#AcharyaPrashant #आचार्यप्रशांत #Philosophy #BhagavadGita
Video Information: 03.09.2024, BITS, Goa
Description:
In this session, Acharya Prashant brings clarity to a commonly quoted line from the Hanuman Chalisa- ""भूत-पिशाच निकट नहीं आवे,
महावीर जब नाम सुनावे"" . He explains how such spiritual literature should be approached — with appreciation for its depth and purpose, rather than with misplaced literalism. Reverence does not mean blind acceptance; it calls for understanding the context, the tradition, and the intent behind the words.
The discussion also touches upon the confusion between spirituality and superstition — a confusion that often arises when both scientific understanding and self-inquiry are missing. Acharya Ji emphasizes that true religiosity never opposes reason; it demands both intellectual honesty and inner observation.
🎧 Listen to Acharya Prashant on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/2QmVEAA
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~
Video Information: 03.09.2024, BITS, Goa
Description:
In this session, Acharya Prashant brings clarity to a commonly quoted line from the Hanuman Chalisa- ""भूत-पिशाच निकट नहीं आवे,
महावीर जब नाम सुनावे"" . He explains how such spiritual literature should be approached — with appreciation for its depth and purpose, rather than with misplaced literalism. Reverence does not mean blind acceptance; it calls for understanding the context, the tradition, and the intent behind the words.
The discussion also touches upon the confusion between spirituality and superstition — a confusion that often arises when both scientific understanding and self-inquiry are missing. Acharya Ji emphasizes that true religiosity never opposes reason; it demands both intellectual honesty and inner observation.
🎧 Listen to Acharya Prashant on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/2QmVEAA
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Okay, I'll introduce myself as I didn't do so previously.
00:07My name is Virok.
00:08I'm a second year student pursuing chemical engineering.
00:11So there's this line I'd like to quote from the Hanuman Chalissa, which is pretty famous.
00:16This among many other literary pieces has been misconstrued and obviously used to justify
00:26the presence of ghosts.
00:28I have a couple of questions springing from this one.
00:32What does this line exactly imply?
00:34And two, is most of the andhbhakti in India because of the poor understanding of literary
00:41devices?
00:43See, one of the issues is we do not put people and books in perspective.
00:58There is a difference between, let's say, Tejashtavakra, Tri Krishna, Tej Yajyavalki or philosophers
01:16like Kapil Muni, Kanad Muni, Gautam Muni and Sant Tulsidas.
01:30Except for Sant Tulsidas, all others belong almost to antiquity.
01:37And what lies at the root of their work is philosophy.
01:47Sant Tulsidas is a great and very recent poet.
01:54That should answer your question.
01:56A wonderful poet, a very recent one, just 570 years back.
02:01That's all.
02:10The rule is very clear.
02:13What is to be taken as inviolable when it comes to the scriptures is the Shruti.
02:23And the Shruti consists of Ved and Vedanta, that's all, that's all.
02:35All else is aggregated under the umbrella term of Smriti.
02:44The difference being, the Shruti is taken as inviolable.
02:53Not something that the normal human mind has created.
03:01If you talk of a Shruti scripture, nobody will tell you of its author.
03:08Nobody will tell you who authored the Upanishads for example, no.
03:13Because it is not taken as a product of the normal human mind.
03:16Therefore human authorship is disallowed, no.
03:23But all the other religious books, they are taken as authored by human beings and therefore
03:31not necessarily the truth.
03:34Smriti will follow Shruti and where Smriti seems to contradict Shruti, Smriti has to
03:49be rejected, simply rejected.
03:55And while Shruti is a small corpus, Smriti is almost infinitely large.
04:03Anybody who writes anything significant in the field of religion has contributed to Smriti
04:09literature, Ram Charitmanaj belongs to Smriti, which is fine.
04:16It is the creation of one saint who was pretty recent in the Mughal era.
04:25People can write things which is alright.
04:33Look at the beauty that is there and ignore what is controversial over there.
04:43The way the entire epic has been rendered by Tulsi Das is magnificent, it's awesome.
04:58It's a great poem, it's a great poem.
05:04These are not to be taken as infallible verses.
05:10It is a great poem.
05:13It is not a great Upanishad.
05:19It is Maha Kavya.
05:24It is not Mahadarshan.
05:27So that's alright.
05:29Great poets write great poems, whom I really ad odyssey, do we scrutinize them the same way?
05:39Lots of illogical things you will find in other epics of the world as well.
05:48They are to be taken as the poet's thought, the poet's imagination, which is alright.
05:55The poet is a human being.
05:58He is entitled to imagine.
06:00He has imagined something and written something.
06:03Give him credit for the beauty that he has given you and don't be too harsh on the other things.
06:10Don't take the other things as the truth.
06:12They are what?
06:16The poet is always said to carry the poetic license.
06:21The poet always has the license to imagine and he has done that, that's fine.
06:28Why do you need to take that as some kind of religious dictum?
06:36Obviously, they will not come close to you.
06:48That does not mean that only material things come close to you.
06:52Aren't your imaginations very close to you?
06:56Mahavir Hanuman is to be taken as the representative of truth.
07:06When you are close to the truth, then stupid imaginations do not bother you.
07:13Bhut Pishach Nikat Nahi Aave Mahavir Jab Naam Chata.
07:17When you are close to the truth, then stupid imaginations do not bother you.
07:21That's what these words mean.
07:26That's all.
07:30By the one who believes in Bhut Pishach.
07:33For him they exist.
07:35Do they or not?
07:38When you are asleep and are engaged in some nightmare.
07:44For you does the nightmare exist or not?
07:47Later on you may say it was all imaginary.
07:50But when you are experiencing it, you feel it actually exists.
07:53Similarly, the one who deeply believes in all these fantasies.
07:58He actually thinks that these things exist.
08:01How to dispel these notions?
08:04Truth is the answer.
08:11Truth is the answer.
08:12Mahavir Hanuman.
08:15The one who is devoted to Ram.
08:17Ram who represents the truth.
08:19If you can be close to the representative of the truth,
08:24you will get rid of all nonsensical and horrifying imaginations.
08:29That's how these words are to be interpreted.
08:36And obviously the second part is overall misconstruing other pieces of literature
08:43because of the lack of understanding overall in this country of literary devices.
08:50Like for example Bhut Pishach stood for your own.
08:59The spirituality is not just about getting into rigorous literature.
09:05When you are performing an experiment in a science lab, that too is spirituality.
09:15Those who do not know science fall prey to superstition.
09:22Spirituality involves both knowing the external world by way of science
09:30and knowing the internal world by way of honest observation.
09:35If either of these are missing, you are bound to be superstitious.
09:39Even great scientists are often seen to be very superstitious.
09:47Because they have knowledge in the world of material.
09:50But they don't have knowledge about who they are.
09:53They have never bothered to examine their own tendencies and thoughts and desires.
09:58So even scientists can be superstitious.
10:01When you have both of these, then you are not superstitious.
10:06In India the problem is we have neither of these.
10:11We are neither formally educated in science, humanities, arts.
10:17We are not really educated people.
10:20And also because we have some kind of very bogus religious system.
10:27We have drifted too far away from real spirituality.
10:32Even though we are
10:36the progenitors
10:39of spiritual philosophy.
10:41India is the land from where
10:44spiritual philosophy came into being.
10:49Yet we have
10:50unfortunately
10:51drifted too far away.
10:54thankful thanks to the linen
10:57マjol
11:00of the
11:06literature
11:09and
11:11brilliant
11:14and
11:19a
11:21contract