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00:00You spoke about unconscious freedom and in a country like India where we have such diverse
00:05cultures in so many states. So here how do you bring a common ground? There is something in
00:11common among all of us already and what is it? Don't you want to grow? Don't you want to learn?
00:17Don't you want to explore the truth? Don't you want to fly free? We are talking about growing
00:21freedom into a conscious choice. You need to institutionalize it. Many countries like China,
00:28Japan, they got their independence or overcome some sort of calamities or adversities. How come
00:33they have progressed so far in the world economy while we have lagged behind? Democracy is not just
00:37about elections or having rights. Today, India's literacy rate is just 77% and China has almost
00:46cent percent literacy. That's a huge difference. From where will you get innovation? If your kids
00:51are not well educated and even if they are educated, they are just moving towards the service sector
00:57rather than the innovation line, how will you lead the world?
01:00Sir, do democracy is a barrier for our country development and we should have a communist
01:04government just like China? That would be even worse. Don't try that. Don't try that. No.
01:14I am Suresh Kumar Das pursuing my PhD here in Economics. Now, I would like to start with a question that
01:19touches the heart of every person in this room. That is along with us, many countries like China, Japan,
01:25they got their independence or overcome some sort of calamities or adversities. How come they have
01:30progressed so far in the world economy while we have lagged behind?
01:39See, what you call as progress, measured by many indicators, most importantly GDP,
01:49is not something totally external. It is driven by something internal in the first place.
02:05So, we look at the total production, then consumption and then we say this is the net economic output.
02:14We look at the size of the military, we look at technologies and innovations, we look at the length of railroads,
02:25we look at energy, steel production. And in looking at all these things, it is easy to miss
02:33the inner driver of external order. Because when we are talking of external production,
02:46then you definitely mean something that comes from a structure, an order, right?
02:53It is not like a random tree in the jungle that flowers and fruits at its appointed time. You are talking
03:04of roads, you are talking of factories, you are talking of ports and airports, and they require order.
03:10Now till 1990, India and China were roughly similar in terms of both the total GDP and the per capita GDP. In fact,
03:25India was ahead till the mid 80s in terms of per capita GDP.
03:29Then we find China speeding along one road and India languishing behind. India had the democratic road
03:43and China had the state-controlled communist road.
03:48Now, when we talk of democracy, we mean freedom. So ideally, we would like to think that the path of freedom,
04:02inner freedom should give better external results also, right? If you have freedom for the individual,
04:13all kinds of freedoms are enshrined in our constitution. Article 15, 19, 20, 21 and that entire stretch.
04:26You would want to think that where the citizenry is more free, there would be more order on the outside,
04:33but that is not necessary. See, what you have in India is more of an unconscious democracy.
04:43And what you have in China is more of a disciplined collectivism.
04:55It is not really democracy versus communism. Our democracy is qualified by the word unconscious.
05:08We have freedom. We have freedom. But we have freedom without the education on what freedom really means.
05:20And when you do not know what freedom really means, then freedom is noise, freedom is chaos.
05:27Freedom will not result in inner order, let alone outer order.
05:31And for external progress, you require order, right? You won't even have inner order. How will you have outer order?
05:43Similarly, what you have there is not just communism. You should rather call it the power of enforced discipline,
05:52enforced collective discipline. And that's what you find searching ahead of unconscious freedom.
06:02Right? And the surge is evident in all kinds of metrics. We talked of 1990 when we were comparable.
06:10Today, they stand at 18 trillion. We are at 4 trillion.
06:16In per capita terms, they are ahead by five times. Right?
06:21And you look at any measure of material progress, they are well ahead of us, truly ahead of us.
06:32Because we thought of democracy
06:35democracy as something given. We didn't realize that the human being must be given the power to choose.
06:48But alongside or rather before the power, he must be given the wisdom to choose.
06:53democracy is not just about elections or having rights. Democracy is first of all about having the wisdom
07:03as to how to choose. If we do not know how to choose, then instead of order or growth or betterment,
07:14all you will get is a hodgepodge. And that's what is evident here. You look at the law and order indices
07:24in China and India and China does much better than India.
07:30India. The number of murders in India is four times that of China.
07:43Any measure of, I mean, you look at the worker productivity.
07:48The average Chinese worker is two and a half times more productive than the average Indian worker.
07:53A lot of that has to do with technology also. We understand. A lot of that also has to do with the
07:59fact that a lot of our economy is the informal sector. We understand. But still two and a half times
08:05is a lot. Right? Even in terms of number of hours put in per week, the Chinese worker is ahead of the
08:13Indian worker by a few hours. Though that is not something necessarily welcome. Right? Or even needed.
08:22We do not want to have 50 or 55 hour work weeks. But what remains is that freedom given to someone
08:30who does not know the meaning of freedom will not result in something auspicious. Right? First of all,
08:42freedom must be an inner thing. And when freedom is an inner thing,
08:46freedom becomes an inner thing. You know where your bondages are.
08:55Otherwise, freedom becomes the fulfillment of desire.
09:00I must be free to eat a pizza as per my desire. And that is your definition of freedom.
09:09This is freedom without wisdom and freedom without responsibility.
09:15And when you will have these things, you will not progress neither inwardly nor outwardly.
09:21Another thing that we must really think about is education.
09:31You name Japan, you name China, you must include the entire Southeast Asia there.
09:37of course, Singapore, Taiwan, even countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Korea.
09:48They all got their freedom almost at the same time as India did.
09:54In some ways, you can even include Israel. Right? 1948. They were born. And they were in a pathetic state.
10:04You know of the Holocaust. And they were not even natives. Right? They gathered in Israel from all over the world.
10:11So, we all started at the same time. India, Southeast Asia, Israel. But one crucial difference between India and the other stories has been the focus on education.
10:28Primary education, primary enrollment.
10:33We focused a lot on higher education. And that was a wonderful thing to do.
10:37Right? IITs. This one is a new one. But we know of how we brought up the so-called temples of modern India
10:50in the 1950s and 60s. And that was a beautiful thing. But that should have been accompanied by
10:59a stronger focus at the grassroots level. That didn't happen. So much so that even today,
11:07India's literacy rate is just 77%. And China has almost 100% literacy. That's a huge difference.
11:16Entire Southeast Asia, with few minor exceptions, has complete literacy. 100% literacy. That's a big thing.
11:24IITs. You know of PISA? PISA? No, sir. Heard of PISA?
11:35No, not that PISA.
11:37No, no, not that PISA.
11:39It's a program for student assessment. Program for international student assessment.
11:44Right? It assesses students globally on their comprehension skills, whether they can really
11:53read and understand. Yes. And science and mathematics.
12:00It's a long-standing program. Several decades old. We participated in it.
12:06And then we have dropped out and we have refused to again participate. Reason?
12:14The last time we participated, we barely avoided the last rank.
12:19And China topped. China topped. I suppose only Kyrgyzstan was below us.
12:28We were the second last. And China was right at number one.
12:32And since then, we have adamantly refused to participate in the assessment.
12:43For a few years, we said our students are affected by COVID, so we won't participate.
12:47And even this year, this year, the PISA assessment is scheduled to take place. India has again opted out.
12:53This is the consequence of ignoring primary education, middle education. Our students just don't hold up.
13:08Are you kidding this? And then,
13:14the Chinese are filing 16 lakh patents every year. We don't file even 1 lakh.
13:20That's the state of education here.
13:27Public and private sector combined, they put 2.6% of their GDP into R&D.
13:34We put some 0.5% or maybe less than that. I don't know the latest figures.
13:43These things are connected. Do you see this? From where will you get innovation?
13:47If your kids are not well educated, and even if they are educated, they are just moving
13:55towards the service sector rather than the innovation line,
14:00how will you lead the world?
14:02Today, we are still building more coal-fired power plants.
14:06And China leads the world in renewable energy. Though also, one must qualify that China leads the world in
14:17global carbon emissions also. But they are kind of making up for it.
14:23When it comes to wind, solar, hydro.
14:26They are far ahead of not just India, but actually the entire world.
14:35Last year, or last to last, they installed more clean energy capacity than the rest of the world put together.
14:48Do you understand this? It's a matter of having a clear, educated vision.
15:03Do you understand? Just having democracy will not take you anywhere if those casting their vote are not educated enough.
15:11In fact, being free but being unconscious is worse than being a slave.
15:26We may debate this. In India, we debate a lot, no?
15:29They act and we debate. And debating is a wonderful thing. I want you to debate with me, definitely.
15:40But then, debating comes with certain ethics. Right?
15:46If it is seen and shown that a line of argument definitely holds above the rest,
15:54then that has to be acknowledged. Somebody has to surrender. Freedom does not mean freedom for
16:05continuous petulance and nonsense. Or does it? I will not agree even if you show me with facts and
16:15figures and concrete proof. I will still not agree. Is that freedom? Is that freedom?
16:20That is freedom to harm ourselves. That is freedom to harm yourself. Right. So, that is one thing that we are
16:29probably failing to acknowledge. You cannot just get over with your responsibility by giving somebody
16:37choices. You have to also educate him how to exercise that choice. And we have not been educated in that.
16:44So, here I would like to bring another aspect. You spoke about unconscious freedom. And in a country like India,
16:52where we have such diverse cultures in so many states. So, here how do you bring a common ground
16:59to this inner environment of the people? And how do you educate them? See, the biggest minority is the
17:06individual himself. Right. In that sense, you can say we have 150 crore diversities.
17:16That is… I am coming to a point. I am trying to make a point through this. But there is something
17:23in common among all of us already. And what is it? Don't you want to grow? Don't you want to learn?
17:32Don't you want to explore the truth? Don't you want to fly free? So, it is not difficult at all
17:40to come to the underlying unifying substratum. Right. Superficially, apparently, there is a lot of
17:49diversity and we have done well to celebrate that diversity. Wonderful. But as human beings,
17:55we do have a common ground that connects all of us. A platform on which we all stand pre-united. We all are
18:11creatures of consciousness, are we not? Yes. We are. So, that is already available.
18:18But then again, looking at the behavior of the masses and the language of leaders,
18:25it is easy to see that there is a lot of regionalism. Divisions happen on any basis in India,
18:30whether it is linguistic or regionalist or communal. So, when we have a diverse culture like this,
18:37so leaders are easy to… leaders find it easier to win by dividing than by uniting. You see,
18:43leaders come from the people and people actually get the leaders they deserve. I believe in that.
18:52And leaders can fool a people only when the people are so gullible. Right. That's why leaders love
19:02uneducated audiences. Don't they? The more uneducated, the more you could say traditional,
19:14the more closed of mind and audiences, the more the leader is going to smile. Because it will be easier
19:23to sway them, to condition them, to indoctrinate them. Right. To present anything to them,
19:31when they are anyway not caring for the facts and figures. So, it's not so much about the leader.
19:40It is about the population in general. You require an education policy. You require the best minds of
19:49the country to be contributing to education. Which is again, that was my question. To clarify
19:56my question, how do you find a common thread between all these people? And how do we bind that thread
20:03together? Practically, how does it happen? See, I have forgotten your name. Right? That does not mean I need to
20:10remember. I don't even know the names of a friend sitting here. I don't know much of this audience here.
20:19But still, isn't there a beautiful unifying silence present here. Please tell me.
20:27Do I have to connect to you as somebody coming from North India? Or somebody coming from another IIT?
20:35Do I have to? What is it that connects us right now? A shared search for truth. Right? You are here to
20:49sincerely explore something. And I am here to sincerely share something. And in fact, explore with you.
20:57The two of us are together in that. Right? So, that's the common ground of being. As conscious individuals,
21:06our species loves to know. We love to explore. We don't enjoy being lied to. Somebody lies to you.
21:19Do you enjoy that? No. That's what connects each one of us. And that is also the antidote to all kinds
21:27of regionalism and factionalism. Right? So, delimitation of parliamentary constituencies.
21:34It's North versus South. Why should there be a fight? Let truth decide. Let the facts, figures and numbers
21:44decide. You have the population growth rate. Right? You know the literacy rate. You know the per capita
21:54income in the various states. You also know how the states have performed on other parameters of human
22:02welfare. We know of everything. Why should it be difficult to then come up with a formula that
22:09determines the representation of various states in the parliament. It should not be different. And in fact,
22:16that can be the only unifier. Truth. Apart from the truth, it will be very, very difficult to find
22:24a common ground on which the two of us can stand together. Getting it? And that truth later on,
22:33as it branches out, can take many names. Compassion, love, equality. Getting it? But the purest name is truth.
22:47And I enjoy saying facts are the door to truth. You cannot come to the absolute transcendental truth
22:57without knowing the facts on the ground.
23:03Otherwise, you will have imaginations. If you do not know facts, you will just keep imagining. And in your
23:08imagination, will never tally with mine. And then the two of us will fight. So, how to keep the country united?
23:15How to keep the country united? Only on the basis of truth. If you carry your imaginations, because you
23:23have not been educated deeply enough, and I lean on my imagination, because I too do not know the,
23:31or don't care to know the facts and figures. He will say his ideal is red. And I will say my ideal is yellow.
23:43And he is coming from his imagination. I am coming from my imagination.
23:46Or religious factionalism. You will say your God has four arms. And he will say his God has only two arms.
23:57And you will say no, God needs to have four. And he will say God needs to have two. And there is no way
24:04this can be reconciled. And then the two of you will fight. Fight to the end. Fight to your death.
24:10What can unite us? Only truth. Not the kind of freedom that arises from the center of ego.
24:20You remember that? My freedom means I am free to have a pizza at 2am. That is what freedom means to me.
24:26My way or the highway. That is freedom. No, that is not freedom. To be free, first of all, you have to
24:32identify what your internal bondages are. Externally. Our constitution is such a great one. It has
24:42bestowed great freedom on us. So externally, obviously, we are free. But are we free internally?
24:49Do we know of our internal bondages? Right education takes us there. Fear is an internal bondage.
24:56Being prejudiced is another one. Greed is another one. Jealousy is another one.
25:05False identification and attachment is another one. And as long as you are internally a slave,
25:10and externally you have a lot of freedom, that freedom will just be misused. And if you widen the context,
25:19you look at the most severe crisis mankind has faced over several, several centuries. Right? The Anthropocene,
25:31the sixth mass extinction. The climate catastrophe. Where is it coming from? Where is the entire climate
25:40crisis coming from? Freedom. I am free to consume and I will consume. I have my own imaginations about the
25:49happy life, the good life. And I'll pursue my imaginations. I'll pursue my concepts without bothering
25:56to inquire without bothering to cross-check, without bothering to verify and falsify. I'll not do any of these.
26:09What will I rather do? I'll pursue my desires and concepts and ideals and dreams.
26:17And what does all of that lead to? Just consumption. And that consumption is what is killing this planet.
26:26Right? Yes.
26:28So again, where does the hook to this self-exploration? When we are talking about this,
26:35we are talking about growing freedom into a conscious choice. Now, when we are addressing the
26:40inner environment, how does it happen? Like, does it start from family? Or does it start from
26:45education in school? Or does it happen that we wait for an individual to grow up to a certain age and
26:50he is to mature, you know, spontaneously or? Spontaneously, it doesn't happen. You need to
26:58institutionalize it. You cannot rely on the traditional, loose, informal, physical and emotional
27:10institution of the family. First thing is, it's not going to happen on its own. He's talking about how
27:16does one person attain the maturity to realize what real freedom is? Does it happen automatically with
27:25age? One is now 16 or 26. So, one has started realizing, you think it's that way? Does it happen?
27:32Do people really ripen with age? No. They become experienced, but not wise. Experience is not wisdom.
27:40You can spend an entire life just sleepwalking and that will not make you wiser.
27:49It also cannot be just an inherited family value. You cannot say parents will give it to you,
27:55because most often parents don't have it for even themselves. When parents don't have it,
28:02how will they give it to the kid? So, we said it has to be institutionalized.
28:07There has to be a system. There has to be a formal system of inner education that allows you to go
28:17within, explore a non-sectarian system, a system of what you can call as inner education or self-education,
28:28education of who am I. Otherwise, all we are dealing with is objects. This object, that object,
28:36that object. We have conveniently forgotten that this one is the subject of all objects.
28:43Right? We put our heart and soul and energy and time into everything as if they are all important.
28:51And nowhere do we bother to study who we are. And you cannot have inner freedom without knowing who
28:59you are, because that's where your bondages are. The kid is born with bondages. If you don't identify
29:07those bondages, how can there be any freedom? There is no possibility. But neither in the family nor in
29:16the formal education system are we taught about the self. Education of the self is what is missing.
29:24And as long as that is missing, we will remain a flawed and unconscious democracy.
29:29That would be even worse. Don't try that. Don't try that. No. I hope that's not what I have
29:47succeeded in communicating that democracy is not all right. So let's have an authoritarian system.
29:53No, no. Not at all. Not at all. Those who fought for our freedom. Right? They would say you must have
30:04complete freedom. Right now you have partial freedom. But the answer to partial freedom is not zero freedom. Or is it?
30:15What is your answer to partial freedom? Please tell me. Complete freedom. So that's what we need.
30:21Yes, we are deliberating on the perils of incomplete freedom.
30:28Yes, when you have incomplete freedom, you will find places like China leapfrogging ahead in many ways.
30:34That's right. That's true. We understand that. But that does not mean that we have to do away with freedom.
30:39Instead, we have to expand freedom. We have to expand freedom and bring it to the
30:46inner self. Right now all you have is outer freedom. Please understand. There is nothing in the constitution
30:57that can liberate you from yourself. The constitution is so that nobody else exploit you.
31:06So many provisions in the constitution and they are beautiful provisions. Their aim is let no external
31:15individual exploit you. So you have fundamental rights and you have checks and balances at the
31:22individual level, at the level of the state government and central government, everything.
31:26So the constitution ensures that there can be no external exploitation.
31:32But what if one is one's own worst exploiter? Please tell me.
31:39What if one is one's own worst exploiter? How will the constitution help you there?
31:47And the constitution is not even designed for that purpose.
31:50If you want to exploit him, he can seek legal constitutional remedy. Wonderful. But what if
32:00his own messed up thoughts and desires and concepts and beliefs make him exploit his own life?
32:10We are asking what if he is his own worst enemy?
32:13That's when only education of the self can save you. If you do not know who you are, you will act in ways
32:23that will destroy your own self, your life, the nation and the planet.
32:33Namaste everyone. My name is Paras Jasrai. I am from Gurgaon and I have been listening to Acharya Ji since
32:41June 2023. That was the first time when I met Acharya Ji on YouTube, on Kunal Kamra's podcast.
32:51And the one thing that really touched me was the fact that he talked about Upanishads and
32:58he talked about logic, facts and that's what really attracted me and helped me in terms of moving
33:05forward. And I've been into the Gita community since November 2023. But I've been listening to the sessions
33:15more deeply, only since end of last year only. And since that time, life has changed dramatically.
33:25Especially saying that when I attended the physical session of newer sessions that happened last year,
33:31I still remembered the one thing that Acharya Ji said like very fearlessly. That if you really understand
33:40me or if you really love me, then maybe you need to go to the ground and spread the message in terms of
33:47what we are doing here. And that was the time of reckoning for me. And since then, life has changed upside down.
33:56In the sense, maybe down side up, I would say, in the sense that now I'm part of the Gurugram bookstore team
34:02as well. And in the few months only of joining the team, we are right now trying to spread this mission
34:09in Gurugram through our bookstore initiative as quickly as possible and as widely as possible. And that's
34:17where also if you see, this is also the teacher is also part of that where the team name is Bodh Yatra.
34:25And Acharya Ji has helped us understand the true meaning of devotion, which is letting the truth take
34:32over. That is just understanding take over and out of that understanding the action will flow. So that's
34:38what is the message also, that be light, be free and be aware. So thank you.
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