Is spirituality for everyone? || Acharya Prashant, with IIT-Ropar (2022)

Questioner (Q): Pranam, Acharya Ji! I have two questions. My first question is as follows, sir, as you have said in multiple of your videos that to cure all the ills like consumerism, corruption, crime, etc., in a democracy, is to uplift the people by spirituality and you said that’s our pattern, but sir, when even Kabir Sahib says that ‘Chhaya Maya ek si’, but only very rare ‘Birla’ knows this. And sir, even historically, even the clearest of Vedantic ideas got converted to organized religions.

Sir, my question is, is it even theoretically possible to uplift the whole population spiritually? And not just the rare Birlas, as sir, even spirituality is an individual pursuit.

Acharya Prashant (AP): It depends on the intensity of your love, depends on the depth of your insanity, your craziness.

When Kabir Sahib says, “Maya Chhaya ek si, Birla jaane koi, Bhagta ke peechhe pade, sanmukh bhaage soye”, he is describing a fact, he is not narrating an ideal. Let’s differentiate. He is telling of how things stand usually. He is not saying, this is the way things ought to be, or must be. He is saying, ‘Rare is the one who comprehends Maya’ , that does not mean that he wants people to remain in darkness about Maya . In fact, he is bringing out the fact of Maya so that we may be liberated of her, right?

So, while you are absolutely right that people who could really understand what’s going on—what’s this thing called life, existence, Self, me, my desires, my actions, my beginning, my end—such people have been few, but then, let’s see that the consequence of such people remaining few have been disastrous. It is precisely because such people are in a minuscule minority that the earth is in such poor shape today and we are so close to an ultimate devastation.

So, while those people are rare, we must ensure that they do not remain in a rare proportion. Their numbers have to be raised. The depth of understanding within the common folk has to be greater, else there is no hope, else there is no future, else there is no present even, forget the future.

So yes, a lot of effort has to be made. The way we are born, the way our biological constitution is, obviously it is very, very difficult to go beyond our hormones, our instincts, our internal jungle, the very mandate of our DNA, and do something consciously purposeful in our lives. But even if it is difficult, it ought to be done, else why do we live? What is life for? Just to eat, sleep, make merry, procreate, and die? Surely that cannot be the purpose of life. The purpose of life then is to achieve those rare heights.

To have the guts to dive into those rare depths. So that has to be done. That has to be done. And time and again, there have been people who have taken up this impossible project, and because it is impossible, hence I said, you require a bit of insanity. And you require a lot of love. Else, the masses can be left with their fate.

You could say, ‘Oh, the people have always been like this, the earth has always been like this. We have always been ignorant, violent, fearful, and we have suffered, and suffering is simply the destiny of mankind.’ You could say that and relieve yourself from all responsibility, but is that what you want to do? Depends, as I said, on the depth of your love. You ought to have that fire. Even if you don’t have it, you need to have it.

What’s the point in living a cold and frozen life? You are cool when you are hot and burning. It is one thing to be cool, another to be cold. So yeah! It is difficult, but it has to be done.

Q: Dhanyawad, Acharya Ji! With your permission, my last question. Sir, you explained ‘Gyan Yog’, ‘Bhakti Yog’, and ‘Karma Yog’ very clearly in many of your videos and articles, but sir, some organizations, some international societies try to situate Bhakti Yog over all others and sometimes blatantly blaming the material and physical existence of Brahma. And sir, even their Bhakti Yog seems to conflict with the Bhakti Yog in Advait.

Sir, my question is: is it a useful way to give a tangible form of spirituality to the common public, or is it an arbitrary, anti-science and misuse of spirituality? For example, by translating ‘Buddhi’ in Bhagwad Geeta as ‘Bhakti’. Please, sir.

AP: The latter. It is simply a lustful exploitation of the scripture. No good use comes out of it except that when you sell crap, it is easier to sell. The nature of consciousness is realization. Bhakti is inseparable from realization. If you talk of a type of devotion that spurns understanding, then that devotion is merely ignorance, servility, slavery.

You are dumbing people down by talking of ‘buddhi’ as ‘bhakti’. And you do not even know that you are displaying your great arrogant ego when you do this. You think you are so big that you can distort the words of even Krishna. And you tout yourself as a Krishna devotee. Calling yourself a Krishna devotee, you are distorting Krishna’s words. Your ego is bigger for you than even Shri Krishna. And these few unfortunate movements in the last 100 years in India have done a lot of injustice to the spirit of religion i.e., spirituality. And any fellow with any faculty to understand would want to stay at an arm’s length. Unfortunately, masses are gullible, and worse still, they want to remain gullible and ignorant, may I say even foolish.

So, they find a selfish and easy stake in exceeding to the propaganda of such organizations. And there are a lot of them. Just too many of them. That’s the reason why the spirit of religion that is contained in Vedant and only in Vedant, has to be brought to the fore. Otherwise, all kinds of deviants, all species of animals are having a field day. Everybody is raising a cult of his own, a following of his own. And you know, you will find one thing common among all these people and cults and gurus, they are mighty scared of Vedanta. The moment you talk of Vedanta, they start squirming. Some of them do not even agree that the Bhagwad Geeta and Upanishads are higher than any other scripture in the Hindu domain. They would say, “Oh well, you know, yes, certain things are there in the Geeta, but then we have a lot of other books”.

Why do they want to talk of other books? Because the other books present a somewhat lazy narrative that is easier to ingest, that is easier to be made a part of your existing ego and ecosystem. The other books are full of stories that entertain, stories that the ego can assimilate, stories that do not necessarily push you into the depths of understanding. And depths of understanding are dangerous because that’s where the ego loses security. Your concepts are destroyed. Your existing worldview is challenged. Stories can be interpreted any way, and even if you do not make any sense of the story, it still entertains.

So, that’s what the Hindu religion has come down to and a great renaissance is needed. Remember that devotion and realization are two names for the same happening. They are not two separate paths. The same thing, when you look at it from one place, you can call it as understanding. Look at it from another place, you call it as devotion. When you say devotion, what are you devoted to? You are devoted to understanding—about the Truth, about your central nature. Vedant says, “bodho aham” (I am understanding). And that’s what the mind has to be devoted to—understanding.

Devotion and understanding are, therefore, always together. If your devotion leaves you bereft of any depth of knowledge, realization, understanding, I repeat, it is not devotion, it is servility. And servility to ignorance.

Q: Dhanyawaad, Acharya Ji. Dhanyawaad for these explanations. Thank you very much!

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