Instagram fame and Anxiety pills || Acharya Prashant, with IIM Calcutta (2022)

Acharya Prashant

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00:00Namaskar Acharya Ji. I think my question has three aspects to it. So, the first aspect

00:10is the psychosocial aspect and my question is that nowadays we see a lot of quick fix

00:17philosophies and they seem to work for a lot of people. So, the philosophies of you only

00:23live once, body positivity or positivity in general and self-love and you know like these

00:33kind of things which seem to work for people. However, on the counter side I feel they try to

00:41make a person escape from their realities in a sense that you escape your problems

00:47so that instead of facing them and going through a discomfort of processing them

00:52and reaching the end, you just focus on your own self and that focus on your own self somehow

00:59seems to fuel narcissism on some level. In fact, today only I read that the person on Instagram

01:07with the highest number of followers is just a person who posts a picture of herself every day

01:13in front of the mirror and that has given her 133 million followers. So, the physiological aspect

01:21of this is that anxiety has become almost like an epidemic today and we see doctors prescribing

01:28anxiety pills or depression pills incessantly and personally I have seen that depression tablets,

01:36anxiety tablets seem to work for people. It does seem to bring them out of their rut. So,

01:42is that correct? Is that the right way of addressing the problem on and are these two problems connected?

01:48And finally, the social spiritual aspect of this question. This quick fix philosophy, it seems to

01:56make people very exclusive. It is diametrically opposed to inclusive living. So, is that wrong or is

02:04that right? And is it something we should be accepting in our daily life as part of the modern world?

02:10Actually, that person with that large number of Instagram followers would be in a very good position

02:24to bring about a change in popular consciousness. Because more than anybody else, that person would know the

02:37the futility of this kind of stuff. So, I mean that is what, how can anti-anxiety pills work for someone?

02:56Right? They affect your body, your brain in a particular way. But the mind remains the same, right?

03:09There is a difference between a problem in the brain and problem in the mind. So, there is a difference

03:19between a problem in the brain and a problem in the mind. When you take these pills, at most they can

03:29address the brain. But how will pills address the mind? The mind is composed of tendencies, thoughts, emotions,

03:41emotions, such stuff. And the problem really lies there. And we try to address the problem in the mind

03:53the mind by treating the brain would not really help. Or would help in a very superficial way, very limited way.

04:10Right? The philosophies that you talked of, you live only once and such things,

04:18do we think them through? What does it mean to live only once? Who is the one who lives?

04:32Or is it merely a catchphrase, a jumlah, a loose metaphor of some kind?

04:53Nobody is getting much out of what is going on.

04:58And yet what is going on is going on. So, it's a miracle. And Vedanta calls it Maya.

05:12She keeps sucking the life out of you and yet you keep worshipping her.

05:20She does not let you see what is right there in front.

05:25And instead, she keeps you lost in dreams and apparitions. That's Maya.

05:41Now, one way this charm, this spell is broken is when facts hit you really hard.

05:50That's one way. For example, the COVID onslaught. So, many people were brutally brought down to ground

06:03and made to taste reality in one stroke.

06:08We live in make-believe worlds. We live in bubbles. Within those bubbles, there is a degree of comfort,

06:19security, etc. But those bubbles can be punctured anytime.

06:25It's just that in this limited phase in which we are living,

06:40the bubbles are not being punctured very regularly. But anything can happen anytime. Life can test you

06:48very ruthlessly. And that's when you realize that you have no solid base to life. That you have no

06:58no philosophical foundation or whatever philosophy that you have is very childish, very inadequate.

07:12Even if there is no COVID, even if there is no cataclysmic happening, yet life keeps testing us in

07:27small ways. And facts have a way of showing up. When facts show up, then our concepts and imaginations

07:36are badly hurt, sometimes shattered. And then we rush to the psychiatrist. And that's why you see long

07:45queues there. The waiting times are only increasing every passing month.

07:55Mental health today is a bigger problem than any other disease of the body.

08:02Mental health today. Obviously not without reason. Obviously then you have to get into and inquire

08:12everything that affects the mind. Because the mind cannot just get sick on its own. Surely there are

08:20influences, surely there are conditions that are pushing it into sickness. And if you start inquiring

08:27into those conditions, the entire world order will come crashing down. You will have to question our

08:36economics, our education, our social institutions, our politics, everything. And because we don't want to

08:45question all that, then because there are powerful forces whose self-interests are being served by these

08:54institutions. Therefore, no proper enquiry is being made. And the common man is just too powerless and

09:07uncaring. He says, one life is all that I have. Even if I waste it away, how does it matter? It is just one

09:13life. Is that not the philosophy? No? So, he says after all, just one life. So, just waste it away.

09:23Even those who are exploiting this common man are actually wasting their lives.

09:30Not that they are receiving some higher benefit or higher delight or substantial fulfilment. Even they

09:38are wasting their lives. They are wasting their lives. That is how Maya is. Both the exploiter and the

09:43exploited are actually being exploited by a third party called Maya.

09:51It is just that the exploiter thinks he is very smart. He does not know that even he is a pawn.

09:57The real exploiter is somebody else. Shallow philosophies, false treatments do not work for anybody.

10:14It is another matter if we want to keep fooling ourselves. There has to be self-love. There has to be

10:21courage. One has to say it is all right to be devastated and destroyed but it is not all right

10:32to keep yielding moment by moment the way I do.

10:39If I have to be destroyed, let me be destroyed at least in some great pursuit.

10:44Why am I being destroyed in the pursuit of trivia and trash?

10:58Those questions need to be asked.

11:02The mind is very susceptible to influences. We look at what other people do and therefore someone

11:10has to throw his hat in the ring and say, fine, I am going to fight it so that others too get the

11:16courage to fight it out.

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