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LearningTranscript
00:00As a medico, we are constantly learning.
00:02So how do we, as medicos, apply this concept of unlearning into our lives, sir?
00:06As a doctor, can we limit our responsibility to the one particular body that come to us for treatment?
00:15Or is the patient actually a representative of an entire society, an entire ecosystem?
00:24Clearly, I wish I could treat a problem as a whole,
00:27but it's not very feasible in a practical clinical practice.
00:32Before applying, you have to be aware.
00:35Knowing becomes doing.
00:38As doctors, do I address the victims of climate change or the causes of climate change?
00:43The disease is not in a particular body.
00:46The disease is the whole thing itself.
00:49So what you said about having a happy life
00:53and how our ambition is driving us to the destruction of the planet,
00:57is it not possible for us to have ambition and self-clarity at the same time?
01:02No action in itself is good or bad, right or wrong, whatever.
01:07What matters is the center the particular action is coming from.
01:12From the right center, you could be angry or desirous or ambitious and it's all fine.
01:17So, wonderful, fly away.
01:18But please be clear on why you want to fly away.
01:25Begin with a question of my own.
01:27Yes, so I was looking into your teachings and I've been reading your book Truth Without Apology
01:33and you mention unlearning.
01:35There was actually a particular quote in your book which said that
01:38real learning means you are able to observe your own inner machinery,
01:43your reactions, fears and gently step out of the rut.
01:47So, my question is as a medico, we are constantly learning.
01:50Like every single thing in our syllabus, our disease protocols,
01:55all of it keeps continuously changing.
01:56So, how do we as medicos apply this concept of unlearning into our lives, sir?
02:02It's a great question to begin with and first of all,
02:09thank you the institution, the management for very kindly arranging this interaction.
02:18Thank you so much and thank you for your patience and being here.
02:24So, the question is wonderful.
02:26As medicos, what's the importance of unlearning, unlearning?
02:35I think in many ways and at many levels.
02:43The first thing is you'll be dealing with the patient
02:51and you'll be looking at that particular body
03:00and the idea will be that the disease is contained in that particular body
03:10and that idea is based on the assumption
03:18that the body is some kind of isolated or separate unit
03:27and so we treat the body
03:32and that we take as our responsibility.
03:38Here is the patient, here is this particular unit
03:42by this particular name of this particular age
03:46and we are to treat it, heal it, restore health to it.
03:51But is this person standing in front of the doctor as a body really an individual, an isolated unit?
04:01If as a doctor, my job is to protect and restore health,
04:12can I look just at the one individual called the patient?
04:19Or is the patient actually a representative of an entire society, an entire ecosystem?
04:30Is there really an individual fragment called the patient?
04:36If my job is to bring health, can I limit my responsibility then to just one patient?
04:45Because that's what is tempting to think, I have to deal with this patient.
04:52But what if the patient's health and sickness both depend on the wider environment and the larger ecosystem?
05:05Then can we limit our responsibility to one individual?
05:11I mean fine, I might be treating the patient's lungs and I might tell myself, even congratulate myself
05:21on being a good doctor of the lungs.
05:24But what about the society that corrupts, pollutes the air to such an extent
05:34that it becomes very difficult to keep the lungs healthy?
05:40As a doctor then, can I say that I deal with an individual or must I have a wider responsibility?
05:49Can I really, what would you call it, a pulmonary specialist?
05:56Can I really be a good doctor of the lungs, if I say I support a kind of ecosystem that pollutes
06:08the environment in the name of development or custom?
06:14If I remain indifferent to it, even if I don't support to it?
06:19So one thing, if I am a doctor, then probably I have to say that health is my responsibility,
06:31in the holistic sense, not just one patient.
06:37You see such, coming to it from another side, such a big proportion of diseases as we know
06:46are psychosomatic, right?
06:51And the mind is a receiver and a radiator.
06:57It takes in, it processes, it radiates, transmits, which basically means you cannot be healthy.
07:08Even physically, even physically, if the environment, the society, the family, the nation, the beliefs
07:20we have, the goals we pursue, the very foundations of our culture, our religion, our concepts,
07:33if they are misplaced, then how can the body remain healthy?
07:39I will continue to remain obsessed with the body, which is obviously my responsibility.
07:45The doctor has to look at the body.
07:47But what if the primary sickness of the body does not lie in the body?
07:54And the doctor says, I am a very good doctor because I treat the body very well.
08:00And more and more, we are entering an era where our knowledge of this material thing called
08:10the body will be very, very good, very enhanced.
08:17We will know about the material and its systems in very advanced ways.
08:25And yet we will find that we are not really successful in containing disease.
08:34Because we will be looking at the unit, not the whole.
08:41And the unit is not self-sufficient.
08:43The unit does not operate in a vacuum.
08:46The unit is vulnerable to everything that is happening outside of itself.
08:53Every bit of everything that it interacts with.
09:00So, as a doctor, can we limit our responsibility to the one particular body or to the set of few bodies
09:11that come to us for treatment?
09:14Or must we have, as I said, a wider responsibility?
09:21And that wider responsibility really does not stop anywhere.
09:26The clothes we purchase, the movies we watch, the food we consume, the vote we cast,
09:38even the teams we cheer in sports.
09:45All those things come back to us because it's all very interconnected.
09:50What, I'm asking you, what if you are a very passionate supporter of a sports person
09:58who in turn promotes chewing tobacco?
10:03I'm asking you.
10:06And you might be a very fine doctor.
10:09But you are a very passionate supporter of an actor or let's say a cricketer.
10:18Who endorses and there need not necessarily be things that are harmful just to the body,
10:31like chewing tobacco or cigarettes or something.
10:34There can be things that are harmful to the mind and the mind in turn will destroy the body.
10:43But I could be a very good doctor and yet I could be supporting
10:47a kind of lifestyle or a sports person or an actor or a celebrity or a millionaire or a politician or a religious leader
10:57who in turn is polluting the mental environment in a big way.
11:05So that's one thing that probably we need to unlearn that the patient is one unit in a silo.
11:24So, then the next thing probably we could think about, yeah, please, please, you take this.
11:37If I may, sir, what you have mentioned about supporting someone who supports tobacco
11:44or anything of that matter that harms the health.
11:46I think that as a doctor, if I'm supporting somebody who is supporting harmful practices,
11:51that would be a question upon my personal ethics.
11:54And I think my professors have taught me better than that.
11:56I don't think anybody here or any of the doctors that I know for that matter
12:01would be supporting something like that. I think that's a matter of personal ethics.
12:06And when it comes to treating that you were saying, not treating a single person as a unit,
12:12I mean, ideally, I wish I could treat a problem as a whole and look at a community as a whole
12:17and address the entire health issues that are affecting or ailing a particular community.
12:22But it's not very feasible in practical clinical practice is my question.
12:28How could I apply that, sir?
12:31Before applying, you have to be aware.
12:35And awareness very spontaneously breeds application.
12:46Knowing becomes being becomes doing.
12:50You're asking about doing. How do I practically make it feasible?
12:53Which is, how do I do it?
12:55It will get done, probably you're aware.
12:57Yes, the example about chewing tobacco was simplistic.
13:01But then look at other things.
13:02You might be supporting a leader who is very, let's say, pro-development
13:08and in the name of development, is slaughtering the environment.
13:18And that comes back to the doctor as all kinds of diseases.
13:23But still you say, no, this is very good for my country, so I support that particular leader.
13:29What about that? What about that?
13:32Or you could be supporting a kind of music that basically promotes consumption.
13:39It excites you, makes you go out, makes you binge on stuff.
13:45And you say, I am a fan of this particular artist.
13:50And what's most of that particular art about?
13:53And I'm considering a particular case.
13:56It excites the listener, the consumer of the art, into going out, making purchases of all kinds, stuffing himself up.
14:09A very, very direct case in point, climate change.
14:13We know the kind of health crisis that is.
14:18We also know that it is anthropogenic.
14:22We know we have done it.
14:25As doctors, if we are to deal with public health,
14:29shouldn't we be supremely conscious of everything that contributes to climate change?
14:39Or do we limit ourselves to one person or a particular community?
14:45I'm asking.
14:46Climate change is everything that we are.
14:52Climate change is our dreams.
14:53Climate change is our emotions.
14:56Climate change is our parties.
14:59Climate change is the old concept of the fullness.
15:05If I have come to such an age, I must quickly marry and beget a few kids.
15:10The biggest contributor to climate change is population.
15:13Climate change is our dietary habits.
15:17After transport, energy, fossil fuels, that category, the biggest contributor to climate change is animal agriculture.
15:26So, climate change is everything that we are.
15:28And climate change is a health emergency.
15:30We know of that.
15:32We know of that.
15:34So, as doctors, do I treat the victims of climate change?
15:40Or the causes of climate change?
15:42I'm asking.
15:46As doctors, do I address the victims of climate change or the causes of climate change?
15:51But if I am to address the causes of climate change, then I'll have to come back to myself,
15:55because climate change is everything that probably I too represent.
16:01Climate change is everything that probably I too represent.
16:04So, that's what we have to understand.
16:06So, that's what we have to understand.
16:09The disease is not in a particular body.
16:13The disease is the whole thing itself.
16:16Yes, chewing tobacco is an example that you can counter.
16:24But then, are you also, for example, being sensitized to the fact that what we call as the happy life, the good life, the successful life is the biggest contributor to climate change?
16:38Yes, that the ones we worship as our celebrities, the millionaires and the billionaires and now the trillionaires of the world.
16:48They are the biggest contributors to climate change.
16:52Are we being sensitized in that?
16:54And if we are not, you see, the ones that we hold in such high esteem, one flight of their private jet is equivalent to the thousands of years of emissions of the average Indian.
17:12As average Indians, you and my, may emit for 1000 years.
17:16And that will be still less than what that particular celebrity can emit on one flight of his jet or one round of his yacht.
17:37And we will still say, he is the one I really admire for being successful, being happy,
17:42having made the best out of his life.
17:47Is that part of our curricula?
17:50And that person that we are admiring might actually be responsible for a grave health crisis, not just personal, not just Indian, but global.
18:02A global health crisis might be brewing because of the ones that we admire.
18:08Are we being sensitized to that? That's it.
18:11So it's not just about chewing tobacco that you can counter.
18:14It's about everything.
18:17Please understand.
18:19The next thing that probably we could do well as thinking individuals, as intellectuals,
18:25we could do well to consider and question,
18:30is the very relationship between the patient and the doctor.
18:37As doctors learning the cutting-edge technology, it is very possible that a sense of control, a sense of doership creeps in.
18:54I am someone who understands and I am someone who can do something.
18:59And that feels good many a times.
19:03When you operate someone and you are successful,
19:08it can go to the extent of almost feeling like God.
19:13And the patient and the patient and the patient and the patient's relatives will come and touch your feet and say,
19:19you are indeed Bhagawan for us.
19:22You saved life.
19:26That's where you have to ask yourself,
19:29who I really am and what my relationship with that individual is.
19:38I understand the body, yes.
19:40But do I also understand myself?
19:42And if I don't understand myself,
19:44then the knowledge that I have will become a lot of doership, will become a lot of ego.
19:57That's why the more knowledge you gain of the world, of the material, of the body,
20:03it becomes equally important to have a lot of knowledge of yourself.
20:10We just mentioned climate change.
20:12Where is it coming from?
20:14We know so much about the material world today
20:18that we can consume it, exploit it in whichever way we want.
20:22We have split the atom.
20:25Tremendous energy is now available to us.
20:29We have penetrated the core of earth.
20:36So much fossil fuel is available to us.
20:41We know how the world operates.
20:44The sensual world.
20:48This world, the world of material, we know how it operates.
20:51But we do not know how we operate.
20:53And therefore, we do not know what to do with our knowledge.
20:57So what do we do with our knowledge?
21:00Today, the world has more than 10,000 nuclear warheads.
21:05Enough to destroy the earth 10 times over.
21:12Technologically, economically,
21:14we are better off than ever before in the history of mankind.
21:19And also, we are closer to destruction than ever before in the history of mankind.
21:28And this destruction I am talking of is all man-made.
21:33There could be a nuclear conflict.
21:36And there is the looming specter of the climate catastrophe.
21:40We know of the doomsday clock.
21:44We know how it's ticking and where we stand on that.
21:49So you will have knowledge, great knowledge as doctors.
21:53But if the I also doesn't turn inwards,
21:59and if you do not look at your own mental processes,
22:03how the inner being operates,
22:06then that knowledge will fall in the wrong hands.
22:10Please get it.
22:14Externally, we will be very, very knowledgeable,
22:17very developed, very powerful.
22:19And internally, we will be the same primitive caveman.
22:24Is that not the condition of the world today?
22:27Have we been able to get rid of greed?
22:30No.
22:31But we have been able to get rid of hunger in a big way.
22:33Yes.
22:34Some part of the world still goes to bed hungry.
22:39But we have been able to pull a lot of people out of poverty.
22:43So we have been able to fight that.
22:45Polio, yes, we have been able to fight.
22:48Titus, we have been able to fight.
22:49TB, we have been able to fight.
22:51But have we been able to fight jealousy?
22:54And ignorance?
22:57Yes.
22:59And greed and desire?
23:01Have we been able to fight that?
23:02And if we have not been able to understand how we operate,
23:07then all this knowledge that we accumulate,
23:10whether as medical professionals or as students of any other field,
23:15all this knowledge is in very, very unsafe hands.
23:21We will have nuclear energy, but that will not power cities.
23:27That will bring down cities.
23:29You can have nuclear energy lightening up a campus or a city.
23:36Or you can have nuclear energy flattening Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
23:41And what have we done?
23:43What have we done?
23:45Nuclear power, and not just nuclear power, nuclear waste today.
23:48Nuclear waste.
23:49Nuclear waste.
23:51There are so many countries that are destroying, for example, in Europe,
23:57they are deciding to shut down nuclear power plants.
24:00And the countries that say that we want to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,
24:10they are always under the scanner, because it's a dual use thing.
24:14What you call as a peaceful use can become a strategic military use in no time.
24:24Think of Iran.
24:26And think of the entire reason for the conflict.
24:28We do not know what to do with our knowledge.
24:32Because we do not have any knowledge of who we are.
24:36And that's what we need to unlearn.
24:40This is everything that we can look at as the reality.
24:44Therefore, if I know of all this, that which is seen, I will be good. No.
24:52You also need to know about the seer.
24:55Not just the seen.
24:57Who is the one looking at everything?
24:59What are his processes?
25:01Where does, for example, desire arise from?
25:06I want to have a clinic of my own.
25:10I want to be the best doctor in town.
25:12You know, the doctors, in some sense, are also entrepreneurs.
25:17They are running businesses. Are they not?
25:20See, I have a doctor in my family, so I know a bit of it.
25:24So, again, that's where the meaning of life, the question, who am I?
25:31The very question of my central identity, those questions become very relevant.
25:36And if we do not address those questions, then it will remain all about having a lot of knowledge without knowing who the knower is.
25:46Sir, if I may.
25:47Yes, please.
25:48So, what you said about having a happy life and how our ambition is driving us to the destruction of the planet, which I totally agree with.
26:00Is it not possible for us to have ambition and self-realization, self-clarity at the same time?
26:08Again, I went through your book. There was a quote that I found.
26:12It said, you had written that you must clearly inquire to what extent all your worldly endeavors have actually nurtured your inner well-being.
26:21So, in the same sense, if I want my own practice, if I want to go into the corporate setup, if I want to move out of India and go to another country where doctors are paid better, does that come and hinder me in the way of my self-clarity?
26:38Can I not have both things at the same time? Am I wrong for having that dream?
26:42No, no, not at all. Not at all. I am glad you raised this. You see, ambition, dreams, desires, these are also forms of action, subtle actions, action that has not yet become material.
26:59Right? It's a plan. You do not see it because it has not materialized in a tangible sense. But it has already occurred here, within. So, it is action.
27:12No action in itself is good or bad, right or wrong, whatever. That classification is irrelevant. What matters is the center the particular action is coming from.
27:29The point your action is coming from. Ambition, or action, or desire, whatever you call it, or plan, or wanting to go there, being that, having money.
27:43It can't be called good, it can't be called bad, virtue, vice. None of these labels can be applied to it. It can't be judged.
27:51The only thing you have to ask yourself is, where am I coming from? Yes, killing is bad, you would say, especially as savers of life. You are life givers. Right?
28:03Killing is bad. You want to save lives. And what's the context of the Bhagavad Gita then? Arjun, get up and fight. And kill if needed.
28:17Kill if needed. And those are not strangers in front. Krishna is saying, fight down even your own kith and kin. Your teachers, the gurus are there, the brothers are there, the pitama is there, and if needed, kill them.
28:36In fact, Arjun is rebuked when he is hesitant. So, no action can be absolutely right or absolutely wrong. It depends totally on whether or not you know what things are like.
28:57And what does that mean, very specifically? That means, what is that? Who am I? And what is the relationship between the two of us?
29:07Once you are clear on that, then spontaneously the right action occurs. You don't need to be guided then. You don't need to be told.
29:16You don't have to consult a manual of living. Is this classified as a do or a don't? Is this permissible?
29:27Right? Or is this stopped? You won't have to think of that. So, collecting money can be a wonderful thing.
29:39Think of, let's say somebody like Madan Mohan Malviyeh, gathering funds to raise one of the greatest universities of that time, the BHU.
29:50And he was travelling all over the country. He came to Hyderabad and got a really fat sum from here. He came here just for the purpose of collecting money.
30:02Money can be a wonderful thing. The question is, do you know what to use it for? Going abroad can be a wonderful thing. You said you want to go abroad.
30:12Vivekananda did go abroad. Did he not? 1993 Chicago and we all celebrate that. Going abroad can be a wonderful thing. The question is, what is it within you that wants you to leave your shores?
30:26What is it within you? Equally, the acts that we think of as necessarily benign or pious, good, even holy, might actually contain a lot of evil if those acts are coming from the wrong centre or a centre of ignorance or indifference.
30:48That which may look like a wild thing might actually be a great thing if it's coming from the right place. Anger can be a wonderful thing.
31:00Anger can be a wonderful thing. That image, we just talked of the Gita, the image of Krishna rushing towards Bhishma with the chariot wheel as the weapon.
31:14It's immortalised. It's immortalised. And Krishna is angry in that moment. Anger can be a great thing provided anger is coming from the right point.
31:22And not being angry can be a very silly thing if your lack of anger is coming from the wrong centre.
31:33From the right centre, you could be angry or not desirous or not ambitious or not angry and it would all be very wrong.
31:46It all depends not on the work. It all depends not on the deed but on the doer. Not on the action but on the actor.
31:53So, wonderful, fly away. But please be clear on why you want to fly away.
32:01And if you have clarity, then you will never have to look at somebody for sanction, for permission.
32:12And also you will be unstoppable. When you will have clarity, the entire world might want to prohibit you, stop you.
32:19And you will say no. I know what I am doing and therefore I am unstoppable.
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