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00:00With so many platforms, particularly social media platform, somewhere down the line dropping the attention span as well as distorting
00:08an age-old habit of reading.
00:12The problem is not that the attention spans are small. The problem actually is that the attention spans are still
00:22not zero.
00:24You need to have some respect for your own dissatisfaction.
00:29Oh, you don't have attention spans. They don't have attention spans because they don't want to eat garbage. Therefore, they
00:36quickly scroll away.
00:38Now, honor yourself. Declare your dissatisfaction.
00:42What would you call someone who returns to the same place where he is daily abused?
00:48Does this person have any self-respect?
00:50Just because Badat Singh and Swami Vivekananda didn't have the opportunity to go through Facebook or Instagram for that matter,
00:59that's why they chose book.
01:00It was much the same for all 35 crore people in India in Vivekananda's time.
01:09It's not something special or unique that they witnessed or experienced.
01:15Then the enemy was visible right in front of the eyes.
01:19The enemy would say, yes, I am here to rule you. I am the oppressor.
01:23Today, the enemy is sitting.
01:31Achareji, in the age of cutting-edge technology with the seamless penetration of internet started with so many platforms, particularly
01:39social media platform,
01:41somewhere down the line dropping the attention span, as well as distorting an age-old habit of reading.
01:48So, being a scholar who has to door itself into books most of the time, I see around me people
01:56who have the advantage, unlike the large scale of the audience who could not even go to the bookshop and
02:02buy a book.
02:02How can we rebuild that culture of reading again?
02:06And one more question adding to that, how has you been impacted by reading and in making you, whatever you
02:14are today, what has been the role of reading?
02:18When you are talking of shortening attention spans, do you know what that actually means?
02:29That means, whatever is coming in front of the eyes, of the mind, is not something the self is actually
02:47looking for.
02:50Therefore, you quickly scroll away.
02:57What is needed is the dignity to honour your own dissatisfaction.
03:07If it is something that you want to so quickly get away from, why to return to it again and
03:17again?
03:21How do these platforms, for example, count a view?
03:27For them, view is some kind of technical term, right?
03:30How is a view counted?
03:34If you have spent one second there, that's counted as a view.
03:40That's counted as a view.
03:42And you know that if a short video has a million views, a million views, views as a technical term,
03:5390% of them would be views amounting to not more than two or four seconds.
04:07Fundamentally, that means that most of the people who viewed that clip were dissatisfied with the clip.
04:18You need to have some respect for your own dissatisfaction.
04:27Instead, your dissatisfaction counts as a view.
04:36They could have said, you know, it would be counted as a view only when the fellow stays on it
04:40for at least 15 or 30 seconds.
04:43But then you will have most of these videos having 5, 10, 50 views, that's all.
04:51A million view real would find itself reduced to 500 views.
05:02Do you get this?
05:03So, reducing attention spans are not something to implicate the youth with.
05:14Oh, you don't have attention spans.
05:16They don't have attention spans because they are alive.
05:20Because they don't want to eat garbage.
05:23Therefore, they quickly scroll away.
05:28The problem is not that the attention spans are small.
05:36The problem actually is that the attention spans are still not zero.
05:44Zero attention towards garbage would mean zero tolerance towards crap.
05:53And that is what is needed.
05:56And that's the real meaning of self-esteem.
06:00This is crap.
06:01I won't return to it.
06:04I won't let hope fool me.
06:11Just yesterday night, I spent two hours dead scrolling.
06:18And being sharp of intellect, I know those two lost hours will never return.
06:26I know I made a fool of myself.
06:29But I love and respect myself enough to not to return to that platform now.
06:35That's what is needed.
06:38Or rather, would you want attention spans to rise when the object being attended to is itself unworthy?
06:49Please tell me.
06:5199.99% of the objects around are unworthy.
06:57Do you want attention spans to rise?
07:00Do you want youth to in fact dedicate more time to rubbish?
07:05It's good that these things don't get your attention.
07:08It's auspicious.
07:11What's needed is that you reduce your attention to zero.
07:18And that requires self-love.
07:21That requires you to honour your life.
07:25And say, I won't waste myself here.
07:28This is rubbish.
07:31And then there is an open space with the possibility of something higher.
07:40Now you can go to something else.
07:43And that something else could be a book as well.
07:47Could be a book as well.
07:50I respect books a lot.
07:52I have a huge personal library of my own.
07:55But I also know that even the thing called book is just an expression of technology.
08:02It is a particular kind of technology.
08:05Book in itself is not knowledge.
08:08What we call as the print medium is just one particular way of delivering knowledge.
08:15There could be several other ways.
08:16How as a society we can reclaim that art of reading.
08:20Not for the sake of scoring marks in the examination.
08:23Or passing examination.
08:25But for the sake of pleasure.
08:27Because history tells us all those people who have been great leaders.
08:31Irrespective of any field.
08:33They were avid readers.
08:34For example, Swami Vivekananda, whom I have been a great follower since childhood.
08:40Or for that matter, Bhagat Singh.
08:41They both were avid, rapid and voracious reader.
08:45In fact, the making of the life of the Bhagat Singh was entirely based on the kind of reading he
08:51did by himself.
08:52And for any nation building.
08:54Or man building itself.
08:55Or man making rather.
08:57There is a need of a intellectual capacity.
09:00Which we are depriving ourselves with these kinds of flimsy or rather I would say shallow distraction.
09:08At the same time recently I saw a comment made by the education secretary of England.
09:14Which is equivalent to the education minister.
09:17Her name is Brigitte Philipson.
09:19She said that not reading is not only a matter of intellectual depravity.
09:25But it's a matter of threat to national security.
09:28For some people it could be an exaggeration.
09:31But I personally feel that there is much more to it.
09:35You see, first thing, Swami Vivekananda or Bhagat Singh or the other luminaries of the past,
09:48they didn't have to face this situation, this ecology, this choice.
09:58They never had Instagram.
10:01That's true.
10:05And when you talk of the greats of the past, those ways were not even available to them.
10:11Otherwise it is possible.
10:12Why discount that possibility?
10:15That you might have found that they were using some way in addition to the book route.
10:24If not as a substitute, then as a compliment.
10:31Let's say, if audio books were available to Swami Vivekananda, why imagine he would discard them totally?
10:42Why imagine that he would only prefer to read as if the optical route has something special?
10:52It's about what reaches here, right?
10:54Whether through the optical route or the oral route.
10:57The route doesn't matter.
10:58The print technology is in itself nothing sacred.
11:02There could be other technologies as well.
11:10Are we getting it?
11:12You are already dissatisfied.
11:16Now, honour yourself.
11:20Declare your dissatisfaction.
11:25What would you call someone who returns to the same place where he is daily abused?
11:35Does this person have any self-respect?
11:40Your phone, that screen, is often the place you are daily abused.
11:46Daily abused as a viewer, as a consumer.
11:49And yet you keep returning to it.
11:53That's the problem.
11:53That attention span must now reduce to absolutely zero.
12:01And with that zero on one side, there would be the possibility of something great on the other side.
12:11These two will complement each other.
12:16With your energies divested from nonsense, now you can give yourself to, invest yourself in something worthwhile.
12:31Otherwise you are just scattered.
12:38I experienced that in a cinema hall.
12:41The fellow was watching the movie and alongside.
12:49You can't even entertain yourself pointedly.
12:59And obviously that is happening in the classroom.
13:01If mobile phones are allowed.
13:04That's happening when you are writing your projects.
13:08That's happening at the gym.
13:14Is that happening even while swimming?
13:17Well, we have water resistant watches, right?
13:21So you can like, scrolling.
13:25While swimming.
13:28Why scatter yourself and drown?
13:32In nonsense.
13:39Intolerance is needed.
13:42What is seen is seen.
13:48Don't unsee it.
13:56What is realized is realized.
13:58Don't unrealize it.
14:00Once is enough.
14:04Because you have one life.
14:14During the course of your talk, you said that just because Bhagat Singh and Swami Vivekananda didn't have the opportunity
14:20to go through, let's say, Facebook or Instagram for that matter.
14:25That's why they chose book.
14:26But what about the thing that they went through.
14:29They were having lot of atrocities being inflicted upon.
14:32And they were living in a kind of a impression that was in him when.
14:36But despite that, they chose to reflect back.
14:39That environment, for example, was much the same for all 35 crore people in India in Vivekananda's time.
14:55It's not something special or unique that they witnessed or experienced.
15:03It's a choice to respond honestly to it.
15:07Can we imagine today's youth to be in the same shoes?
15:10It's a choice.
15:12It does not depend on your imagination.
15:15You can imagine all night and yet nothing would come out of it.
15:22It's a choice you have to make.
15:24Bhagat Singh made a choice.
15:25Rest of India didn't.
15:30An Indian hanged him.
15:32An Indian cut his body to pieces.
15:34An Indian stuffed those pieces in some gunny sack.
15:41An Indian carried those pieces to the riverside and burnt them there in secrecy.
15:48Bhagat Singh chose something.
15:50The rest of the country didn't choose that.
15:52Similarly, today again,
15:55there are great catastrophes unfolding.
15:59Greater catastrophes than were there in Bhagat Singh's time.
16:06Then maybe the question
16:11was of a nation's liberation.
16:14Today the matter is of a planet's salvation.
16:19Then the enemy was visible right in front of the eyes.
16:23The enemy had some honesty.
16:25The enemy would say,
16:27Yes, I am here to rule you. I am the oppressor.
16:30Today the enemy is sitting right inside you.
16:32Today the threat is arguably greater than what those greats faced.
16:45But just as only a few people chose to respond to those threats at that time.
16:52Similarly, today, in spite of presence of these colossal threats, very few people are choosing to be responsible, loving and
17:03therefore responsive.
17:06Nobody is responding.
17:08Like IIT Rootki had a long history of building the infrastructure of India.
17:13So, one piece of advice you would like to give to us to the students of IIT.
17:19How should we build an internal infrastructure so that we will be able to
17:22Are you done first of all with your part?
17:25Yes.
17:25Yes.
17:26Thank you for answering the question.
17:29So that we would be able to handle this pressure of the modern era.
17:41It's almost like a 90 degree turn.
17:44It requires infinite acceleration.
17:48And that puts a lot of pressure on the system, doesn't it?
17:53Infinite acceleration.
17:54This way and then something orthogonal comes up.
17:59Sir, there is some momentum within.
18:01You should.
18:02Okay, fine.
18:02Repeat.
18:06So, I wanted to ask you that.
18:09Please give us one advice.
18:11That's so that we could build our internal infrastructure in such a way.
18:15So that we could be able to handle the pressure of this modern world.
18:18No, you don't need internal infrastructure.
18:21You need to demolish the internal infrastructure.
18:26The internal place must be clean and empty of all the infrastructure that the colonial masters
18:35have built here.
18:36And by colonial masters, I do not mean the Brits.
18:40A colonizer is someone who enters a place just to exploit it.
18:49You don't even know who has entered this place and is exploiting you.
18:53And to exploit you, he has built a lot of structures here.
18:57Social structures, structures of thought, structures of ideology, corporate structures.
19:03They are all sitting within you.
19:05Structures of organized religion.
19:07All of these things, political structures.
19:09They are all sitting here.
19:12You don't need more structures.
19:14You need a bulldozer to flatten these structures.
19:18You need to reclaim your inner cleanliness.
19:22That inner empty space must be yours.
19:25Clean like sky.
19:29I know this is not the answer you wanted.
19:34But then this is also not the question I wanted.
19:47What were we talking?
19:49What were we engaged in?
19:51And then 90 degree.
19:56And you gave up, needlessly.
19:59And I am continuously saying, reclaim your space.
20:04Declare your rights.
20:05Sir, he is much junior to me.
20:07I was being magnanimous.
20:08It doesn't matter.
20:09It doesn't matter.
20:09I was being generous to him.
20:11After...
20:12This is...
20:15This is not generosity.
20:16This is abdication of responsibility.
20:20It is your responsibility.
20:21It is your responsibility to carry it to the end.
20:23When so many of them have stakes in this discussion.
20:28Hmm?
20:33That's fine.
20:36So, my name is Tanvi.
20:39I joined the Gita community recently.
20:43My reason for joining was that I wanted to understand why are we running so much in life?
20:49And where do we stop?
20:50And the Gita journey has helped me discover the meaning behind life.
20:55And the true reason why we should be even living.
21:01And attending the live session was very different from attending a recording.
21:05Because you are more present.
21:06You are more grounded.
21:07You are surrounded by people that are like-minded.
21:10And you realize that you are just a part of something bigger, something whole.
21:16And it was a newer experience for me.
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