u/nishant-12345

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The GDP remains the most pervasive indicator of national progress, but as we navigate 2026, the cracks in this metric have become apparent. The foundation of GDP is based on “infinite growth”. Is there a limit where the need to grow is considered irrelevant? What’s worth noting is that the GDP growth comes from the resources available on the Earth which are actually finite. But from what is commonly seen the want to grow is infinite. Was it ever asked for whom this growth is?

Planetary Boundaries : Earth’s Finite Resources

The conflict between infinite growth and finite earth is no longer a theoretical debate, it is a measurable crisis. Planetary boundaries measure the overall health of Earth and are linked with the extent up to which various resources of Earth can be exploited and still maintain a stable and resilient planet. Crossing those boundaries can risk large scale disruption or irreversible environmental damage. According to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, we have now breached seven out of the nine planetary boundaries that maintain Earth's stability.

The question we need to ask is why is our identity strongly linked to GDP growth?

Is GDP growth the only parameter of progress?

The hunger for infinite growth starts from the inner restlessness within all of us which was never examined. From within, we feel incomplete and to feel complete we tend to accumulate more things and call that growth. This isn’t an issue of morality, rather the problem is that this growth never satisfies us and this constant need of growing has put extreme stress on the planet. Acharya Prashant teaches that when the planet is seen as something separate from one and as an object to consume, the relationship is no longer of love but of exploitation.

All our time, energy, our entire life is consumed in this constant chase for growth which was never examined. Is this an intelligent way of living? The moment this is seen and understood we would start heading in the right direction, where degrowth is not forcefully implemented or seen as a sacrifice, rather there’s a shift in the center which arises from a clear understanding of oneself. There’s nothing extra which has to be done, rather what is being already done drops the moment this understanding arises. Human body is a part of this planet, how can something which is part of this planet, harm the planet? There is something which has come as an extra baggage along with us.

What does success mean? What does a good quality life mean?

All of this was borrowed and formed our conditioning. This conditioning makes us do things which we never examined and is also harming the planet. Observing and understanding this conditioning will allow us to break free of it, and what remains after that is the human system which was always in congruence with the planet.

Maybe that’s the solution to climate change?

Source at https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html

In this talk Acharya Prashant Ji explains that India has historically been a land of vegetarians. They have been vegetarians primarily because of spirituality.

In this video he points out that for the vegan movement it's high time that we move from liberalism to liberation of our own self.

There is a need to understand the relationship between spirituality and veganism.

The connection isn't in the diet itself, it's in what the diet is being used for.

Eating a certain way can be one more thing the identity wraps itself around "I am someone who doesn't harm," "I am purer than the meat-eater", and then it becomes just another badge, another piece of scaffolding to defend. Watch how you feel when someone challenges your food choices. If there's a flare of superiority or defensiveness, that's the same old structure operating through a new vocabulary.

But the same act, done without that inflation, is simply honesty extended outward. If you've genuinely looked at what suffering is, and you see that an animal's pain is real and equivalent to your own, then not causing that pain isn't a spiritual achievement, it's just what a person who is paying attention naturally does. It stops being "my discipline" and becomes an unremarkable fact about how you live, the way you wouldn't need credit for not hitting someone.

So now the real question isn't " is veganism spiritual ".

It's ; When you eat this way, are you doing it to see yourself as further along than others, or because you've actually looked closely at where your food comes from and simply cannot unsee it? The diet is identical either way. Only the center it comes from is different.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this . Do you think Veganism comes from spirituality or should it be our natural state ?

Obviously all our memories hold also our attachments.

K said when we have absolute freedom when we are freed from memory and only see what is. No past or future. No imagined “data”.

But memory is impossible to forget by will.

I guess he meant the control memory has over us and how we relate to the memory. That is what is supposed to change.

He spoke of that when close to death our attachments die. Because we know we are dying. And there’s beautiful freedom on that moment. Which he explained should be somehow navigated way before death, to experience life with that sort of freedom. If you recall.

So. How do you think you change your attachments to memory? I guess it’s by observing the control. If you actually transcend your ego. That is trying to hide it from you. So it can survive.

A recent Nature study suggests something alarming: most coastal flood risk assessments have been underestimating sea levels because of flawed baseline assumptions. Researchers found that actual coastal water levels are often 20–30 cm higher than previously assumed, and in some places the difference exceeds 1 meter.

The implications are serious. Millions more people may be at risk of flooding than we previously believed, with the greatest impact falling on poorer coastal communities that contributed the least to climate change.

Sea levels rise because ice melts and oceans warm, and both happen because of the heat trapped by gases we've been pumping out for two centuries ; Mostly from burning coal, oil, and gas to run economies built on the assumption that more production and more consumption equals a better life.

So if you're asking "who is behind it," the honest answer isn't a villain. It's every structure industrial, corporate, personal that has treated the planet as an infinite input for a want that never says "enough."

You can point at corporations and governments, and there's real truth in that, they've known for decades and delayed action for profit. However, it's worth asking a serious question here, why blame it on someone else? It's worth asking, quietly, whether your own life runs on the same logic that's heating the oceans comfort prioritized over consequence, convenience over accounting for the trail left behind.

Acharya Prashant Ji repeatedly points toward the root of the problem that is not carbon itself, but the ego that is driven by endless consumption, insecurity, and the constant urge to acquire more.

As long as our happiness depends on consuming more, extracting more, and producing more, every technological solution will eventually run into the same wall. We may reduce emissions, improve flood models, or build higher seawalls, but if the underlying psychology remains unchanged, the crisis simply changes its form.

Climate justice, then, isn't only about distributing resources fairly. It's also about asking deeper questions:

Why do we consume far beyond our needs?

Why is endless economic growth treated as non-negotiable?

Can there be sustainability without inner contentment?

Is the environmental crisis ultimately a crisis of consciousness?

I'd love to hear what others think. Can climate change really be addressed without first addressing the "I" that creates it?

Reference : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10196-1

Millions watched this video and I too watched it. I felt emotional and then shared it.

But after the emotion fades what remains ?

Personally I felt angry, irritated and also felt "sympathy" for the child and then started cursing the society. But then I paused for a moment and after reflecting I understood me sharing or getting angry at a child's tiredness is just me deflecting the situation. I understood that acting would cost me something, it can be either money, comfort, argument or broken routine.

As Acharya Ji teaches us "हे राम मुझे मुझसे बचा"। "O Ram save me from myself". I could clearly see the application of this teaching.

As for the tired child in the video , he is not an aberration in the system, he is the system working exactly as it's built to work. Cheap labor, invisible exhaustion, someone's hunger being extracted so someone else's shop runs a little cheaper — this isn't a glitch that better laws alone will fix, because the owner too is probably running on his own exhaustion, his own fear of not making enough that day. Cruelty like this usually isn't invented fresh by a bad man, it's inherited and passed down, the same way a tired system passes its tiredness onto whoever is weakest in the chain.

Acharya Prashant's teaching is clear that the moral threshold of the treatment of animals is not based on the cognitive complexity of animals but their ability to suffer. The animals not only have an ability to suffer but are very complex creatures. We see that dogs and pigs are treated differently in our world today but let us examine what the facts really are-

Effect of human conditioning: Dogs were selected (from wolves) for traits that promote human companionship and pigs (wild boars) were selected for traits promoting meat production. This reflects in our selective compassion towards animals, meat eaters can not think of dogs as a source of food but have no resistance when it comes to pigs. It is worth remembering that the animals are partially shaped by our own conditioning during the whole domestication process.

Memory: Pigs have been shown to possess strong memories. They can remember a specific object up to as long as 5 days and can use these memories in finding food.

Playfulness: Pigs too are playful animals. When they feel safe (no threatening predator) and are content with food, they are able to engage in complex playful activities just like dogs for example carrying an object such as a ball or engaging in playful fighting with other pigs and running after each other.

Individual recognition: Pigs are able to distinguish between 2 different human individuals and show slightly lower sensitivity to emotional states of humans than dogs since dogs were bred for identifying human cues and pigs mainly for food source.

Acharya Prashant teaches that a certain aspect of our humanity remains unawakened until we develop a friendship with an animal. He also teaches that the ability to suffer is the moral threshold in the treatment of animals though animals clearly possess more capability than that.

Why is there a difference in the way various animals are perceived such as a dog or a pig?

Why is our compassion selective?

We are testing the abilities of animals selected by us in the first place. Does it say something about the self-referential nature of the ego?

Source - Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus domesticus

This video exposes the reality of Indian society. The mother here is defending the idea that has been passed down for generations: a daughter ultimately belongs to another house. The marriage is seen as a transfer of ownership. As Acharya Prashant Ji points out patriarchy is often carried forward by women. However, it is important to ask a question where this conditioning is coming from and why this conditioning is carried forward. The mother is not speaking to her daughter. She is speaking to herself, through her daughter. What she is really saying is: I was told I was temporary, disposable a guest in my own home. I suffered under that belief. If my daughter carried it too then my own suffering is not meaningless. This is what happens when pain is not examined it doesn’t die with the person who received it. It gets handed forward as wisdom. The karma line is even more revealing. She is not talking about cosmic law. She is talking about shame. A son would have proven something about her worth, her completeness, her standing. The daughter is a daily reminder that she didn't get what she needed to feel whole. That's not karma. That's an ego that was never given permission to question whether it needed a son to be complete in the first place.

The tragedy is not that she said it. The tragedy is that she genuinely believes she is preparing her daughter for the world, even loving her, by saying it.

Maybe it's high time we start asking the real questions.