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00:00A recent announcement made by CM of Andhra Pradesh to pay one-time incentive of 30,000 on having third
00:06child and 40,000 on having fourth child for encouraging the population growth.
00:11There is logic in this argument. It's not a made-up thing.
00:14You see, I belong to a southern state and the southern states are losing representation in the parliament because they
00:22are being outnumbered by the northern states.
00:24That's why we are incentivizing women to have more kids.
00:27How is this even love? Like offering 30,000 and 40,000?
00:32There is the pregnant woman. You are offering her money. How is that not love? That is love.
00:37Why else did God give you the body of a woman? We do love. But our love is very.
00:44So nobody is totally unloving. What we need is love that is expansive.
00:50Love that includes. Love that shines.
00:54There would always be an argument. How else does the log dharma operate?
00:59You can't be a leader. You can't be a manager. You can't be a good professional because you are a
01:04woman.
01:04The only thing that you can do and men cannot is...
01:14Namaste, Ajariji. I am Pooja. I am a software engineer working in Bangalore.
01:21My question is about like nowadays we are hearing about like heatwaves in India.
01:28And on the same hand, I have heard a recent announcement made by CM of Andhra Pradesh to pay one
01:37-time incentive of 30,000 on having third child and 40,000 on having fourth child for encouraging the population
01:46growth.
01:47And on the other hand, Amsterdam and Netherlands becomes the first capital city to like ban the public advertisements on
01:59meat products and fossil fuels.
02:01So like even the small country like Netherlands are becoming more conscious about the climate change and like India seems
02:12to be moving in other direction, more ignorant about the climate change and population growth.
02:18So how can we understand these two like events on the same?
02:26There's nothing to understand here.
02:29Yeah.
02:34There are directions in front of the ego.
02:40And every such direction is an option with a rationale, a justification.
02:52Whatever options you have in life to choose from,
02:58they all carry some argument in their favour.
03:09And then you choose which argument to prefer.
03:15There is the argument of narrowness and there is the argument of wideness.
03:29There is the shrinking ego.
03:35There is the shrinking ego.
03:38There is the expansive ego.
03:42It's a choice to be made.
03:47If you go to a person and say, why did you make a particular choice?
04:03You see, I belong to a southern state and the southern states are losing representation in the parliament because they
04:14are being outnumbered by the northern states.
04:16That's why we are incentivizing women to have more kids.
04:20There would always be an argument.
04:26And prima facie, all arguments carry some value.
04:32There is logic in this argument.
04:35It's not a made-up thing.
04:38It is true.
04:38Yes.
04:40Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Keral, Karnatak.
04:50The birth rates there have reduced by a far greater degree than what the north has accomplished.
05:09And instead of being applauded and incentivized for that, what the southern states are finding
05:17is that they might be losing proportional representation in the new Lok Sabha post the delimitation exercise.
05:31So, you would understand where the move is coming from.
05:37Additionally, there is the threat that if the population grows old and not enough babies are born,
05:47then you will have to import manpower from elsewhere.
05:52You understand that?
05:57When the birth rate is low, then on an average what you have is an aging population because people will
06:06grow old.
06:10And when people age, in general, that means a more affluent society as you have in Europe or Japan.
06:20They are aging societies.
06:22But they are also more affluent.
06:26However, what they then lack is young muscle power.
06:31And when you lack that, what do you have to do?
06:34You have to import that from elsewhere.
06:36And that changes the demographic map.
06:40So, that sounds like a threat.
06:46And when that reason is quoted, you cannot dismiss that reason.
06:51You will say, yes, yes, yes.
06:52I see.
06:53So, there is logic.
06:55There is logic.
06:59The question is that the ego does not work on logic.
07:10Logic is never the first priority.
07:14The first priority of the ego is self-preservation.
07:19Self-preservation.
07:24The unloving ego, the dark ego will use sound logic in a way that preserves the ego.
07:42The logic will be sound.
07:43The intention won't.
07:50The logic would be entirely correct.
07:54What is missing is not the logic but the intention.
08:04What is prevailing is not, let's say, lack of love but narrowness of love.
08:20Yes, you have some feeling for your place, for your land, for your people.
08:29So, you want them to multiply.
08:31We understand.
08:32Fine.
08:33Noble enough.
08:34We are not saying you don't have love.
08:39What we are saying is your love is narrow.
08:49The domain of your love isn't vast enough to cover the entire country, let alone the entire
08:56planet.
08:58What you are saying is my people should not reduce in number, which is understandable.
09:04I am not here to dispute that.
09:08We all want our kit and kin to multiply, prosper.
09:12We all want that, right?
09:18Understand that.
09:19What I am pointing at is the narrowness of the approach.
09:31And that's the narrowness every person on this planet is carrying.
09:37Every family, every home is carrying.
09:41And every nation is carrying.
09:45If I reduce my carbon emissions, the neighbouring country will start dominating me.
09:53So, I cannot reduce my emissions.
09:59Now, you could say this is patriotism.
10:04This is patriotism and is therefore noble.
10:06And right.
10:10Right.
10:11Prima facie, this is patriotic value.
10:15I want my country to never to surrender to the hostile neighbour.
10:22Therefore, I'll keep spending on modernization of army and the armed forces.
10:32They are responsible for massive carbon emissions that are not even counted.
10:42That are not even sought to be reduced.
10:48So, we cannot deny that there is a genuine feeling of patriotism involved here.
10:54Yes, there is.
10:57But this genuineness is narrow.
11:01You are caring for a specific part of the world without seeing what your actions would do to the entire
11:13world.
11:18Oh, Muslims are multiplying, so let the Hindus reproduce.
11:23And each of them multiplies and what does that do to the planet?
11:28No, we can stop our numbers but you first talk to them.
11:32And they say, oh, we can do that but you first talk to them.
11:38And in this race, what happens to the billions of other species that we don't want to talk of?
11:48So, the concern is real but narrow.
11:52This narrowness is the problem.
11:58I love but only four people.
12:02Not that I am unloving.
12:04I am selectively loving.
12:06That's the problem.
12:08And for the sake of these four people, I can do whatever is needed.
12:12I can slaughter.
12:14I can butcher.
12:14I can kill.
12:15I can steal.
12:16I can rob.
12:16I can emit.
12:18I can burn.
12:19I can destroy because I love these four people.
12:22So, your love is real but very narrow.
12:26And that's the problem.
12:35And if you will go deeper into it, then you will have to encounter something uncomfortable.
12:42So far, we have said that love is real but narrow.
12:47Going deeper, you will have to admit narrow love is not love at all.
12:53Narrow love is another name for violence.
13:00Narrow love is a socially acceptable name for violence.
13:12Because nobody would say he is violent, right?
13:15They will simply say, oh, we love.
13:17But narrowly.
13:21Who would say, I have no love, no regards, no care, no feeling for anybody.
13:27There would be nobody like this on the planet.
13:33I care for my district.
13:35I care for my state.
13:37I care for my family.
13:39I care for my business.
13:41I care for my house.
13:44I care for those of my religion.
13:49I care for those of my ideology.
13:53And this kind of care, which we have so far called narrow care, is actually just violence.
14:09Where else does violence come from?
14:13Narrow concerns.
14:14Narrow concerns become violence.
14:21The Germans love their fatherland.
14:26The Russians love theirs.
14:28And what you get is the bloodiest conflict on the planet.
14:33The bloodiest.
14:34The most cruel.
14:35The supremely violent conflict arising from love.
14:43Arising from?
14:44Love.
14:45Love.
14:46Surely this is not love.
14:48Narrow love is not love at all.
14:54Oh, I love my little one so much.
14:57I feed it chicken soup.
15:04For my baby, the cow baby must be deprived of milk.
15:11I love my baby so much that I deprive the cow baby of the cow's milk.
15:19Superficially, this is love.
15:21Yes, of course it is.
15:23It feels inconsiderate, insensitive to say that this mother is an unloving one.
15:32Because you see, for her baby, she is almost in tears.
15:36The baby has some fever.
15:38And she is so upset.
15:41She can feed that baby anything if it promises to relieve her of the fever.
15:50Chicken soup, lamb soup, man soup, whatever.
15:55This is love.
15:57Our love is so violent.
16:01You love one language and then you proscribe all others.
16:08In my state, other languages are prohibited because I love my language.
16:14Yes, superficially this sounds like love.
16:17But deeply this is so violent.
16:28Exclusive love.
16:33Baby, you belong only to me now.
16:41Same thing, no?
16:50Love basically means love that excludes.
16:56If you love me, you should not look at anybody else.
17:00Now, this is violence.
17:10If you are a good Muslim, you should not read the Gita.
17:14If you are a good Hindu, why did you touch the Quran?
17:21What kind of exclusive scholarship is this?
17:30I am a scholar.
17:34But only when it comes to this narrow circle.
17:42Oh, I love wisdom literature!
17:49Provided it comes in Arabic or Sanskrit.
17:53What kind of love is this?
17:56What kind of love is this?
18:02Exclusive love.
18:06Circumscribed love.
18:12Fenced love.
18:14Barbed fence.
18:17Try to cross over and you will bleed.
18:27You will be called an infidel.
18:33Or a traitor.
18:34Or unpatriotic.
18:40Or simply a cheat.
18:43Yeah, of course she fell down on the road.
18:45But why did you have to pick her up?
18:51If you want to pick them up, just let me know.
18:55I will fall.
18:57Every time you want to pick a woman up, I will fall.
19:07Both the genders, both ways.
19:09Not alleging anything.
19:11Don't look at me like that.
19:14Men probably do in fact even more of that.
19:17Just in a different way.
19:21They create systems which make it mandatory for women to exclude.
19:29The biggest system is the four walls.
19:32Once you are inside the four walls, your love is limited by the four walls.
19:38That's the system.
19:39That's the institution.
19:40The man can go out.
19:42The woman doesn't even go out that much.
19:46And that's the biggest exclusion.
19:54Do you see the psychological basis of all our conflicts?
20:01We are not bad people really.
20:03We are just narrowly good.
20:07We are not unloving.
20:09We are just exclusively loving.
20:12I do love.
20:14But I love only two people.
20:23Can't hear you.
20:25I am being excluded.
20:31Am I ordered?
20:32Yes.
20:32Yes.
20:33Yes.
20:34So like my concern was how is this even love?
20:37Like offering 30,000 and 40,000?
20:40Like mostly people who will accept this incentive would be…
20:47There is the pregnant woman.
20:48You are offering her money.
20:49How is that not love?
20:51That is love.
20:52Now the baby will be born and she will have some money at her hand.
20:56So she will be able to spend for herself and for the baby.
20:58So that is love.
21:00That's what you call as lok love.
21:06But incentive to get pregnant.
21:09She is not already pregnant.
21:11So…
21:11But getting pregnant is a good thing.
21:13That's what the female body is for.
21:17That's what is called as lok duty.
21:21Why else did God give you the body of a woman?
21:24So that you keep getting pregnant every six months.
21:33What else is the place of woman in this world?
21:37How else does lok dharma operate?
21:40She can't think.
21:41She can't write.
21:42She can't run.
21:43She is no good at all anything.
21:46Right?
21:48The only thing that she can gainfully yield is babies.
21:55And that's what history has done to women and that's the way they have been looked at.
22:01And that's the reason when you refuse to bear babies, your social worth falls.
22:07They say you are anyway not good for anything.
22:12What can you do?
22:13You know nothing.
22:15You can't be a leader.
22:16You can't be a manager.
22:18You can't be a good professional.
22:21Because you are a woman.
22:23The only thing that you can do and men cannot is bear babies.
22:30Now if you refuse to bear even babies, then you have zero worth.
22:36What was the logic behind the Sati practice?
22:42Your worth is in relation to your womb.
22:48And only the husband can impregnate your womb.
22:51Now the husband is gone.
22:53You also die.
22:53Why are you alive at all?
22:56You have no independent worth anyway.
22:58The husband is gone.
22:59You also die.
23:09So, that's happening all over the world.
23:11In fact, if you will just Google, you will come to see there are so many countries
23:14who are incentivizing women, not just incentivizing them monetarily, but also psychologically.
23:21I think it's Russia where they are being given titles of mother, queen and empress and something.
23:29If they have eight kids or something, then they will be decorated at the town square.
23:36Because that's what the society wants from you, the womb.
23:41You cannot produce anything.
23:43So, you produce babies and chapatis.
23:48That's what your whole worth is confined to.
23:56If even the usual standards of beauty correlate so closely to fertility,
24:04look at the way, look at the standards, look at the metrics that determine whether a woman is deemed socially
24:14beautiful.
24:16Breasts, hips, all these are markers of fertility.
24:22They are markers of reproductive capacity.
24:28When you say, no, even the face, in the face, what you are actually looking for is good fat.
24:35And that too is a marker of reproductive health.
24:39When you say, oh, she looks so beautiful, what a face, lovely skin and soft to touch and all those
24:45things.
24:45What else is that?
24:47Here, again a marker of reproductive function.
24:54So, the entire worth has been concentrated in the womb.
25:01Entire worth.
25:04Please go and check the psychological basis of what you call as the lip liner, the lip gloss, the lipstick.
25:12Please look at the psychological root of it and you will be ashamed.
25:18What is it that you are trying to demonstrate as red?
25:32And women accept that.
25:34Women accept that.
25:35Fine.
25:44Even a very mediocre kind of woman, the day she becomes a mother, she gains some social status.
25:52She starts getting some respect.
25:57So, fine.
26:04All this has to be disowned.
26:11Disowned.
26:13If someone offers you a seat just because you are carrying a baby, refuse.
26:21You deserve to be respected on your merit, on your love, on your courage.
26:29On your knowledge.
26:32And if you are offered a seat on that basis, maybe you can accept.
26:39But someone says, oh, she is pregnant.
26:41Help her.
26:43That's not something really to be proud of.
26:47I am not saying you should not help pregnant women.
26:49Please do that.
26:51But I am speaking here to the women, not to the helpers.
27:01You walk into a room and people stand up and offer you their seat because you are a great researcher,
27:09a great poet, a great scientist, a great artist.
27:14That's one thing.
27:15But you walk into a room and somebody offers you a seat because you are a woman.
27:19That is a totally different thing.
27:20And I think you should just reject.
27:24What does the state have to do with something as intimate as pregnancy?
27:31It belongs to the woman.
27:33It's a sovereign decision.
27:35At most, the man can be some kind of partner in that decision.
27:42But even the man's role is quite limited.
27:4580-90% of that belongs only to the woman.
27:48The man impregnates and with Ross.
27:51The woman carries it then.
27:53Not for months but for years.
27:57Even the man cannot have a big role, a big say, a huge voice in that matter.
28:03How come the state is stepping in and saying, you get pregnant, I will give you money?
28:10What is going on?
28:14This is breach of not just privacy but intimacy.
28:22It's a matter so, so sacred that nobody should have a say in it.
28:32And when you are incentivizing something, you are entering it.
28:37You are entering a sacred spot you should not dare to touch.
28:45It's like incentivizing somebody to love somebody.
28:49How does that sound?
28:52It's like incentivizing somebody to have sex.
28:55Incentivizing somebody to get fertilized.
28:59How does that sound?
29:05But all this that I am saying sounds ugly only because I am bearing it in front of you.
29:20It sounds ugly because I am presenting it naked.
29:26That's not how it's presented in the social way or in the political way.
29:33There it is presented as a celebration of motherhood.
29:40It's a celebration of motherhood.
29:44And I am nobody to deny that it is not a celebration of motherhood.
29:47It is a celebration of motherhood but it is a narrow definition of motherhood.
29:55Narrow. The problem is the narrowness.
30:04We are not unloving.
30:06We are just narrowly loving.
30:11Nobody is truly unloving.
30:12I will give you an example.
30:14Because you may not love somebody else but don't you love your own life?
30:19Don't you love your own life?
30:21The moment you see danger somewhere, don't you run away?
30:25What does that mean?
30:27You love your life.
30:28So, nobody is totally unloving.
30:32We love at least one, two or four people or some ideology or something or some myth or something.
30:38We do love.
30:39But our love is very narrow.
30:42If you have nobody else to love you, start loving your own ego.
30:47So, you are not totally unloving.
30:51What we need is love that is expansive.
30:54Love that includes.
30:59Love that shines.
31:05And then it depends on the other whether or not to accept the shine.
31:11It is not shine that imposes itself.
31:14It is shine that presents itself.
31:17I am available.
31:19I am available.
31:19Now, it depends on you whether you accept me.
31:23Take it. It's your choice.
31:25My choice is to shine and radiate.
31:28It depends on you whether you want to get it, take it, collect it, accept it, use it.
31:40Thank you Acharya Ji.
31:42Thank you so much.
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