I mean whyyy.??

This is a video of the recent wildfires in Croatia, and it made me think about everything that lies behind a wildfire.

People being evacuated. Homes and livelihoods being destroyed. Enormous amounts of material wealth being lost. Ecosystems being damaged.

And then there are the lives we rarely see on our screens: animals whose homes are burning around them, often with nowhere to escape.

There is another layer we don't see as easily.

Wildfires release fine particulate matter and other pollutants that can harm human health. They also release enormous amounts of CO₂. Globally, wildfires emit billions of tonnes of CO₂ each year, although some of that carbon can eventually be absorbed as vegetation regrows.

Climate change is also making conditions for severe fires worse in many regions through increasing heat, drying vegetation, drought and changing weather patterns.

So we become better at fighting fires. We evacuate people faster. We build better firefighting systems. We rescue animals. We rebuild homes.

All of that is necessary.

But if we keep treating only the symptoms, how far will we get?

At some point, we have to look upstream: at our consumption, our demand for more, the energy we use, the forests and land we transform, and the enormous material footprint of the way we live.

Climate change isn't some distant environmental problem happening somewhere else. It is increasingly showing up as heat, fire, smoke, displacement, destroyed ecosystems and enormous economic loss.

And perhaps this is where the real question begins.

We are the ones consuming. We are the ones demanding more. Now is the time we need to look at ourselves that what is it within us that keeps pushing us to consume endlessly, even when we can see the consequences?

Perhaps the environmental crisis is also a crisis within us.

If we don't understand ourselves (the ego) that constantly demands more, we may keep treating the symptoms while leaving the disease untouched.

Treating the symptoms can save lives today. But understanding the disease is what can change tomorrow.

• Is gold inherently valuable, or is it valuable only because we’ve agreed to treat it that way?

• Even today, almost every major central bank in the world keeps gold in its vaults. The United States has about 8,100 tons of gold, the largest reserve in the world. The Reserve Bank of India too has been steadily increasing its gold reserves. The question is, when the world runs on digital money and cards, why does this old metal still matter so much?

📜 Under the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944, the dollar was linked to gold. Every dollar came with a guarantee of a fixed amount of gold backing it. But in 1971, the US removed that guarantee, an event known in history as the "Nixon Shock." Since then, the world’s currencies are no longer tied to any metal. They rest on the backing of governments and central banks.

🔗 This is the turning point where a deeper insight connects to the facts. If the dollar or the rupee is no longer linked to gold, where does its value really come from?

🧠 Its value doesn’t lie in any object. It lies in a shared belief. All of us together have agreed that this piece of paper has value, and therefore it does. It is a system standing on trust, not on some solid, unchanging reality.

💰 The same thing is actually happening with gold too. You can’t eat gold, you can’t breathe it, and yet the ego sees in it a strange kind of security. The reason is that the ego constantly wants something that won’t break, won’t change, and won’t be lost. Gold seems to offer a shiny answer to that inner incompleteness.

⚠️ This is where a common mistake creeps in. We start believing that gold or money has some real, permanent value, and that by accumulating it, inner insecurity will vanish. This is avidya, the belief that something outside can provide lasting security to the ego. Vidya is not about acquiring something new. It is simply about seeing that this entire search for total security is just a story spun by the ego.

👁️ Mere ‘seeing’ is not enough here. The intent must be clean too. A person may understand all this and still go on accumulating wealth with the same intensity, only now they give their fear a new, respectable name: prudence or wisdom. Real change begins when, along with clear seeing, there is also the intent to lighten this inner race, even if just a bit.

❓ “If all my bank balances and all my assets vanished today, would I still remain as I am right now?”

🌱 Money is necessary, systems are necessary. There is no dispute about that. The only question is, are we using money as a tool, or have we turned it into our entire identity and our sole source of security?

❓ Ask yourself today: how much of what lies in your vault or bank account is not money, but fear hidden away?

Question 1. What is the name given to the 1971 event when the US delinked the dollar from gold?

(a) Bretton Woods Collapse

(b) Gold Rush Reform

(c) Nixon Shock

(d) Dollar Reset

Question 2. Today, the value of most world currencies (like the dollar and the rupee) is primarily based on what?

(a) The country’s gold reserves

(b) Crude oil reserves

(c) Silver reserves

(d) Collective trust in the government and the central bank

Question 3. Under the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement, the dollar was linked to which asset?

(a) Silver

(b) Gold

(c) Crude oil

(d) Diamonds

🔗 Source:

https://www.gold.org/goldhub/research/gold-demand-trends

Posted by Vidya-Avidya on Acharya Prashant App.

We often listen to soulful tracks like “Main Yahaan Hoon” as just another romantic movie song. But if you strip away the Bollywood lens, these lines actually capture something profound about our inner conflict:
“Main tumhare hi dil ki toh aawaaz hoon...”
(I am nothing but the voice of your own heart...)

*The Voice We Run From*

We spend our days running outwards, chasing people, distractions, and achievements to feel complete. Yet, a quiet restlessness always lingers inside. We wonder why we feel empty even when we have everything.

The truth is, that persistent emptiness isn't an enemy, it is the voice of our own deeper consciousness trying to break through the noise of our daily chos. It is the part of us that knows our lifestyle of endless craving is a trap.

*Breaking Down Our Walls*

The song says:
“Kaisi sarhadein, kaisi majbooriyan...”
(What boundaries, what helplessness...)

We build heavy walls around ourselves, fear, social conditioning, and petty attachments, creating a false sense of a separate "self." We think protecting this brings security, but it only isolates us, making us feel imprisoned.

*Coming Home*

The constant refrain, “Main yahaan hoon” (I am right here), is a reminder that peace isn't a distant destination. It isn't locked behind external conditions or someone else's validation. It is already here, buried right beneath our restless thoughts and superficial desires.

When you stop running outward and finally face yourself, the walls crumble. The struggle ends, and you realize that what you were searching for outside was within you all along.

Has a simple song ever made you realize how much unnecessary chaos you create for yourself? Let's discuss it in the comments!

[PS: Posted by Akanksha]

Go Vegan for them

Define Success ?

Is it external or internal. Before running for something evaluate who is running for that success.

What do you think ?

I've been vegan for a while now, and the more I sit with it, the less it feels like a "diet choice" and the more it feels like a mirror for how I define myself.

Most vegan discourse online is still stuck at the level of "save the animals" or "save the planet", which is fine, those are real and true, but they're also incomplete. They treat veganism as an ethical add-on to an otherwise unquestioned self. You're still fundamentally living as "me, my body, my tribe", you've just extended some kindness outward.

Acharya Prashant's framing flips the whole premise. His argument (and I'm paraphrasing, not quoting) is roughly this: the root problem was never diet, it's how narrowly you've drawn the boundary of "self." When you identify only with your body, your species, your immediate circle, everything outside that boundary becomes fair game for exploitation.

Animals just happen to be the most obvious, most powerless "outside." So for him, veganism isn't charity extended to animals, it's what naturally falls away once you stop mistaking the body for who you are. You don't "become" vegan through willpower or guilt. It just happens, the way a shadow disappears once you stop standing in the way of the light.

That's a very different engine than the one driving most vegan activism, and honestly a much harder sell on Reddit, because it doesn't give you a clean moral high ground. It just quietly asks: if your compassion depends on remembering the suffering of animals, how deep does it really go?

I don't think one framing replaces the other. The ethical/environmental case is still what gets most people to change their plate. But the Vedantic angle is what actually makes it stick, because it's not asking you to be a better consumer, it's asking you to stop mistaking a body for a self.

Curious if others here came to veganism through ethics/environment first and only later ran into this more "inward" way of looking at it, or if it was the reverse for you.

Before the storm even made landfall, China moved millions of people to safer locations. The reason was clear: winds forecast up to 162 km/h and 250–500 mm of rain expected in Zhejiang.

More than 30,300 people were evacuated in Shanghai and over 900,000 in Wenzhou. Ships were moved out of ports, and transport as well as construction activities were suspended.

Before that, Dolphin passed over Okinawa, where six people were injured and electricity supply to more than 50,000 buildings was disrupted. But the damage caused by a storm is not determined by its strength alone.

Where people live, how much construction has taken place along coasts and slopes, and how dense our cities are these factors decide how heavily the same natural event will weigh on society. Dolphin has exposed this very dependence.

This is where climate change comes in. According to the IPCC, in a warming climate, the maximum wind speeds of the most intense tropical cyclones are likely to increase, and extreme rainfall events are likely to become more frequent and intense.

But as the risks rise, another question emerges, How far can we keep pushing development? When more production, more construction, and more consumption increase the pressure on natural limits, the same weather event can turn into a far greater social and economic crisis.

Ego itself is incompleteness. It seeks its fulfillment outside. When comfort, achievement, and consumption become the markers of a successful life, the speed of acquiring more becomes an end in itself.

Then we stop seeing a river as water and start seeing only its potential use, the shore is no longer nature’s boundary, but a site for construction. When the demand for external fulfillment in the individual takes the shape of collective systems and structures, consumption and expansion begin to strain the environment. This is the bridge where inner incompleteness connects with the outer climate crisis.

The lesson of Dolphin is not that development is wrong. The real question is what need is driving that development, and who decides where its limits lie.

A question to be asked ourselves is whether, when expanding our comfort seems to demand more consumption and more growth, we can truly see where genuine need ends and where the cravings born from inner incompleteness begin.

Sources:

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/typhoon-dolphin-set-hit-chinas-east-coast-triggering-flood-warnings-2026-08-09/

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/seventh-assessment-report-working-group-ii/

'Acharya Prashant demands honesty over comfort' ~ Book review of Truth Without Apology by Zee News

"Truth Without Apology is not a book for every mood or every reader. It asks for something the self-help genre has largely stopped asking for: not effort, but honesty. In that sense, the title keeps its promise."

Read Full Review: https://zeenews.india.com/industry-updates/book-review-truth-without-apology-acharya-prashant-3067261.html

🏹 Is Death☠️ just particularly related to cessation or transformation of body or continuously live🌬️ & decide in self-ignorance🤨?

✨Bhagavad Gita, Verse 3.34 ~ Transliteration:
Attraction and aversion reside in the senses’ respective objects.
One should not come under their control, for they both are obstacles on one’s path.

The first part of the verse here refers to seeing. It’s referring to the relationship between ‘sense object relationship’ & ’subject-object relationship’. On the other hand, the second part of the verse is about seeing coupled with intent.

Now, if we consider the ‘sense object relationship’ here, then this is Prakriti’s design stationed in that way by Prakriti itself.. it's systemic.. It's non-volitional. Life includes the sense object chemistry, and it belongs to no-one in particular like for eg. The skin is designed to meet material, the lungs are designed to breathe air, etc. The ego has no agency, no doer-ship at all in that.. therefore, this thing is not something to be ashamed of with any attitude whatsoever. It is just the secular happening as this is not any particular feature of any particular sense. So, this is happening all over the place, as if the entire organism in itself is expressing it somehow in a particular way. It’s not a fault, or anything to be proud of as it’s there in every possible sense. It just exists!

Therefore, it’s not about one particular sense, but it’s about all the senses. If one sensory route is blocked, then some other sensory route will open up.. no suppression will work, because the one doing the blocking is also doing some excessive demand on another route. It is not about a few types of objects, it’s actually about the very nature of the machinery.

This is the universe.. and the body is its fragments. So, the body will behave in a particular way within the universe. If lungs are demanding air, that's not an egoic intervention at all. You are nobody to impede it.. Remember you are not ‘sense’ in the sense-object relationship, but you are the ‘subject’. The ‘sense object relationship’ completely lies in the domain of Prakriti. Let the body and the mind do their own thing and you just step back. Universe predates the ego.. and what comes before the existence, is not for anyone to ask!

Spirituality is not about policing the body, but it is actually to let the apparatus free.. The ego has no role to play there, as the apparatus called the body is self sufficient to flow. Ego is not any layer on the apparatus, but the design of the apparatus predates you.. 
You have nothing to do with the apparatus! 
So, Just Chill. 
You are truly not responsible for any of this! 

If we take a pen for example while writing, then the relationship is between the ‘eye’ and the ‘pen’.. but what the ego does is that it gets identified with the eye and treats only the pen as the object. Ego is the subject of both the objects ie., the eye and the pen. But due to Avidya, the ego(subject) identifies with the sense(eye).

The verse here is advising the “I” to step back.. and then let the relationship be between the ‘object’ and another ‘object’.
It’s saying that “Please don’t seed control.. there is nothing there for which you can trade your freedom. Therefore, the real power is with the ego as its ‘sovereign’. Intent is the key!

If the ego is ‘captive’, then this is its own decision, and therefore the ego now doesn’t have the luxury to play ‘victim’.
So, if you are in bondage, then surely you have signed the document of your bondage. 

More doing will not take you out from what is created by doing more.

I’ve always wanted to learn swimming, but somehow, for the longest time, I kept finding reasons not to. The water, the unknown, the whole “what if I can’t do it?” thing, even being too conscious of my body and whether I’d actually be able to manage in the water. Fear was doing what fear does best.

My mind had already created so many reasons and scenarios to stay away before I had even taken the first step. Somewhere along the way, while reading Acharya Prashant’s book “Fear” and listening to his teachings, I started seeing this differently. The fear isn’t really in the act, it is in thinking about the act. We imagine, anticipate and suffer through things that haven’t even happened. The book also made me question how much of this comes from the way we know ourselves through others, through their eyes, opinions and approval.

And then, well… long story short, I stopped overthinking, got into the water… and I swam. 🏊🏽‍♀️🏊🏽‍♀️🏊🏽‍♀️

After about 2 months of practice, I can now do freestyle and backstroke. 😄🙌🏼

Wait, I forgot to add one thing: Fearlessly!! 😄

Why is my house my responsibility, but the street outside is someone else’s?

I clean what I call “mine” and ignore what I call “not mine.”

Perhaps the problem is not cleanliness.

Perhaps it is the ego that keeps drawing boundaries—this is me, this is mine; that is not me, not mine.

But if the same Earth, air and society sustain both, then where does “my responsibility” really end?

This is a picture of a hoarder's house.

Hoarding disorder is a recognized mental health condition.

Per psychiatry.org "Acquisition of objects in people who hoard is largely impulsive, with little active planning, and triggered by the sight of an object that could be owned."

The diagnostic criteria includes:

1. Inability to discard possessions

2. Compromised living spaces

3. Significant Life Disruption

If the image above distressed you, made you feel that it was not okay, in fact that it was wrong, helped you understand that the person hoarding needs help, then what about hoarding of wealth and resources by the top 1%? How does that make you feel?

How is it a mark of health to go on hoarding wealth, that you get labeled a billionaire or trillionaire and that is then seen as some sort of achievement, something to celebrate and aspire for?

How is hoarding wealth and natural resources a mark of health?

If only we had a visual representation of the hoarded wealth and natural resources from the planet shared by 8 billion people... but wait, we do.

The climate catastrophe is the visual representation of the aftermath of hoarding, done by hoarders, commonly labeled as "super successful" people, you know, the ones who have made it in life.

The diagnostic criteria for them to be labelled as hoarders, is in fact, met.

1. Inability to discard possessions (continually hoarding and amassing unparalleled wealth and natural resources from the planet)

2. Compromised living spaces (wildfires, heat domes, AMOC collapse, ecosystems collapsing, water scarcity, infertile soil, polluted air, excessive CO2 in the air, the list is only getting longer everyday)

3. Significant Life Disruption (for all human beings and living beings not in the top 1% class, there are going to be millions of climate refugees in the next couple of years)

Acharya Prashant emphasises that the void we are all born with and experience with our waking life, cannot be filled by hoarding any number of external objects (materially or psychologically) The continued attempts to do so without pausing to ever reflect are only a sign of disease.

A disease which needs a cure.

How do you and the people around you perceive it?

References: https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/hoarding-disorder/what-is-hoarding-disorder

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519704/table/ch3.t29/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260814235845.htm

​

Imagine being around 17, growing up in a small village in medieval France, with no military training, and stepping into a war that had been going on for years.

That was Joan of Arc.

In 1429, Joan went to Charles, the French heir, convinced that she had a mission to help France. She was allowed to accompany French forces, and her involvement in the lifting of the siege of Orléans made her famous. Charles was crowned at Reims soon after. The following year, Joan was captured by the Burgundians, handed over to the English side, tried, and executed in 1431 at just 19. Her conviction was later overturned in 1456, and she was declared to be a saint in 1920.

We can easily turn such a story into a heroic tale:

“Look what an extraordinary person she was.”

But perhaps there is another way to look at it.

In our own lives, how quickly do we decide what we can or cannot do?

“I’m too young.”

“I don't have enough experience.”

“People like me don't do this.”

“I’m not confident enough.”

“I’m not capable.”

Sometimes the situation really does place limits on us. But sometimes we add another limit through the story we have created about ourselves.

And there is another trap.

We see someone extraordinary and immediately think, “I must become extraordinary too.”

That is not necessarily freedom either. It can simply be another form of ego.

Maybe the real question is much simpler:

When something genuinely needs to be done, can we look beyond the image we have created of ourselves and do what is actually required ?

Joan's story doesn't have to become a lesson in becoming a hero.

It can simply make us question the boundaries we take for granted.

How many of our “I can't” statements are facts, and how many have we never seriously examined?

And if we discover that one of those limits is only a belief, what are we willing to do about it?

What is one “I can't” you have accepted about yourself without really questioning it ?

Source: "Britannica : Joan of Arc"https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Joan-of-Arc

In one of the gita exams. A really interesting question on Gymming was asked:

Alex and Harry have been going to the same gym for the past two years. They usually work out together and follow similar routines. During most exercises, Harry manages to do only two or three more repetitions than Alex. Yet, over time, Harry has developed a noticeably stronger and more muscular physique.

Alex becomes increasingly envious. He keeps thinking, "He only does a couple more reps than I do. How can his body look so much better than mine?" Instead of examining his own training, nutrition, sleep, and consistency, Alex becomes preoccupied with comparing himself to Harry.

In the light of this situation, which of the following statement(s) is/are correct?

Options:

A. Visible success is usually the result of luck rather than accumulated effort.

B. Harry's physique proves that some people are naturally destined to succeed, regardless of effort.

C. Small daily improvements compound over time into remarkable results. Never underestimate the power of doing a little more each day.

D. Harry's physique proves that genetics is the only factor that matters.

E. The best way for Alex to improve is to focus on outperforming Harry rather than understanding his own training and habits.

Please explain the choice you selected

AI has now designed viruses that did not exist before.

Scientists have used AI models trained on the genetic information of about 2 million bacteriophages to design new viral genomes. In the laboratory, 16 of these AI-designed viruses proved viable, and a combination of them successfully killed strains of E. coli that were resistant to naturally occurring bacteriophages.

The potential benefit is enormous: AI could help design highly targeted bacteriophages to fight antibiotic-resistant infections and potentially transform phage therapy.

But the same breakthrough raises an uncomfortable question: if AI can design useful viruses, could it eventually design harmful ones?

The researchers deliberately excluded viruses that infect humans, animals and plants from their training data. Experts also point out that designing a completely new dangerous pathogen is currently far more difficult than modifying an existing pathogen.

Nevertheless, the technology has crossed an important threshold: AI can now generate genetic instructions that can be turned into functioning viruses.

The concern is therefore not that a dangerous virus has been created today, but that our ability to design biology may be advancing faster than our systems for governing it.

Experts argue that safety cannot depend on regulating AI models alone. It will require multiple layers—responsible AI development, research oversight, screening of synthetic DNA, and strong laboratory biosafety and biosecurity.

The question is no longer only what AI can create. It is whether humanity can develop the wisdom and safeguards to decide what should never be created.

Acharya Prashant often warns that knowledge without self-knowledge is potentially dangerous.

This deveopment raises that very question.

AI has now been used to design viruses that did not previously exist. The technology itself is neither good nor evil. It can potentially help us develop new ways of fighting antibiotic-resistant infections. But the same capability, placed in the hands of an ego driven by power, profit, fear, competition or domination, can be directed towards very different ends.

The danger, therefore, may not lie in the tool itself, but in the consciousness of the one who wields it.

As our technological power grows, our capacity to create—and consequently to destroy—grows with it. But if inner understanding does not grow at the same pace, knowledge can become an extraordinarily powerful servant of an ignorant ego.

Perhaps the real question is not merely:

“What can we create?”

but:

“Who is the one creating, and what does he want to do with his creation?”

Without self-knowledge, greater knowledge may simply give the ego greater instruments to fulfil its agenda.

The more powerful the tool, the more dangerous the unconscious user.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/aug/06/safety-fears-as-scientists-make-first-viruses-designed-by-ai?CMP=share\_btn\_url

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aec2657

🌎 We Are Not Just Consuming the Planet. We Are Consuming to Fill an Inner Void.🛒💭

We often speak about climate change as if it were merely an environmental problem.

Carbon emissions. Deforestation. Plastic waste. Rising temperatures. Melting glaciers.

But what if the deeper problem is not outside us?

What if the climate crisis is, at its root, a crisis of human consciousness?

We live in a civilization where consumption has quietly become an ideal. More money. More comfort. More possessions. More travel. More entertainment. More convenience.

And when "more" becomes the definition of a good life, how can the Earth possibly survive our desires?

The problem is not simply that humans consume. The body needs food, shelter, clothing and other necessities. The deeper problem begins when consumption becomes the source of identity and fulfilment.

Then we don't ask, "What do I really need?"

We ask, "What else can I have?"

A bigger house. A newer phone. A faster car. More clothes. More gadgets. More luxury.

The market understands this hunger very well. It keeps telling us that the next purchase will complete us. And because the inner emptiness remains untouched, the next purchase is always waiting.

This is where the environmental crisis becomes connected to the inner crisis.

A restless mind demands endless consumption.

Endless consumption demands endless production.

Endless production demands endless extraction.

And endless extraction eventually turns into a damaged planet.

So perhaps climate change is not just the result of factories, vehicles and fossil fuels. Perhaps it is also the result of a mind that has been taught that happiness lies in acquiring more.

Acharya Prashant often points towards this fundamental connection between the ego and consumption. When there is a sense of incompleteness within, the ego tries to complete itself through objects, relationships, achievements and experiences.

But no object can permanently fill an inner void.

So consumption keeps increasing while fulfilment keeps remaining out of reach.

The tragedy is that we are trying to solve an inner problem through outer consumption, while the Earth is forced to pay the bill.

We may plant trees, switch to cleaner energy and reduce plastic use. All of these actions matter. But if the fundamental desire remains untouched, we may simply find cleaner ways to continue the same old pattern.

The real question is therefore not only,

"How can we consume more sustainably?"

It is also,

"Why do we feel the need to consume so much in the first place?"

Perhaps the most radical environmental action is not merely changing what we buy.

It is understanding the mind that constantly wants to buy.

Because when consumption is the ideal, climate change is the result.

But what happens when understanding becomes the ideal instead of consumption?

🌱 Can we save the planet without first questioning the endless "more" within ourselves?

Weekend With Master camps with Acharya Prashant in Goa every weekend this August. 🎉
And a Janmashtami special program in September too. ✨

👉🏻 Registration link: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/upcoming-events?cmId=m00062-allevents

Friends and family can come along too - registrations are open for everyone 👨‍👩‍👧
📅 Dates:
22-23 August
29-30 August
4-5 September (Janmashtami Special Session)
📍 Venue: Goa