Why have Religions emerged in only a few places in the world? || Acharya Prashant (2022)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...  ⚡ Want Acharya Prashant’s regular updates? Join WhatsApp Channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va6Z...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...   Want to accelerate Acharya Prashant’s work? Contribute: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/contri...   Want to work with Acharya Prashant? Apply to the Foundation here: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/hiring...  ➖➖➖➖➖➖  Video Information: 23.12.22, DTU, Delhi  Context: ~ Why has India been a birthing ground for religions and saints? ~ What is special in India?  ~ How does religion flourish?  ~ Is India inherently religious?  ~ How does Indian philosophy emerge? ~ What is religion? ~ Were our hunter-gatherer ancestors religious? ~ What differentiates man from animal?  ~ What is your destiny?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00 Namaste sir, so I have observed one thing that if we look at the major religions and

00:09 spiritual traditions around the world, we see and which are well accepted, we see that

00:15 they emerged from certain places only, for example the Abrahamic religions, all of them

00:21 happened in the Arab world and around Israel and Saudi, then Zoroastrianism happened in

00:27 Iran and then India has been the most fertile land for the growth of these traditions and

00:32 religions, for example Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and even the foreign traditions

00:37 when they came to India, for example Sufism when it came to India, it flourished in a

00:41 very unique fashion and we have, the Indian subcontinent especially has had a long list

00:48 of saints, so and we don't see these things in the European history or in the Americas

00:57 or any other places.

00:59 Heard of a place called Greece?

01:02 Yes sir, even I am ready to include Greece as well.

01:07 Heard of Athens?

01:10 Heard of the Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, they were not Europeans?

01:17 It's just that at particular patches in time, there exist favourable ecosystems, there was

01:26 a wonderful ecosystem in Greece before Christ and you have excluded China, you have excluded

01:38 Japan, so what remains then?

01:41 Then we have the Middle East, then we have Iran, then we have India and India is the

01:48 entire subcontinent, we have also included China, we have included Japan, we have included

01:53 Europe, what remains?

01:54 But sir, Europe is again, but the way it has flourished in India and places around India

02:00 and Pakistan, India is one, India, Pakistan, the subcontinent, let's take this.

02:04 It's a bit unique, the way it has flourished.

02:07 Ecosystem, nothing else, ecosystem.

02:10 Once something starts somewhere, it becomes the thing for that place.

02:18 What do you know Detroit today for?

02:22 What do you know California today for?

02:27 What do you know Bangalore today for?

02:29 So is there something particular in the geography of Bangalore that makes it conducive to silica

02:39 or something?

02:40 No, nothing.

02:41 It's just that due to historical and coincidental reasons, an ecosystem develops there and once

02:50 the ecosystem is there, more and more stuff starts happening.

02:53 There is nothing, if you want to investigate more into it, India was a more fertile land

03:01 for religious inquiry because the soil was fertile, because the monsoons were guaranteed

03:13 and you could do nothing about the monsoons.

03:18 Remember in those days there was hardly any irrigation, so you simply had to wait for

03:24 the rains.

03:26 What do you do when you wait for the rains?

03:29 And the population was sparse, so there was good food, ample food for everyone and the

03:38 Indus basin and the Ganga basin are one of the most fertile basins in the world.

03:43 The alluvial soil here coming right from the Himalayas.

03:48 So you had abundance of everything.

03:50 When you have abundance of everything and there is not much you can anyway do because

03:54 the monsoons will come when they have to.

03:56 What do you do?

03:58 You have ample leisure and in that leisure you sit, you observe, you talk to people.

04:06 There is space for intellectual inquiry.

04:10 For hours and hours can you visualize the thinkers, the sages, the seers just purposelessly

04:17 talking to each other?

04:20 And from that purposeless discussion, from silent observation of life for hours, days,

04:27 months, years, come those insights that you today take as Indian philosophy.

04:35 You cannot have philosophical development if you are running behind your ambitions and

04:41 if you have a tied up day and you very well know that 8 am you have to do this and then

04:45 6 am this and 8 am that kind of clockwork will never allow any kind of internal leisure

04:53 and if that internal leisure is not there, no insight, no wisdom can develop.

05:00 You all must remember this.

05:02 Give yourself space, freedom, opportunities to take stock.

05:06 You understand what is meant by taking stock?

05:09 Just stop, stop for long durations, at least for a few hours and recollect what's going

05:16 on.

05:17 Am I just running?

05:20 What's going on?

05:22 And this period of taking stock can extend to months if possible for you.

05:29 In fact in my own growth, the breaks that I used to get from school and later on from

05:36 IIT were very important.

05:39 Most of my initial poetry was composed in breaks and the breaks were significant.

05:45 The entire December used to be free and then May, June, July and that used to provide an

05:54 ample space in which one could just be himself.

05:59 So that's what it is.

06:02 Ecosystems are very important, that's the reason universities are very important.

06:09 So as you said that because ecosystem was favourable in India but in the Arab world

06:15 the survival conditions were very brutal, they were very tough.

06:19 So how did Prophet Ibrahim or Prophet Muhammad or Christ managed to awaken their consciousness?

06:29 Same thing can happen when the ecosystem is very unfavourable.

06:34 You very well know that nothing will happen however hard you try.

06:39 So what do you do?

06:40 You stop trying.

06:42 If you think of the process of the Quran, Prophet Muhammad used to go up a hill and

06:53 sit there for long durations.

06:57 That sitting alone for long durations is at the core of insightful realisation.

07:05 If you are someone who cannot be by himself, if you are afraid of being alone, if you cannot

07:14 remain silent to yourself, you will never realise anything.

07:25 The fact is, please understand, even if you go to the Paleolithic times, what you find

07:35 is religion emerging in a very preliminary way.

07:43 So it's never specific to one geography.

07:46 Where there is man, there is dissatisfaction and where there is dissatisfaction, there

07:53 is an inquiry into the reason of dissatisfaction and that inquiry itself is called religion.

08:01 I am not whole, I am not well, why do I remain restless within?

08:06 How do I take care of this?

08:09 That itself is religion.

08:10 So that is found even in the cavemen.

08:15 They did not know that they are restless because something within is amiss.

08:20 So what would they do?

08:21 They started out by looking into the physical universe.

08:26 They would say, oh probably that tree is great.

08:29 If that tree blesses me, I would be alright.

08:33 Oh probably that river is great.

08:37 Probably the sky god or the sun god, they are the greatest, they are the absolute.

08:42 So there is a search within the human being, always, always for the greatest, the best,

08:48 the absolute.

08:49 And that's what differentiates man from animals.

08:54 Animals do not search for the best, the greatest, the final, the infinite, the absolute.

08:59 Man always searches for that and if life is not used in searching the absolute and meeting

09:07 it, then life is wasted.

09:09 So there was a point in the history of evolution of human beings when we started to think that

09:19 point comes 70-80 thousand years before today.

09:29 And the moment that point comes, also you start seeing the emergence of some kind of

09:36 worship.

09:40 Our brains, the moment they gain some maturity, one of the things that come immediately to

09:47 the brain, the mind is that it starts to worship.

09:52 Now what does worship mean?

09:53 Think of it.

09:54 Worship means there has to be something bigger and I prostrate in front of it.

09:59 So this search for bigness, that bigness is your destiny.

10:06 That's what Vedanta calls as Atma.

10:11 And it's not a doctrine, it's not a dogma.

10:14 It's contained within you, even if you deny Vedanta, that restlessness will remain.

10:21 So Vedanta is not a concept or a principle.

10:24 It is just expressing what is already within you, irrespective of whether you believe in

10:31 Vedanta or not.

10:32 That's why I said that there is no need to believe.

10:35 It is.

10:36 What is need not be believed in.

10:40 It can be known.

10:42 There's no need to believe.

10:43 Thank you.

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