Religion is the poor man's materialism? || Acharya Prashant, in conversation (2022)
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LearningTranscript
00:00So Julius, welcome to India.
00:08So folks may not recognize you, but I'm sure they've experienced your work because you've
00:13been the key person in translating, not translating, transcribing and setting up all of Acharya
00:20Ji's books, and we have some of them over there.
00:24And you've ensured that a lot of these books are now available for folks to read, everything
00:29from Srimad Bhagavad Gita to meditation.
00:34And you've decided to come to India from Finland.
00:37That's right.
00:39I'm just curious to know more.
00:41You told me, and I've read before, that Finland is one of the happiest places in the world,
00:48according to the surveys, and yet you're over here.
00:52So is that really true?
00:56Well, the survey was actually the fifth consecutive time that Finland was picked as the happiest
01:05country of the world.
01:07I guess the thing is that the kind of metrics they use to count these kind of things are
01:17mostly very materialistic.
01:21And I guess that's the thing, that in my experience in Finland, I've lived there my
01:32whole life, I guess I've been very well off in many possible ways, or maybe even all of
01:41them.
01:44The economic situation is very good, the level of education is high, and I've even had the...
01:55I've been very fortunate to have been under some very good teachers in music also.
02:03So it's kind of this... how should I say it?
02:10You have everything, but still nothing seems to work.
02:16But yes, I did come to India, and I've been here for a month now, as you know, you have
02:26been very helpful.
02:29But I guess the thing is that when it comes to getting into spirituality, as I mentioned
02:42earlier, I've been in that kind of situation where I have everything, and still I have
02:52not been happy.
02:54And when it comes to Finland as a country, I think that this is the case with most people
03:02there also.
03:04The thing is that people are very well-adjusted, that all kinds of comforts and social services
03:15make it possible to actually compromise.
03:22So this is news to me, because I used to think, and I know a lot of Indians think,
03:26that if you go to the West, you get all these material comforts, and it's paradise your
03:31life is made.
03:32So it sounds like that's not the case.
03:34Well, the comforts are definitely there.
03:37It's another thing that... do they actually comfort anyone?
03:42But yes.
03:44So Acharyaji, maybe if you could help us understand what's going on.
03:49It's ranked the happiest country, and yet we have a dissatisfied Finn in our midst.
03:55You see, we need contentment, all of us, people from all over the globe, in fact to an extent
04:15even non-human species as well, we all need a certain fulfillment.
04:31Happiness sometimes looks like that.
04:38Happiness to most people is the closest proxy to the thing we are actually seeking.
04:47So in absence of any other trustworthy or closer substitute, we go for happiness.
05:01That's what the West has done in its own way.
05:03That's what the East has done in its own way.
05:07The way of the East has been different from the way of the West, yet the aspiration of
05:14both East and West, or North and South, any direction, sky and earth, have been the same
05:20because fundamentally we are the same consciousness.
05:25So you see, West has tried a lot of materialism.
05:33You will get that, that, the real thing that we want, I'll call that as that.
05:41So you will get that if you are happy, and you get happy if you have a lot of material
05:49comforts, nice goods, wonderful machines, gadgets with the latest technology.
06:01So that's been the approach in the West.
06:05The approach in the East has been of religion.
06:17Now this religion, what is it about?
06:21This religion has been mostly about an organized structure of belief.
06:29Belief that you will get that real thing if you do this and that, if you live this
06:36particular way, then you will reach there.
06:42It seems neither the East nor the West have succeeded.
06:49Materialism doesn't work and formal religion doesn't work either.
06:55It was actually strange to see that, well, it goes without saying that copious amounts
07:06of very profound wisdom literature, saints and seers, have come from India.
07:15I don't know numbers, but it wouldn't be...
07:21Yeah, yeah, and most of them we probably haven't even heard of, but the climate here has been
07:27such that it has allowed, I don't know if it's a climate really, but still they have,
07:37even in the last century, many great names are there.
07:44See before we go into what has led to that kind of profusion of saints and seers, I think
07:59we may first discuss whether that which we commonly come across as religiosity in India
08:14is what those saints and seers were about.
08:22What the masses practice in India has very little to do with what the saints and seers
08:29preached or wanted to tell.
08:34Also this religiosity that you encounter in India is mostly another kind of materialism
08:45and for the same reason towards the same end.
08:49The West chases goods to be happy, the East chases gods to be happy.
09:02The goods are gods here, the gods are goods, so there is a lot of trade, there is a lot
09:15of trade.
09:17You can please the gods by offering them goods or you can take the gods from the East to
09:26the West and get a lot of goods in return.
09:32You see so many recent Indian gurus and all have made it an important thing in their career
09:46to be actually settled in the West.
09:51You see gods and goods go together and they both exist for the same reason, happiness.
10:03So I really don't have a grudge against gods nor against goods, it's the flawed concept
10:18of happiness that we probably need to go into, because you see man can do anything
10:27in desperation, we need that fulfillment and if we don't get that, then we will try everything
10:34at our disposal and we can't be blamed, we will try material goods, this is gross material
10:45and we will try belief which is subtle material.
10:50So East has been trying gross material, the West has been trying gross material, the East
10:59has been trying something even finer, subtle material, material here.
11:06So you create a story and then you start living in your own story, to be true.
11:22A point comes when you start calling it the truth, this is the truth, the truth, to the
11:35next generation and so on and you also make it a point to spread it to other people and
11:43places and sometimes you want to…..the sword, because it is the truth, truth and nothing
11:57but the truth.
11:59It's the truth that we want and when we don't get it, desperation is a nice thing, that
12:10desperation is not something we can blame, it's an auspicious thing rather, if channel
12:20But we don't channelize our desperation, we succumb to our desperation, we succumb
12:33to our desperation and we fall prey to the wrong channels, they don't take us anywhere.
12:42The happiness index, Darius, that you referred to, obviously as Julius pointed out, is measuring
12:52happiness over some pretty western metrics, those metrics are predefined to call pretty
13:06western things as happiness and that's why, no wonder, a western country merges as the
13:15happiest, tops the charts, because that concept of happiness itself is very much western,
13:25so how will east then live up to it.
13:28So it's a rigged game.
13:29It's a rigged game, it's like saying, you know, between Indians and Finnish people,
13:42the one who is taller is the happier, I stand no chance, the very metric has been rigged,
13:53you know, the proxy for happiness is something that Indians can naturally not have good height,
14:02so they'll not be declared happy, he'll be declared happy, but now he says, he's not
14:09happy, he's tall, not as happy, nobody is happy, nobody is happy, the random ways of
14:25the mind obviously cannot yield you the real happiness, and real happiness is not a utopia,
14:38it's not a utopia because if you do not have it, you crave for it, how can your fundamental
14:46craving be utopian, does not sound nice, does it, all of us, irrespective of where we come
14:55from, our gender, our age, we crave for that same thing, right, can I be at peace, can
15:04I be at rest for once, we all crave for that one thing, right, and we express it in our
15:10respective languages, in our respective contexts, how can we all be deluded, and even if we
15:16call us deluded, will the craving cease, no, it does not cease, so the craving is real,
15:25and the ways that his people have taken and the ways that the east has taken, these ways
15:37do not seem to work, the ways of the saints, the sages, they indeed work, they indeed work,
15:51and I am proud that a lot of them came from India, but I am not at all proud that today,
16:04if I say most Indians, that's a gross understatement, today 99.99999% Indians have really nothing
16:16to do with the words of the sages or the songs of the saints, I am trying my level
16:29best to take Vedanta to Indian homes, to begin with that is, and there is a lot of apathy
16:44towards spirituality and wisdom, though equally there is a new found enthusiasm towards religion,
16:58but that kind of religion which is mostly devoid of a spiritual base leads to nothing,
17:06in fact if it leads to something, it is strife, it leads to chaos, it leads to violence, it
17:12leads to self-delusion, it gives you nothing.
17:19So the materialism of the west and the religiosity of the east are just both ways to get away
17:34from the real thing.
17:37West has used the material and east has used the mental, to be really away from the truth.
17:57East is not spiritual and that remains obvious to see, but the east in spite of its religiosity
18:09is equally distant from spirituality, this most people miss.
18:17Now that you are at the fag end of your journey, I would want you to appreciate this.
18:27The real thing is neither there nor here, the real thing is in the verses of the Upanishads,
18:42in the songs of people like Saint Kabir, that's where the real thing is.
18:51Just travelling to this place will fetch you next to nothing, because if you travel
18:59to this place, you meet people, and as I said, it's one in a million Indian who is really
19:07spiritual, so this land as such is no more extraordinary.
19:20Only the general masses at any place, anywhere were never too spiritual, however compared
19:32to other places, India was relatively better in terms of spirituality, but in current times,
19:41I think it's all leveled out.
19:44It does not matter whether you are in the US, the Europe, or in India, materialism rules,
19:54and those who cannot afford to be material, they become religious, and both are equally
20:06away from the truth.
20:11So in some way, religion is the poor person's materialism.
20:18Can't have goods, as we said, have gods.
20:25Having gods is not the same as having the truth.
20:30So just as we take happiness to be this proxy for contentment, it sounds like a lot of folks
20:36in the East are taking religion and gods to be the proxy for truth.
20:43You think if you go to a place of worship and do the right things, the customary offerings,
20:56the usual practices, think you will get illuminated or liberated, that's not going to happen.
21:06The real thing is the real thing, the real thing cannot come to you via set processes
21:13and hackneyed practices, it's not going to happen.
21:21So in the West, at least in the US, you can't go down the street without not seeing a yoga
21:27studio or a yoga shop.
21:29So it sounds like what people claim will get them closer to fulfillment or the truth
21:36is just, they're just being sold.
21:39So just like we in the East look at brands and don't realize we've been sold something,
21:43it looks like our gurus have smartened up and are now selling the West spiritual goods.
21:49See that's what trade, you need something you do not have, I need something I do not
21:54have, I give you what you do not have, you give me what I do not have.
22:00You had goods, I gave you gods, I had gods, I didn't have goods, I fetched goods from
22:07your place.
22:08So that's the kind of exchange going on, it's just that neither goods nor gods are the thing
22:18that you or me really want.
22:21So in some sense we both will become more affluent due to this trade, but neither of
22:30us will become more fulfilled.
22:34With this kind of companionship down the road of life, neither of us are actually even inching
22:44closer to our destination.
22:47It's just that now we have company and it's a rewarding company.
22:52Lots of people flow from India to the West, equally there are a lot of people from the
22:57West who land in India for so-called religious tourism.
23:09I see them in Rishikesh.
23:10Rishikesh is a hub, Rishikesh, Tiruvannamalai, a lot of other places, Varanasi.
23:16And a lot of it at least to me seems a little unscientific, you have sound healing, you've
23:20got, I mean I'm sure yoga is good for your body, I don't think it can get you anything
23:25beyond a fit.
23:27The kind of yoga that we see today, mostly Hatha yogic practices, they are not going
23:36to fetch you any wisdom.
23:38I'm pretty sure they are good for the body and I would want more people to be physically
23:42fit using Hatha yoga.
23:45But to think that practicing bodily postures can get you even a little closer to wisdom
23:55is not wise.
23:56Maybe we should call it Boga instead.