Questioner: Can we discuss how religion and animals come into play and things; that you like to talk about, how animals are treated and things that you like to share with people when you talk about animals and say religion and things of Hindu, can you share things?
How to understand religions, the treatment of animals and the role play in religion?
Acharya Prashant: When you say religions, just for the sake of the conversation, I would want to divide them into two streams, one the Abrahamic stream and the other the Indian one. So, the Judeo-Christian view is that God has dominion over man, and man has dominion over animals. Something similar also comes up in the third Abrahamic religion, Islam, which talks about Allah having created all the animals, fish, insects for the sake of man. And then there is the view of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, which talk of ahimsa, ekatva, which is non-violence, oneness.
But I’m not really convinced that when we use the word “religion,” we must really talk of the view that organized religions take of this matter. The moment religion is organized, it becomes something man-made. So, I’ll take your question to mean that we want to talk about religion, religion as such. Man, animals, man’s inner world, and man’s relationship with the so-called outer world, including animals.
So, there is man, and man lives according to himself in this so-called universe, this universe that appears to him through his senses. There is no other way man perceives the universe. He perceives it through his senses and he interprets it through his reason, through his intellect, and through his knowledge and memory.
Now, how does man relate with the world? How does man know what to do, how to approach, how to touch, how to live, how to eat, how to talk, how to connect? That, to me, is the essence of religion. Man’s relationship with himself and the world. That is religion, and that is also the essence of all organized religions.
Hence, I find it more beneficial to talk about religion itself than the various organized religions. I have named just six in the course of this talk, but as you, of course, know, there are hundreds of them, and it would be more useful to directly go into the one rather than the hundreds and get lost in the maze. That’s not very useful.
So, man’s relationship with the universe. See, how do I look at anything, anybody, depends on how do I look at myself. If there is a pool of water and I am playful, then the pool of water is sport for me. If there is a pool of water and I have a phobia of water, then the pool of water is danger for me. If there is a pool of water and I am thirsty then the pool of water is physical sustenance and survival for me.
So, depending on who I am and depending on what my concept is; self-concept and self-worth, I take a view of the world. Now, if I am someone who is always feeling incomplete within himself, if I am someone who exists in order to take something, snatch something, extract something from the universe in order to fulfil himself, then my view of the universe will be very utilitarian, rather exploitative.
So, there is that little squirrel there. Even as we talk, she is there with her tail up. How do I look at her? How do I look at her? I could look at her as food if hunger is what I most identify with. I could look at her as a companion. Whatever is the form she takes for me is very, very intimately related to the form that I have assigned to myself.
The squirrel will disappear in a while, and she will indeed disappear. She is no more there. She is all with herself somewhere. The squirrel will disappear, but that which I carry as myself will not. I will carry it. I will keep carrying it. If I am feeling incomplete, that incompletion will remain irrespective of the temporal presence and disappearance of anything outside of me.
If I always feel hollow and hungry, then everything in the universe is but a resource for me. I want to exploit the man, the woman, the tree, the rock, the child, the animal, just everything. The extent to which I can exploit would depend on my power, and because to me, this exploitation is itself a very important value in life so, I value myself according to my ability to exploit. The more I can exploit, consume, plunder, and hold, the more I take myself to be. I am bigger if I can exploit more. I am higher, I am more worthy, more respectable if I can draw more from the universe. If everything that I have collected as resources, as usables, are bigger, more numerous, more in utility; if that is how I value myself and I respect myself, then outside of me also, I will have value only for that which can exploit.
Now, to exploit, as a human being, you require the intellect. Animals outside of me do not have that, at least not in the same way as human beings have. Their consciousness does not proceed on the same basis of rationale as a human being’s does. Their capacity to exploit is far more limited, even assuming that they might have an intention to exploit, which, as per me, really either does not exist or is extremely limited.
So, if I value myself according to my capacity to exploit, I will not value the one outside me who cannot exploit, who does not have the intellect or the intention to exploit. So, there will be very little respect for the chirping bird. For I can respect her only if she has power. Because I respect myself only when I have power. Some kind of power, power of knowledge, power of wealth, power political, power social, any kind of power. The bird outside of me appears to have so little power. So, it is laughable. I can go pick her up, do whatever I want to do with her. Now if this is how man relates with animals, then man is saying that everything that limits him is valuable.
We are on the issue of religion. So, we have to go into that which we call as an immensity as God. Now man is proud of his intellect. All exploitation proceeds on that. And in fact, one of the reasons why animals are taken as fit for exploitation is that they really are not rational beings. So, it is said that we can do as we want to do with them because they are lesser beings.