Rupert Sheldrake | Science and the self with Acharya Prashant | Sept. 29, 2026

Source: Rupert Sheldrake youtube



Description:
I spent seven years in India when I was younger, working at an international agricultural research institute, and also living in an ashram in Tamil Nadu. I met and talked to teachers of many kinds, including Krishnamurti. So I was curious to meet Acharya Prashant, who represents a new generation of Indian teachers reaching huge audiences online, many of them scientists and engineers.

What struck me was how often he pushed back on ideas many Westerners take to be the heart of Indian spirituality. He sees reincarnation not as a hope but as the ego’s wish to go on forever, and he regards the idea of a final enlightenment with deep suspicion, as the ego’s last and grandest claim for itself.

My instinct as a scientist is to ask how things work. His is to ask who wants to know, and why. It’s rare to talk with someone with whom I agree with about so much, and who still manages to be unsettling. This was one of those conversations.

Filmed in London, July 2026