Vibes, Energy, Aura: New-Age Nonsense
Questioner: Sir, when it is said that a person or a place has positive or negative vibrations, you strongly disagree with this point of view. Why is it so?
Acharya Prashant: The reason is philosophical. The reason has its roots in Vedanta. But I’ll narrate it in layman’s language.
You remember the witch hunt? Have you read it? Medieval Europe. Women were declared to be witches and burnt alive, stoned, executed by various means the most ghastly kind of means possible. And what was the justification that was offered?
"I sense that the woman is evil."
In today’s language, they would have said, “She’s sending me negative vibes. She’s sending me bad vibrations,” or, as is the culture to say, “low frequency vibrations,” or “her aura is bad.” That was the kind of reason that was offered. Yes, it is true that often, when you look at a person or a place, you experience a certain feeling. In fact, that always happens. Even if you look at a stranger, there is a certain reaction that arises from within. Yes, that does happen.
But please tell me as students of science, does that necessarily have to do with the object that you are viewing or experiencing? Or does it have more to do with your own prejudices, patterns, attitudes, way of looking at the world, bent of mind? Please tell me.
The moment you talk of people as emitting good waves or bad waves, positive or negative vibrations, you completely stop looking at your own self. You start saying, “If I’m experiencing something, it is because of the object of experience.” I look at something and what do I declare? The feeling that I am experiencing upon coming in contact with that particular object is because of that object. I’m nowhere in the picture. I’m neutral. I’m transparent. I am nobody.
The thing is — what you are experiencing is totally subjective to you. It is your own feeling. But you are imposing your feelings upon that object. You look at a person and you say, “This fellow gives me bad vibes.” Now, those bad vibes are your feelings about that person. But you are pretending as if your feelings are his quality.
Now those are your feelings. Why don’t you admit that? Why are you superimposing your experience upon that object? And the experience is extremely subjective. The same person who gives you negative vibes gives very positive vibes to somebody else. Right? So what you’re experiencing has very little to do with the object. It has much more to do with who you are, or what you have become. Are you getting it?
Think of a particular color. The same color gives very sacred vibes to one community and very profane vibes to another one. Does it happen or not? Think of a place of worship. A religious fellow belonging to a certain denomination would say, “Whenever I come close to this place, I experience divinity.” So you experience divinity only because you are already conditioned to experience that way. A person who does not subscribe to religion or believes in some other religious path experiences nothing of the sort that you do. Actually there is nothing magical or special about that religious place that appears to give you sacred vibes.
But then, that’s the culture today — to not look at yourself and look only at the world. And this philosophy is called materialism. Do you see this?
The philosophy that says, “Do not look at yourself, look only at the world” — that philosophy is called materialism.
The material is the truth. And the second truth is who you are. So there are two truths in materialism. It’s a dualistic philosophy. It says, you exist to consume the world. You exist to consume material. And consumption of material gives you happiness. So in the name of spirituality, in the name of vibes and energies and auras, what is being propagated is rank materialism. That’s the philosophy of today.
Vedanta on the other hand, says something very sensible. It says, “Son, you are the source of all your experiences.” If you experience something, the experiencer is the experience. Jiddu Krishnamurti famously said, "The observer is the observed." And modern physics, we all know, says very clearly that you cannot observe elementary phenomena without interfering with them, which means there is nothing called objectivity.
When you look at the macro level, then you say, “Just because I am looking at that wall, that wall does not change.” Yes, at the macro level, at the Newtonian level, that holds good. The object of observation does not change with respect to the observer. The observed object is not a function of the observer.
But when you go to the elementary level, to the minutest level possible, then it is very clear that observation changes the observed phenomena — the observed object. Which means nothing holds its own properties. The properties that anything holds are actually a function of the observer of those properties.
If I put it in layman’s language, your girlfriend holds certain properties for you. She does not hold those properties for her neighbor, or her father, or her brother. Is that true or not? Obviously yes. But when you talk of vibes and all, then you want to say, “No, no, no, I’m not prejudiced, I’m not conditioned, I’m not flawed, that fellow sends me bad vibes.” Well, that fellow sends sacred vibes to somebody else. Don’t you see that your perception is totally subjective? But we do not realize that. So this —
Cult of vibrations, auras, energies, positivity, and negativity, it is an enemy of self-observation. It will not allow you to look at yourself.
Whatever is happening within you, you will think it is happening as a result of some external happening. You’ll keep looking outwards. And that’s a great damage that this cult inflicts on you. It is a mark of wisdom to be a little detached from your experiences — to not take your experiences as the truth. Because when you are taking the experience as the truth, you are actually taking the experiencer as truthful.
The fact is that the experiencer is a very, very corrupted, conditioned — actually fictitious entity that exists within. It is classically called as the...? It is called the ego. And the ego is a product of physical and social conditioning. The ego is the experiencer, which means all your experiences are with respect to your ego. That’s why your experiences keep changing so frequently, and often so totally. Are you getting it?
So to believe in your experiences then you say, “Oh, I experienced bad vibes, that’s why that fellow is bad.” To believe in your experiences is to worship your ego. Because the experiencer is the ego. It is the cult of the ego. And such a cult is profanity itself. Such a cult is directly opposed to any kind of inwardness, wisdom, or spirituality. And when this thing happens, then there is a lot of violence, a lot of ignorance, and obviously a lot of sorrow. If you don’t want to suffer, do not take yourself seriously.
What do I mean by yourself? The ego itself, the experiencer. Do not take them very seriously. You very well know they are a product of the influences you experienced, the education you went through, the family you came from, the indoctrination that you received. That’s where the experiencer comes from. Every single experience is changing the experiencer. How can you rely on the experiencer? And that’s what all wisdom is about — You are not the experiencer.
You are not an experiencer. You’re not an experienced object. You’re not an experiencer, and you have nothing to do with the experience. You have to stay clear of this triad. Then who am I? That’s what is to be sought. But what is certain is that I cannot take myself so seriously. If I take myself very seriously, then I have turned into a worshipper of the ego. And that’s very problematic. That’s very problematic because it pushes me deep into suffering. That’s all.
Don’t you all wonder — do the philosophical texts talk of vibrations, auras, and energies? Do they? No, they don’t. You go to the Sankhya Karika, or Yog Sutra, or the Upanishads, or Nyaya Sutra, Do you find such fancy terms there, or their equivalents in Sanskrit? No. You don’t find them. Because they were thinkers. They are not foolish people to believe in all these things.
More recently, do you have a Ramakrishna Paramhansa, or a Vivekananda, or a Ramana Maharshi, or a J. Krishnamurti talking of vibrations? Did any wise fellow ever talk of vibrations, or energy, or all these stupid things? No. It’s only in the last 20-30 years that this kind of thing has come up. And a lot of that is because of spiritual illiteracy. And also because we don’t know science. So we start believing in these things.
Somebody says, 'Negative energy,' 'Negative vibrations.' Beats me — What are negative vibrations? I once asked, “Can you please demonstrate to me, by way of an equation, what a negative vibration would really look like?” Negative with respect to what? What is the origin? All positive and negative is with respect to some origin. How do you define the origin here? Please.
Sir the origin is the ego. What pleases the ego, you call it positive. What displeases the ego, you call it negative. India beats Australia today in a test match, it was positive for the Indians. It was negative for the? There is no absolute truth in positivity or negativity. It is all with respect to who you have become, and what you have become today would change tomorrow, would it not? Please tell me.
Something that you absolutely loved two years back is something that you so viciously hate today. Does that happen or not? So what is positive and what is negative? But we just fall for it, just fall for it.
Low-frequency vibrations. What exactly? How exactly are you calculating the vibrations, the vibrational frequency of a person? And if you want, indeed, if you want to go by the wave-particle duality and posit that all particles are waves as well, then we must understand that only very elementary particles like electrons can have any kind of substantial wavelength or frequency associated with them. Right? We know all that. Class 12th. Forget about a human being weighing 60 kg.
Can some smart fellow from here, who remembers his physics, calculate even the wavelength of a tennis ball or a cricket ball? Can you? You can, there's a formula, but the wavelength would be of a dimension that you would rather want to ignore. And here we are talking just of a small ball. And when you talk of a human being weighing 60 or 80 kg, what kind of vibrations are you imagining? Would we have started with this question?
I'm pretty sure that we have many amongst us here, even in the IIT fraternity, who believe in such things. And all that is quite unfortunate. Yeah. And I also know that in spite of me having said what I just did, we would probably continue to believe in such things, because there is something within us that just doesn't want to accept facts, that just doesn't want to live in understanding and wisdom. It's a very difficult thing to fight.
But anyway — yes, any follow-ups on this? And let the follow-ups be very closely related to the topic at hand, please.
Questioner: Namaste Acharya Ji. So I have one follow-up question. So I also don't believe in higher frequency or lower vibrations. But I have one question. So if I meet with a certain set of people, I feel very much excited. And if I meet with other people, I feel very much demotivated or exhausted. Then how will you explain this? What is this then?
Acharya Prashant: It is your own inclination. It's your own tendency. Let's name the first group of people as ‘A,’ right? A motivates you. And let's call the second people as ‘B.’ The presence or experience of B demotivates you. Does A demotivate everybody? Does that happen? And does the presence of B demotivate everybody?
It is something within you specifically that gets motivated or demotivated. Somebody else will have a totally different experience.
Think of a flag. If you think of one particular country's flag, the moment you look at that flag, you will experience what you call positivity. Right? There are 200-plus countries in the world, and they all have their flags and national anthems. Right? And when the citizen of a country hears his anthem, what does he experience, usually? What does he experience? Come on, please. Positivity. And when an enemy country hears the same anthem, what do they experience? What do they experience?
Now what if you change your citizenship? Tell me. That does happen, right? People in large numbers, in several lakhs, give up citizenship and that's happening all over the world. So today one particular sight or sound used to be very positive for you. Tomorrow another thing will become very positive for you. Now please tell me, is the thing or the sound positive, or is it about your own mind?
It's your own mind. Now do not allege that the thing has certain properties. The thing is just a thing. It is neither positive nor negative. With respect to the thing, you experience something because you have an attitude towards the thing. Because you are biased for or against, because you are prejudiced, or because you are inclined towards the thing.
Have inwardness, please. Inwardness means: if I have a certain experience, I will look at myself. That's what comes first. I come first.
Later on, I'll also look at the object or the stimulus that aroused the experience. Fine, that is okay. I'll look at that. I'm not saying I'll totally ignore the object in front of me. No. It's not to be totally ignored. But the first thing to be investigated is the self. And that's the basis of all wisdom, all philosophy. That's Vedanta. And that's also common sense.
Questioner: Good evening, sir. And thank you for debunking the vibration theory. Sir, is this same concept, same thing related to people selling things like stones and all? Like some people say if I keep this stone, say they buy something, a stone or some motif and they get some good vibes, good aura from that particular stone or any object. So is it the same?
Acharya Prashant: Right, right. Yes. Special gems, stones and all these things all belong to the same field. A thing is a thing. A thing is just a thing.
If you talk of a thing like a bullet, I understand, it hurts your physicality. If you talk of a thing like a medical pill, we again understand because it has a certain effect on your physicality. And the physicality is a fact. But when you talk of a thing affecting your mind, then mind you that it is the mind that decides what to be affected by.
The body has no choice. Mind is another name for choice.
If you bring a flame to your arm, right? A torch. The skin will not have a choice in reacting to the heat. Doesn't depend whether it is the skin of the Buddha or Shri Krishna. If there is a bacteria or a virus, it will affect the saint and the sinner alike. Because the body is just a body. Right?
Raman Maharshi, Ramakrishna, they both died of cancer. And legend has it that an arrow pierced the foot of Shri Krishna, and he had to go. The Buddha too died of a stomach ailment, or some other ailment or some other physical disorder. So the body is the body. It does not matter whose body it is.
But the mind is a totally different thing. The mind is consciousness. And consciousness is synonymous with choice. Consciousness decides. And when you say, “I have no choice. She came in front of me and I just went bonkers.” Then you are defying and denying consciousness. And if you're not conscious, then you do not deserve to be called human. Why do we bury people when they are dead? Because they cannot have consciousness anymore. Even the possibility of them ever becoming conscious again in the future is now zero. So we say, fine, dispose the body.
What is consciousness? What is the mind? The mind is the power to choose, power to be. You can decide what is right. You can inquire, you can investigate, you can figure out. One thing appears very appealing to you today. We are not animals to be just drawn towards it. As intelligent human beings, what do we do? We go and we investigate. We say, fine, this thing appears quite lucrative, it is attracting me, but what is it really about?
So you investigate. And if your investigation tells you that the thing is not how it appears to be, then what do you do with the thing? You drop it. So you have a choice. Are you getting it?
A stone can affect you only if you, first of all, already believe that it is going to affect you. So it is not the stone that is having an effect on you, it is your belief that is having an effect on you. But we don't see this. We think it's about the stone. No, it's not about that, it's about (pointing towards oneself) — that's Vedanta. It's not about that, it's about this (pointing towards oneself). And those who have known have gone on to say that this (pointing towards oneself) is the source of all that. So never be too bothered with that, that, that, that. Always go within.
Ask yourself, 'Why is this thing affecting me?' There is nothing special in the thing. There is nothing special in any kind of stone or Rudraksha or anything. No. But if you feel affected, it is because you have been strongly conditioned to believe that way. And there are a lot of people who have vested interests in conditioning you, in making you believe that a certain crystal or stone will have a beneficial effect on your life, or if you wear a certain bracelet or whatever, then your life will improve. Often, they are the ones selling those stones, right?
And if you have an interest, a stake, some kind of benefit you are drawing from propagating this misbelief and superstition, then nothing stops you from turning an entire population superstitious. It's not without reason that people want everybody to turn superstitious, because people are controllable when they are superstitious. You can command people, you can make them do as you wish, if you can make them superstitious.
Superstition is just conditioning, right? If you can condition people to be a certain way, to think a certain way, to hold certain beliefs as truth, then those people can be enslaved. And that’s what you want to become — their master. It's the power that you are after.
Don’t let them have power. Your concern should be your freedom. As human beings, and especially as young people, you should value nothing higher than freedom.
Getting it?
Questioner: Namaste Acharya Ji. So you spoke about vibrations, about stones. So I find this as abuse of science — as in, to justify superstitions. And there are more other types of abuse of science, like people are using science to justify not only just superstitions but profit-mongering and misconducts even in the science.
So, but there was a time when science was seen as similar to spirituality because it asks the same — it is the outcome of the same question, just directed towards the outside. So, from such a state, now it has reached an abusive state. So how has this happened? That is my question to you.
Acharya Prashant: It was always this way. Think of Galileo. Think of Newton. Think of the attitude of the Church towards them. It was always this way. It's just that today, it's all the more tragic because we have a vast body of scientific literature available, something that we never had in history. So if people were superstitious historically, that is probably pardonable, right? Because the way of science, the discoveries of science, the proofs that science offers were not freely available to them. So it’s understandable if they had irrational beliefs.
But today, when all those things are freely available; there is the internet, literacy is at an all-time high, you can access whatever scientific discipline you wish to, all that is available and still people are superstitious. That's tragic. And that's something that must make all of you wonder. Because we often think that if science progresses, then all kinds of stupidities in the human species will be taken care of automatically, right? That has been the hope.
We say a fellow is educated. We say a fellow is well-read. We say the fellow knows science, so he would probably not be superstitious. But that's not come to pass. Instead, we find even people well-versed in science being quite superstitious.
Just today we received a message from a person, I was at IIT Roorkee a few months back, so somebody wrote from there. He said, “My father is a professor here, and he's been refusing proposals for my sister one after the other for some reason related to the kundali, the horoscope.” So I don’t know what he wrote, either she is mangalik, the fellow is mangalik, something.
So how is it possible that even education has not been able to take care of these things?
If you will think about this, the answer will scare you. The answer is that there sits within all of us a very ancient and terrible beast. A very ancient beast. If you want to look disparagingly at that beast, then that beast has been called the unconscious by Freud. I have been calling that beast as the inner animal, just the animal, the forest, the jungle.
India has called that beast as Aham vritti. And when you want to look at how understanding that beast can result in your liberation, then you want to address it with a more favorable name. So in that case, it has been called Prakriti. And when you realize that going close to Prakriti, which is your own primordial nature, will result in your liberation, then you worship Prakriti by the name of Devi. And India has had Prakriti worship and Devi worship since long, and for a good reason.
So, what we know of ourselves is the conscious part, right? We know ourselves not too much. We do not realize where the bulk of our existence comes from. You realize that you are angry after you are angry. You do not realize, for example, where your instincts and feelings come from. And that's the bigger part of the self inside. And that self inside is very, very ancient. And by ancient I do not mean sacred, I simply mean animalistic. And it wants to remain that way.
See, human beings have made rapid progress. Only 70,000 years ago did we begin to think. That's not much. And that's when we got our current name, Homo Sapiens Sapiens — when we started thinking, when we started displaying some sapiens. But we are far older than 70,000 years, right? We are millions of years old. And 70,000 years is nothing compared to how old we actually are. So it's almost like, in a flash, in a split second —
We have become cultured and civilized externally but internally the old thing has continued. Internally, we are still animals. Our instincts, our feelings, belong to the animals. We share them with the animals.
Attachment you find in animals, you find in human beings as well. Jealousy, possessiveness, you find all across the jungle also in cities. You find somebody covetous, you find somebody violent. You find that in the jungle as well.
Human beings are so territorial, fighting for land. Look at Russia and Ukraine, and look at the dogs in front of your house. They too keep fighting for land. And dogs get very angry if some alien dog comes and starts squatting on the space they call their own, right?
So we are doing all the things that animals do. And that's what fundamentally drives us. One very strong thing that drives all animals is biology, right? Those who have tried to understand it sometimes have said it's just the sexual urge. Or they have said, well, it is libido or élan vital. But that's whatever, however you call it, it's something that you share with animals.
Look at the human male rushing after the human female, and doing that all his life. And look at the monkey running after the female monkey and doing that all his life. How are these two any different? And these are our primary motivators, are they not? Grabbing some land, grabbing some authority, getting some sex, possessing the object of sex, continuing to live. That's what Darwinian competitiveness was all about, right?
You want to live, and the other one also wants to live. Let's see who succeeds in living. Now that's what animals compete for. That's what we also compete for. Let's see who succeeds in living. I'll kill you. And if we will cooperate, we will cooperate only to the extent our interests overlap. Otherwise, we'll be at war.
So that's the animal within us. And it is that animal that is superstitious. When you are being superstitious, you are simply displaying that you might have come out of the jungle, but the jungle has still not gone out of you. Getting it? Does the animal have a thought? No. The animal only has his physical conditioning. Human beings are human beings, we said, because just a few thousand years ago we started.
The superstitious mind is the one that prefers not to think, not to know, not to understand. It just wants to believe and says, “Well, you know, if everybody has been believing this way, it must be right. Who am I to disagree?” Is that not the favorite argument of the superstitious ones?
“But when all the people have been believing in it for centuries, there must be something in it!” And if you tell them, “What you are saying is unscientific,” they say, “Oh, but science does not know anything. So your little science is a baby in front of our ancient realizations.”
The first thing I want is that mobile phones must be snatched away from such people. If they have no respect for science, they should not be allowed to enjoy the fruits of science. Let them walk barefoot in the jungle. They should not be using cars, mobile phones, or computers. They should not even be wearing clothes.
The kind of disrespect people display towards science — unbearable. Have you not heard phrases like these: “Oh, but your science has so much still to know.” “Oh, but your science has till now explored only 0.01% of the universe.” “Your science is nothing. My superstition is everything.” Babaji will tell something much higher than science.
Now Babaji is someone who could not clear even his class 8 science exams. And since then he has been so humiliated that he has been routinely abusing science. That’s the fundamental reason.
I'm saying all this because I think you'll be a receptive audience. I’m hopeful I'm talking to people who have not used science just as a means to clear the JEE and earn placements. I hope science is not just a subject, but a matter of attitude, right?
Never keep your thinking faculty away. Ask. Ask. Keep inquiring. Always seek to understand. Belief is not the answer to anything you come across. Even if you cannot come to a conclusion in your inquiry, it's far better to just stay in the process of investigation. Even if your entire life you cannot come to a definite answer, it is all right. But never come to a false answer. Never settle down too easily.
You see, had I been going by my feelings, I wouldn't have been standing here in front of you. My father, who was just not my father but also my teacher, he left me on the 3rd of this month. There was no way I could have traveled so far to come to you. That's what my feelings said.
In fact, my foundation had communicated to your organizing committee that I won't be able to come. But then we were told that it's a group of enthusiastic seekers who will have very relevant questions and who really want to benefit. So I put my feelings aside and came here. I'm pretty sure if I consult a whole lot of pandits and other people, some of them might even suggest that it is not proper to travel so soon, especially to the Purab disha. And that's how things are — one direction is sacred, the other direction is to be avoided. So many other things.
A ritualistic mind becomes insensitive and incapable of love. Do you see that? When you are superstitious, you turn insensitive. Don't let that happen to you.
Yes, question?
Questioner: I'm really sorry about your father, but I just don't want to stop at a false answer, as you have told. Like, your first topic was about negative vibes. Once like a long time ago, when humanity was still uncivilized, we were scared of dark places because there might be wild animals sitting in them. Based upon all those experiences they had, they built up like they started getting negative vibes from those dark places. So, if they didn't believe in those negative vibes, natural selection would have eliminated them.
Acharya Prashant: Yeah, that's true. But that's a matter of the past. That's a thing of history. You're very right. You see, what he's pointing at is that instinct does not come from nowhere. If, for example, even a small kid is afraid of the dark, right? Small babies are afraid of the dark but nobody taught the infant to be afraid of the dark, but the infant is nevertheless definitely afraid of the dark.
Why? The reason is evolutionary. Our eyes are unable to have any power in the dark, right? So human beings have been, for millions of years, hunted in the dark. The nights used to be terrible hours. So the fear of the dark has gone deep into our psyche. And that fear has helped us, because when you are afraid, that turns you more alert. Right?
“Oh, something bad can happen. Let's group up. Where is the wood? Let's light the fire. It's dark. Where are the kids? Let's get all of them in, it's dark.” And that has helped us survive. So that is all right. The reason was evolutionary, and that is okay.
But today, do you need to live according to evolutionary reasons?
Remember that human beings have come too far, too swiftly, rather too suddenly ahead of the evolutionary curve. We talked about that, right? We have leaped ahead. And those kinds of reasons were anyway quite imperfect.
I'll tell you the kind of conditioning that the psyche experiences. If in your childhood you have been routinely smacked by your classmates who were fair in color, then it's proven that you will continue to have a bias against fair people for many decades thereafter. And you will not even know why you dislike fair people.
The simple reason is, when you were 3, 4, 5, 6 years old, then you were routinely being beaten up by fair-looking kids. And that has gone deep into your psyche. And so now, all your life, you will be biased against fair people. But because you do not know why, you will come up with very rational-looking arguments. You will say, “You know why are people fair? Because their skin is not absorbing sunlight, that's why the pigment is not getting activated. And if their skin is not absorbing sunlight, that's an insult to the Sun God. And I cannot tolerate someone who insults my Sun God. So I'll kill all fair-looking people.”
Now that's the argument you will come up with. And that's how all rationalizations and justifications are. But the simple reason is that in your unconscious sits a very old experience. And here I have talked of an experience that you have had in your lifetime. The fact is that your cells carry the experience of the entire mankind?
So all those things that were happening then are there with you even today. But you need not live by that. That's the reason why Vedanta continuously tells you, “See, you are not the body,” Nāham Dehāsmi.
They ask me, “What is that supposed to tell you?” Supposed to tell you that you have no obligation to live by your bodily compulsions. That you have no obligation to live by your hormonal pressures. All that is the body, right?
The body might keep saying something. But please, you are nothing but understanding bodho’ham — “I am understanding.” I'm not someone who has to be necessarily driven by bodily and ancient and historical compulsions. No. I'll not follow that. I am understanding. I will understand what's going on.
The body might say, “Sleep.” But I know I have an exam tomorrow, so I won't sleep. The body has its own agenda. And the agenda comes from evolution. The agenda of the body is continuity, just secure itself and continue. Continue today, and continue tomorrow in the form of kids. So that's what the body wants. That's all that the body wants.
Eat and be merry today, and also have good sex and produce 40 kids so that your DNA proliferates. The body wants nothing more than that. Now, do you want to live as the body? Animals live as the body. And if you're living as the body, then there is no scope of consciousness. And then, you know, one is no better than an animal. Right?
I do not mean to disregard all your instincts and intuitions, but you must know them as coming from stored experience of the past — which might not be applicable today, which might be totally invalid today also, which might be valid today but needs to be disregarded in light of consciousness.
Getting it?
