Are you spiritual or religious (The difference is big) || Acharya Prashant, with XLRI (2021)
Video Information: 02.07.21, XLRI- Jamshedpur (an Online discourse), Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh
Context:
What is the relation between spirituality and religion?
Is religion important to human being?
How to understand the religion?
Has religion really been successful in its purpose?
Is man better off without religion?
What is the role of religion in a man's life?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Context:
What is the relation between spirituality and religion?
Is religion important to human being?
How to understand the religion?
Has religion really been successful in its purpose?
Is man better off without religion?
What is the role of religion in a man's life?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Transcript
00:00 I feel that spirituality is, I mean or rather religiousness is conceptualized as spirituality
00:09 in the current time. So people, they on the crux they are religious but they try to believe
00:15 that they are spiritual while these are very very different things. Religiousness is pretty
00:20 rigid while spirituality helps us or kind of sets us free. So how do I try to bring
00:27 this thought process from a religious mindset to a spiritual mindset? How can I influence
00:32 others to do so? Or is it even required or can they…
00:36 Religion as it is commonly practiced is very outward looking, very very outward looking.
00:43 How it looks at others, it looks at the past, it looks at practices and it says I will do
00:52 all those things. It looks at particular books, it looks at everything outside of the looker.
01:04 It need not be like that. Religion in its classical definition is not this but unfortunately
01:12 this is the way religion is practiced nowadays. In fact religion has been practiced this way
01:18 more or less throughout the course of history. So that's religion. There are these rituals
01:24 that have been followed since 2000 years and I am following them. You are not looking at
01:28 yourself, you are looking at past and ritual and your forefathers and all that stuff. I
01:34 am a Hindu or I am a Muslim or I belong to this sect, I have that belief. So I will do
01:39 all these things. That particular temple is great. So I am going to that particular temple.
01:47 That particular guru is wonderful. So I am approaching that. So that's religion. Spirituality,
01:55 though really it is the center of religion, yet it is very distinct from religion. Spirituality
02:02 looks at oneself. Spirituality keeps all this external business aside. Spirituality says
02:09 but before I look at anything I have to ask who is looking? Before I say anything about
02:19 anything, who is this I that says anything? Is that not the first question? You see one
02:27 can not be completely sure of anything. I am looking at the screen right now, maybe
02:35 I am dreaming. Why is it not possible? Tell me. Maybe you don't really exist. There is
02:43 at least a marginal possibility. When you are in your dreams, aren't dreams all too
02:50 real? As real as this moment right now. Is that not the case? So you can never be sure
03:01 of what is happening. Let's say you are a religious person and you say such tradition
03:05 has been followed by my community since so many years. Now how do you really know? How
03:11 can you be sure that this tradition has indeed been followed in this particular way? You
03:16 can not be sure of anything. You can not be sure of your thoughts. You can not be sure
03:21 of your beliefs. But there is one thing that you can be sure of. That if there is thought
03:28 there is a thinker. That if there is suffering there is a sufferer. That if there is a question
03:34 there is a questioner. So you, this entity that asks, listens, suffers, feels confused,
03:43 falls, rises, this entity is the only thing you can ever be sure of. Everything else might
03:51 be a mirage, a dream, an apparition, you don't know. That's the point spirituality starts
03:58 from. Spirituality says I'll start from the point, the only point I can be fully confident
04:03 of and that is I. About everything else I'll be a little skeptical. I'm not rejecting everything
04:12 else. I just want to doubt. I want to question whether things really are as they appear.
04:21 But before I say whether this thing is really as it appears to me, I have to test my eyes.
04:28 Right? This thing comes later, my eyes come first. When you can not look at this towel
04:35 properly, do you go and get this towel tested or do you go and get your eyes tested? So
04:44 that's the difference between religion and spirituality. Religion is just too much concerned
04:49 with the towel. Spirituality says I need to get my eyes tested, the eye need to be tested.
05:00 Are you getting it? So though really spirituality is at the center of all religion. Religion
05:11 is the circumference, the periphery that is supposed to gradually draw the religious one
05:21 to spirituality. But that often not is the case. One gets caught at the periphery. One
05:28 remains at the circumference all his life. In fact one starts resisting the center itself.
05:37 There is often a great conflict between the spiritual mind and the religious mind. In
05:42 fact really spiritual people have been badly persecuted by none other than religious people.
05:51 The Sufis for example and even in India, if you are really a spiritual person, then you
06:00 will find that the community that opposes you the most is not of atheists. It is of
06:11 religious people. They will be the ones who would be opposing the really spiritual person
06:15 the most, which is an unfortunate thing because the way religion was designed, it was designed
06:22 to gradually make a person spiritual. Today the situation is that these are not in sync
06:33 or harmony with each other. Rather these two have become greatly separated. Some fundamental
06:43 questions that you need to ask maybe a religious person, maybe they might work. Depends a lot
06:48 on chance and your effort and the intensity. Having done all that you have been doing all
06:55 your life, are you really at peace? Because that's the only thing that you want. You say,
07:10 if you are at peace, do you really need to follow any religious practices? If you are
07:18 joyful, then the ultimate has already been achieved. Then do you really need to remember
07:26 and chant verses? You don't. So have you really achieved something? In the moment of your
07:38 crisis, does your religious practice really help you? Do your beliefs really stand the
07:50 scrutiny of time and circumstances? But there has to be a sharp and smart occasion to do
08:05 all those things. As they say, strike the iron when it is hot. So it is only at certain
08:13 opportune times that you can ask these questions. Otherwise usually the traditionally religious
08:20 mind is just too unavailable to any kind of enquiry.
08:27 After listening to all this conversation, I had a very basic question and when it comes,
08:33 again it comes to the religion versus spirituality debate. So when it comes to religion, we can
08:37 say that who created us? There is a question. So religious people will say God created us.
08:43 There is someone who is up there, he created us like that. But what is the real answer
08:49 for that in spirituality? And again, why are we here? What are we doing here?
08:57 Are we really anywhere? First of all, let me answer that. The religious person says
09:04 who created us and what is the purpose of this life? Do you see the implicit assumption
09:12 here? First of all, it is believed that you exist. When you are confident that you exist,
09:18 you ask who created me? Who created my body? Who created the trees, the rivers, the building,
09:24 whatever, the entire universe? And when you are confident that you know what life is,
09:33 then you ask what is the purpose of life? So the religious question is based on some
09:40 very dubious assumptions. The spiritual approach is far more rigorous. The spiritual mind does
09:50 not ask who created us or who created me. The spiritual mind asks do I exist at all?
09:58 If I exist at all, only then the question of my creator becomes relevant. For the creator
10:07 to be there, first of all, there has to be the creation. Now you do not know for sure
10:14 whether even the creation exists at all or it exists in the way you think it does. Okay,
10:28 take this example. I am drunk, let's say, and I ask who created these eight fingers?
10:39 I am drunk and I am asking who created these eight fingers? Now should I answer this question
10:43 or should I first look at my own state? The religious mind does not understand that it
10:49 is drunk and is asking about the fingers that do not exist at all. Does the world even exist
10:56 in the way you think it does? In your life, has anything ever been, even one single thing
11:03 ever been the way you have thought it is? Are even your parents really the way you take
11:12 them to be? Are even you the person you think you are? So we do not know anything for sure.
11:24 When we do not know anything, then we have to focus on the knower. Let me first of all
11:31 look at the knower, correct him, liberate him, purify him, only then I am entitled to
11:36 talk about anything else. Otherwise I am taking undue liberties. The eighth finger and when
11:45 nobody is able to tell me who made the eighth finger, then I come up with a story. One day
11:51 God after his lunch was in a particularly bad mood. So he called his pet dog, clipped
11:59 this tail and with the tail he made my eighth finger and religious literature is agog with
12:08 such stories. Is it not? This happened, that happened, then God did this, then God did
12:15 that and finally man was made. Spirituality does not live in stories. Spirituality is
12:21 extremely rigorous, very very rigorous. It is more scientific than science itself. It
12:32 says wait, before I answer the question, may I please ask who is questioning? It starts
12:45 from there and believe me it ends there as well. It is so rigorous. It has no scope for
12:53 entertainment. It does not allow you to roam astray and talk about this and that, this
13:03 planet, that planet, this seed, that food, this particular auspicious day, sun and moon
13:11 and then thousand other things. Spirituality has nothing to do with all that.
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