Acharya Prashant: If you find religion bad, then just honestly consider a world totally without religion. Then probably you will not find religion so bad.
I assure you, there is nothing in man’s physical constitution that prevents him from being envious or lustful or tense or attached. In fact, man is designed to be attached and ignorant and violent. It is only religion that tells him, “You are not an animal, you are the son of God.” Without religion, who will whisper this in man’s ears? Man will just remain an intellectual chimpanzee. Ah, intellectual—nevertheless, a chimpanzee.
A gorilla is a gorilla even if he is the head of the department in a prestigious intellectual university, no? Intellectual gorilla! The basic physical instincts remain gorilla-like, and on top of those instincts sit the intellect; the basic gorilla instincts are very much there. Intellect can at most bring you to that point; it cannot make you human.
What do you want to be, an intellectual gorilla or a simple human being?
