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00:00Hello, Acharya Ji.
00:05Namaste, Acharya Ji.
00:07It is nice to meet you.
00:10So, I would like to introduce ourselves.
00:13I am Ravisha.
00:14I am Varun.
00:15And we both are PhD students at University of Georgia here in US.
00:21Like from last two years, Varun was listening to you over YouTube.
00:25And since day one, I was very reluctant to listen to you or even see you on YouTube.
00:31It was like I can't hear him.
00:34But he like persuaded me over a year and his persistence.
00:39Through his persistence, when we came to US, I started listening to you with an open mindset.
00:45And I started liking you, your words, the way you speak.
00:50And it like went something inside.
00:52Very recently, I decided to join the Gita community.
00:56Like it was from the past three months.
00:58I have joined it.
01:00And we left our well-settled jobs in India.
01:04And we are in our mid-30s, married.
01:06So, it was like everybody was against us.
01:10Like why in mid-30s you're going to US, pursuing something different,
01:14which people doesn't do much.
01:17And just do a baby before going there.
01:20So, it was like, we were like, no, we can't do this.
01:24And I joined Gita community and started listening to you now while going to classes and coming back while going to gym.
01:31I continuously listen to you.
01:33The Gita session question is like we both are PhD students.
01:36And I'm researching in financial planning.
01:39And he is researching in engineering education.
01:43And we have noticed that most of the Indian students who are in abroad, especially in the US,
01:49tend to choose the fields like computer science, which are mostly driven by the job prospects and societal approvals.
01:57And in contrast, like fields like humanities or core sciences or social sciences, we can see there are very few Indians.
02:06Though these fields attract a lot of students from many other countries.
02:10So, why do we as a society often tend to follow the herd mentality and prioritize our safe careers over the real interests?
02:20And how can we as individuals break free from this conditioning and to make choices which are aligned with our true calling?
02:28So, we would be very grateful if you could provide your insights on it.
02:35So, what you see and experience for long becomes not just your habit, but your truth.
02:44We, in the field of wisdom literature, call the truth as that which is everywhere.
03:04Don't we?
03:07Omnipresent.
03:09Kutasthendantaryami.
03:13Everywhere.
03:14It is often read in the reverse.
03:22Truth is everywhere.
03:24And the way the ego reads is, that which is everywhere will be the truth.
03:31So, if something is seen everywhere, it becomes your truth.
03:38Are you getting it?
03:39That's the way
03:42the inner thing
03:44works.
03:45If you see something for very long, experience it for very long, it becomes your truth.
03:50It becomes your truth.
03:52India has seen poverty and deprivation for very long.
04:00very long, very long, very long.
04:09So, bread and basic mortal concerns, they have become the truth.
04:12So, bread and basic mortal concerns, they have become the truth.
04:17And what is the truth?
04:19And what is the truth?
04:20The highest.
04:21That becomes your highest concern.
04:22That becomes your highest concern.
04:23basic safety.
04:24basic safety.
04:25Will I have food on the table tonight?
04:29will I have food on the table tonight?
04:39will I have food on the table tonight?
04:51will I have something over my head next year?
04:57have oneTROL monarch Hirata
04:59okay?
05:00It becomes their highest concern.
05:03We have something over your head ofynthia conanimal and vont gan's bookankankh.
05:05which sir says,
05:07uste frankly does not stop locking theths кадres are stages.
05:10The first there is no doubt.
05:11the last thing is positive that we have created 올�
05:17And we have had a long history of equating culture with the truth. Culture means reality,
05:26that's what it is. Now, the curious thing here is that the fats are no more as bleak
05:38today as they were 50 years or 100 years back. Today you are not so very malnourished, not
05:49so deprived or desolate. But the habit having become the truth is carrying a momentum that
06:04won't easily be lost. So it has become a part of rather the centre of popular social wisdom
06:21that education has to be about bread winning. Do you see this? We have been deprived of bread
06:30for just so long that everything has to be about bread and butter. Everything. Why are
06:42you climbing up that hill? What will you get out of it? What is that fellow asking? Is
06:48there money in it? Because we have experienced the lack of money for just too long. So anything
06:57that you do, people will ask what is it for? You hear what they are saying? They are asking
07:04is there money in it? And there is a point there. Because there was no money for centuries. There
07:14was no money. And there were terrible famines. Not just before independence but even for almost
07:25two decades after independence. You are getting it. So it has become a part of received wisdom
07:36and accepted truth. Everything has to be about money. Money. Let me give you a cute example,
07:48example. A sweet example. In some of the poorest parts of the country. Still if you get good
08:06delicious food to eat, they will say it is very meatha.
08:18Now it could be a salty dish. It could be a dish involving not even a grain of sugar. Still
08:27to praise it, it would be said meat hai. You see the reason there was no sugar. Sugar was so scarce. That
08:45sugar itself became the symbol of some kind of prosperity or abundance or goodness. It became
09:03a synonym. If something is good, then it is sugary. So whatever is good is being carried down
09:14in culture as meatha, sugary. Habit mind you becomes your personal truth which is dangerous. Because
09:28those situations no longer exist. The situations of scarcity. And yet we behave as if they do.
09:37I was having a long winding conversation with one of my batch mates. Oh, he has returned from
09:48your place to India. And he knows about what's going on in India and what's going on with Trump
09:58and his party there. So he was displaying reluctance to accept that people can look beyond their immediate
10:19needs. And all routine needs. And worry for a larger purpose like climate change. He said,
10:32you know, because there was inflation and the common American worries a lot about the prices. So
10:40they voted for Trump because the previous government just couldn't control inflation. They don't worry
10:46about climate change because they don't worry about climate change. And I said, but that's not the way
10:51history behaves. He said, can you name even one incident in history when people have looked beyond their
11:00narrow concerns? And it was astonishing for him to say this to me. I said, sir, the very American revolution of the
11:1018th century. And let me name 10 more German, French, Russian, Chinese, British. How many revolutions do you? And in each of these people have put aside their concerns and worked for a larger purpose.
11:39Why did it did not occur to him? Because even though we both come from IIT, yet our education has been just vocational. I meet my batch mates and it's a
12:08often irritating to them when I say IIT left us high and dry and uneducated. Uneducated. We are glorified mechanics. We are not really educated. We are vocationally trained. Why? Because the purpose was placements. Why? Because we are coming from a poor past.
12:35So the greatest accomplishment is if you can somehow get placed and start earning money to put food to eat. And that is sufficient.
12:46So as many tech courses as possible. So that you can embellish your CV and get the fattest package possible. Tech, tech, tech, tech, tech, tech. And even that tech is outdated and obsolete.
13:06The fact is the kind of machines we were trained on were not being used in industry since like two decades or something and we knew about it and the teachers too knew that.
13:24So the technology you have been trained on is outdated and apart from technology you have been educated about nothing. So you have de facto walked out of campus uneducated.
13:42That's not comfortable to hear. Especially if your identity itself is tied to that tag. That's how things are. And we didn't realize that when we were in campus. That we are being trained just to earn bread for ourselves and the family and be happy about that.
14:07It's in hindsight today. Like twenty-five years later, I can see that what we were trained on was not sufficient. I could see that in fact just a few years after passing out or at least begin to see that.
14:25When I started Advaita Life Education, the syllabus contained a lot of knowledge of current events, general awareness, history, some philosophy, these things. Things that you just don't get exposed to.
14:50Why don't you get exposed to. Why don't you get exposed to them? Because the knowledge of history won't fetch you money. Won't fetch you money.
15:00Won't fetch you money. So after tenth, nobody wants to study history or geography. The fact is we don't know history because we
15:20are scrambling after vocational courses where some money can be had. So we don't study history. So we don't know history. So whatsapp history becomes history.
15:32Do you see what's going on? Do you understand why India is in such a precarious position today?
15:38Why all kinds of misinformation about history find fertile ground in our minds? Because we don't know history. And you have to go deeper into it and ask yourself,
15:52why don't we know history? Because history never got us any money. Similarly, so much of the religious corruption that is there and superstition and all kinds of social divides, they proceed in the name of religion.
16:14Why does that happen? Why does that happen? You know the single biggest reason? We don't know Sanskrit. And our texts are in Sanskrit. And why don't we know Sanskrit? Because there is no money there.
16:44When you are getting married. Don't you want to know what the Pandit is saying? And what if he is uttering some mischief? A Pandit like me would indeed do that.
16:59And happily chuckle within these two fools. They don't even know I am uttering Santa Banta jokes in Sanskrit. How can there be any kind of development if all that you need
17:28that you need is money? And I am not anti-money. I fully understand that with empty stomach you cannot proceed towards higher causes. Money is needed. You need clothes. You need food. You need nutritious food.
17:51You need medical support. You need a place to live. You need a vehicle to move on. All those things I understand. But many of us have surpassed those conditions by long.
18:15And yet we behave as if we are still living in the 1950s. So we keep on accumulating. And our lives do not become rich. How can your life be rich if you do not know history?
18:44With money you can travel to Italy. With money you can travel to Italy. But if you know nothing about Italy. All you will say is you know so much water in between buildings.
18:54Why don't they drain it out? Must be damaging the foundations of the buildings. This place is just like Mumbai. Water is accumulating all the time. When did it rain here yesterday night? See?
19:12Tell me without knowledge. Without understanding anything. Not knowing science in a proper way. You are a CA. How much science do you know? Please tell me.
19:32You will learn money. But what will you understand of the world? Somebody will say, NASA has sent a satellite. And that satellite is clicking pics on Diwali night.
19:50That CA earning several lakhs a month would be forwarding this to other CA's. Where is richness in life? Can there be richness in life without purposeless knowledge?
20:13knowledge without knowledge that's not aimed at just survival? Not that survival is not important. We have agreed on that already.
20:27But somebody who is already earning a few lakhs a month, shouldn't that person now focus on richness of life? Where is that?
20:43You will burn money and get a fancy watch for yourself. And you won't even know why it costs so much. Think of the stupidity.
20:55the stupidity. There is this watch costing 10 lakhs. There is another one. Priced at just how much? 5000? Let's say. Both are showing exactly the same time.
21:11Right now? After an hour? After seven days? After 30 days? After one year? Tell me why this one is priced at 5k and this one at 10k? You don't know. Your money has made you even more stupid.
21:26Are you getting it? Are you getting it? When you buy something expensive? It's alright. You have money. You can buy things. But do you know why that thing is expensive? If not, how did you make the decision?
21:45One of our friends here? One of our friends here? We were arranging meals for one of the community gatherings, Gita community gatherings. So people were around a thousand people were expected.
22:04One of our friends here. Thousand or more. Yeah. In fact, seventeen, fifteen, seventeen hundred. Gautam Buddha University. That was last year, last year, last year.
22:14So the fellow approaches a caterer, a vendor and gets us a coat. And the coat is something like, you know, one plate. We were ordering ready-made plates for everybody.
22:31So fifteen hundred plates. One plate for two hundred rupees. He said, so many plates and still he is asking two hundred. But why? What's in the plate?
22:47He said this, this, this. He said, no, no. These are all normal parts of the Indian meal. Why is it so expensive?
22:56So he said, you know, this, this, this, this is this Pulao. So he said, this is my Cashew. Cashew. How much? How many pieces?
23:18Finally, we seal the deal at half the price. Sans the Cashew. And nobody seemed to mind. He is there. Are you educated?
23:42You walked out de facto illiterate from IIT. Are you getting it? Because the entire purpose of education was to just get money and not too much money.
24:02When I look back at the kind of packages we were offered. They are pretty ordinary. But still they appeared humongous when compared with the situation that the youth outside the campus faced.
24:22Today when you look at those packages, you say, there is nothing in it. Why were you crazy after IIT and this and this and this and this and this? Because there were still people who were dying of hunger, dying of hunger.
24:36And in our collective memory, that's gotten in and become embedded. Even today, parents scold their kids and say, they will die. Nobody is going to die of hunger. Please, that's not happening anymore.
24:54But that thing is still there. Are you getting it? Get rid of that fear. Your bottom line stands secured. And that's the entire purpose of civilization and governance.
25:10To give you a basic minimum social security. So that you don't have to worry about your basic carnal existence at least.
25:20That's been taken care of. Even in India, we are coming to that situation where that has been taken care of at least for the segment you belong to.
25:29Or most of you belong to. You are not going to die of hunger. You are not going to be stranded on the streets. You are alright. Relax.
25:39And when you know you are alright, then you can proceed towards things of higher value. Otherwise, you will be left just wondering, afraid,
25:49Oh my God, if I become bigger. And that makes you so narrow, so petty. You cannot think of bigger things. Larger causes get lost on you. You are always afraid of small things.
26:08Small things, you know. That's what is happening to India. And it is pretty unnecessary at least for the segment that is factually, financially liberated now.
26:25And you come from that segment and you come from that segment.
26:34How can you do anything meaningful in life?
26:40If 80% of what you think is about money and survival, money will override everything.
26:52And we don't even think of money. Many of us still think in terms of food. Roti, dal roti. Come on. You are educated. You are young. You have some IQ.
27:21You are intelligent. Editor, please note. You won't starve. You won't starve. Even in the jungle, beings don't starve. Why would you starve?
27:44Get that fear out of your mind!
27:46There is this beautiful thing from the sermon on the mount.
27:54Go something like, the birds have nests, the lions have dents, that's not verbatim, you
28:05may go and check for the exact thing. And fish have water. Only man is homeless. They
28:22don't care about where they would find shelter and they find they are well sheltered. Only
28:31man is the one wondering all the time about shelter.
28:34What do you go to the US for? I don't think you go to the US to study the rich history
28:43and culture of the land or to partake in its pristine natural beauties. Do you do that?
28:51When one says US, what comes to mind? The fact is, it's one of the most scenic countries
29:03in the world. With many kinds of climate zones, you have warm weather, you also have snow
29:20and ice, you even have deserts and you have magnificent forests. And you have Alaska. And
29:37you have beaches and you have mountains. There is so much there and most of that is untouched,
29:45still and well preserved. But that doesn't come to mind, does it? No. What comes to mind
29:52is Wall Street, East Coast and West Coast, Tech or Finance. That's all. Everything in between
30:10does not matter. Are you kidding? I am not deprecating money. But once you have a reasonable degree of
30:31it. Grow out of it. Life, money is an enabler, not the purpose of life. It allows you to live
30:50more fully. It cannot become life itself. What will you become? Technicians and consultants
31:13who are more affordable, therefore more employable in the global market. Cheap kind of labour.
31:20No? Is that what life is for? Learn some skills so that somebody may hire you. The low cost
31:34backyard of the world. Little innovation, little research. You know about IT, you hear of IMs.
31:41And the one name doesn't get the respect it deserves is ISC.
31:48You know about IT, you hear of IMs. And the one name doesn't get the respect it deserves
32:08to ISC. Because for very long, it didn't have any placement department at all. It dealt in
32:18pure sciences, basic sciences. You know of a very important news related to ISC? Happened
32:34just yesterday, or rather today morning. It's an important piece. Why would you know? It's
32:45ISC. No placements, no glamour, no headlines. Mr. X from there gets a package of X or Y crores.
33:03When the government has ensured that the IITs and IMs proliferate, there were 5 each of them
33:20till just 30 years back. And now I suppose there are 25 each of them. But ISC has remained
33:30at one. Who cares about basic sciences? Who cares about fundamental research? But that's
33:43what moves the world by the way. And mind you, that's also where big money lies. The path that
33:55we have chosen gives easy, but little money. If money is what you want, even that cannot
34:04come by just being a technician. Solid breakthroughs in science are needed. You know the kind of
34:23profit General Electric makes. Who was the founder? Thomas Edison.
34:33Who was the founder in the first place? He was a scientist dealing in pure sciences. Because
34:45he had the science, so he could make the profits. So, we won't even make the profits. All we'll
34:57have is a sustenance kind of salary and a survival kind of existence. And you'll be happy with
35:06that. At least we are not starving. Is it making any sense? This is a thing unknown to us, because
35:19we do not see it around us. And as we said in the beginning, truth is everywhere. And mischievously,
35:32that translates into what is everywhere is the truth. And in India, what is everywhere is
35:40mediocrity. So mediocrity has become our truth. We don't feel ashamed of being in fields we have
35:55no passion for. Ask the common man, what relationship do you have with your work? And he'll gape at
36:05you. He'll say relationship. Work is to get a salary, not to have a relationship. Are you getting it?
36:16Nobody is ashamed of not being committed to the thing he loves. And that's the one thing you should be truly
36:26ashamed of. Firstly, of having nothing to truly fall in love with. Secondly, if you have something in front of
36:35you that deserves to be truly loved, why are you still indifferent? Why are you still not absolutely committed?
36:48This is what one should be ashamed of. But we have become such mediocre people, we are not ashamed of anything.
36:55We go to jobs we don't love. We live lives that we internally hate and yet we carry on.
37:05Don't we? We steal from our jobs, don't we? And we don't despise ourselves for that. Give the ordinary worker
37:20a chance to abstain or steal or dodge work and see what he does. Half a chance and he'll grab it.
37:35Because he hates his work. Why do you still have to be in that work if you hate it? And if you are in the right
37:50kind of work, can you still hate it? What can be said about you? This nation needs love. I say it often, we are a very loveless people. We have feelings. We have very
37:55little love. We have very little love. We have feelings. We have very little love. We have
38:02you. Yes. Thank you Ajay Raji. Thank you Ajay Raji. Thank you Ajay Raji. Thank you Ajay Raji.
38:04Thank you Ajay Raji. Thank you Ajay Raji. Thank you Ajay Raji.
38:05Thank you Ajay Raji. Thank you Ajay Raji.
38:06I say it often, we are a very loveless people, we have feelings, we have very little love.
38:22Yes. Thank you, Jada. Thank you, Jada. Thank you.