Stay Away From 'Pop Spirituality'
Questioner: Namaste, sir. Welcome to Bangalore. It's good to see you. Sir, my name is Hitesh. I work as a Product Manager with Oracle. A lot of the product decisions that we make are data-driven. I'm surrounded with people who are logical, rational, and ask a lot of questions before we arrive at any decision.
Now, whenever I hear the word "spirituality", I imagine a man who's incompetent running away from the real-world challenges, seeking some otherworldly fancies, believing in godmen, superstitions, vibrations, stones. I don't know pretty much everything. Now, I researched you and the work that you have been doing. It's the complete opposite of the image that I had. So, I really want to know: What is spirituality? And who is a spiritual man?
Acharya Prashant: Please sit. That's a nice way to begin this session. So, what in the common mind defines spirituality and the spiritual man? Somebody who is incompetent, running away from the world, and believing in superstitions and random mysticism and the occult and such things? Okay.
See, to some extent, it is understandable. When we start talking of things that are not related to life itself, that are not related to the living entity, and are rather about this, that some other world, some mystical pleasure, some rare enlightenment — then obviously, be it philosophy or spirituality, they get disconnected from this living, beating, breathing thing that we call life, right? Please understand — right now, you're sitting on a chair. A material chair. You're wearing clothes, shoes, holding a pen in your hand, correct? This is where we live, and this is where our concerns are. This is life. Our pains, our sorrows, our hopes, our desires, our relationships — that's what constitutes life, correct?
Our dilemmas, our livelihood — to be here, to be there, whether to be at all — that’s what life is. The mic that I'm holding right now in my hand is more emblematic of life than any godly figure we can imagine. This is real. This means something. This has a direct and tangible connection to who I am and what is happening between you and me. Right? But if I say that this mic is the proper subject of spiritual inquiry, it would sound very strange in the conventional sense. Spirituality is not supposed to be about things that you hold in your hand. It's not about the medium that you use to relate with the other. Spirituality, rather, is about something else —something else.
And now you see from where that word comes — somebody who's run away from life. A deserter. Do you see this? Somebody who is a recluse, somebody who is not in the mainstream of life — that’s because the common definition of spirituality itself has become very indifferent to life. Very indifferent to life. And that's the reason why it's important to bring spirituality to where it really belongs. It belongs to us. My life, my existence, my being has to be at the center of all my pursuits. It actually always is. And spirituality too is a human pursuit, is it not? And if it is as much a human pursuit as science, or humanities, or arts, or anything else that we do — then why should I not be at the center of this pursuit?
We spend time at the office, all of us. You talked of your company or employer. We spend hours there — 8, 10, 12 hours at a stretch. For whom do we go there? For ourselves, right? And then we return to our homes. Whose home? Our home. You purchase something, you drop something. You decide on a course of action, you abandon a course of action. All of that is for our own sake. I’m repeating something that’s very obvious but since it's been missed, hence it's important to re-emphasize: All that we do is for our own sake, is it not? I mean, several of us are wearing spectacles kiska number hai?, not the neighbor’s, right? This device exists for my own sake. Everything in life is for my own sake. If I'm waist 34, I can't be 38 or 28 or can I? No.
Then why does the rule simply get neglected or violated when it comes to spirituality? The problem may lie in the word itself — spirituality.
India has had a much better name: Adhyatma, Adhyatma — and that translates into self-knowledge, not spirituality.
Where there is “spirituality,” there would be all of that which you just mentioned — all the mumbo jumbo, all the hanky-panky. But the moment you realize it's about self-knowledge, not random things in the world or in the imagination; it's about self-knowledge — 'Adhyatma.' You break it down, and it literally translates into knowing yourself better or knowing yourself more deeply. Hence, self-knowledge obviously through self-inquiry. Self-inquiry is the strategy. Self-knowledge is the goal. And self-observation is the moment-to-moment tactic, the method.
But once it is about "spirits," then it moves into a zone that’s the worst product of human imagination and human cunningness. From self-knowledge and self-inquiry, it becomes a thing about spirits and ghosts and things that exist outside of the body, disembodied beings, as many are fond of saying. That’s not Adhyatma. Not at all. Maybe that’s your own particular fancy —you may proceed with that. That’s a human right we all enjoy. If you want to cultivate fancies, you can do that. But that’s not Adhyatma.
Anything that does not have to do with the "I" does not fall in the realm of Adhyatma. And remember, self-knowledge is a far, far better and more accurate word for 'Adhyatma' than “spirituality.” The moment you say “spirituality,” it starts getting into a very vague, hazy, nebulous kind of zone where anything goes, because nothing is verifiable, and therefore, nothing is falsifiable. If you cannot check or verify something, can you ever say it is not? If there is just no way to check something, can it ever be denied for sure? No!
And this entire rotten field of “spirituality” has prospered using things that can never, by definition, be verified and hence, therefore, can never be proven false and hence, therefore, can never be dropped. In contrast, please consider Adhyatma proceeds through the way of negation. Look at the shrieking difference there. Spirituality is about things that can never be negated. How do you, I claim, "I’m seeing a ghost here," — negate. Can you? You cannot. That’s spirituality. And What is self-knowledge? The very art of ruthless negation — of everything that you see as imaginary, as a product of ego. So Adhyatma proceeds through negation: drop it, verify it, drop it. Which, as a corollary, you would easily see means that Adhyatma would have a deep respect for facts. Spirituality, on the other hand, would have a deep disdain for facts.
Now you see why most of the Babas are found mocking the various fields of science. They would say, Oh no! your science says this. Oh! “Science is yet to know what we already know.” See, It’s not just incidental. There’s a principle behind it. The principle lies in the dimensional difference between spirituality and self-knowledge. Spirituality is the mind running amok — the mind exercising its right to insanity, with gusto. That’s spirituality. Sitting here, because I either lack the sharpness or the courage to go out and inquire. It requires patience, it requires intelligence. It also requires a lot of Nirmamta because whenever you encounter facts, you find something within yourself getting demolished. So, you need to have a certain detachment towards the self, if you need to live in facts. Right?
Now, I am somebody who has neither of these. It’s a choice. It’s not something you're born with— it’s something that you choose to have. Even if you say it is cultivated, the very cultivation is a decision. I’m somebody who has never bothered to live in facts. But I too feel a certain angst, a disquiet, a hollowness, a discontentment as everybody else does. So, I try to find a cheap route to address that. That cheap route is what we commonly call spirituality.
So here, you know, I keep feeling anxious and my relationships are all going awry, my boss hates me, my wife threatens to run away, everything that can go wrong. So what do I do? I'm experiencing that a lot is wrong with my life, but I don't have the guts to go into the real reasons. Because if I go into the real reasons, I’ll find that if I want to correct the disease, I’ll have to eliminate the diseased one. I have sensed that my disease is of my own making. Rather, I have the disease. So, if I want to take care of my ailments, I’ll have to be very harsh on myself and I don't want to do that. Nobody wants to do that.
We are all designed to self-preserve. We are all designed to choose comfort over truth as we are born. So what do I do? Everything about me is going wrong. So I’ll go to Babaji. And Babaji will give me some fruit, some kriya, some random thing, and say, “You apply this and things will go right.” Sir, is there a causal relationship? Can you please explain? How do I know? How do you know? Maybe I’ll fail to appreciate — but at least explain. Maybe a fifth grader would not understand quantum mechanics — but at least an explanation exists. So maybe I’m a fifth grader. Maybe I won’t get it. But kindly offer me the explanation. There is no explanation. It is totally subjective. If there is an explanation, only Babaji knows.
And Babaji says, “You too will understand if you surrender completely to me.” What kind of condition is this? You are asserting something on me that comes with zero proof whatsoever. And I’m supposed to take that? The miracle is — I do take that. I take that because millions of others have been taking that. That’s how humanity has been lumbering all throughout its history. And we say, “You know, all these things have been happening and yet we have managed to reach this level of education, prosperity, progress. So obviously, we have been doing things right all along the way.” No sir. That’s not true.
Anything that does not include who you are is not fit to be included in the field of real spirituality.
Pop spirituality? It can include anything — bananas, tomatoes, potatoes, flowers of all kinds, the state of the moon. Name it. Snakes, yeah. Obviously, false spirituality is a predator. It feasts upon our ignorance. And therefore, the more ignorant you are, the more spiritual you are likely to be in the conventional sense. In the conventional sense, we are talking of pop spirituality here — Lok dharm.
It's a known stat — countries, places or communities that profess to be the most religious also happen to be the most backward. Backward not just as a subjective allegation but backward in terms of very tangible metrics, education, fertility rate, life expectancy, child mortality at birth, status of women. The more religious a place, the more superstitious it is likely to be. In fact, if you are not superstitious, people will call you a nastik.
He's not a spiritual or religious person, is he? Is he? He's not. If you say you are spiritual, but don't believe in astrology, they'll say what kind of spirituality is this? If you are spiritual, then you know spirituality.
Real spirituality is the field of self inquiry. Inquiry, not belief, not belief.
An inquiry involves dispassionate logic and this dispassion that lies at the beginning is also the end. Just that it's a basic principle that if you begin as X, it'll be very difficult to end as Y in the internal journey. If you begin from a point of fear, if you begin investigating or asking or conversing or reading or relating from a point of fear, the end of that relationship or conversation or inquiry will not be fearlessness. If you start from fear, what you do from fear will only beget you more fear, getting it? Similarly, if you do not start with a bit of dispassion, you will never reach the end of suffering. That is the target, the right end of all Adhyatma.
Adhyatma or spirituality is not about the things that you see or read. It's a very pure, very neat discipline and it's the most fundamental discipline. It starts with the fact, not the assumption or imagination. This is not a field in which we posit. It's not about shooting in the dark or surmising blindly. Suffering is a fact. How is it a fact? We can conduct a survey here. Do you experience suffering? And people will say, "Yes." We are not saying suffering is real. We are saying as living human beings we experience suffering, right? To that extent it is a verifiable fact.
I can conduct that survey, you too can conduct that survey. You can verify the results I obtained. So yes, living beings suffer. Living beings suffer. And it is to get rid of this suffering that the field of adhyatma, real spirituality, and self-knowledge exists. There is no other objective. No other objective. Now please tell me is it about running away from the world? Even if you run away from the world, you would be carrying your own being with you, right? The suffering would still be with you wherever you go. Then how can spirituality be for those who decide to abandon anything?
I also said that it is the foundation of all disciplines because irrespective of whatever of what you are, the role you choose, the identity you profess, the area you work in, suffering remains, right? You could be young, you could be old, you could be man, woman, you could be working in this field, that field or not working at all. We all still suffer. Hence, it is the most fundamental discipline irrespective of what else you are doing.
We are talking, for example, spirituality here and this gathering that we have is not from the field of spirituality. How many of you are from the field of spirituality? Well, nobody. You are from diverse fields. How many of you are from the field of information technology? How many of you enjoy tennis? How many under 30 years of age? How many love to watch movies? Men and women obviously can see that. Do we see what we are trying to? You come from all kinds of fields, all kinds of diversities. Spirituality is no field at all. It is the foundation of all fields because irrespective of who we are, where we are, at which stage of life, economic status, religious beliefs, political beliefs — we all still do suffer.
So it is this suffering that is at the root of all spiritual pursuit. And who suffers the 'I.' Therefore, please, please, please be careful whenever you are dealing with words like religion or spirituality or self-knowledge or inquiry, dharma, you know the rest of it. Always ask yourself, 'Where is 'l' in it? Where is 'l' in it?' Is this addressing — 'Who I am?' Is this taking me within myself or is it taking me further into fabled lands of tradition and imagination?
Let's say, you are in the middle of a so-called spiritual process, whatever, some kriya — 'Ask yourself, 'Has this taken me closer to my my fact? Not my imagination of myself, my fact — 'Who am I from within?' 'Has it taken me there? Or has it taken me further away from myself?' And you know if you are suffering and if you could be transported to a point away from yourself, you experience a temporary relief from suffering. It feels good. And that's one of the important reasons why the false kind of spirituality has prospered so much. It's the feel-good kind of spirituality. It takes you away from yourself. It's like getting drunk. You don't even remain conscious of your reality.
Whereas Atmagyan happens to be a painful process like most medical processes. When you are taken within, it's not divine energies or cosmic lights or mystical sounds that you encounter. When you will honestly look within, what you will find is stinking trash accumulated over centuries of human existence and carried to you via DNA and tradition through birth, through upbringing, through education and through social influences. All that is present within us. That's what you see when you look within.
If you find somebody for example, meditating with his or her eyes closed and that fellow has the beautiful mystical smile on his face. Rest assured he is not seeing, he is imagining. When you see yourself for what you really are, it'll be very difficult to smile. It is very very difficult to smile. Who smiles looking at his own trash? Or do we? We don't. Unless there is some special kind of perversion taken hold of us. Then you flush it away, right? That's what you will see when you actually look at yourself.
Virtue and vice will become one. Love and hate will become inseparable from each other. It'll be very difficult to figure out whether your loved ones are loved ones or whether there is something else you have for them.
Employment and enslavement might become indistinguishable. These two are there but they are slowly merging into each other and I don't know what is what. How do I separate them? It'll become very difficult to quote your employer with that pride. Are you getting it? And since it is painful, therefore most people just avoid it and rather they choose to wander into the market of maya. Market of maya. It's an easy way to detect, isn't it?
Something comes to you, ask, 'Is it addressing who I am, my identifications, my fears, my ambitions. Is it addressing that? If not, it's not worth it.'
