"I was a Hardcore Hindu - and now I don't like Religion"

Questioner: Good evening, sir. I am Anant Avasthi. I come from Kanpur, and I am a first-degree student here at BITS Goa. Sir, I’ve been listening to your videos for the past two years, and you’ve greatly influenced me in a lot of ways. I can’t even mention how much.

I come from the heartland of Hinduism, UP, and I come from an orthodox Hindu family. I am a Brahmin myself, but I’ve always been skeptical of certain practices and faith. I have been an atheist for three to four years, and I was an agnostic for a certain while, but there was a certain transition into spirituality as I was pursuing my studies and preparing for BITS. That spiritual approach helped me rise from depression and helped me in a lot of ways.

Do you think that faith and spirituality should be superimposed over formal education, like college and education, considering the current circumstances of the nation?

Thank You, sir.

Acharya Prashant: You do not seem to like the usual religious practices very much, but you say spirituality helped you. How do you differentiate between the two?

Questioner: Sir, as I said before, I come from an orthodox Hindu family, and there are certain religious practices like going to temples and praying and all those religious practices, basically superstitions. I do not delve into that, but in a certain way, I somehow stumbled upon my own God. I feel like there is a connection between me and my own God, and although I can’t really connect with the God of the masses, I do believe in the existence of a divine entity. I somehow feel connected to it, and I can lean onto it for help whenever I need. I feel the need for it. So, in that way, I don’t really put a tag on a certain God, but I do believe that there is a higher entity, and although he or she does not interfere in my daily life, I can lean onto them whenever I need.

Acharya Prashant: So, the prevalent belief system of the masses that you are calling religion, whereas your personal connection with a personal divinity, that you are calling spirituality, right?

Questioner: I feel like one should be independent to find their own God and not just follow anyone blindly.

Acharya Prashant: Right. This is one degree of freedom that you aspire, which is that one should not be forced to follow a common concept of godhood, whereas one should be free to have a personal sense of godliness, right? That’s one degree of freedom. Very well said. But the freedom that real spirituality aims at includes this, but also goes way beyond this.

Yes, obviously, you should never be forced to follow the value system or belief system of the masses. Obviously. But spirituality does not limit itself to just this goal. The goals of what can be really rightfully called spirituality are much higher, much higher, but very intimately nearer.

All this talk, this discussion, all this search for the divine or a connection with godliness, higher powers, inner purity, great joy, all these phrases, where do they originate from? We must start from there. As they say, begin from the beginning.

The beginning of it all is the human condition itself. Let’s go step by step. It’s not about fancy theories. It’s not something that you may or may not think of. It is not a question of personal like or dislike or even discretion. It is a matter of the essential human condition, the condition in which every person of our species finds himself or herself, young or old, white or colored, rich or poor, American or Asian, doesn’t matter; man or woman, doesn’t matter; theist or atheist, doesn’t matter; Hindu or Christian, doesn’t matter.

We said it is the essential human condition that applies to everybody. Therefore, we are not talking of personal or communal value systems here. Of course, not communal, and not even personal. We are addressing the core situation, the fundamental situation, of each member of our species.

And what is that situation?

The situation is: you are born, and justifiably you feel your journey begins from there, the moment of birth. And what do you come with? Who are you? You open your eyes in a world you know nothing of, but are somehow programmed to survive in.

You find you are breathing. You were never educated to breathe, were you? But you take birth and you find you are breathing, and your heart is beating, and your internal organs are all, hopefully, working as per their algorithm. And you do not know from where all of that is coming, and you are supposed to address all of that as “me.” That’s me. That’s me. Without knowing who gave you your gender, why should you find yourself in three-dimensional space? What is this thing called time? How come two random people give you your origin, your existence, your being? You were not there. You didn’t exist at all. And then two people, you don’t know of them, they suddenly appear, and it is said that they have given you existence. Now, what is this thing called existence? We know nothing of it; we suddenly find ourselves here.

We know neither the world nor ourselves. Yet there are ubiquitous and very powerful forces, very ready, actually pouncing upon us to tell us our name, our religion, our identity, our gender, our definitions, everything. No? And even before those forces operate from the outside, they are already functional from the inside.

“I am this body that experiences hunger.” Where is that bigger body, the warm one that provides me my feed? The kid is already looking for the mother and has not been educated to look for this human being, this another person called mother, right? Who is the mother? The mother is a grown-up member, an adult member of our species, and the kid has just taken birth. And the kid does not even know that his body has originated from the body of the mother, this other adult, does he? He doesn’t know.

And yet he finds that something within him is looking out for this mother, an instinct, a drive, a drive that he does not command or control. It operates by itself, and he finds himself or herself helpless, just looking this side, that side. He has no language. Do you understand our condition? So, the body is commanding it from the inside. I’m saying “inside” because it is a very fundamental instinct that I am the body, right?

The kid is in the cradle. You touch the cradle, even hit the cradle, the kid probably won’t react. But you touch the kid’s arm, and it reacts. So already there is something that is telling the kid, “You are the body.” When the cradle is touched, you need not react. But when this (pointing towards the body) material is touched, then you have to react.

So the kid is already being commanded from inside. There is something that is telling it, “You are the body.” And then there are powerful external forces that would soon be training it into many other things. And at the basis of all that training would lie multiple answers to the question, “Who am I?” You are a son, you are a daughter, you are a Brahmin, you are a Christian, you are a Muslim, you are rich, you are poor, you are Indian, you are American. Getting it?

And the body, what is the body saying? You know, you are fine, you are healthy. The body determines your sex, and society then starts training you in your gender. The body is driving you from inside, the society is driving you from outside, and all of them are sometimes collaborating with each other and sometimes competing with each other to tell you who you are.

The fact is, you do not know who you are, and you suffer because of that. So I’m supposed to live, I’m supposed to act, I’m supposed to decide without knowing who I am.

It’s almost like, imagine a situation: you are robbed of your memory, you are robbed of whatever even artificial self-knowledge you have, and you are placed at a particular point in space somewhere and told to move. Now please tell me, how would you move? You neither know the place, nor do you know who you are, nor do you know where you stand. How will you move?

That’s the fundamental human condition.

Life demands continuous action, and action can come only out of decision. And to decide, there has to be a criterion or a set of multiple options to choose from. I do not know how to choose. I do not know who I am. If I am sick, then probably I need to go to the hospital. But I do not know whether I am sick.

And to compensate for this void within, there is so much that comes from outside. And all this that comes from outside fails to heal us. There is always that uncertainty. I am the body, but the body is decaying, growing old. And even if it is not growing old, it has its limits. Not only does it have its limits, it has a lot of desires, impulses, compulsions.

And looking at the body and others’ bodies, I definitely see that there is death, and death can be there at any time. And there is a lot of fear. I have to make decisions in the absence of self-knowledge, so again there is fear, because bad decisions have repercussions.

That is the essential human condition. You have to live without knowing who is the one living. You have to make decisions without knowing the ground of decision-making. So we take arbitrary steps, and that is very scary. So we console ourselves with borrowed identities or mass paradigms. “This is the way everybody seems to operate, so let me move this way.”

We are given very shallow, commonplace, cheap answers, right? And because those answers can’t stand on their own, therefore we are provided with sets of beliefs. If I am the body, where did the body come from? Where did it come from? Where it came from your parents. Where did the parents come from? They came from somewhere. Who was the first person then? Such was the name of the first person. Where did he come from then? Well, there was a supernatural event.

Now, do you see where most of that which we call a belief system originates from? That originates from the essential human condition. Those beliefs are a compulsion; otherwise, you can’t live. How will you explain to yourself why you live the way you do?

Either there has to be the Truth, or if you don’t have the Truth, you have to have something else. You’ll feel like a zombie walking this planet. And what is this planet? A little speck of dust in the universe. It feels just so awkward, imagine a ball, a ball, and this ball you call your home, and you’re taking birth on it, moving about, getting married, getting educated on a ball, and then one day you die on a…?

And not just a ball, an inconsequential one at that.

It is actually smaller than a speck of dust when it comes, forget the universe, when it comes even to your own galaxy. Think of it: a ball. Now what do you do then? You come up with fancy beliefs. And that’s what mankind has done, to somehow be able to tolerate its awkward predicament. We have created fancy stories. And because you cannot move about and decide in a vacuum, we have created common value standards and systems.

Each of you, please act this way, because that liberates you of the responsibility of individual decision-making. That liberates you of the trauma of starting from the fundamentals.

If I ask you, what is d/dx (x²)? You will immediately say, a lousy equation 2x. If I say, start from the fundamentals, the answer will not be so spontaneous, will it be? Then you’ll have to say, well, f(x+h)−f(x)/h​, h→0, and x² is a pretty cool function.

If I say, well, a long one involving tan⁻¹ and many other fancy symbols, and now you have to proceed from the fundamentals and derive the whole thing out, it will be tougher, arduous. So we have been given formulae: this is what you have to do when encountered with such a situation in life. This is what you have to do when in trouble rush to an authority. That authority could be a social authority, a political authority, a familial authority, and if neither of these seem to work, then a supernatural authority.

It’s an easy formula, almost like d/dx (x²), and it saves you a lot of trouble.

Imagine you have a problem and you know nothing. You have to operate from zero, very innocently, very freshly. Now that will take some doing. To save ourselves that doing, we have come up with stories, right? Those stories inform everything that we do. They form the basis of our worldview, our attitude towards other people, other religions, the other gender, other castes, other nationalities, and towards ourselves, and towards the heavens and the gods. That becomes a way of living, what? Not knowing, but believing. Believing in something because it saves you a lot of trouble. You get this?

It is not just a question of this system or that system or a rigid system. It is a question of the core of mankind. When you do not know what to do with your very odd situation, then you find an easy way out. You can call it a cheap trick, a dirty shortcut. And what is that dirty shortcut? Just believe in something comfortable. Just believe in something that comforts you. You get this?

Now, what is spirituality then?

Spirituality contains the word “spirit,” and spirit means essence. Essence means peel off all the layers of falseness, externalities, all the peripheral grass, and get right to the core.

See what is there.

Spirituality is the pursuit of nothing but the Truth, not my imagination, not your belief, not his culture, not his system; nothing to comfort or console, but the courage to confront the Truth as it is. That is what you can call spirituality. Though a lot passes off in the name of spirituality, for example, sentimentalism, mysticism, all that you see branded as spirituality, but this that I’m suggesting to you is a pure definition, or the definition that should be. This is what you can call spirituality: the courage to confront the Truth of your life, the courage to explore the very core of existence. What does it mean to exist? Who am I? Exploration of this question is what you can call spirituality. Right?

So, in many senses, organized belief systems and spirituality are actually opposites of each other. They are not merely opposites; they are dimensionally very, very different.

An organized belief system tells you: you need not know. Here is the ready-made answer on a platter. Don’t ask questions. Even before you ask a question, the answer is provided in advance. Forget about the answer, even questions are provided in advance. These are the sanctioned questions. And these questions, don’t ask them, else you’ll be cursed into some hell.

Do you get this?

It is not just a matter of; mind you, religion or something. Even those who call themselves irreligious, agnostics, or atheists, even they live in beliefs. Even they live in beliefs, because the fundamental human condition that we are talking of is one of ignorance. We are born ignorant. We are born without deciding to be born. We are born without knowing who is the one taking birth.

So it is not just your conception about divinity. It is about everything that you do in life. Isn’t it based on believing rather than questioning, asking, inquiring, exploring?

It is not as if the entire evil of the world is concentrated just in religion. No, not at all. You look at big chunks of populations of Europe, for example, these days, Britain, Germany, France, they have declared they have nothing to do with religion. Does that mean that they are free of beliefs now? No.

These are two ways of living. Either you could surrender to your ignorance and say, “Well, I lay down my arms, can’t do much. My situation is beyond recovery. I’m helpless. Life is suffering. I’ll suffer till the end and keep consoling me with some kind of intermittent entertainment, and then I’ll die.” Either you could say this, or you could say, “No, I’m born human, and I have it in me to know, to ask, to understand.”

You get this?

So great that you are advancing when you say that you do not want to follow the value system of the masses, that’s wonderful. But even when you are following something that you call personal, ask yourself: is this too not merely a belief? Because it is not too much of a graduation if you have moved from a social belief to a personal belief. Or is it? You are still just wallowing in beliefs, just that now you are a bit of a rebel. And they were telling you that beyond the skies there is another sky that’s crimson in color, and you’re saying, “No, I won’t believe in the crimson. My personal belief is that the sky beyond the sky is violet in color.” So I have rebelled. Now what kind of rebellion is this?

From a social belief, you have moved to a personal belief. There’s not too much of a change. In fact, it is dangerous, because now you can tell yourself that you’re different and you have arrived. The fact is, you’re not different.

So yes, it’s an advancement, it’s a betterment when you say that whatever the society throws at you, you need not compulsorily accept that. That’s wonderful. But also ask yourself: what am I replacing it with? Yes, I no more follow the social commandments. But now, if I am following my own personal or bodily commandments, am I any better off?

I put it this way: there is the slavery of society, of history, of all the external forces, and then there is the slavery of the self. I am my own slave. Sometimes the latter is worse, because when you are a social slave, at least you know you are a slave. You can see people commanding you, ordering you, directing you. There can be no confusion. You know it for sure that you are in bondage.

But when you say, “I am a man of my free will. I do as I please,” then there is a great chance that you will start believing that you are a free man, whereas you are not. You’re still slaved internally.

So congratulations that you do not like the way the game is being played out all around you. But don’t be complacent. Even the game that is being played inside you may not be much different from the external one. All right? You need to question these words very, very clearly and very ruthlessly. What does divinity mean? Before you say, “I do not like the widespread notions of divinity; I have my personal concept of divinity.” No, what does divinity mean?

What does divinity mean?

Social or personal, that question comes later, right? The first question is: what do you mean by divinity? Divine for whom? You’ll say, “Divine for me.” Now, who are you? I don’t know that. If you do not know who you are, then your divinity, what does it count for?

Almost like saying, all right, where to deliver this parcel to? At my address. Now, what’s your address? That I don’t know, but you deliver this to my place. So something is divine for you, right? And you don’t know your own address. What’s the worth of this concept of divinity, then? You need to examine that.

Questioner: Thank you, sir. You differentiated the concept of spirituality and the mass spirituality and the personal identity really well. But again, I would want to ask, see, there are three types of people: religious, atheists, agnostics. So I have transitioned from religious, I mean, I’ve been through all three phases.

But as you say, if I don’t believe in the masses, then that’s an advancement, but I shouldn’t believe in myself too, like my personal beliefs, I should question them too. But then, who do I look out for?

For example, the melting pot, you must have heard, in the melting pot, a person’s personal identity gets burned, but that’s good for society too. In some sense, there’s harmony. But again, if I do not seek any belief from myself, if I look out at the world and find answers, I’m going to get ready-made answers, as you said, ready-made questions and ready-made answers. So I’ll have to ask myself for the answers, but I myself don’t know who I am. So where do I truly look? I can’t look at my personal beliefs. I can’t look at societal belief.

Acharya Prashant: You may not know anything. But since you’re a living being, you have your current experience, right? Start from there. Start from there. You may not know the Truth, but you know maybe the falseness you are in. Start from there.

How do I know something is false? The thumb rule is: if it deceives you and results in suffering, that’s a good enough reason to call it false, because you’re calling it false with respect to you. You are the sufferer, right? You are the sufferer. It’s subjective. It’s a personal thing.

All spirituality starts from the personal realization that life is giving you experiences that you don’t quite relish. You want to fly, you want to be free, whereas life is keeping you chained. You want to be joyful, whereas life is giving you all kinds of pains. You want the Truth, whereas what you are getting is a lot of deceptions.

You may not have Truth, but don’t you have deceptions? I’m asking you, don’t you have deceptions? Aren’t you stumbling and falling over every day? Don’t you see what you trusted for long, how it comes a cropper one day, and you feel hurt? Don’t you have loneliness? Yeah, that’s there. Start from there.

You don’t have to start from the skies. You don’t have to follow a distant pole star. You have to start from your own current condition, because that’s the basis of all spirituality.

I exist, and I do not like the flavor of my experiences. I find I’m dependent. I find I’m insecure. When I look at the future, I start trembling. When I look at the past, I see a lot of hurt. There is insecurity, there is ignorance, there is envy. We go through these, right? We start from here.

What is the self that gives rise to these experiences? That is to be discarded. You may not know who you really are, but for sure you have many false identities, right? See what those false identities are giving you. And if you discover that what they're giving you is not something you like, discard those identities. That's how one starts.

One cannot know the unknown in advance when one is journeying towards the unknown, right? By definition, the journey is towards the unknown. If the journey is towards the unknown, how can you know the destination in advance? You will never know. But you know of one thing: as you sit here, you are fragmented. There are forces that pull you from inside in several directions. As you sit here, you're not free. Thoughts and memories keep invading your inner space. You know of these things. You start from there.

Now, what the way is, what had I become to invite a condition like this? Here is my condition, and I'll be truthful to myself. I'll acknowledge my condition instead of burying it in a mass of entertainment or distraction. I'll not just distract myself from my suffering. I'll not compensate my suffering with some weekend titillation. I'll confront my actual state, and then I'll ask myself: who was I, and how was I deciding? What was the entire paradigm like that brought me to this misery? And the more it is uncovered, the more I discard it. That's how you journey, by progressive rejection. You discover something that is causing you misery, you reject it, and you keep moving forward, and you become lighter progressively. So you're not just moving forward; you're rising up.

Questioner: Thank you, sir.

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