product, it's possible that something
02:39from animals has been used in its manufacturing. That is because our history has not been of
02:47compassion. You look at music for example. You look at your tabla, your dholak, these things,
02:54many of the musical instruments and you know you are using animal skin. That's animal skin.
03:03You also see that there is a lot of use of wood there. But even if you
03:08keep wood aside, the animal skin is very visible in the musical instruments.
03:15Same thing for your sports. You look at cricket and the ball. It's a leather ball. There is leather
03:22because that's the way we have been. So, that kind of ignorance and indifference and cruelty,
03:30it exposes itself, reveals itself in whatever we do.
03:35This sugar that you get, animal products are used in the processing of sugar.
03:42There is hardly any industrial product that is totally free of animal cruelty.
03:54In that context, sports too carry the imprint of animal cruelty,
04:02which is not necessary but that's how it currently is.
04:06As human consciousness awakens and that's our endeavour, you will find that the need to
04:17put an animal something somewhere, that need decreases because it's just a matter
04:25of tradition, convention, habit. It is unimaginable that
04:35creating a racket string of the right kind of polymer cannot fetch the same results
04:45as the racket string made of animal guts. So, science is obviously advanced enough
04:53to create those things. It's just that we are not feeling the need.
05:01These medicines that you take, many of them contain animal products. Most of them in fact
05:07contain animal products and the ones that do not contain animal products have been tested on animals.
05:13The cosmetic products that you use,
05:15it's winters these days, getting the right clothing for oneself is quite a task.
05:26In some way or the other, there is wool or something there.
05:32You want footwear, again you have to spend five times energy in getting a simple pair of sandals
05:40and even if you get it and even if you are told that this is a
05:51cruelty-free product, still you can never be 100% sure that it indeed is. A waist belt,
06:00you just don't know. A shirt, you don't know the entire
06:05chain of its manufacturing and also of its logistics. It is possible that there is some
06:12animal cruelty somewhere in the supply chain and all of that is coming from a single point
06:23and the point is human ignorance. If you can deal with human ignorance,
06:31only then there is the chance we will be more friendly, more compassionate towards animals.
06:39Otherwise, as I said, you have a 600 kg animal and you *** it and every bit of the 600 kilograms
06:49is put to use somewhere. The one *** it will not let go anything waste.
07:00If it can be exploited for material gain, it will be exploited
07:09and whatever waste product that remains, whatever it is that cannot be sold to anybody,
07:18that will be used to destroy the environment.
07:20That that will flow into a river or that will go into the soil and corrupt the groundwater.
07:30That's how we have been.
07:34Just not self-aware, just not knowing our relationship with the environment, with other
07:40species. Since we don't know who we are, therefore we do not know what our right relationship with
07:45everything must be. Therefore, we are cruel in as many ways as possible.
07:52This cruelty cannot be challenged in a fractured way.
07:58You cannot say, oh you know that fellow, he is *** of a fellow, I'll stop him and I have done a great job.
08:04Obviously, if I too find somebody *** of a fellow, I too will by my humanity want to stop him.
08:11But I would also know that that serves no larger purpose. The life of one *** is saved but nothing
08:16beyond that. If you really want to make a difference, then you will have to attack the problem at its center
08:26and the center is lack of self-knowledge. The center is ego.
08:34As we become more self-aware, all kinds of animal cruelty will decrease.
08:46Otherwise, a sectoral approach, a fragmented approach that will at most
08:54make you feel good about yourself. You know, I was able to rescue one goat and one dog
09:01and so I'm a good fellow. I'll feel good about myself. But in the bigger picture, it does no
09:08favor to the animals or to the environment.
09:12Thank you Acharya ji. Welcome.
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