India is too religious to be spiritual || Acharya Prashant, with O.P. Jindal University (2022)
Questioner (Q): So, this has been a phenomenal journey. Thank you so much, Acharya Ji for reinforcing so many of the points that I struggle with as I communicate and teach my students. So, many of these questions that have been put to you, and you have answered them so much in depth, and absolutely on point that I’m really, really pleased that we were able to engage in this way today.
So, one or two other things that are left for us to talk about, if we may, one of them is, you know, this issue of religion versus spirituality. It’s a big issue, but I want to put it as a policy challenge. There are two big things in my mind that I really like. But before we run out of time, I’d also like for us, if it is possible at all, to have a follow-up, one-on-one conversation in the context of our teaching and research. We will benefit tremendously from your deep insights.
That’s one thing on the side. So, if your colleagues, who, you know, work with you, can help us with that, I would appreciate that. But the question here is, the way I put it is: “Is India today too religious to be spiritual?” You know what I’m getting at, yes? Divisions along religious lines compared to the lofty spirituality that India’s history has.
Acharya Prashant (AP): Yes, yes. In fact, you have put it quite succinctly. You can definitely say India is just too religious to be spiritual, and that’s also my everyday experience. People who come from overtly religious backgrounds, it is more difficult to teach them. It is more difficult even for them to listen without prejudice and interference, internal interference. Whereas people who come from very normal, irreligious backgrounds, even atheists, they are far more receptive, and their listening is less corrupted, less filtered.
It’s a travesty because religion is supposed to be the entire ecosystem that turns one spiritual, but that’s the way of Maya , as Vedant puts it. You build something to tackle her, and instead she will co-opt that same very thing, ingest it, and turn it into her own weapon. You know, Saint Kabir puts it very beautifully. He says, “You accord sacredness to the water of the river, and Maya will make that water her own.
You accord sacredness to the deity in the temple, and Maya will make that deity her own. You accord sacredness to the holy verses, and Maya will make those verses her own.” So that’s the thing with frozen methods, and organized religion is nothing but a name of frozen methods, traditions, rituals; they were designed to be helpful—no doubt, but over time, they have all not only lost their efficacy, but have actually become active instruments in the hand of Maya . So, you know, the situation has become so bad that the core spiritual documents like the Upanishads, people have turned to reviling them, actually putting them aside and denigrating them so that they can continue with the rituals and beliefs that they call as religion.
So, for example, if people are indulging in something utterly stupid, and I ask them that, “This that you are doing, is this written in Gita?” they will say, “Oh, the Gita is not all that important. We have other books as well. And even if it is not written in Gita, it’s a ritual we follow. And our rituals—that’s what’s implicit in what they’re saying—are more important than Gita.” Now, that’s utterly shocking. I ask them, “Yours is”, when I’m talking to Hindus, let’s say, “yours is a Vedic religion, and this that you are doing, is it sanctioned by the core of Vedas, which is Vedant? Does Vedant sanction what you are doing?” They will say, “No, we don’t care about Vedant. We haven’t even read what the Upanishads say, but this is what my fathers and forefathers were doing, and that is what is more important. This is what we call as religion.”
So, this kind of cultural nationalism is emerging, not only nationalism, cultural jingoism of all kinds, of which one manifestation is nationalism. And religion has become another name for the popular low-level culture.
So, whatever we do in the name of religion, whatever we culturally do in the name of religion, that is religion, and that is the popular consensus. Spirituality—well, that is something we are not interested in. So, you are very right when you say that today religion and spirituality are at odds with each other, and that’s the most important battle that needs to be fought today: of bringing out the primacy of spirituality over religion.
Otherwise, one very disastrous thing that is happening is that people, especially the young people, the intellectual people, they conflate religion and spirituality. And because they do not like what they see in the name of religion, they go away from spirituality as well. Because they do not like all the rioting and hooliganism in the name of, let’s say, the Hindu religion. They totally discard the Upanishads as well because they do not like the caste system that’s prevalent in the in the Hindu fold, they would discard the Bhagavad-Gita as well.
My question is: “Are the Upanishads, or Bhagavad-Gita, or Brahma Sutra, or Ashtavakra Gita, are they talking of the caste system?” In fact, they are actively saying, in so many words, that caste system is bogus. You have an entire Upanishad dedicated to discarding the caste system. And yet, there are big sections who are discarding spirituality because spirituality appears to be affiliated with religion.
Hence, this distinction needs to be very clearly made that the religion that these people are practicing is not religion. In fact, they have sabotaged the word ‘religion’, and this word needs to be liberated from their fold, otherwise there needs to be a new stream, and that’s what the Buddha had to do. Because the priestly class of that time had totally monopolized religion, therefore he had to come up with a new stream of his own, which was nothing but essentially the spiritual core of the existing religion itself.
Q: That’s right.
AP: But he had to give it another name because the existing religion had been totally monopolized. Maybe that is the need of the hour: either refinement from within, or an outgrowth outside. I would prefer an inner refinement.
Q: This is indeed, I think, like you put it, the need of the hour. When I started this center at the OP Jindal Global University, this was the vision and the challenge. It’s both—a vision and a challenge. I looked at the, you know, the lofty wisdom, the spirituality that India had, and I look at India today, and I see the divide, and I ask myself, one: we have to find a way, and I hope if we can join forces with other like-minded people and organizations we have, we can hopefully make some progress.
But a bigger more positive question that comes to my mind is: “Can India lead a new renaissance in the world, building on its lofty philosophy, essentially Advaita Vedanta, and lead us to a new way of doing economics, a new way of politics, a new way of public policy to a world that will be the world so many of us hope for, and if not us in this generation, our children hope for, you know, a world with more equity, sustainability, prosperity, less conflict, and so on, that world?” My hope is that the answer to that question might be ‘Yes’, but I might be completely wrong. I’d like your thoughts.
AP: You see, India is just too big, and therefore, I’m afraid when we say, can India lead a revolution, it becomes a bit hazy because India will contain just so many diverse, even opposing elements and streams at all times; we are talking of 1.4 billion people. Maybe, there would be awakenings within India, forces from within, streams from within that can show the way to the entire world. But as a patriot, if I imagine a situation where the entire Indian political country has awakened, I find it difficult.
Still, we can have powerful movements of awakening starting from within India. And I hope that, first of all, they get success within India. But what I realistically see is that even if such a movement starts from within India, it has a greater chance of succeeding abroad, because as you said, India is just too religious. I really share your hope, but realistically, I do not see the first successes coming from within India. So, as far as the initiation of such a movement or such an awakening is concerned, chances are very high that something can happen from within our nation; chances are very high. But what I also see is that more success in terms of its expansion and acceptance will come from abroad. And what would rather happen is that once there is success abroad, then Indians will probably queue up to follow.
So, my heart really wants to agree with you, and that’s the reason I have continued to work in this country. I could have taken the decision to shift my base to other places where conditions are much more supportive, and I too want things to happen here in the first place. But because I have been trying since over a decade now, so I know how difficult it is to deal with a mindset that’s frozen in time, that has become a hotbed of all kinds of confused notions, and not that abroad it is going to be much better, but at least the renaissance destroyed some of the most stupid beliefs there. India never had a renaissance of that kind, so even the worst kinds of beliefs continue to prosper in the mind here. And fighting those beliefs is not only tiring, also feels humiliating, you know.
You feel alright, and you feel encouraged when you fight a worthy enemy. How do you feel while fighting a belief that says that there are seven ghosts that live on this particular tree, and if you do not please them, then your kid will die? Now, this, unfortunately, is not a joke. This, unfortunately, is a very solid belief that, let’s say, millions in this country share. And if you want to question this belief, not even attack it, then there is great resistance.
So, the first successes will probably not come from within, but I really, really want that this nation that has given core spirituality to the entire world does not remain or end up deprived of its own fruit. “Diya tale andhera” (darkness under the lamp). I don’t want that to happen, but it’s an uphill task; it’s an uphill task. Let’s see.
Q: Actually, just a follow-up kind of a point, if I want to know about how Acharya Ji would reflect on that. You know, when you are saying that a lot of changes might come from abroad rather than within, that’s one kind of observation. Now, one way to think about it would also be to connect genuinely core spirituality with science, not in the spooky way, you know, what we find, you know, that entanglement of human minds, and all those kinds of rubbish things, but really understanding that how science and genuine philosophical thinking that went on in our country, they can be integrated.
And we at our center, we had hosted some very important scientists earlier, like Donald D. Hoffman (American cognitive psychologist and Science author) and also Menas Kafatos (American Physicist), and so on, and myself working with some scientists in various papers and books. We have seen amazing synergies between, you know, not only Advaita—Advaita is already there—but Buddhism, and Jainism, and modern scientific thinking. So, maybe that this concept that these spiritual philosophies can enrich science in a genuine way, not in a kind of a spooky way, that might also help to encourage that kind of a movement. That is like my own passion and thinking, what you can say. So, I’d just like to hear from you on that.
AP: It’s a very worthy desire you have expressed, sir. Because I care for it so much, so I’ll venture to play the devil’s advocate again. What is happening is that in the absence of self-knowledge, science too can become just another profession of the ego, which means that one could be a great scientist and yet, inwardly very ignorant. So, it is obviously important that one has a scientific attitude, and verses in the Upanishads are very unambiguous about it. They say, “You cannot have self-knowledge without having worldly knowledge.” So, worldly knowledge is referred to as ‘Avidya’ and inner knowledge, knowledge of the self, is referred to as ‘Vidya’.
And the Upanishads categorically say that if you think that you can have inner knowledge sans outer knowledge, then you will fall into a deep well. So you need to have both, and only then you cross over the bondages of this life. So, science is definitely of great importance, but is the scientist above things like comparison, like jealousy, like greed, like ambition? If the scientist, too, is ambitious, and partisan, and a deluded fellow, then merely the knowledge of science is not going to help.
In fact, that’s the reason why I often say that if superstition is going to be obliterated, it’s not science but spirituality that would do it. Superstitions will be taken care of not so much by science but by spirituality. In the absence of spirituality, science itself becomes a new modern kind of superstition. Because, you see, science is all about the external world. ‘This is how this moves. This is how that works.’ What is my relationship with what works and what moves? That science has nothing to do with, and that’s a big problem.
You may know everything about what this wall is about, and all the elementary particles that are inside it, and you may know the quarks, and string theory, and everything, but do you know what your relationship with all this is? Do you know who the experiencer of all this is? Do you know who is the one who is experiencing and storing this knowledge? And, therefore, do you know who is the one who is going to use this knowledge? If you do not have self knowledge, then external knowledge may not be of much help; it becomes a throw of dice. You do not know what will happen.
The safest thing that may happen is that it may not be of much use. The worst thing that may happen is that it may be put, such external knowledge, may be put to very, very devastating uses, like the kind of uses we have put nuclear energy to. So, I’m sure I’ve not given a clear answer. Science obviously is very important. I keep stressing that one cannot be ignorant of science and hope to be self-aware, but I also want to assert that science without spirituality is very, very problematic. And just because one is a scientist, one does not become wise.
Q: Yeah. Thank you. This is exactly one of the core issues that we are thinking in our center. That is very much close to our heart.
AP: Wonderful! Wonderful!
Q: Let me first apologize to anyone who might have wanted to ask a question, but because of time, we couldn’t have that question posed. I just want to say in closing, Acharya Ji, that when I think of your having been trained at IIT and IIM, and having been in the public service, you know, you bring science, and engineering, and management, and public-service experience together with your in-depth knowledge and self-realization of the lofty philosophy of Advaita.
We could not have wanted anyone more erudite than yourself to engage with us this evening. So, I want to thank you very much for taking the time. I know your time must be in great demand. I want to acknowledge the fact that you took the time to engage with us. And we want to enclosing, like my colleague mentioned, we have a few concrete ideas where we believe we can benefit tremendously from an ongoing partnership and relationship with your foundation and yourself. We hope you will agree to that, even in the midst of the great pressures in your time.
And we would follow up with others to make the link and seek your guidance and inputs, because we share the same goal here. It’s exactly what you are setting out to do that we are setting out to do, and our comparative advantage is within a university system. And we are going to be very happy to put that advantage at your disposal. There are also, of course, as a university many disadvantages, and we hope to overcome that with the kind of partnership that we can have with your foundation. So today, this is the beginning at this point I hope and not the end. It’s just the end of these two hours we have been so fortunate to have with you.
So, let me thank you again and thank all your colleagues who helped to organize this. And let me acknowledge, as well, all my colleagues, both within our own school but within other schools that might have been present, as well as others, and we look forward to an ongoing collaboration. Thank you very much.
AP: Thank you, sir. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole conversation, and I thank you and all the participants. And I really do look forward to an association, even a collaboration going ahead. Thank you so much.
