Beware of Those Suggesting to Avoid Reading Scriptures
Questioner : Isn’t reading scriptures just an acknowledgment of knowledge? Why should one read scripture, if one can learn from life itself?
Acharya Prashant : It totally depends on you rather than the scripture. It is not about whether or not scriptures are useful; it is about what you want from the scripture. If you want knowledge from the scripture, you will get that. But if you want liberation, that’s another thing altogether. The scripture by itself, is in some way powerless. You decide what to make of it. So, I am neither against nor for scriptures.
With the right intention if you go to the scriptures, they are the biggest blessing you can ever get. But if the intention itself is mediocre, tainted, then what can the poor scripture do? The best it can do is warn you right at the outset. And many scriptures actually do that. The first few verses would be warning and disclaimers – “Idiots don’t proceed,” “If you are coming to me without having cultivated a certain detachment, don’t proceed,” “If you are coming to me with any desire except that of liberation, kindly don’t proceed.” So, all these warnings are there in advance, but why would you heed them if you are anyway not carrying the right intention?
So, this debate is frivolous. “Are scriptures useful? Are they useless?” The right debate must be, “What do you want?” And it has become fashionable these days to say, “Oh! I have not read any scripture.” Does that make you any more qualified or what? In fact, if you are a spiritual teacher and you are saying you have not read any scripture, that raises questions on your love for the Truth. If you love the Truth and there have been many before you who have loved the Truth and have written poems in love of the Truth, why do you so stubbornly refuse to read those poems? Please, I am asking.
Even in common worldly love; when you are in love, don’t you pick up a gajal from Ghalib and narrate it to your beloved? Or, do you say that, “I will not read any love poem written by somebody else?” So, if you are in love with Truth, why don’t you read a love poem written by Kabir Sahab? What’s it that makes Kabir Sahab untouchable to you? Surely, something is fishy somewhere.
You are prepared to read all kinds of non-sense, but you are saying, “I will never read Ashtavakra and Kabir Sahab and Shri Krishna.” Exactly why? Exactly why? You are allergic to Kabir Sahab, of all people?
You are already in love with someone, why are you still listening to Ghalib? I am asking you. In fact, you listen to Ghalib all the more when you are in love. Or, would you say, “I know love on my own and here is my beloved. Why do I need Ghalib?” Do you say that?
So, all this talk is quite non-sensical and also dishonest. You may not read Ghalib from the point of view of learning love, but still you would read and narrate Ghalib because the words are aesthetically beautiful. Are they not? At least, you won’t avoid Ghalib. At least, you won’t proudly claim, “You know, my credentials include never having read Ghalib.” How does this thing become your CV point? And there are many who tout this as a CV point “I have never read a scripture.”
First of all, they are lying. And secondly, they are making a fool of everybody. Thirdly, if they have actually never read a scripture, then they must be accused of lovelessness. Anybody who has ever known love, how can he avoid reading Bulleh Shah or Meera or Kabir Sahab. Please. How is it possible? Or is it?
I do not know whether or not I learn from the saints, but even today when a song comes to me, it is pure delight. We are holding this course in Hindi this month ‘Santvani’, it is into its second month now, and I look forward to receiving the questions, you know because every question is based on a particular verse. Now, I usually don’t have much time to read, at least, not read as diversely as the questions are. But those seven or eight questions in a session, they come from various directions. Seven or eight new verses, new songs; it is such a delight.
Also, please try to appreciate the kind of damage it is doing to the world. People anyway don’t want to read the scriptures; they are so busy reading erotica. And on top of that, you are turning avoidance of scriptures into a virtue. You are turning this world into a veritable hell. Anyway, people are avoiding scriptures, right? And now, you are tomtoming that it’s needless to read scriptures. What are you doing?
You are not saying it is needless to read pamphlets or marketing brochures or whatsapp messages; these things are allowed, they pass. But, “You know, the Upanishads, you should not touch them, please.” What is this? All kinds of other publications, you may read. “Just don’t read the saints; they are poisonous.” What is going on?
Questioner : Even their followers are taking pride in saying that our master has not read anything.
Acharya Prashant : First of all, this is a grand lie – “The master has not read anything.” It’s just that the master is reading scriptures like teenagers read erotica. In dark rooms, hiding from everybody, beneath the quilt, that’s what it has come to. Teenagers used to hide the kind of literature they were reading. Now, teachers are hiding from the entire world that they are reading the Gita.
“If somebody comes to see that I am actually reading the Gita, then he may ask me a question on Gita. But the fact is I don’t comprehend the Gita. What would I answer?” So, the best thing is to say, “This is out of syllabus.” I have never read the Gita.” That’s what makes somebody like Osho all the more respectable. He not only was a great and avid reader, he actually encouraged everybody to read all the scriptures from everywhere and actively fielded questions from all directions. You can come to him and ask a question on Śivasūtra and he would answer it. You could go to him with the most abstract verses from the Upanishads or from the Brahma Sutra, and he would not refuse you.
So many of these who call themselves Gurus and Sadhgurus today, ask them one Śloka from the Upanishad, and they would not find a place to hide. So, the best strategy is, “I do not know the Upanishads.”
There is Kabir Sahab and there is his Ulatbansi and there are hundreds of Śākhi from Kabir Sahab that only somebody of the stature of an Osho can take. Others will find no place to hide if they have to explain those verses from Kabir Sahab. So, the best thing is to say, “I have not read Kabir Sahab at all.”
The fact is you simply don’t have the depth to appreciate a Kabir Sahab. And still, you want to run your shop and sell Rudrākṣa. So, all the malicious propaganda.
कबीरदास की उलटी वाणी, बरसे कम्बल भींजे पानी। Kabirdas ki ulti vaani, barse kambal bheenje pani.
Go to these great gurus and just ask them to explain. Open challenge. It’s far easier to sit on a greatly decorated stage and talk about the virtues of Rudrākṣa, and what kind of water to drink, and why copper is useful; and all kinds of pseudo-scientific nonsense. But to really speak upon a Kabir or an Ashtavakra requires a tremendous understanding which does not come to everybody.
Questioner : But strangely, the crowds gather around such people.
Acharya Prashant : That’s okay. Right now, we are not talking to the crowds. My request to you is to never turn your back upon the saints, never. Never let it become acceptable to you to decry, deride or ignore the scriptures, never. You must hold the scriptures today and always in the greatest esteem.
And you must be very clear with, what the definition of a scripture is. Note this carefully – That which helps you get rid of all the mental nonsense is a scripture; otherwise, it is not. So, if it is helping you get rid of fear, lust, anger, ignorance, jealousy, it is a scripture; otherwise, it is not.
So, a book dealing with Jyotiṣa (astrology) cannot be called a scripture. A book dealing with vāstu śāstra cannot be called a scripture. Is the simple definition of scripture clear to you? Because I too constantly keep talking of ‘scriptures,’ ‘scriptures’ and that confuses people sometimes, maybe because anything is being touted as a scripture now.
Somebody came and said “You know, I have read this scripture and you know, …”
Which scripture?
He said “Lal Kitab.”
Scripture?
One fellow says “You know, there is that book in which the histories and futures of all living people on the Earth including those who are yet to be born are mentioned.” I don’t know which Saṃhitā, Rāvaṇa Saṃhitā, what something. He says …
These are not scriptures. This is not what can classify as a scripture. Please.
