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00:00Would you say that a solution to pollution can be found in the Gita?
00:05Pollution is a symptom, not a problem.
00:07Carbon emissions, the bulk of them, are coming from the top 5% of the population, the rich ones.
00:16Don't you see many of them keep saying increase population, population collapse is happening, population decline is a big threat.
00:22Don't you see why they are saying this?
00:24Produce customers, producing a product, a material, doesn't suffice.
00:28You must also produce a customer.
00:31Weddings are fat occasions of consumerism, aren't they?
00:35The common man will be suffering the most.
00:49So our next topic, sir, would be something that you and I both are very passionate about.
00:56It's climate change.
00:57Sir, you know, the more the pollution that we're throwing out, that is causing, you know, a lot of warming.
01:04Basically, it's trapping the heat and it's not letting it escape.
01:07And that in turn is warming up the atmosphere.
01:10That is what we are seeing.
01:12All kind of records, like you mentioned, are being broken.
01:14And this is the cycle and the pattern that is being followed.
01:17What is the solution to save pollution?
01:20Something that there have been policies and policies, but nothing seems to be working.
01:23See, even now, the common man, not just in the global south, but even in places like America,
01:33you'd be surprised, is releasing a quantity of carbon, which is more or less sustainable.
01:45And I'm talking not just of the common man in India, but in the U.S. as well.
01:53Carbon emissions, the bulk of them are coming from the top 5% of the population, the rich ones.
02:03Specifically, the top 1%.
02:05Right.
02:06The most developed countries are contributing more to...
02:09No, no, not the countries, not the countries.
02:11Even within U.S., even within U.S.
02:13It is the rich, of course.
02:14It is only the rich and the ultra-rich that are really responsible for the bulk of the carbon emissions.
02:23Also, the emissions that are being contributed by the common man,
02:27they are being encouraged and motivated by the rich.
02:29You see, the rich are rich because they sell products to the common middle class.
02:35Right.
02:35They are rich because they are getting money from you and me as consumers and customers.
02:40And how are we turned into customers?
02:44By diluting and corrupting our basic philosophy of life.
02:48We are told, unless you consume, your life is not rich.
02:53It's a materialistic world.
02:55The more what is being conceived, the more you have, the better it is.
02:57Yes, and they implant this materialistic philosophy in your mind
03:04so that they may not just remain rich, but have a surging bottom line year after year.
03:11Even a constant level of profits won't suffice.
03:15Even the profits have to rise by a particular percentage every year.
03:17How will that happen if you and I don't consume?
03:20So they encourage us not just to consume, but also to proliferate.
03:24Don't you see many of them keep saying increase population,
03:26population collapse is happening, population decline is a big threat.
03:30Don't you see why they are saying this?
03:32Because if you don't exist as a customer, to whom is...
03:36Help us establish a link between, you know, inner loneliness and over-consuming things.
03:43Why do we all have these wish lists that we want this and if we have this...
03:46No, you don't have it.
03:47You don't have it.
03:48You have been subjected to it.
03:51You are not born with it.
03:53You see, it's a propaganda.
03:55Loneliness is a propaganda.
03:58You are being told that you are lonely so that you may purchase something as your companion.
04:03The thing that you purchase as your companion could be a material object or an animate person.
04:11It doesn't matter who he is.
04:12The thing is, whether you bring this home or whether you enter into a wedding arrangement with someone,
04:19somebody's pockets are going to get lined.
04:22Weddings are fat occasions of consumerism, aren't they?
04:28So, loneliness too, if you would look at it, is a consumerist concept.
04:35We are being made to feel lonely.
04:38The culture is being driven by money.
04:43There are movies and you look at those movies and you say, you know, there's a couple there
04:47and they're having such a great time and I'm the only one without a partner.
04:51And you never bother to ask who is financing that movie.
04:55And why must it carry only a particular kind of script?
04:59Is it something about the very nature of homo sapiens?
05:04Or is it something more social, more external?
05:07So, you would say consumerism is the root cause of ecological damage?
05:11Of course.
05:12Of course.
05:12And that consumerism is being fueled by the capitalist who wants to turn the entire world into customers
05:23because just producing isn't enough.
05:27You must also produce customers.
05:30Producing a product, a material doesn't suffice.
05:33You must also produce a customer.
05:35And a man or a woman can be turned into a customer only by making him feel deprived, unriched and lonely.
05:44The more desperate and frustrated and inwardly poor you can make a person feel,
05:51the more he'll feel like going out and shopping.
05:54So, is guilt, what, you know, the role that guilt plays when it comes to people, you know, falling into this trap?
06:03Even that guilt is a construct.
06:06You have been trained to feel guilty.
06:09If you don't have these many things in your life, then you're not living it up.
06:13Or if you're not able to provide these many things to your kids, then you're not the ideal parent.
06:18Don't you look at their taglines?
06:21There is a product and then it says the ideal man.
06:24Or the complete man.
06:26Or the loved woman.
06:29Now, love has been tied very shrewdly to a product.
06:34If someone can bring that product to you.
06:38The love language for people has become gifts.
06:41There was this ad.
06:43Very, very veteran ad.
06:45So, the wife has to feel unloved if she is not gifted this particular pressure cooker by the husband.
07:06Would you say that a solution to pollution can be found in the Gita?
07:11See, pollution is a symptom, not a problem.
07:17Man has...
07:204 billion years ago, life started on this planet.
07:24Did we ever have the problem of pollution?
07:26At least man-made pollution?
07:28No, never.
07:29We had massive beings here.
07:31Dinosaurs and all.
07:32But we never had massive pollution.
07:34We have different problems today than what we had back then.
07:38We had poverty and many other problems, illiteracy amongst others.
07:42Today, our problems are different, for sure.
07:44See, the problems that we had back then, the problems that we have today, they are all really coming from the same source.
07:52They are coming from ignorance.
07:54You pointed at illiteracy.
07:56We are still inwardly illiterate.
07:58Just that then, we didn't know about how the suns and the moons operate, whether the earth is flat or not, where do the oceans end, where do storms come from?
08:10We didn't know all those things.
08:11Today, we know all those things.
08:13But inwardly, we do not know.
08:15Do we know where the emotional storm comes from today?
08:18We might know where a particular cyclone is coming from, and through the satellites, we can very cleverly predict it also.
08:26You've spoken about the internal storm.
08:28That's greed.
08:29How do you encourage companies and corporates to be more responsible, environmentally?
08:35Not just greed.
08:36Everything internally is a storm that carries us away.
08:40It is greed.
08:41It is fear.
08:43It's also what you call as love.
08:45It is lust.
08:46It is anger.
08:46Everything is a storm.
08:48A storm, by definition, is something you can't really withstand.
08:52Otherwise, it's a gentle breeze.
08:53Inwardly, we have so many storms, and we do not know a thing about where they are coming from.
08:57You're talking about corporate greed.
08:59Even the corporations do not know why they must earn so much.
09:05Even they have been indoctrinated into thinking that if you are running an organization, a firm, then the only justification for its success is the bottom line.
09:15Even they do not know.
09:17Nobody knows anything.
09:18But we behave as if we are clear in our objectives, and we rush full steam ahead.
09:25That's a problem.
09:27Inward literacy is needed.
09:29And that's where the Bhagavad Gita comes in, wisdom literature comes in, the Upanishads come in, philosophies and darshans come in, Vedant comes in.
09:37You speak about the animal within.
09:40You talk about the animal inside.
09:41How can one help alleviate our consciousness towards our surroundings, towards leaving behind a healthier planet for the next generation?
09:52It's not so much about the next generation.
09:55It's about, first of all, what I'm doing to myself.
09:58If I'm not alright with myself, how can I do any good to any generation after me?
10:03The animal within.
10:05What to do with it?
10:06Know that there is an animal within.
10:10Acknowledge it.
10:11We talk, we behave as if there is some great divinity within.
10:15We were talking of the storm.
10:19When the storm rages, do we hear dogs barking?
10:24We don't.
10:25Instead, we call it as some divine love or something sacred that needs to be executed.
10:35Or at least something that deserves our backing.
10:38We don't see that it's just the ancient animals clamoring within.
10:42So the animal has to be seen for an animal.
10:48That's possible only when you can very neutrally, impartially observe your thoughts, emotions, actions, and see that they all have an animalistic basis.
10:58The instincts that you have, the motives you have, they are all so similar to what even the street dog has, what even your cat has, what the apes and the chimpanzees have.
11:13Fundamentally, all that we want is not just similar, but same as everything that the animals want.
11:20And when you can see that animal, you somehow transcend that animal.
11:26Right.
11:27You know, when we talk about what is it that one can do in order to contribute towards healing the planet, everyone says, you know, this has nothing to do with me.
11:37It's probably got to do with the corporates.
11:39It's probably got to do with the government.
11:40And they need to be the ones taking the action and not us.
11:43In your opinion, what is it, the little, little changes that one can make?
11:47You've spoken about how a 10% of the population can really bring about the change.
11:52You see, a fundamental thing.
11:55If you are the one suffering, then you must be the one responsible for healing your suffering.
12:02The governments can be blamed, the corporations can be blamed, the rich ones can be blamed.
12:10But who's the one suffering?
12:12The fact is, the ones who are the most responsible for emissions will be suffering the least.
12:22The common man will be suffering the most, even if he is not really responsible so much for the emissions.
12:29So if I am the one suffering, then the responsibility is on me to take corrective action.
12:37And I have to do whatever I can.
12:38For example, I'm doing whatever I can.
12:40You must do whatever you can.
12:42In your book, you've spoken about spirituality is where the answer lies, the solution lies.
12:47Yes, because we are thinking of technological and political solutions.
12:51We are saying that we must have more fuel-efficient vehicles and we must have greener and cleaner technologies, which is all very good and very welcome.
13:02But that will never take care of the root cause.
13:06Because even if you reduce, for example, an EV, if it is being fuelled with clean energy, that's the best case scenario.
13:19Even then it reduces emissions over its entire lifetime, which includes its manufacturing as well as disposal.
13:26Maximum, it reduces emissions by 40 to 50%.
13:31And if you are fueling the EV with unclean energy, as we have in India, coal-fired plants, then an EV over its entire life cycle reduces emissions only by around 20%.
13:43Now, if I'm inwardly greedy and accumulative and jealous, instead of having one fossil fuel car, a gasoline or a diesel car, by way of being one up on my neighbor, I'll have two EVs.
14:02Right?
14:04The footprint of the diesel vehicle was 1.0.
14:08The footprint of the EV is 0.7.
14:10But if I have two EVs, that amounts to 1.4.
14:14How is that technological solution of any help?
14:17When I was in the campus, this campus, IIT, there were not as many flyovers as we have today.
14:25Ring Road, Outer Ring Road.
14:27And if I had to go to Gathibad or Noida, it used to take me an hour or something to reach that place.
14:35Today, the roads are far wider.
14:38It's been 30 years now.
14:41The roads are wider.
14:42We have just so many flyovers.
14:44We also have the metro.
14:46But the traffic is worse.
14:47But it takes me more time to reach Noida or Gaziabad from here.
14:53Right?
14:53Technological solutions don't work.
14:55If the insides have not been provided a solution, if the population goes on increasing, if everybody keeps on thinking that happiness is the goal of human life and happiness is obtained by consuming more and more, there is no way a tech or political solution is going to work.
15:14And therefore, I say, addressing the heart of the human being is the only way to deal with climate change.
15:21This crisis has no other solution.
15:24Right.
15:25So, sustainable living requires spirituality.
15:27Is that what you're saying?
15:28And the consciousness of one has to be at a level where you are aware of your surroundings more than you are at the moment?
15:33See, in spirituality, we do not even talk of sustainable living.
15:38Once you understand who you are and what you must do, you have all the freedom to do whatever you want to do.
15:46And it will be sustainable.
15:48It will be sustainable.
15:49Thank you so much for helping us know a little bit more about pollution, climate change, and, of course, traffic being one of the biggest problems and the biggest contributor to pollution and, therefore, climate change.
16:11Welcome.
16:11Welcome.
16:19Welcome.
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