India is too religious to be spiritual || Acharya Prashant
Video Information:
Context:
Music Credits: Milind Date
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#acharyaprashant
Context:
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant
Transcript
00:00 Music
00:19 If the Gita is there, focus only on Gita.
00:22 All else is just stories.
00:24 Gita is not a story.
00:26 Gita is a philosophical document of the highest order.
00:30 It is not storytelling.
00:32 Music
00:36 So this has been a phenomenal journey.
00:40 Thank you so much Acharyaji for reinforcing
00:46 so many of the points that I struggle with
00:50 as I communicate and teach my students.
00:54 So many of these questions that have been put to you
00:59 and you have answered them so much in depth
01:03 and absolutely on point.
01:06 I am really, really pleased that we were able to engage
01:14 in this way today.
01:16 One or two other things that are left for us to talk about,
01:21 if we may.
01:24 One of them is this issue of religion versus spirituality.
01:30 It's a big issue.
01:32 But I want to put it as a policy challenge.
01:36 There are two big things in my mind that I'd really like,
01:40 but before we run out of time, I'd also like for us,
01:43 if it is possible at all, to have a follow-up,
01:48 one-on-one conversation in the context of our teaching
01:53 and research.
01:54 We will benefit tremendously from your deep insights.
01:58 So that's one thing on the side.
02:00 So if your colleagues who work with you can help us with that,
02:05 I'd appreciate that.
02:06 But the question here is, the way I put it is,
02:12 is India today too religious to be spiritual?
02:17 You know what I'm getting at?
02:21 Yes.
02:22 Divisions of other religious lines compared to the lofty spirituality
02:27 that India's history has.
02:30 Right.
02:31 Right.
02:32 In fact, you have put it quite succinctly.
02:35 You can definitely say India is just too religious to be spiritual.
02:41 And that's also my everyday experience.
02:44 People who come from overly religious backgrounds,
02:47 it is more difficult to teach them.
02:52 It is more difficult even for them to listen without prejudice and interference,
03:00 internal interference.
03:01 Whereas people who come from very normal, irreligious backgrounds,
03:07 even atheists, they are far more receptive
03:12 and their listening is less corrupted, less filtered.
03:18 It's a travesty because religion is supposed to be
03:27 the entire ecosystem that turns one spiritual.
03:34 But that's the way of Maya, as Vedanta puts it.
03:42 You build something to tackle her
03:47 and instead she will co-opt that same very thing,
03:52 ingest it and turn it into her own weapon.
03:58 Saint Kabir puts it very beautifully.
04:03 He says you accord sacredness to the water of the river
04:10 and Maya will make that water her own.
04:14 You accord sacredness to the deity in the temple
04:19 and Maya will make that deity her own.
04:22 You accord sacredness to the holy verses
04:27 and Maya will make those verses her own.
04:32 So that's the thing with frozen methods
04:37 and organized religion is nothing but a name of frozen methods, traditions, rituals.
04:43 They were designed to be helpful, no doubt.
04:47 But over time they have all not only lost their efficacy
04:52 but have actually become active instruments in the hand of Maya.
04:58 So, you know, the situation has become so bad
05:06 that the core spiritual documents like the Upanishads,
05:15 people have turned to reviling them,
05:22 actually putting them aside and denigrating them
05:26 so that they can continue with the rituals and beliefs that they call as religion.
05:34 So, for example, if people are indulging in something utterly stupid
05:40 and I ask them that this that you are doing,
05:43 is this written in Gita?
05:46 They will say, oh, the Gita is not all that important.
05:49 We have other books as well.
05:51 And even if it is not written in Gita, it's a ritual we follow
05:54 and our rituals, that's what's implicit in what they are saying,
05:58 our rituals are more important than Gita.
06:02 No, that's utterly shocking.
06:05 I ask them, yours is, when I am talking to Hindus, let's say,
06:09 yours is a Vedic religion
06:11 and this that you are doing,
06:14 is it sanctioned by the core of Vedas, which is Vedanta?
06:19 Does Vedanta sanction what you are doing?
06:21 They will say, no, we don't care about Vedanta,
06:24 we haven't even read what the Upanishads say.
06:27 But this is what my fathers and forefathers were doing
06:31 and that is what is more important.
06:33 This is what we call as religion.
06:36 So, this kind of cultural nationalism is emerging.
06:41 Not only nationalism, cultural jingoism of all kinds,
06:45 of which one manifestation is nationalism.
06:49 And religion has become another name for the popular low-level culture.
07:03 So, whatever we do in the name of religion,
07:06 whatever we culturally do in the name of religion,
07:09 that is religion and that is the popular consensus.
07:12 Spirituality, well, that is something we are not interested in.
07:17 So, you are very right when you say,
07:19 that today religion and spirituality are at odds with each other
07:23 and that's the most important battle that needs to be fought today.
07:30 Of bringing out the primacy of spirituality over religion.
07:36 Otherwise, one very disastrous thing that is happening is,
07:43 that people, especially the young people, the intellectual people,
07:48 they conflate religion and spirituality
07:51 and because they do not like what they see in the name of religion,
07:54 they go away from spirituality as well.
08:00 Because they do not like all the rioting and hooliganism
08:03 in the name of, let's say, the Hindu religion.
08:08 They totally discard the Upanishads as well.
08:12 Because they do not like the caste system that is prevalent in the Hindu fold.
08:18 They would discard the Bhagavad Gita as well.
08:21 My question is, are the Upanishads or Bhagavad Gita or Brahma Sutra or Ashtavakra Gita,
08:26 are they talking of the caste system?
08:28 In fact, they are actively saying in so many words that caste system is bogus.
08:34 You have an entire Upanishad dedicated to discarding the caste system.
08:40 And yet there are big sections who are discarding spirituality
08:46 because spirituality appears to be affiliated with religion.
08:50 Hence this distinction needs to be very clearly made.
08:54 That the religion that these people are practicing is not religion.
08:59 In fact, they have sabotaged the word religion
09:03 and this word needs to be liberated from their fold.
09:08 Otherwise there needs to be a new stream and that's what the Buddha had to do.
09:13 Because the priestly class of that time
09:17 had totally monopolized religion.
09:20 Therefore he had to come up with a new stream of his own
09:24 which was nothing but essentially the spiritual core of the existing religion itself.
09:29 But he had to give it another name because the existing religion
09:33 had been totally monopolized.
09:36 Maybe that is the need of the hour.
09:39 Either refinement from within or an outgrowth outside.
09:47 I would prefer an inner refinement.
09:50 This is indeed I think like you put it the need of the hour.
10:02 When I started this center of the OP Jindal Global University
10:08 this was the vision and the challenge.
10:12 It's both a vision and a challenge.
10:15 I looked at the lofty wisdom, the spirituality that India had.
10:26 And I look at India today and I see the divide.
10:31 And I ask myself, one we have to find a way
10:37 and I hope if we can join forces with other like-minded people
10:42 and organizations we can hopefully make some progress.
10:47 But a bigger more positive question that comes to my mind is
10:52 can India lead a new renaissance in the world
10:58 building on its lofty philosophy essentially Advaita Vedanta
11:05 and lead us to a new way of doing economics,
11:10 a new way of politics, a new way of public policy
11:14 to a world that will be the world so many of us hope for.
11:20 And if not us at this generation, our children hope for.
11:24 You know a world with more equity, sustainability, prosperity,
11:29 less conflict and so on.
11:33 That world. My hope is that the answer to that question might be yes.
11:39 But I might be completely wrong. I'd like your thoughts.
11:43 You see, India is just too big.
11:48 And therefore I'm afraid when we say can India lead a revolution
11:53 it becomes a bit hazy.
11:59 Because India will contain just so many diverse,
12:06 even opposing elements and streams at all times.
12:10 We are talking of 1.4 billion people.
12:13 Maybe there would be awakenings within India,
12:21 forces from within, streams from within
12:25 that can show the way to the entire world.
12:31 But as a patriot, if I imagine a situation where
12:40 the entire Indian political country has awakened,
12:47 I find it difficult.
12:49 Still we can have powerful movements of awakening starting from within India.
13:02 And I hope that first of all they get success within India.
13:07 But what I realistically see is that even if such a movement starts from within India,
13:13 it has a greater chance of succeeding abroad.
13:19 Because as you said India is just too religious.
13:24 I really share your hope.
13:28 But realistically I do not see the first successes coming from within India.
13:35 So as far as the initiation of such a movement or such an awakening is concerned,
13:41 chances are very high that something can happen from within our nation.
13:47 Chances are very high.
13:49 But what I also see is that more success in terms of its expansion and acceptance
13:57 will come from abroad.
14:01 And what would rather happen is that once there is success abroad,
14:05 then Indians will probably queue up to follow.
14:08 So my heart really wants to agree with you and that's the reason
14:18 I have continued to work in this country.
14:21 I could have taken the decision to shift my base to other places
14:27 where conditions are much more supportive.
14:30 And I too want things to happen here in the first place.
14:37 But because I have been trying since over a decade now,
14:41 so I know how difficult it is to deal with a mindset that's frozen in time,
14:48 that has become a hotbed of all kinds of confused notions.
14:55 And not that abroad it is going to be much better,
14:59 but at least the renaissance destroyed some of the most stupid beliefs there.
15:10 India never had a renaissance of that kind.
15:13 So even the worst kinds of beliefs continue to prosper in the mind here.
15:21 And fighting those beliefs is not only tiring, also feels humiliating.
15:30 You feel alright and you feel encouraged when you fight a worthy enemy.
15:35 How do you feel while fighting a belief that says that there are 7 ghosts
15:42 that live on this particular tree and if you do not please them,
15:47 then your kid will die.
15:52 Now this unfortunately is not a joke.
15:56 This unfortunately is a very solid belief that let's say millions in this country share.
16:05 And if you want to question this belief, not even attack it,
16:12 then there is great resistance.
16:14 So the first successes will probably not come from within,
16:22 but I really really want that this nation that has given core spirituality to the entire world
16:38 does not remain or end up deprived of its own fruit.
16:45 Diya talei andhera. I don't want that to happen, but it's an uphill task.
16:54 It's an uphill task. Let's see.
16:58 Thank you. Actually just a follow up kind of a point.
17:03 If I want to know about how Acharya ji would reflect on that.
17:09 You know, when you are saying that a lot of changes might come from abroad
17:15 rather than within, that's one kind of observation.
17:19 Now one way to think about it would also be to connect genuinely core spirituality with science.
17:27 Not in the spooky way, you know, what we find, you know, that entanglement of human minds
17:33 and all those kind of rubbish things, but really understanding that how science
17:38 and genuine philosophical thinking that went on in our country, they can be integrated.
17:44 And we at our center, we had hosted some very important scientists earlier,
17:49 like Donald Hoffman and also Minas Khafatos and so on.
17:53 And myself working with some scientists in various papers and books,
17:57 we have seen amazing synergies between, you know, not only Adwait.
18:02 Adwait is already there, but Buddhism and Jainism and modern scientific thinking.
18:08 So maybe that this concept that this spiritual philosophies can enrich science in a genuine way,
18:16 not in a kind of spooky way, that might also help to kind of encourage that kind of movement.
18:24 That is like my own passion and thinking, what you can say.
18:28 So I'd just like to hear from you on that.
18:31 It's a very worthy desire you have expressed, sir.
18:37 Again, because I care for it so much.
18:41 I'll venture to play the devil's advocate again.
18:46 What is happening is that in the absence of self-knowledge,
18:53 science too can become just another profession of the ego,
19:00 which means that one could be a great scientist and yet inwardly very ignorant.
19:13 So whereas it is obviously important that one has a scientific attitude
19:19 and verses in the Upanishads are very unambiguous about it.
19:25 They say you cannot have self-knowledge without having worldly knowledge.
19:31 So worldly knowledge is referred to as the Vidya, inner knowledge, knowledge of the self is referred to as Vidya.
19:38 And the Upanishads categorically say that if you think that you can have inner knowledge, sense, outer knowledge,
19:47 then you will fall into a deep well.
19:51 So you need to have both and only then you cross over the bondages of this life.
19:58 So science is definitely of great importance,
20:05 but is the scientist above things like comparison, like jealousy, like greed, like ambition?
20:14 If the scientist too is ambitious and partisan and a deluded fellow,
20:24 then merely the knowledge of science is not going to help.
20:31 In fact, that's the reason why I often say that if superstition is going to be obliterated,
20:38 it's not science but spirituality that would do it.
20:43 Superstitions will be taken care of not so much by science but by spirituality.
20:49 In the absence of spirituality, science itself becomes a new modern kind of superstition.
20:58 Because you see science is all about the external world.
21:02 This is how this moves, this is how that works.
21:04 What is my relationship with what works and what moves that science has nothing to do with.
21:10 And that's a big problem. You may know everything about what this wall is about
21:16 and all the elementary particles inside it and you may know the quarks and string theory and everything.
21:22 But do you know what your relationship with all this is? Do you know?
21:25 Who the experiencer of all this is? Do you know?
21:29 Who is the one who is experiencing and storing this knowledge
21:33 and therefore do you know who is the one who is going to use this knowledge?
21:37 If you do not have self-knowledge, then external knowledge may not be of much help.
21:42 It becomes a throw of dice. You do not know what will happen.
21:45 The safest thing that may happen is that it may not be of much use.
21:49 The worst thing that may happen is that it may be put,
21:53 such external knowledge may be put to very very devastating uses.
21:58 Like the kind of uses we have put nuclear energy to.
22:03 So, I am sure I have not given a clear answer. Science obviously is very important.
22:11 I keep stressing that one cannot be ignorant of science and hope to be self-aware.
22:17 But I also want to assert that science without spirituality is very very problematic.
22:27 And just because one is a scientist, one does not become wise.
22:31 Thank you. Thank you.
22:34 This is exactly one of the core issues that we are thinking in our center.
22:39 That is very much close to our heart.
22:41 Wonderful. Wonderful.
22:43 Let me first apologize to anyone who might have wanted to ask a question.
22:49 But because of time, we could not have that question posed.
22:53 I just want to say in closing, Acharyaji,
22:56 that when I think of your having been trained at IIT and IIM,
23:04 and having been in the public service,
23:08 you bring science and engineering and management and public service experience
23:15 together with your in-depth knowledge and self-realization
23:20 of the lofty philosophy of Advaita.
23:26 We could not have wanted anyone more erudite than yourself to engage with us this evening.
23:35 So, I want to thank you very much for taking the time.
23:39 I know your time has been in great demand.
23:42 I want to acknowledge the fact that you took the time to engage with us.
23:48 And we want to, in closing, like my colleague Sudipatra mentioned,
23:54 we have a few concrete ideas where we believe we can benefit tremendously
23:59 from an ongoing partnership and relationship with your foundation and yourself.
24:07 We hope you will agree to that, even in the midst of the great pressures on your time.
24:13 And we would follow up with Dr. Chatterjee and others to make the link
24:20 and seek your guidance and inputs, because we share the same goal here.
24:25 It's exactly what you are setting out to do, that we are setting out to do,
24:29 and our comparative advantage is within a university system.
24:34 And we are going to be very happy to put that advantage at your disposal.
24:39 There are also, of course, as a university, many disadvantages.
24:44 And we hope to overcome that with the kind of partnership that we can have with your foundation.
24:51 So, today, this is the beginning, at this point, I hope, and not the end.
24:59 It's just the end of these two hours we have been so fortunate to have with you.
25:04 So, let me thank you again and thank all your colleagues who helped to organize this.
25:10 And let me acknowledge as well all my colleagues, both within our own school,
25:15 but within other schools that might have been present, as well as others.
25:20 And we look forward to an ongoing collaboration. Thank you very much.
25:25 Thank you, sir. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole conversation.
25:29 And I'll thank you and all the participants. And I really do look forward to an association,
25:37 even a collaboration going ahead. Thank you so much.
25:40 Okay. Bye-bye now. Bye to all.
25:43 Bye.
25:45 [Music]