Are Culture and Civilization Guiding Us to Higher Consciousness?
Acharya Prashant: Our culture and civilization have gone wrong. We came from the jungle in the hope of doing better in our villages and cities, but our villages and cities have failed. We still find in many ways the jungle to be better than our villages and cities.
There is nobody who is not sometimes seized by a strong desire to return to the jungle. Does that not happen? It is because that which we call our education, our society, our systems, our thought, our philosophy, our civilization—all are based on very material grounds. There is no spiritual basis to them, so they have failed to take us to a level of consciousness higher than that of the jungle. I have often said that animals are in many ways better than human beings.
Man had the potential to either rise above the animal or fall way below it. Man has continuously been making the wrong choice. If you cannot build your cities and your social systems on spiritual foundations, then it is better to stay in the jungle. If your family, your workplace, your institutions do not run on spiritual grounds, then they better not run at all.
Questioner: Then, where did we go wrong?
Acharya Prashant: Maybe, right now.
Questioner: I mean, I don’t think things are always so bad. Like, I don’t think humans started off with the intention that...
Acharya Prashant: See, this is Leela. Man has been given an option, and the chances are that he will exercise the option wrongly. Not man’s fault. The option has been given to a gorilla, and the option is liberation or procreation. It is good that the choice was given. It’s an enabling choice. Choice can mean power. But look to whom the choice was given. It was given to the gorilla, now how is it a surprise if the gorilla has been choosing wrongly and wrongly and wrongly throughout?
You are asking, when did we go wrong? We have been going wrong. It’s a continuous process. The more power you give to the gorilla, the more you are ensuring that the gorilla will cause destruction to itself and everybody else. That’s what all our developments, scientific or otherwise, have done. Man has been giving gorillas power. Man has been giving himself the power. When did we go wrong? The day when somebody decided that spiritual education needs to have only a marginal presence in the education system of the society. That’s when we went wrong. We have been continuously deciding that way.
Look at how your kids are being educated today as well—purely on material grounds. Our cities, our culture, they exist to give us what we want. They do not exist to give us liberation. Appreciate the difference. All our development is intended in the direction of giving us more and more of what we want, right? What we want. It is not intended in the direction of liberation. And who are we? Gorillas, so the entire thrust is on giving the gorilla what the gorilla himself wants.
So, what will the gorilla want for himself? More food, more pleasure, more sex, a lengthy life, more amenities, and that’s what we have done in the name of development. That’s what the human progress story has been about. That’s what the entire cult of liberalism is about. They say, ‘respect the individual’s choice,’ and who is the individual? A gorilla. What do you mean by ‘respecting his choice’? First of all, educate him. But you are saying, “No, no, no! Individual choice, the individual ego is supreme. It has to be respected.”
You are respecting just the wrong agency. Do not be surprised if the entire world democratically chooses to have mass annihilation. Now what will you do? It’s a democratic decision. It’s the most liberal thing that can happen. Did not Hitler gain power through a democratic process? If you do not educate the people and keep respecting their choices, this is what you will get. The gorilla is doing what the gorilla will. Before you say ‘I want’, don’t you need to be educated in who ‘I’ is? But the emphasis is always on the want and never on the ‘I’.
This entire culture, the entire industry, the whole expanse of human activity and thought is on ‘I want, I want’. What is it that you want? ‘I want’, without paying any attention to who is the one who wants, who the thinker is; that we are not considering at all.
