in those days there used to be different names my symmetic you mean Jewish this is how we perceive it now but actually technically the term Semitic means Arab and Jewish okay when you say but because in Europe the only Semitic people that existed were Jews so we say oh Semitic is Jew anti-semitic is anti-jewish so but actually technically Arabic and Hebrew are sister languages they are distinct from the Indo-European group they're a different group of languages it's called the Semitic group of language today when you say the word Semitic it usually means Jewish but historically it means probably kind of Arab yeah correct so they are both they're cousins so they are there's part of the same group of Semitic group so these people were most likely um like everybody everywhere else their main religion was animistic um Pagan they worshiped you know various things various kind of idols now at some point the idea of one God took over and as I said one version could have been coming


and as I said one version could have been coming from zarathustra but see nothing is coming out from nothing even Egypt some of the Egyptian pharaohs also had this concept of one God okay Ramses Etc so they that they should be one God now there is a technical term for this there is slight differences one is monotheism there's a second term called hinotheism he know theism says that you believe in a supreme god they can be subordinate Gods many gods but you believe in one Superior God or supreme god that is he no theism the term coined by Max Muller the German scholar so so slowly this I you don't make a transition from so many gods to one God in one shot you have many gods and from there you have one God with subordinate gods and then slowly the subordinate Gods disappear and you have one God so you make a gradual transition for thousands of years hundreds or thousands whatever I am depending on your circumstances okay so so


I am depending on your circumstances okay so so the Jews made this transition at some point you know slowly and they claimed that they had this leader Called Moses on this side and Abraham on this side of course there are no records just like actually we don't have any records even for say the Buddha or even for Jesus in their lifetimes there is no record of these people uh these are um you know we don't know exactly who they were we can't say with a Precision what the written record says because um just record keeping was not that advanced and we don't have uh surviving records for these people so we've tried a lot to find evidence for Moses in fact Israeli Scholars have tried a lot Israeli archeology historian but they've found no evidence so far for Abram um but these two different origin stories emerge Abraham and his children you know Isaac and Ishmael that is Isaac is supposed to be the ancestor of uh the Jews Ismail is supposed to be the


the Jews Ismail is supposed to be the ancestor of the Arabs this is the Arab version of it the Jews only consider themselves to be children of Isaac but there's the other story that no we are the children of beer or we are part of the group which was led by Moses and his son Arun so there's these different origin stories are there but at some point you have uh this Kingdom emerges okay we have some uh evidence of one of the Jewish prophets so many right there's King David the guy who was small and defeated the Goliath the Giant and then his son Solomon in in Islam we say daud and Suleiman from from what I understand here and this is from my childhood okay so we used to have Book Fairs and my mom wanted to get me into reading and I didn't read I used to actually watch a lot of TV shows and it was a great decision back when I learned a lot either way she wanted me to understand Christianity


lot either way she wanted me to understand Christianity so she bought me a children's version of the Bible that had the new testament which had all of uh Jesus Christ stories and Christianity in general and it had the Old Testament uh which was all the stories related to Judaism and that book had a huge impact on how I perceive General world history because you learned so much about Hindus and Buddhism organisms because I'm here uh you even learn about Islam in our history books you don't really learn about Christianity and Judaism they're very important yeah and so I I got to learn about Judaism through the Old Testament and of course Christianity through the New Testament and As I Grew Older I realized that people don't talk about the Old Testament anymore in the modern world even even Christians talk primarily about the New Testament so what I understand about Judaism is that it's a collection of learnings from the Old Testament in the same way that possibly Hinduism is a collection


the same way that possibly Hinduism is a collection of learning from all the scriptures every other Vedas the open issues am I correct on saying it or is this the wrong yeah no no you're pretty accurate the only correction I would make is that we don't use the term Old Testament anymore Scholars use the word Hebrew Bible because otherwise it feels like oh they are old you know that is they are just another version and we are the new it tends to denote like Old Testament New Testament the terminology tends to denote like this is more new and therefore it's more legitimate and you are old and you are therefore illegitimate but isn't old a good thing in some cases so I don't know but Scholars the scholars use the word Hebrew Bible now for that Hebrew Bible the Hebrew Bible so so yeah Judaism is a collection of lessons and learnings from the Hebrew Bible you know the Jewish religion that is Judaism has an origin story like every


that is Judaism has an origin story like every religion and the origin story starts with Adam Eve Etc you know we know the story and then there are different prophets who come at different times um why does Adam come again he's originally in Paradise he's happy so is Eve but they taste the forbidden fruit because the prehistory of that is that God made many angels but after that he made man and one of the Angels refused to bow in front of man he said this is your creation why should I go um that angel becomes that angel called Lucifer becomes Saturn Satan and he refuses to Bow shaytan shaitan correct I love how languages are so linked yeah but anyway yeah but they are also symmetic right so Arabs also have the same root language as Jews that how do my Muslim friends know so much about the Old Testament now as I've grown older I've understood that oh okay there are Old Testament lessons across Christianity Judaism Islam and their respected lessons yeah


Christianity Judaism Islam and their respected lessons yeah and I mean there is there are slight differences in these lessons I'll also explain that they're not exactly the same but yeah the origin story is again coming from Judaism in the same way that Zoroastrianism which is parsi's uh and modern day Hindus kind of have a common seed religion which we don't even know about because it probably was a very elaborate religion which is now lost you know because of time yeah and uh so rastans think their religion is the most ancient Hindus think their religion is the most ancient but there's probably a sea religion which is more ancient which we don't know about we don't know and even Hinduism that we talk of today is not actually the The Vedic religion Vedic religion is different right Hinduism also because The Vedic religion is as I told you the gods are different you know Indra Mitra Agni whereas today now the chief gods are different they are actually


today now the chief gods are different they are actually Vishnu Shiva so uh and their avatars you know Etc so it's a very different religion from what the way now we have temples they had no temples they had only the fire sacrifice so it's a very different reasons also change over a period of time in the same way though abrahamic religions uh maybe they had some other ancient ancestor origin religion uh which followed aspects of the Old Testament as I told you their their original ancient religion is basically either Zoroastrianism or some forms of Egyptian religion that is at some different point of time Egypt also had monotheism in different dynasties so their Roots could have come from there because we know that the Jews and the Arabs both were pagans they were both animistic people we know that I thought I knew so much about religion so I'm grateful for this podcast I've got to learn so much man it's not the end of the episode just this Society


not the end of the episode just this Society it's brotherly compliments thanks but let's go on so so they have their to the Jews have their origin story um God has told them not to eat this apple Etc and eat the apple because in the form of a snake Satan has poisoned their minds they lose their innocence they're kicked out of Eden that is why Milton's famous poem Paradise Lost they are thrown on the Earth then they have children and they reproduce and you have different prophets who come at different time including Noah who saved the world from this flood and so on so forth you know the story and then finally you come to one origin story goes towards Abraham one goes towards Moses and they believe now the scholars believe that these could be different origin stories because actually the Jews had been split into two kingdoms at one point right Israel was one and then Zion was one and so and so forth and at different times there are two


and so forth and at different times there are two kingdoms and they're one Kingdom and two kingdoms how do you know so much like how do you like it's books so all my life what I've done is yeah partly that is that I've followed questions which so I had two things as I told you I was a very curious kid you know I was curious and things troubled me until I knew the secret you know and you're able to retain all this I guess I have some add in which um which constrains me in some ways that is um maybe I can't write papers as fast as people do but one thing I was gifted with was a decent memory you know so I could I could remember especially things which touched me or which uh which I was eager to learn or curious or emotional about you know you're built for this medium by the way probably you know you're talking about not writing papers like it's a curse but this is the flip side of it for


curse but this is the flip side of it for an academic it can be a curse but yeah you you need someone to just hold it on ask you questions which is what we're doing but go on go on yeah so you have these profits coming and um they believe that yeah as I told you that we believe that maybe these were two different origin stories of two different kingdoms of Jews that is the Abraham's story in the Moses story and that's why they're both very important stories their children are different kinds of prophets and then finally you arrive at the kings of these kingdoms so one is King David you have he also becomes a prophet and he gets also a not every Prophet gets scripture so a prophet is a messenger of God God gives him a message but not every messenger of God has a written script and a written text a scripture so Moses has say the Torah he is the law basically it's the law of the Jews The Ten Commandments Ten


the law of the Jews The Ten Commandments Ten Commandments uh David has the Psalms of David um poem of Solomon and uh David so you each but some prophets don't get a written text so in Arabic the word used for profit is Nabi Nabi is just the messenger of God these are all Nabis they acknowledge the Nabis which came before rasool are prophets who have been given a scripture so Moses is a rasool prophet Muhammad is a rasool rasool is one who gets the scripture from God so basically a way of also saying that okay this culture is now uh literate it is has Crypt um so but what happens is as I told you after the the Torah is probably an oral tradition but after Cyrus the Great and after the return from Babylon it becomes a written tradition the Jews have their own kingdoms Etc then the Romans conquer them then the second expulsion happens uh the Romans after the second or third revolved the Romans


Romans after the second or third revolved the Romans kick all of them out the temple which was the center of their religious life gets uh destroyed and this peddles this Temple come from is very interesting does it have zoroastan Origins this Temple or is it something else finally um you find that Jews are dispersed in a diaspora across the middle east across North Africa Europe and including Central Asia uh by this time Christianity has emerged Christianity actually coming to Christianity what is Christianity Christianity Christians originally are a sect of Judaism because who was Jesus he was a Jew who were his main followers they were all Jews uh Peter Paul all these people who were Jews but what happens is two two three things happen it becomes a religion of Salvation what does that mean um that is how to save your soul you know how to go to heaven how to redeem yourself how to um um so so now Jews don't accept Jesus as a prophet or as a messiah


accept Jesus as a prophet or as a messiah hour even though there is a tradition that a messiah will come among the Jews as in the other Jewish sects don't accept this particular Messiah the vast majority of them don't accept him as a messiah though there is a tradition in Judaism that a messiah will come who will save us who will restore us you know because our kingdom has been destroyed we have defeated people this Messiah will come he'll restore us Etc that means that the modern day Jews still think that there's a messiah who's Yet to Come yes and they don't accept Jesus as that filler in the film The Black exactly and by the way the Messiah has been predicted all the way back by sarathustra that's interesting because said that a guy will come he'll you know save the world and he'll be born of a virgin all these things are already there and kind of you know so you can see that actually the way stories and myths emerge they have


actually the way stories and myths emerge they have a life of their own and they continue in different forms you know what we have the internet now and a Hindus learning about Islam a Sikh is learning about Christianity a Jain is learning about Judaism uh probably geographically speaking back then when modern day religions were originating abrahamic religions were originated people didn't have access to this quantity of information obviously there was no internet back there so my question is again about the Messiahs that how did people readily agree to uh other people saying that okay I'm the messenger of God and I'm sure there was resistance also faced as we believe that as people moved from hunter-gatherer to settle agriculture their means of production that is their technology changed agriculture is a totally different technology just like industrial organization industry is totally different Industrial Revolution changed our means of production and technology so that also changes your society and your culture and your religion and you start finding evidence of what is now


and you start finding evidence of what is now a controversial term called the axial age okay so a while ago um people used to term this period as the axial age that is the transition towards higher civilization so civilization begins with agriculture why do we say that simple reason before agriculture everybody has to work to get food Etc so you have a flat tribal structure of society there's a and everybody's involved in the production of food and clothes and everything once agriculture comes a small percentage of the population is freed from the need to work for food because the farmers are producing enough grains or or sheep or cattle whatever to feed everybody so now you will have specialized rules a warrior a priest a bureaucrat tax collector King Etc Aristocrat so you have now a more hierarchical Society which is not a good thing but also a more productive Society so more is available for people population also explodes increases because now more people can live on a square piece of


now more people can live on a square piece of land but also it leads to culture that is people can now devote themselves entirely to say producing literature and song philosophy philosophy painting people can do uh Pottery more specialized jewelry making different things can emerge you have development of what's called now slowly what happens is also the complexity of your Society is increasing Society is becoming more complex different kinds of people slaves this that different also Society is becoming larger because now your technology with the copper age and Metal Iron Age Etc you now have the technology to farm larger areas and to make larger armies with more weapons you can conquer more territory so you're from having villages or city states you now have kingdoms maybe even Empires this completely changes this complexity and size completely changes your need for religion now the old religion is not satisfying why because the old region was actually a tribal religion it was a cult it was a maybe you had


it was a cult it was a maybe you had a totem you know a tribal totem again we have in tribes or you had something which was a smaller thing but the other tribe had a different cult it had a different but you are now part of the same system you're part of the same say city state or Kingdom or Empire so you need something more Universal your morality cannot be only for your tribe because each religion also comes with a morality it comes with a value system it comes with economics a certain economic system but if you have so many different ones you will have chaos and you will have conflict and how will you trade and how will you be part of the same Empire which I feel is what's happening today as well yeah where so many people are talking about spirituality there's some spiritual not religious but this is actually a formation of a new religion but but the problem is that uh and the good thing is uh about the present moment is that we have separated


uh about the present moment is that we have separated to some extent our economics and our law from our religion in the ancient world it was not like this so we have a we have a legal code AS criminal uh code a civil code you know IPC Etc we have uh laws for economics and trade how you're going to so countries as a new religion country nationalism is the new religion yes I'll come to that nationalism is a form of religion actually and I'll come to that how it is but that's a whole different discussion I'll take an hour to explain that that's another Point that's another podcast so so we have separated our religious beliefs from how we do our civil Administration our economics our business but in the ancient world it was not like that it was part of the same system your religion and your economics and your political system they all went together in fact some people believe that the reason for religion was actually this that is how do you interact with a stranger suppose


is how do you interact with a stranger suppose you follow the same religion then you will be at peace otherwise in hunter-gatherer societies if two strangers met each other they perceived such a huge threat from each other that immediately the action could become very violent because culture was so different culture was so different and there was a threat because you didn't because your values and your expectations were different you were basically like two different animals who were facing each other in the forest for the first time you don't know what to expect from him but once you have the same culture and the same religion and the same values because they come from the same then you know what to expect and you trust each other you will not immediately indulge in violence you will maybe trade so religion becomes a kind of way off also reducing the threat from the other and increasing trade and interaction cultural interaction Etc okay so as you become bigger you need a religion which is more common to more people and whose


religion which is more common to more people and whose values are more Universal that is it can't be that because I am from this ethnicity I don't value your life as equal for example no we have both have to have something in common so say for example we are both human beings we say we are both human beings we both have the same values and hence now we can now exist in the same system in terms of economics politics culture Etc but for that you need the same value system so therefore you need the same beliefs about reality about God about ultimate ends about so therefore you need a common religion so as Society is becoming bigger more complex you need a common religion for practical purposes but for another purpose also that is some people now have free time compared to others these Elites in the society they are now indulging in more sophisticated thought about what are the ultimate ends of life what does life mean what is beyond this life what are the goals for a person


beyond this life what are the goals for a person who's struggling every day for survival these ultimate ends are not important questions he or she is struggling every day with the battles of the day how to get food how to ensure my child survives if if the child dies or my relative dies how do I continue these things are the main things which are occupying your mind for that any kind of a local cult would suffice you know we're not sober but but then you get more deeper so some people used to call these movements the axial age the axial age being the age in which you move from one set of religions which are these earlier religions to a more sophisticated way of religions that is what are the most sophisticated religions vedant the vedantic religion that is you know the more upanishadic religion more abstract thought or Buddhism is another example of a developed axial religion you know more abstract thought more worried about ultimate goals a universal


more abstract thought more worried about ultimate goals a universal morality not a tribal morality morality for all human beings uh ultimate goals so these are the axial age relations another example for example is Judaism Judaism develops as a more okay universalistic rather than a tribalistic religion more a universalistic morality as Moses gives in the Ten Commandments thou shall not do this thou shall not do that and so these are developing almost um within a thousand years of each other in the same kind of time period roughly you know Confucius in China gives you so these are called axial age religions right now we don't use the term axial anymore also because it is kind of discredited because earlier it was believed that this happened in a very narrow period of time like maybe within two three four five hundred years of each other but now we have realized that actually it's much longer it this in different civilizations this happened at different times because different civilizations went through agriculture


at different times because different civilizations went through agriculture Empire Building at different times so it this could have been spread over a thousand or even two thousand years because the Middle East developed and China developed earlier than other parts developed later so depending on when you're part of the world went from agriculture to civilization you went from the proto-religions from the early religions which could be ancestor worship or paganism or whatever animism totem worship to these axial thought another very famous axial thought is Zoroastrianism another one which we find is the religion or the philosophy of Plato and Socrates and I'll explain how that also is like an axial religion even though it's a philosophy it's not about God it's talking about the meaning of life it's talking about ultimate ends exactly it's talking about a universal morality Plato and Aristotle talking about Universal morality they're talking about um how to set up a state so now you're dealing with much bigger questions which


so now you're dealing with much bigger questions which would be required in a more sophisticated Kingdom Empire Etc um so so to be judaisms or westernism vedantism vedantism the upanishadic religion which is more abstract you know it's about um moonism meditation it is very different from The Vedic religion which is basically about sacrifice ancestors Gods you know it's this is a more abstract religion right and similarly Buddhism also a more abstract religion so it depends on the stage of civilization that you are that you're religion also and your according to your technology becomes more sophisticated your means of governance also becomes more sophisticated and that's why modern religions are even more different because now technology has changed more our societies have changed even more and similarly our politics is also changed we have other forms like democracy Etc these are also Technologies but Technologies of governance politics is a kind of Technology of governance just as these new age religions that


governance just as these new age religions that you talk about these are Technologies of spiritual satisfaction new technology technology comes from the Greek word technique technique means the way of doing something it can be applied to Mechanical things it can be applied to electronic things it can be applied to politics governance religion Society why did certainly prophets start appearing among the Jewish people only it's a very strange question a very strange occurrence the reason is that Judaism was going the Jewish people were undergoing a technological transformation a social transformation culture there for the first time becoming a proper Kingdom with proper systems in place I told you the judaic kingdoms Samara Judea you know um Israel Zion whatever you want to call it at one stage they are one and then they become two and then they become one and two again um you are now beginning to have a sophisticated uh uh uh people arising now what this these tribal Cults that they had and the


this these tribal Cults that they had and the local gods that they have Bal was a famous God the calf the golden calf which they worshiped which Moses tells them to not worship the scarf anymore he comes down from the mountain Etc these are all tribal Cults you know maybe it was a totem of a tribe you know the car of the golden calf Etc I don't know what it was exactly but what happens is now they start saying no there has to be something Beyond this and we have to also unite into one people as one Kingdom as I mentioned um and this is not satisfying also to some people you know who have more time to think about this so they are looking for something more up more abstract and so this concept of Yahweh emerges yahuwah being the supreme god who is unseen in fact his even name cannot be mentioned we are saying but we don't know what Yahweh whether they actually use the word because he's


whether they actually use the word because he's so sacred that his name also cannot be mentioned a kind of a predecessor to Allah or God Yahweh emerges and so if such a god emerges some new laws have to be given for this new God and these prophets are messengers are coming from time to time and you know serving both as Community leaders as moral education and also you have to realize that at this point there is no Judicial System there's no judges there's no Supreme Court in all of that so these prophets serve as judges also they are giving laws they're serving as judges they're suffering as leaders in times of War they're serving as guides you know um and um uh so we do actually so as I said to you we don't have actually physical evidence of either Moses or Abraham or anybody okay this could also be stories which have been made in retrospect to justify your tribal identity your ethnic identity we do have evidence of Solomon


your ethnic identity we do have evidence of Solomon Etc these later Prof who's a king also Solomon David Etc and they are also considered Prophets so we do have some evidence little bit fragmentary evidence of that and then we come to again um so this tradition continues but it continues in a very narrow area the area of this Israel Palestine these uh whatever up uh Levant uh Jesus emerges also in this area the Jews don't accept him we don't have actually really any contemporary evidence for Jesus also the first mentions of Jesus are already you know 60 or even later CE Common Era that is what would only be called 60 80 70 80 you know before that there's no real mention at all and in fact even then there is mention only of this new cult that has emerged one of the historians Josephus Etc they mentioned that this new cult emerged so we don't find any contemporary records of Jesus which is surprising because the Romans were very good record Keepers we have records


Romans were very good record Keepers we have records of lots of stuff even the Egyptians were not bad at record keeping actually maybe it was erased in order to stop the spread of Christianity at that time it was hardly spreading so um but record would anyway be there right so the story is that Jesus is is caught by a Pontius pilot the Roman Governor there and then he's crucified Etc but no such records have been found contemporary there's no such records of of such a preacher teaching also so we don't have records of this kind but again he fits into a a tradition pre-existing among the these people the Jewish people that is a prophetic tradition right and and again it's a time of hardship so a messiah would be more than welcome to save them from this Roman occupation and oppression um so um so to your answer why such Messiahs were coming up and why were they accepted by people this is the long answer it includes many things no this is it's a nice it also


many things no this is it's a nice it also explains the need for religion uh it explains a lot of modern day governance tricks if the relevant audience is listening um in terms of if you want to influence a large group of people right it's a huge reason I don't like following politics yeah because um once you know the macro timelines of the human story you realize that these people also know about those timelines and are simply using these tricks to control large masses of people uh and in saying that I'm a big fan of religion almost like I look at the spiritual side of like all these religions and I feel there's so much beautiful stuff to gain or maybe that's just me trying to settle my overactive mind there's a lot of beautiful stuff but there's a lot of ugly stuff also and a lot of conflict also in every religion you know every podcast I do leaves me with a kind of emotion this one's left me with that whole thing about I feel


one's left me with that whole thing about I feel like I've picked up the Rock from the top of an iceberg there's like a whole Iceberg to discover so uh just gonna say I'm looking forward to speaking to you more um we had scheduled you as a guest in order to learn more about Islam and have that put on the show as well especially from a historical perspective from a spiritual perspective uh but we've gained even more than just one topic you know I feel you're truly like a polymath and lots to dig up in that 80d inflicted mind so thank you for being here motion sir thank you it was a pleasure and I've learned from you I'm glad lots lots more to uh talk about that's great so that was the information packed episode for today when I read the book sapiens by you all know a Harari I felt similar to how you're probably feeling at this point after listening to this episode when you learn about history in this much detail it kind of changes


about history in this much detail it kind of changes your viewpoint on day-to-day life when you next hear about religious conflicts in the news when you're at a party the next time and you witness the interaction between people when you witness people gossiping you're going to look at the world differently possibly because of this conversation reading sapiens had a very impactful effect on me and meeting motion razakhan had another impactful effect he's going to be back on the show a lot I'm sure that from this episode you guys have now figured what motions is capable of sharing with the TRS audience so in the comments down below give us your feedback on this episode we have an entire special coming up on Islam with mohsan razakhan I highly recommend everyone checks that out we've recorded one episode out of that series and it was fantastic as information packed as this one was need you guys to show TRS support in 2023 we're making it all about inter-religious studies from a historical perspective at least


inter-religious studies from a historical perspective at least a big in 2023 and I just want to thank you for helping us and supporting us through this fantastic Hill keep supporting us follow us on Spotify every episode's available on Spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world make sure you download level link is given down below and when we run the team we'll see you soon [Music] no no no


you look at the history of India everyone was in Christopher Columbus he got lost and then he found America but where was he going to he was coming to India every root map wanted to come to India not only in the earliest civilization but up to the most contemporary civilizations they want to come to India WhatsApp is making big business in India everyone even big businesses want to come to India right now there's something about the consistent population of India the climate of India the richness of the land of India and by that I mean minerals everything that you need in life you have in this country we're actually very fortunate


one particular study I came across said that the anxiety levels in the average youngsters today are greater than those measured among troops on Battlefield in World War II that's what we have brought ourselves to and yet we continue to think we are very smart people do we have the guts to receive love when it comes do we have the eyes to identify love when it comes how will you get love if you keep blocking it in every instance so people don't want love no people want little things like attachment cheap gratification if that is coming they call the source as the lover no that's not love acharya Prashant is not a spiritual Guru he's not someone who'll simply talk about the Great Indian epics Indian scriptures or Indian philosophy he's someone who studied World philosophy as well and he would not agree with the following statement but I strongly feel that this is what we did today's episode was kind of an essay on the Indian version of Atheism in some parts again I don't think that


Atheism in some parts again I don't think that this is how he looks at it this is just how I look at it as a podcast host if you want your mindset about Indian culture completely twisted and turned around its heels just for one episode this is the one for you by the end of the episode I even told sir that maybe I disagree with many of his points but in saying that I gained value from every sentence that he spoke and I hope that this podcast does the same for you remember for podcasts just as heavy and deep as this follow us on Spotify we are a Spotify exclusive now every episode's available on Spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world this is acharya Prashant twisting our heads with some truth bombs on the ranveer show foreign [Music] so we finally get to talk again because I have a ritual of not talking in between podcasts we did a very very heavy very very deep Hindi episode it's by far my deepest


very deep Hindi episode it's by far my deepest Hindi podcast I've ever done I don't know where to begin the English one I'm a little confused so how's it going how are you I'm good and let's just begin okay okay sir um again like for audiences that are not familiar with your work and I know a lot of Hindi audiences are we have a lot of uh International audiences as well we have a lot of international viewers as well I don't want to introduce you as a spiritual Guru that's how a lot of people would introduce you uh I just spoke to you about how you used to drink back in college we've had conversations about sex on the last one agoris all sorts of topics I don't think you're a spiritual Guru what is the spiritual Guru I would rather be a buddy a friend a well-wisher at most and an elder brother if I have to assume the mental of a guide an elder brother is something that appears far more friendly


elder brother is something that appears far more friendly spiritual Guru has become a loaded term now I would rather avoid that um the hottest search term after your names if you type acharya Prashant on a Google search bar the next term is acharya Prashant English that's the demand you have from the English audiences from the international audiences we spoke about how the world is going through a very strange time in the last one so what is happening in the world according to you man has become far too powerful for himself we aren't that smart and yet we have somehow assumed and arrogated a lot of authority to ourselves you see we have conquered prakriti that's physical nature to a great extent and we never have had as much power over our surroundings as we have today so um we we are just exploiting nature and trying to feel fulfilled and all that is failing and we don't want to accept that we are operating from the wrong center we actually are not as smart


from the wrong center we actually are not as smart or sorted a people as we think ourselves to be so when we feel unfulfilled we do more of what makes us unfulfilled and it's a vicious downward spiral and we I feel are hurtling towards all kinds of annihilations external and internal that's what is happening just because we have made great progress in medicine we have taken Giant Steps in technology you started feeling we are somebody's the fact is that we do not know even the most fundamental things about life that is ourselves we do not know who we are and what we really want and like uh Blind Men groping in the dark and stumbling from place to place we spend our lives doing what we would call in physics as Brownian motion random meaningless purposeless blind movement but because we are moving and we have gathered more means and methods to move about with greater convenience and speed we think we are smart and we don't even want to look around at the tangible proofs


even want to look around at the tangible proofs available we do not want to see that the average global temperature is already more than 1.5 degrees above normal and would probably be as much as six degrees above normal by the turn of the century we do not want to count the number of uh species of Flora and Fauna we have successfully managed to make extinct we do not want to look at the indicators of inner disquiet man today is more depressed and anxious that he ever was in his history um one particular study I came across said that the anxiety levels in the average youngsters today are greater than those measured among troops on Battlefield in World War II troops on active War Duty they were less anxious and probably less depressed than the average youngster today that's what we have brought ourselves to and yet we continue to think we are very smart people we have what around 10 000 nuclear weapons that's a kind of Arsenal we are sitting on and we have one of the superpowers


sitting on and we have one of the superpowers actively threatening to blow up a nation um in a nuclear way and we think we are smart people and uh well I could I could go on to site more and more proofs if these do not suffice but the thing is that we are in a terrible mess and what's worse is that we refuse to acknowledge that we are pretty stupid people on the Hindi episode we did you spoke about how young people are easily able to absorb what you're saying and the older ones are the ones who struggle to change because the older ones are the ones responsible for most of the mess and the younger ones are the ones who will live through the mess and carry the burden of the previous generations the older ones are rather indebted to the upcoming Generations you know a kid born today would be living in a world of something like 500 to 600 PPM of CO2 and we are not talking of uh we are not in beginning to talk


of uh we are not in beginning to talk of methane here and the normal level should be closer to 80 PPM who made this newborn live in such an atrocious situation 500 or 600 PPM basically means the kid would have a horrid life so once I said that's one of the videos on the English Channel we do have an English Channel so if people are searching for it wonderful one of the videos there reads parents apologize to your kids so that's the mess the previous generation has landed this particular generation in and nobody seems to be caring nobody seems to be bothered enough to wake up um um you know there's so much stuff from the last episode that was so heavy that I want to bring it up in this one at the same time I want to give the audience new content because there's a lot of listeners listening to both so I'll bring it up as we go forward in this particular episode uh one of the key points you brought up is that marriage


the key points you brought up is that marriage children these things that Society tells us to do they are all social constructs you always told that this is how you should live out life when the actually key decisions that can heavily affect your mental health um your outcomes so before making decisions like that you need to have a lot of self-awareness and I think through the last podcast the key learning was the chase for self-awareness right it's a lack of self-awareness that causes all forms of mental health issues as well as all the problems we see in the world today and psychologists of today therapists of today help people with exactly that self-awareness they help people understand themselves um we can go into these questions that appear very trivial or mundane on the surface things like uh like like you mentioned marriage or sex or girlfriend or Pro and all the issues of the basic nature let's talk about the favorite subject of human beings then sex sex yeah you know I we have spoken about


sex sex yeah you know I we have spoken about sex on the show in today's world with so much easy sex out there with dating apps um you know with just sadness sex is used as an escapism in so many ways you see that around um you know what what is the truth about sex honestly it's easy to see because it's not something that's happening to somebody else it's the very ingredient the fundamental thing in our lives right so it should not be easy to comprehend what's going on should not be difficult to comprehensive see we you look at an animal right what is sex for an animal it's a purely physical thing because the animal itself is purely physical the animal does not have much of a mental existence it does our mental existence but it's not very limited the animal's existence is prakritic it's determined by its physical Constitution so animals behave as per their bodies no animal would ever say it has a purpose in life animals don't crack jokes animals don't laugh animals


animals don't crack jokes animals don't laugh animals don't ask for the meaning of life animals don't want to really change their lives unless they are engaged or something so animals are as Mother Nature Made Them so sex two is just a physical thing for Animals just like food just like water or respiration but man is fundamentally different from animals animals have to live as per their bodies and if an animal is living as per the Constitution and demands of its body the animal is all right very much all right it wants to sleep it falls asleep it feels hungry it goes out to graze or hunt man is different man is consciousness a very demanding a very uneasy Consciousness within this body a Consciousness that is related to the body is probably born out of the body it has a nature and needs very very distinct very different from the body your body for example at this moment wants to rest the eyes want to fall asleep but your Consciousness knows something else is more important so the


Consciousness knows something else is more important so the Consciousness says stay awake something else is more important you have been a Jimmer right the biceps want to say stop you say no I want to have a few more reps right do you see there is a distinction between what the body is saying what the body wants and what you want would you rather go with your biceps or with your Consciousness no you usually decide to go with with your mind that's your Consciousness Consciousness and mind you could take use interchangeably so in that way man is very different from animals so sex for a human being has to be therefore in the same way correspondingly different for a human being the animals Chief concern is fulfillment of its physical need man's teeth when I say man I mean man and woman both I mean a human being I'm just a bit old-fashioned so man man's Chief requirement is the Fulfillment of its Consciousness do we get the distinction yes animal wants to fulfill its


get the distinction yes animal wants to fulfill its physical needs man wants to rather fulfill the needs of its Consciousness and that's why we often overrule the needs of our body look at a marathon runner look at what what what his legs are saying you know the the the glutes the the calves everything is aching right and and and the stomach he's he's probably femished as well he carries on keeps running so body is saying and anybody who has ever achieved substantial anything substantial in life you would find to a great extent he would have gone against the body or he would have made the body toward the line of his Consciousness he would have said the body you shall act as a slave as a follower to the Consciousness you shall do what the Consciousness tells you to do and that's the way you reach somewhere in life so that's the way of the man so sex for man has to be a thing that fulfills his or her consciousness sex for man cannot be


his or her consciousness sex for man cannot be something entirely physical if sex for human beings is entirely physical then there is no difference between man and animal and that's just not something pejorative that basically has a practical disutility what's that if you act like an animal you will remain unfulfilled because you are not an animal you are not an animal you see there is a road accident huh animals pass by they will not come to help the victims the wounded and you would not say these are evil animals they are seeing somebody lying bleeding there and they aren't offering help would you say that you won't say that because it's not in in the in the animal to help really but if a man passes by without offering help that man should be deserves to be severely reprimanded that man deserves some scolding and so the benchmarks are different we are not animals so when we get in contact with someone as a man if you come across a woman the question that you should ask


come across a woman the question that you should ask is this relationship is this upcoming aspect of companionship for me going to fulfill my consciousness is that going to happen that depends on you probably that depends on how you are and where your inner Hollow is will she be able to really fulfill that inner Hollow and remember that inner Hall is not physical it's something else it's something else equally will I be of help to her really or are the two of us just Partners in in some kind of a physical give and take there doesn't take much sense not that it is evil it is just stupid it is a stupid meeting someone just for the purpose of sex is it's just it makes no sense not that there is some great wise in it or that you have become a criminal in the uh send in the Divine Dimension nothing of that we are not talking ordinary morality here we are talking spiritual utility here there is no utility to that maybe you will gain momentary satisfaction but nothing beyond


maybe you will gain momentary satisfaction but nothing beyond that nothing beyond that in that sense you see sex and masturbation are not uh too different the entire day we live bad lives and attention builds up attention builds up the tension builds up to help you out the tension builds so that under the influence of that tension reeling under the attention you decide to make your life better but what do you do you either have sex or you masturbate and that gives you easy release easy relaxation and all the tension that was built up is just dissipated the tension has come to no use the same thing happens when you have a readily available partner at home which happens in the case of marriage so you live a bad life and the bad life comes with consequences but you are not available to the full force of the consequences because sex is such an easy dissipator and an easy agent of of cheap relaxation and you are you are back to square one you're back to


are you are back to square one you're back to your relaxation should not come easy if relaxation is easy it is false it will not help you in in the long run or even in the medium round but what's the way to relax then you have to figure out the real cause of your unease you have to see that offering yourself a cheap kind of release by way of ejaculation makes very little sense we are not condemning it I'm repeating that in the moral sense right we are talking of something very important very substantial is peace and fulfillment not substantial to us then what kind of people are we if fulfillment is something that indeed means the world to us then we have to go into the real reasons of our disquiet and not offer easy vents like uh like population or masturbation or whatever um okay um you know the last podcast there were two key learnings you said that definitely a lack of self-awareness is the core reason behind the world's pain and problems and


core reason behind the world's pain and problems and Trauma uh then one layer above that is not understanding the purpose of life their own subjective purposes as human beings our own subjective purposes as human beings the the question I have for you is again uh you know I I walked into these podcasts thinking I'll talk to you about um vedanta agoris a lot of that stuff and you gave me a very Jai krishnamurthy Osho style podcast which was very similar uh you know concepts related to self-awareness that I've read in their books their book everything was about self-awareness and to talk so much about self-awareness you need to be self-aware yourself and I'm sure you are I want to ask you about the journey from being an IIT engineer to actually becoming whoever you are now you had to do a dive inside your mind and I'm trying to do a dive in my own life these kind of podcasts helped me a lot with going deeper into my own mind but


a lot with going deeper into my own mind but on the upper layers of my mind I found anger then I found Envy then I found lust then I found greed then I found questions I'm stuck on the questions now uh if you're indeed finding these things within you are you're on your way to to Redemption if you can if you can see that you'll be liberated from that so it's it's a good thing if you can indeed figure these out within very few people are able to choose to rather not it's not a question of ability it's a choice very few people choose to look at the Naked Truth Within and fewer still acknowledge it so wonderful is it the same order for everyone order in what sense I first found anger I had to work out the order can vary order depends on the situations order depends on your prakratic composition there are people who exhibit very little anger they might be seething within so it will be difficult for them to begin with anger somebody might be


for them to begin with anger somebody might be frustrated somebody might be suffering from an inferiority complex somebody might be jealous somebody might be lustful so you could begin from anywhere anyway all these things are a family of attributes huh they come from the same DNA the bhagavad-gita talks of the Shadow repo the six enemies and these six are all brothers sisters and cousins to each other so you can pick any one of them these are mother they all are babies of mother Maya from anywhere can you name them in English Envy mother is uh illusion is fear what else did I say [Music] attachment is probably the last one the most difficult one I don't clearly remember the order in which bhagavad-gita states them but the order is not of much use attachment to what sir attachment to anything worldly including your loved ones obviously if you are attached to your loved ones then you are attached to them don't even call them loved ones love and attachment are mutually exclusive


them loved ones love and attachment are mutually exclusive love precludes attachment I've already got my big learning from this podcast never looked at attachment like that I know it's important to be detached in life from outcomes and Detachment is Love by the way we do not look at even that this way love is Detachment very few people would conjure the image of a detached person being a loving one yeah but that's what he is if you are detached then essentially you are a lover and you cannot be a lover a loving person without being detached Have You Ever Loved a girl ah of course okay I have not dropped from the skies I am as much a creature of the soil as anybody else is in many senses I am I'm rather worse off compared to even the average ordinary mortal So It embarrasses me to say I have loved A girl just as anybody else does of course of course and what did it teach you or did it teach me that love is something far


or did it teach me that love is something far beyond what I took it to be and what you took it to be was an outcome of films and music to to some extent yes obviously yes yes well said very well said yeah I mean that's all of us yes yes because I'm going through the same thing right now I'm just talking about myself um you said attachment is one of the six sins according to the Gita since I don't want to call it sins enemies enemies enemy okay how do you start overcoming these enemies in you after you have figured that they're there by calling them enemies in the first place okay that's called okay and then what once you have called somebody as your enemy you will not allow him to Lord over you you're not allow him to come too close to you you will not allow him to embrace you and dominate you and dictate you and that's all nothing more is needed okay identify them and name them rightly do not hide your your factuality in


them rightly do not hide your your factuality in the Garb of false names you can call attachment as love you can call fear as responsibility you can there are so many things you know you can call insecurity as ambition there are so many false names that we assign to what is within and that offers us a false consolation and a false sense of Wellness we remain sick and keep certifying ourselves to be healthy there was a girl I dated once who um taught me a lot actually about how to be a cool person she taught me how to dress she taught me how to talk to people she taught me how to make more money she taught me so many of the things that I thought were parts of what we call Street smarts and I I still thank her every moment for that in saying that I'm not saying this in a judgmental angry way but she was a bit of what we call a conformist in terms of always wanted to do what society would think is correct want to


to do what society would think is correct want to get married at a certain age have kids uh always on receiving with a certain kind of outfit good brands Etc um the question I have here is um it's not just her that's most of mankind you travel all over the world and you realize most of humankind is like this on different levels so the real question I'm asking you here is for those people which is 99 of humanity what do you tell them about the purpose of human life what is it see there's nobody who has not uh gone the way of his or her desires so one can start from there I don't need to tell something entirely new to anybody um the thing that you are experiencing today is not the first time it's coming to you you have been through it before in another shape another form another time what happened then why don't you see that the thing happening today is just a recycle and renamed and Polished version of what you have been through before


and Polished version of what you have been through before a zillion times and if if that couldn't help you how would this help you you're talking about this lifetime of course of course of course of course you're not talking about like past lives without Nations it's it's a beautiful ending to one of the principal upanishads and it says just remember what you have done just remember what you have done that's the entire show half a dozen time that's repeated in the shlok just remember the deed remember the deed remember the deed and if you can do that you are liberated of the deed it's talking about pattern recognition yes because there is nothing new that's happening here nothing new okay just this uh just this morning incidentally I was discussing with the team the concept of eternal return eternal return huh that's found in the Greek philosophers the pythagoreans the stoics and obviously that that is explained with great clarity in vedant in bhagavad-gita the concept of eternal


vedant in bhagavad-gita the concept of eternal return there's nothing new Happening Here question tells Arjun Arjun so many times has this happened before it's just that you don't remember this you don't remember what you have been before a million times I remember all that and he is not necessarily referring to past lifetimes I've spoken a lot on that that's a separate issue so if you can see that the kind of thing you are experiencing for a girl today is just a continuation and extension of what you were doing um let's say yesterday in the in the mechanical laboratory yeah what you were doing at the age of five in the community playground it's just the same thing and therefore it will have just the same kind of ending the previous thing didn't help you and the proof is that you still require a new thing um could that thing really help you it would have attained a closure but the closure never came the proof is that again and again you have to rush into new


that again and again you have to rush into new kind of relationships activities Adventures why do you require these new things because the previous ones didn't suffice how will this one suffice when this is just the same essentially as the previous ones if you can see that then the the fire of needless and blind excitement within is abated and that helps a lot that helps a lot I'm not saying that because uh I'm against relationships or something I want people to have wonderful joyful loving relationships not the kind of random associations we get into and then make life hell for ourselves and all others and also enter a relationship if you've realized that it's for you because it may not even be for you it's not even for you and when you see we do not know anything about ourselves we do not know anything that would suit us or help us do we know the kind of food that's really good for us and most people huh do we know where to live do we even know which particular


know where to live do we even know which particular shirt or trouser to pick up from the shop do we do we know which course to enroll in how will we know which person to go for so just as we make blind and random choices about anything in life we also happen to choose randomly some person who happens to coincidentally come our way and from there ensues what we call as a fabled love story and then there are kids and an entire dynastic and follow from there and all that happened just because of a chance happening random coincidence that meant nothing at all Hollow Beginnings that lead to futile endings um do you pray in one sense all the time in another sense never at all what is prayer when you realize that the way you operate and you think and you apply your mind and all these things that can take you only so far and no more so you pause and fall silent that silence is prayer it's not asking for things that you want from a higher


not asking for things that you want from a higher power that's a demand that's expression of a desire no that's a wish list that you give to your Daddy Daddy I want all these things from the market and if you don't bring these I'll stamp my feet on the ground and raise a chaos [Music] prayer is not sakam vedant is very clear sakam means desirous if prayer includes desires it's of no avail prayer simply should mean a silence in which you admit your smallness I'm so small if I ask you something that would be self-defeating because the ask would be as small as I am so I ask something I give myself to the Beyond I have done the maximum I could not that I'm I'm trying to escape away not that I'm saying I'll languish and do nothing I have done whatever limited possible in my capacity I have gone to the edge of my capacity that's prayer one has to be prayerful all the time one has to be perfect and and


all the time one has to be perfect and and that's that's a contradiction uh of sorts because on one hand you have to do the maximum you can on the other hand you have to be free of doership this this avoidance of doership is being prayerful doing the utmost possible and yet not being the doer that's being in prayer in your heart what who what or who do you pray to there's nobody to pray to really if I if there is somebody to pray to then I am standing in front of a shopkeeper huh or a service provider or a big daddy who's there to take care of my needs there's just nobody to pray to see not only must there must be nobody to pray to also there should be nobody to pray nobody to pray and nobody to pray to if there is somebody offering the prayer then definitely the prayer would be a long wish list you might not utter your wishes verbally but they would remain implicit you might be standing silent but


they would remain implicit you might be standing silent but inwardly you would be wanting something to happen that's not prayer at all not prayer at all you have to keep yourself aside prayer is an is an exercise in getting rid of your own pestering existence no we are we are sick of ourselves to pray is to keep the sickness aside and the more you are prayerful the more Health you gain if you ask for something in prayer then you are just enunciating the sickness no use a lot of the things you're saying are very I mean I'm using the word rude I'm going to say that the things are saying are rude because they're breaking beliefs of me a lot of the listeners I have a certain strong belief but but you are breaking it and I'm accepting the breakage often apologize to my audiences no I mean I don't think you need to apologize so no whatever I I understand that I hurt I understand that uh it it can pain a lot


I understand that uh it it can pain a lot but I also know that within my within my mortal limits I'm kind of helpless I try to do my best to to to deliver the medicine in the uh in the least sugar coated way in the least offensive way possible oh okay least offensive way possible but it's the nature of the truths that it bites how do I help it Beyond a point I can't and if I try to as you said sugar coat it too much then I'll be guilty of um diluting the truth yeah and if truth diluted is truth lost so I'm gonna give you one picture that's playing on in my head um there's a rapper who I follow his name is Lil Dicky and he's actually quite philosophical and uh one of his videos talks about uh how he's having a conversation with a girlfriend of his and they're discussing God and she's a believer of God and he's not like he's an atheist so he says that if God really


an atheist so he says that if God really created us then why did he create the dinosaurs millions of years ago and then decide that no no this is not fun enough and then destroy them with like meteorites so does that mean that we are just an outcome of fungus are we just fungus growing on us that's true okay and let that bring some humility to the body identified ones if you identify too much with your body then you should know that your body is just an outgrowth of the first cells the first primitive cells that grew under sunlight in a pool of cess that's where we all come from right so that's what the body is an overgrown amoeba you could say or fungus or bacteria whatever I mean it should be as offensive as possible so that it drills some sense into us in the dimension of the body we are pretty ordinary and very little slimy beings right from that cesspool in the dimension of Consciousness we are potentially the purest that is possible purest beyond


potentially the purest that is possible purest beyond the mind's conceptualization so pure that the Mind cannot even Envision that sacredness we are that pure but it depends on what you choose to be if you choose to be the body even the the the single celled primitive organisms would be ashamed of you we are so filthy so dirty yeah think think of this think of this sack of skin what's underneath it all kinds of things that you would find grossly repulsive if kept on this table you'd run away if the contents of this this skin sack are laid out on this table won't you there is excreta there's urine there is pus there are there's bile there are so many other chemicals and fluids and and so much more that is that is just repugnant to even think of let alone look at and yet we are so proud of the body we keep talking of ourselves as we are nothing but the body and the body is just in in um that's what is within right


is just in in um that's what is within right you you you can you can cleanse your face but just inside the first thing in the elementary Canal is the saliva and if you spit on someone you know the consequences and you know how uncivilized that's supposed to be and yet we behave as if we are pure things from the body the body if not maintained even for a day starts thinking does it not think of the cops think of the cops you have to rush to cremate it huh you you you are in a hurry you are desperate to just somehow get rid of it that's the worth of the body and on the other hand there is a consciousness the purest and highest and the absolutely sacred possible now the choice is yours what do you want to be Consciousness is what is inside you after you close your eyes Consciousness is that which tells you that your eyes are closed not that you have to close your eyes what is it that's behind the eyes


your eyes what is it that's behind the eyes and lets you know that the eyes are not closed the eyes of a corpse are forever closed does the cop know that is the cop conscious of that the cops is not conscious of that Consciousness is the thing behind the eyes that looks out through the eyes do you want to talk about the soul please then where does the soul lie in this game of body the soul is a concept in the mind there's nothing but the mind okay there is nothing but the mind and the mind is different from the Consciousness mind and Consciousness are synonyms okay the soul the spirit all these are just Concepts in the mind just Concepts in the mind you'll fall asleep you'll remember anything called the soul you won't had you not been taught the concept of the Soul would you have known it you won't have so all these are just Concepts definitions Soul Spirit there is only the mind and then there is the content of the Mind the content of the


is the content of the Mind the content of the Mind the content of the Mind unfortunately for us is something very misplaced we have filled up our minds with nonsense spirituality is about cleansing the mind that does not mean refilling the mind with so-called Pure or spiritual or sacred content simply means giving the mind a quality that makes it non-sticky now you put anything in the mind it doesn't stick to the mind also because nothing will stick to the mind so all the things that come to the mind with the intention to stick around now find it no more useful to come to your mind that way now you are spared and blessed like what like what are those things that come to your mind with the intention think of a shopkeeper think of a shopkeeper why would he bombard you with advertisements he wants advertisements to remain here linger around if he somehow comes to know that in your mind his advertisements won't stick won't stay would he waste his money advertising to you and


would he waste his money advertising to you and advertising has its costs right why will he then choose you to Target he won't Target you anymore and you're spared but what are those things like could you give a daily life example of those see the world is just like us it's our mirror image and just as we are unfulfilled beings all the beings that you locate in the world are equally unfulfilled in their own ways they are unfulfilled and ignorant so we want to gain fulfillment through all kinds of random ways random and devious ways so what do we do we use others as means to gain personal fulfillment so I'm a shopkeeper I look at you I look at your pocket and I think that if I can have a share of your pocket I'll be fulfilled I'm a man you are a woman I look at your body and I say if I can lay my hands on your body I'll feel fulfilled that's what happens when you are unfulfilled you become


what happens when you are unfulfilled you become violent and exploitative but if I come to know that the person in front of me is no more capable of being exploited that person has become non-sticky that person has become non-sticky therefore he cannot be exploited will I bother myself with trying to exploit you anymore I won't because I know this person is now useless I'm a shopkeeper and I know that this person cannot be trapped will I even make attempts on you anymore I won't so you are spared I'm feeling this urge to bring up the word atheism sir are you an atheist what does being atheist mean I don't have an answer to that question but I'll try answering it I think it's a lack of a belief in a higher power one should not believe in anything one should know what is and what is just your Consciousness just Consciousness that has something very flawed and faulty about itself because It suffers suffering is a fact of


because It suffers suffering is a fact of life it's the first of Buddha's Four Noble Truths we suffer life is suffering right we suffer that's also what the existentialists start out with there is an existential angst right that's also what vedan seeks to address the three kinds of inner sufferings inner fevers so there is suffering there is suffering and I will limit myself to what is purely verifiable what are the three kinds of inner sufferings one is the things that uh are purely material in nature for example a Stone comes and hits you things that are material that you but you cannot make sense of them so you attribute them to the gods for example there is a feminine it is a purely physical phenomena but because you do not know what exactly caused it so you say the gods are angry therefore it didn't rain on earthquake or an earthquake or a plague something then there is when you have everything in abundance and yet you are


when you have everything in abundance and yet you are unfulfilled that's when spirituality really starts for you that's these are the three kinds of inner angsts out of which two are actually outer only one is inner coming back to what we are talking about you were talking about verifiable yeah so the only thing verifiable about life is that there is somebody who's talking and the speaker suffers I do not know about God so why should I talk about atheism or uh thism or or even say I'm an agnostic I won't claim either of these positions all I know is I am because if I do not exist who's talking there is a speaker there is a speaker and the state of the speaker is of suffering that's the only thing I know all else is a story and we are not here to kid ourselves with stories are we we are here on something serious we are serious about tackling the problem of human suffering and The Angst contained in very human existence that's what we want to understand


very human existence that's what we want to understand and challenge so I suffer I start from there huh I suffer I am and if I am then this chair is because I can't say I am sense this body so the way I perceive my existence is wedded to this body and if this body is then this chair is so I am and I am implies this world is so somehow this factuality that I begin with is itself containing suffering me and the world which means the relationship between me and the chair me and the entire world that's where I begin from now there's no God in this where does God come relationship that's what comes what's my relationship with the world what the relationship of this sufferer with his own body the body the part of the world the body is a part of the world what is the relationship true spirituality coming from vedanta or any other place actually explores nothing but this relationship if you if you look at the various branches of indic philosophy and if you look


various branches of indic philosophy and if you look at the various interpretations of vedant itself there is a Dua there is there is all that they are trying to come to terms with is the relationship between purush and prakrati the relationship between Consciousness and the contents of Consciousness the relationship between Jiva and jagat what is the right relationship to have with the world that's the elementary question even a school kid should ask and that's why this this conversation even if it looks heavy is actually very important and should be very interesting to even a teenager what is the right relationship to have with the world what should the right relationship I should have with my classmates or my colleagues with that girl with that boy with my with my score sheet with the entrance exam with my parents with those with those luminous objects in that and then that shelf in the market what is what is that that new car model voluptuous looks so beautiful what's my relationship with that because the relationship is not right I'll


relationship with that because the relationship is not right I'll suffer and suffering is the fact of my being one has to be very conscious of it and one has to love oneself and one has to be very respectful of oneself to say I am not born to suffer what happens is that the spiritual inquiry does not even begin for most people because they reconcile to their suffering too easily they say oh if I am suffering everybody else does what else are we born for they give decorated names to their suffering they would simply say oh I'm bored you're not bored son you're suffering you're not bored but if you if you label your suffering as boredom you will give it very artificial and superficial Solutions you'll say it's a weekend let's go and watch the latest flick and that would relieve you of your state suffering state for a while and that satisfies you you should not be satisfied don't be satisfied too easily have have a great


don't be satisfied too easily have have a great lust within for Joy for the real thing for the total ask for something that's immense don't just be happy with with Privia and and and and bits and pieces and somebody is throwing crumbs at you and you say yo I got it in my lab I'm satisfied no not that kind of thing especially to young people I'm saying you should be very ambitious in the real sense ambitious not just in the sense of owning the latest iPad or or that coveted job ambitious in the sense of extracting the maximum from Life am I alive if I am alive what am I alive for to just live the way I am currently living the question that I ask is allow me two minutes more on this sure the question that I ask is anybody I meet 10 years before had you been told offered a deal that you will have 10 years hence the kind of life you are leading today would you have taken the offer yeah an incent percent cases the answer is


the offer yeah an incent percent cases the answer is no say you are 35 at the age of 25 if you were shown a glimpse of your life as it is today at the age of 35 had you been shown a snippet here this is the way you would be living at 35 the way you are living today would you have accepted it people would say no this is not what we wanted when we were 25. he said then why do you accept it when you're 35. why can't you Rebel a young man has to be rebellious and by man I repeat I mean both man and woman in fact women need to be rebellious even in an even deeper sense than men because they are more subdued more subjugated in in some way still we call ourselves a liberated society and all that that's another thing so so that thing has to be there I want the real thing I don't want to be satisfied too easily I want to challenge the world and before I challenge all I want to challenge


world and before I challenge all I want to challenge myself which means water and daily activities which means everything that limits me every every cheap compromise that I make has to be kept aside I'm not I'm not a teeny weeny little one I'm imminent City itself and and if that sounds too much too heavy simply say can I be better than the one I deem myself to be I don't suppose that's too much to ask for right nobody is Happy the way he or she is so why can't you strive to be better as simple as that that spirituality hmm you know so like in this podcast every sentence you're saying is adding value to my own head as is the case of the listeners uh I have very different beliefs from you again I repeat that like there are many things you're saying which I disagree upon internally but I still am gaining value from what you're saying somewhere else it's helping me I have a very strong opinion on God maybe because I have I would


strong opinion on God maybe because I have I would like to believe I've seen miracles in my own life I've had dreams I've felt like God has visited me and told me things I've applied in my own life and that's led me to higher planes of Joy uh I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life and this plane of happiness has been created because of finding Solace and what I think of as God and I think of as God as light and purity but I remember that this belief of mine began at a place where probably your journey also began which is kindness I think that's the first step uh there's a rapper I think his name is Tyler The Creator so he said that people cry about not receiving love in their life not receiving care in their life and then victimizing themselves but the actual key here is if you feel like you're not receiving something go give it out in the world do you agree because of course not you don't agree foreign do we


because of course not you don't agree foreign do we have the guts to receive love when it comes do we have the eyes to identify love when it comes how will you get love if you keep blocking it in every instance somebody comes to deliver food to you you don't even open the gate and then you say I am famished what kind of sense is that how is love not available that that's the thing with the ego it never looks at itself it would say oh the world is not offering me love ah you even prepared to receive love and love is dangerous you won't receive it love destroys you love destroys you in the right sense so you don't want to take love Real Love is a destroyer um real love won't leave you the way you currently are so people don't want love people want little things like attachment like cheap gratification and if that is a like validation and if if that is coming they call the source as the lover no that's not love love is always available we do not


that's not love love is always available we do not know what love is now let me Define Love In my own little way I might shortly misplaced The Only Thing Worth loving if we are if we are Consciousness personified The Only Thing Worth loving is purity ascendance liberation only that can be loved only that can be something one can Aspire for only that's something one wants to come close to huh therefore that's the only thing that can be loved Liberation Liberation can I be liberated of my current state anything that keeps you more or less in your current state um is not a gift of love it is some kind of entertainment which is okay one sometimes needs to be entertained for a while but let's not call that as love even when it comes to giving love because you talked of that the same question applies do we know what love is in the Name of Love we keep on doing so many senseless things to others do we know what is love I say I'll


others do we know what is love I say I'll have a woman and I destroy her life does that not happen and does not happen in most of the cases we talked of M Scott Peck I suppose in the previous podcast right and and I quoted to you that he has been categorical that marriage the institution of marriage is the root cause of neurosis in the world most cases that he says that he received as a practitioner were actually victims of of the institution of marriage so we don't do we know what is love the man says he loves the wife the wife says he loves the man both husband and wife claim that they love the kids and we see how most of the people in this world are if everybody is loving everybody how come the world is in such a terrible shape do we even know love no we don't know love because we are spiritually illiterate people right so so it's not as if we do not get love or we do not want to give love


get love or we do not want to give love uh once you know who you are then you also know what you essentially need and then you are in love and that love is Unstoppable the man who knows himself will be in today's language a Die Hard lover you can kill him you cannot stop him from loving whereas the lovers that we usually come across they can be so usually so easily stopped in their tracks the fellow says I'm going to meet my girlfriend you threaten him a little and he stops the fellow says I I love my car huh you put a gun here and he'll hand over the keys the fellow says oh I love this or I love that political party you convince him a little and he'll change his opinion um all the fellow will say I love chicken and will consume all the flesh that's the kind of love that we have no I love chicken I love my baby and I love chicken I'll consume the chicken and I'll consume my baby what's


consume the chicken and I'll consume my baby what's the same that's not love most people die without coming even close to love and that's such a tragedy is it not to live for 80 years a Loveless life a Loveless life that's what most of us live and if life is Loveless it's not worth living love is really what makes life not only tolerable but joyful so there has to be real love real love you know I think sometimes about what music does to the mind and effectively music is mathematics just expressed in sound would you disagree no not really you see we are we are practic beings we have practic beings material beings material beings arising from a long process of evolution the mind has two layers the layer that thinks and the layer of tendencies the layer that things is the upper layer the more superficial layer the layer of which are then the deeper one is the layer of witty tendencies which are requires words responds more to non-verbal cues like eye contact like touch


more to non-verbal cues like eye contact like touch and music so the lyrics correspond to the thinking part of the Mind the music corresponds to your tendencies right and therefore music speaks to a lot of people even if the lyrics are incomprehensible um as I age as a man and as I get to meet people like yourself I feel more and more of my personality is getting erased and I'm actually gaining peace from that process I'm hitting a place of Peace web getting unaffected by ups and downs of Life ups and downs of Human Relationships Etc um and that's also made me think of music because I'm also a video editor if we're looking at an image and we put maybe it's a guy on a beach and you put in a happy guitar music there the whole image becomes happy and you have the same image where you put sad music the whole image becomes sad and I think of Personality like that for the mind as well that do you have the capability of throwing


as well that do you have the capability of throwing in all different kinds of musics or are you sticking yourself into boxes and that's what most of the world is suffering with today they they just kind of caught up in their own personalities and this whole podcast has been a personality Destroyer for all the listeners for me as well in many aspects because the core of this is I disagree with you on so many points but I still want to listen to you more that's what love does you know you are getting killed and still you are attracted to the killer in in saying that if I met you at a conference I would walk away from you in I'm doing this for the podcast but that's the thing with love you invite the killer right to your home yeah as you have done yeah no I and I enjoyed this like I'm not I'm not like you you enjoy the entire process of getting killed yeah let me quote my favorite teacher to you and you will fall in love


favorite teacher to you and you will fall in love with him Anand the world is afraid of the inner death but I feel joyous in that death in fact I am I'm desperate I am eagerly looking forward to dying when will that grand thing happen when will I meet the total absolute Joy puran parmanand the highest ecstasy possible and that is available only when you are gone when you are finished as long as you remain your sufferings remain so that inner death is the goal of all spirituality the world is afraid of the inner inner destruction and I want that that inner inner animal that inner sickness to be completely destroyed I want to be nobody I want to be gone totally gone gone beyond finished nothing remains nothing remains huh so so uh die before the body dies die before the body dies and then you come alive that's when actually we were born for the first time yeah I don't think I would have the understanding to understand what you just said even six months ago through


understand what you just said even six months ago through this podcast I've met incredibly I think I would advise you to go to the Saints I think you will love them go to Saint Kabir go to go to go to Saint radars go to Rumi go to Hafiz you'll love them you know go to go to Baba bullesha let's see and if you can as you say Vibe well with her go to go to mirabai okay and you might find you are getting dissolved in your own tears yeah this process doctor is uh definitely destroying my personality in I'm saying that in a very positive way uh I'm grateful to you I'm not ready to go deeper than this which is why I'm stopping the podcast here it's definitely a lot of things I'm questioning and I need some time to absorb I don't I this is where I stop like this is my question stop at this stage age 29 and a half I know I know you'll you will need more of


I know I know you'll you will need more of this you will crave for more than this so it might come through me or through anybody or from any Source maybe through your own realization based on experience whatever but you'll definitely go further and deeper than this acharya I'm grateful and uh wonderful and I can't express what I'm feeling in words but thank you just a big big fact thank you and uh I'm hoping to talk to you again that's all else wonderful thank you that was the episode for today if you understand Hindi I highly recommend you go check out the Hindi version of this conversation that we did with acharya Prashant extremely heavy just like this one a little bit more fiery Maybe I just hope that our English audience especially International listeners especially listeners from parts of India where Hindi is not a commonly spoken language got introduced correctly to one of the great minds of modern day India there's a reason that acharya Prashant has gained this kind of a following


Prashant has gained this kind of a following online offline and I'm glad that TRS could have been a part of his journey someone who seeks the purest version of knowledge and that's what I gained from him a 360 degree world view on life existence existentialism and philosophy I had to sit with all these data points for two to three days after this recording just to be able to make sense of the things spoken on this podcast thank you for listening in I'm sure I did the same to you I do recommend that you listen to this conversation two or three more times and I also recommend that you follow us on Spotify every episode's available on Spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world foreign [Music]


recently there was a film that kind of became very popular in kannada which is the kanthara that we have seen like very much liked it there are certain scenes they were showing in that film where the protagonist of the of the movie he hears certain things okay and there's a the approach of the deity when it comes you hear certain like the sound of jewelry etc etc so those are all typical signs of when the kundalin is awaken to the higher planes Etc something in the last 15-20 minutes of that movie is beyond acting it was like what is called as is a term we use called avasham where the deity enters into an individual and that is part of the Southern ambition in the spiritual field is perfectly all right greed is not that's one thing that happens in the material plane very often which is that I want it I want it quickly in double quick time I'll use whatever methods I want and I am greedy about it greed is greed


and I am greedy about it greed is greed dishonesty you will not survive in the spiritual realm you will fall faster than you can because the beings you are dealing with they know you inside out they knew better than your parents know you the first episode that we created with rajashi nandisa was a blockbuster it was all about the basics of Tantra it was all about the occult I do recommend that you should watch or listen to that episode before you head into this one this one's even darker even grittier it's a two-part special because the information was kind of too overloaded for just one conversation spoke about lots of different concepts on this one if you're not willing to witness the entire episode make sure you check out our highlights Channel TRS Clips all the highlights are uploaded already what I will definitely say is rajashi nandisa has a lot to offer in order to educate us about the occult the questions I asked him have asked lots of other guests but


asked him have asked lots of other guests but very few could answer it in the way that this man did for more conversations just like this makes you follow TRS on Spotify but Spotify exclusive every episode's available on Spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world before I let you slip into this dark episode I just want to mention that ah meditation level is now live in the App Store in the Play Store links given down below you'll earn a one week free trial if you use this link lots of love to you guys thanks for the support lots of more power-backed episodes are coming up but for now pause your mind make yourself still and take in everything that rajashi nandi sir has to offer on this gritty episode of TRS [Music] a welcome back to TRS for what I would like to believe is a sequel episode of the extremely powerful episode that we created the last time it was electric like that's how I described the last one how do you look back upon that


the last one how do you look back upon that one oh it was wonderful wonderful um this is a recurring theme on the show you know that uh honestly the show gets some amount of criticism for that we talk about ghosts higher beings uh Divine beings aliens Angels but my take on that is human culture is about three lakh years old possibly older than that um things like this have been spoken about for millennia we're just trying to revisit those conversations this is not to prove to people that ghost exists or don't exist but where do you actually begin this conversation from a tantric perspective let's just dragon in a deeper understanding of it so where would you like to begin sir right uh so the first uh the way I look at it and the way traditional and tendrupasana looks at it is that just like there are millions of people I don't know six seven billion people in the world right now so this is the physical plane we are existing in okay this is the


physical plane we are existing in okay this is the Earth is the physical plate beyond that there are stacked layers and layers of reality there are subtle planes going up to the realm of the Gods and then beyond the devathas ETC all the Realms are there so in those Realms also there are many types of beings okay and uh because there are innumerable beings just like innumerable human beings some of them are very high caliber Spiritual Beings some of them are average beings some of them may be not spiritual at all some of them maybe of the kinds who are to us they appear negative in their uh in their behavior in their mannerisms Etc so it it is a fact there's no question about if you ask me that do they exist it's like asking me does gravity exist it exists what you do with it that knowledge or not and the other thing is that I believe that denial is also not a good idea that okay I don't believe in it no in fact I remember


don't believe in it no in fact I remember once uh during a conversation with a friend I was telling that it's far easier to experience one of these entities than to experience a deity and again you'll have to do a recap on what deity means so deity is basically a Divine being a god whom we worship as one of the great gods in Hinduism who is capable of acting as a personal uh as a figure of personal reverence as well as each of these gods are capable of manifesting the full um domain of full range of spiritual abilities what is there until the highest they can become transcendental they can also come down into the form of a murti and we worship them it's their benevolence towards the human race towards us our culture and the whole of Dharma is basically how do we interact with these Gods okay so that's what um Hinduism describes the being as having three parts so that's basically your physical body or astral body


so that's basically your physical body or astral body and your causal body yes um what we know of each other and of regular life is that we see each other's physical bodies uh I would like you to explain according to Tantra what an astral body and a causal body is because it's a great entry point into this world of higher beings right so uh so the as we exist in the physical body but our astral bodies are also active at any given point active means it's still we are functioning both through the astral body as well as the physical body like in the movie Doctor Strange they show him kind of getting out of his body that would be a version of Astral body ah so getting out is one when you are taking the astral body out of your physical but I am saying that even now at this very moment when you're interacting with the world you are your astral body is also interacting why that's because very simply to understand the physical body governs your physical existence okay


understand the physical body governs your physical existence okay so astral body contains uh to to you know to bring it down to the basic ideas so your emotional life what you are okay you're emotionally you feel happy you feel sad somebody you like you dislike all that processing is done in your astral body it's your physical body does not do that I I also once read that um the astral body is responsible for illness as well if something's going wrong in the astral body then it manifests illness in the physical body yes and so illness can manifest in physical also and astral also but yes astral also definitely so very often in fact illnesses uh there is some manifestation they are still first it'll come and then it will come to the physical I think can you dive a little bit deeper into the word astral in the first place yeah so astral uh Loosely what the astral I think the West understands by the term astral is something more than the uh the physical plane something above


something more than the uh the physical plane something above the physical plane something more subtle than the physical the only difference between that world and this world is we use the Sanskrit term in subtle it's more subtle ours is gross we have a physical body there okay so in the astral world you do not have this physical body but you have an image of the physical body like the image would look just like our face almost same and the tendencies that you have the you like something maybe you like this kind of food this kind of clothes this kind of conversations this people Etc the likes dislikes all that's also very much there in the astral what is the difference the difference is there's no physical presence there's no stooler means physical gross body is not there your gross body arms and legs is not there okay okay so that allows you certain things if you are able to control the astral body you can move around in that you can see beings in that but yeah it's all types of entities are there


that but yeah it's all types of entities are there good bad everything is there and it's large part of the various what we call it are all religions for that matter uh means whether there are slightly higher beings or slightly lower beings Etc it's all things that are there in the astral plane I think in Islam there's jinns yeah and in Christianity um there is aspects of Satan like demons uh so yeah demons and all things like that those are there those are they so the astral is also a wide term for there are subtle layers inside the astral also it's not about one uniform thing because obviously a slightly higher kind of entity okay for example in let's come to our terms that we use in our scriptures okay so say a being which is like a gandharwa gandharwa is one of those beings who remain in this astral higher astral Realms okay who are an excellent repositories of knowledge any topic okay and there's very good singers also okay tremendous then there