Has religion been successful? Is religion of any value? || Acharya Prashant (2019)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...   Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articl...  Video Information: Shabdyog Session, 17.06.2019, Advait BodhSthal, Greater Noida, India   Context:  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

00:00In previous question you said that religion is essentially needed in spirituality, but

00:15in the name of religion, like Hindus fight with Muslims, Muslims fight with Hindus, so

00:27The recorder you are speaking into will get saturated with your voice soon, why not throw

00:36it away?

00:39The dress that you are wearing will get soiled very soon, why wear it at all?

00:54The specs that you are holding, they won't be there forever, they get dirty, they get

01:07broken, why use them?

01:19Religion is not the truth, religion is an enabler, except for truth everything is ephemeral,

01:31except for truth everything costs something, except for truth everything has its limitations,

01:39so religion has its limitations.

01:45But you have to carefully weigh the limitations against the benefits, if there were no religion

01:56would you still sit in front of me here, like an obedient girl, tell me what is it that

02:08makes you sit here obediently, why are you calling me Acharyaji, I am Prashant and why

02:18must I be a Guru, if you are 30, I am 40, look at me as a man, that's what Prakriti

02:26has trained you to do, has it not?

02:31A 30 year old is not supposed to look at a 40 year old as a Guru or something, you are

02:38a body, I am a body, what makes you be disciplined, is it fear?

02:50I hope it is not, what makes you look wide eyed at me, what makes you try to understand,

02:58is it your animal origins?

03:00No, no animal seeks to understand, they only seek to get some food, you are not getting

03:12it, are you?

03:21Some of you are volunteers, many of you have never been paid a single paisa by the foundation,

03:32why are you still here, tell me, why?

03:54Don't you see the role of religion in this, but for religion who would teach you that

04:01this is valuable?

04:15Akhil worked for 10 years in a management consulting firm, did they teach you, that

04:24the Guru Granth Sahib is valuable, how is he sitting there then?

04:31And mind you, he is not earning a single penny out of being here, did they teach that to

04:41you in your engineering or management course, why is he sitting here?

04:47And he is not a kid, his beard is about to turn grey.

05:00We have taken so many things for granted, you go out and you help your neighbor and

05:07you think, oh this is essential human nature, no this is not essential human nature, this

05:11is the effect of religion on man, but we are ungrateful, we do not acknowledge that.

05:25Don't you see that even tribal societies have their own versions of religion, religion is

05:32so central to civilization, even tribals need religions, their religions are different,

05:39but they do have religions, without religion there can be no civilization, man will remain a beast.

05:49But I have not come to you by knowing your religion.

05:53You did not consciously know the religious basis of your actions, but as I said religion

06:01is in the air and that's the beauty of religion.

06:09Once it becomes the cultural norm, you do not have to be formally indoctrinated in it,

06:14it's something that you then breathe in.

06:21The kid just looks at the mother and the grandmother and the neighbors and the uncles and the father

06:27and he gets educated in religion.

06:32So even if the kid has never read the Gita or the Bible or the Quran, still he is versed

06:39in the fundamental principles.

06:44He may not specifically or formally know which verse of the Gita is his behavior coming from,

06:57but surely the Gita is impacting his behavior because the Gita is in the air.

07:04It was an Englishman who commented, he said even the illiterate farmers of India are deeply spiritual.

07:15Religion is in India's soil.

07:20So even if somebody has not known a single word from the scriptures, he is still religious.

07:30There are 25 festivals in a month.

07:35How will you not be religious?

07:41Three days every week you are fasting, how will you not be religious?

07:46And you do not know why exactly are you fasting.

07:49You are just saying, oh today is Monday, so I have to fast.

07:53But that has taught you something, that has taught you that there is something higher

07:58than the body's need for food, so you have to fast.

08:02You do not know why you are fasting, but this much has become known to you that once you

08:07pick up the fast, you cannot break it.

08:11Monday means Monday, you will not have food, you will not have water.

08:17So it has been proven to you that you have to go beyond the body without the principle

08:21being stated to you officially or formally or in an academic way.

08:37Just because you pick it up from the air, it does not mean that you will continue picking

08:43it up when it disappears from the air and the kind of attitudes that are prevailing

08:52in the world today about with respect to religion, they are conspiring to remove religion even

08:58from the air.

09:00Yes, religion is still there in the air of distant God-forsaken villages, the places

09:11you call as the interiors, their religion is still in the soil, in the air.

09:17But if you ask me, is religion in the air of an advanced shopping mall, I will say it

09:24is still there.

09:26But just as carbon content is rising, particle content is rising in the air, similarly irreligiousness

09:39is rising in the air and religion is on the decline.

09:53Just because we find that even without formal religious education, people are still behaving

10:00nicely.

10:01So we think that if religion is removed totally, altogether, people will still continue to

10:08behave nicely.

10:09It's a great myth.

10:14Remove religion altogether and you will have nothing but beasts roaming the surface of

10:18this earth.

10:21Because there is nothing, I repeat, in man's body or brain that encourages him or empowers

10:31him to behave in a saintly way.

10:36There is nothing at all.

10:41If you take a man's kid and leave him in the jungle, without any contact with civilization

10:51for many, many years, what do you expect to find?

10:56A creature full of insight, love, understanding, compassion?

11:05I hope we do not conduct that experiment upon anyone.

11:09One life would be lost forever, irretrievably.

11:18I've said this many a times, tonight I repeat this, only religion turns the beast into a

11:26human being.

11:28The human being is not born from the mother's womb.

11:35The human beast is born from the mother's womb.

11:38The human beast is turned into the human being by religion.

11:45No religion, no human being.

11:53And we already have a lot of beasts.

11:56There are a lot of families where the heir is really not religious.

12:02And when they grow up, they are dry people.

12:07They just don't understand a lot of things.

12:10It is almost as if their faculty to understand has shriveled, almost died down.

12:21Just by spending a few minutes with someone, I can tell whether or not the fellow is coming

12:27from a religious background, the eyes have it.

12:34If you're coming from a background where there was very little religiosity, your face will

12:41be very animal-like or android-like.

12:56If there is no religion, man is either animal or android.

13:08Have you not seen android babies these days?

13:15You call them cute.

13:18Or android youngsters.

13:21Look at the face of Kabir Sahab or Baba Bulleh Shah and then look at the face of most youngsters

13:31of today.

13:32You will find something missing.

13:36You will not be able to put your finger on it.

13:39What is missing in the face of today's youngsters?

13:43Or what is extra in the face of Baba Bulleh Shah?

13:51It is a certain religiosity.

13:56It's fascinating just to look at faces, specifically the eyes.

14:09When I say animal, I mean he will be driven by his basic tendencies.

14:29When I say android, I mean to say he will or he might have a powerfully developed intellect.

14:36But neither do your basic tendencies nor your intellect define your humanness.

14:48Your humanness is defined by your heart and it is religion that brings the heart to you.

15:01Androids are top-heavy, animals are bottom-heavy.

15:06You could say crotch-heavy.

15:12But both of them bypass the heart.

15:15One operates from the top floor, the other operates from the basement.

15:24The human being operates from the center, that is heart.

15:27And if you don't have religion, you will have the android and the animal, but you will not

15:33have the human being, the one with heart.

15:45And it's not as if the android and the animal are mutually exclusive.

15:50If you look at people, they are sometimes top-heavy and sometimes crotch-heavy.

16:02And after a point, the top and the crotch start collaborating with each other.

16:06So you use the top to fulfill the crotch.

16:25Neither top nor bottom, be centered.

16:30Intellect is the top, animal instincts are the bottom, religiousness is to be centered

16:41here, neither here nor there.

16:45You just talked about religious values being in the air, can't that be a product of trial

17:10and error, as in you teach a religious code of conduct to somebody and that becomes just

17:18a wrought memorization process for the person.

17:25You just mentioned about the scientist, a scientist is in a laboratory, science cannot

17:32teach them to be whether being jealous or not.

17:39We have fought two world wars, humans have fought two world wars, even religion is present.

17:48So say only two world wars, because religion is present.

17:54So only two world wars, otherwise you will have a world war three times a day.

18:08Look at the way we are, so eager to pick fights on every trivial issue.

18:19Is it not a magical thing that we have had only two world wars till now?

18:26Please, before you complain, oh we have had two world wars, look at your face.

18:34You are always fighting a world war within yourself, are you not?

18:44Man is so eager to occupy and consume the entire world, sometimes in the name of colonial

18:52expansion and sometimes in the name of tourism.

18:59How is it that there has been no major war in the last half a century?

19:10When somebody says, you know I have visited 125 countries, is that very different from

19:15saying my forces have occupied 125 countries, please?

19:21Is it out of love for those 125 countries that he has visited them?

19:26He does not love even his motherland, how will he love 125 countries?

19:33But when a conqueror has a territorial lust, then you call it war mongering.

19:44When the so-called civilized tourists visits this place and that place and that place,

19:48then you say, oh he is just an innocent wanderer, what else is he doing?

19:59We are probably still in dark about our dark tendencies, we do not know who we are, we

20:08probably have too high an opinion about ourselves, we just do not know who we are.

20:19Kindly drop all fantastic images that you might have of yourself.

20:23Man is evil incarnate, remove religion and nothing but the Saturn remains.

20:37Man has tendencies of the beast and intentions of the devil.

20:48So praise your stars that you have had only two world wars till now.

21:03Praise the ones who came down from the stars to give you religion.

21:09Remember the answer I gave in the last session, when Nimisha asked about the declining values

21:24in the youth of today, I said the same thing, why do you think that the youth must be principled

21:29and civilized and the fault does not lie with the youth, the fault lies with your misplaced expectations.

21:42By looking at one Vivekananda, you start imagining or dreaming or expecting that all youth can

21:48be like Vivekananda and in this lies your ingratitude and disrespect towards Vivekananda.

21:56You do not know what kind of an impossibility of Vivekananda is, you do not appreciate him.

22:03So you feel that anybody and everybody can be a Vivekananda.

22:11You do not know the colossal height of the Himalayas.

22:16So you start feeling that the little bit of mud you have gathered in your lawn must be

22:27able to have some snow on its peak and then you complain, you say the Himalayas have so

22:40much snow on their peaks, I too have raised this little mound, 5 kilograms of earth I

22:54dug up and then this hill I have created, all of 24 inches height, but I do not see

23:01any snow on its peak, you do not see any snow on its peak because you do not have respect

23:09for the glory of the Himalayas, you do not know what it takes to have your peaks crowned

23:16with snow.

23:18You feel that the crown is cheap, the snow crown does not come cheap, it requires the

23:24height of a giant, you do not respect the giant.

23:30Human beings are all like those little mounds, those little heaps of earth on ground.

23:41The religious teachers, the Gurus have been like the mighty Everest, but we keep comparing

23:48ourselves to them and feel disappointed when we do not find snow in our hair.

24:07Try being a Guru Nanak Dev or a Swami Vivekananda for one day, try living their life for one

24:15day and then you will realize who we are.

24:20One hour, please somebody take the bait, for one hour try living as the Guru and then you

24:38will realize how impossible a Guru is and then you will realize where you would have

24:52been without the Gurus.

25:04It's become a fad to curse religion and to say all religions are outdated and we do not

25:18read to even read the ancient scriptures.

25:22It's become a fashionable thing.

25:26It is the vilest kind of ingratitude that deserves the most severe kind of punishment

25:35and the punishment is forthcoming.

25:37Man is suffering.

26:06Is there love in the animal world?

26:11Is there love in the android world?

26:18Go find out where love comes from.

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