Religious Fanatics and Bigots - Where Do They Come from?

Questioner: Sir, I am Saurabh Kumar from Rajdhani College, Delhi University. My question is that there is one or two days ago, there was Ram Navami. Some people were going and cheering Ram, Ram at the mosque and figuring out some flags at the mosque. And they are looking like Rawani Sena. They are cheering Ram, Ram. How can people go this down? I mean, they are kind of rubbish. And it is called culture. I mean, please take that.

Acharya Prashant: I do not really know the facts of this case. Even you probably do not know. You can only quote that which has been brought to you by the media. We do not know what is it that the media is bringing to you. One has to be very, very skeptical these days. Anything can be shown to you. Anything can be proved to you. This is the age of mass indoctrination and hysteria.

Questioner: Sir, sometimes before that was a North Indian kind of thing. But it became kind of like the Pan India movement. Some Maharashtra, Bengal, UP, Rajasthan. It's all over India. So, it is more concerning, how our society is growing. Even we are talking in this classroom or auditorium. But the others are doing something very dangerous so that others are feeling insecure. How can we neglect that thing?

Acharya Prashant: See, those who do all this irrespective of the side they come from, it doesn't matter whether it's a Ram Navami procession or a Moharram procession or a Christmas gathering. Those who are doing this, think of where they are coming from. Think of the entire ecosystem that breeds such people, and then also tolerates them. I'm asking you,” Had we been really different as a society, would you still have those incidents? Do we want to blame an event, or do we want to rather responsibly look at the entire ecosystem?” Please tell me! Whatever they are doing is more or less, actively or passively, socially accepted. That's why they can afford to do what they do. Had they known that for displaying all kinds of perverse attitudes and behaviors; in the name of religion, they would be socially ostracized, would they have still dared to do what they were doing?

Make it even more personal. Let's say there is a rioter. Let's say there is a rioter. The police may not be able to locate his identity, either due to connivance or due to incompetence. The police might fail to know who that rioter is. But for sure, some people definitely know who that person is. His wife knows. Does his wife not know? His kids know. His parents know. His friends know or are even these people in the dark, right? Think of a situation where this fellow engages in an act of rioting, and returns home and is disowned by his wife. Would he still manage to remain the kind of ignorant figure that he is? Please tell me.

But just as family members partake in the bribe money that you bring home; they also partake in all kinds of toxic attitudes that we have. When a fellow accepts a bribe, is it so that his family does not know of it? The fact is that the family willingly, and happily, enjoys the proceeds of the bribe. The fellow brings the bribe home, does he not? Similarly, the family very well knows the attitudes that a person is cultivating. And rioting, mind you, is also a bit of an economic activity. You don't just randomly riot anywhere. When you riot, you also loot. When you riot, often, you also loot. Where do the proceeds of the loot go? They go to your house, right? The entire family is complicit, or is it not?

That's why I'm talking about the ecosystem. It's not a person, it's an entire ecosystem. It's just that the active rioters become visible just as the tip of the iceberg becomes visible. Beneath that tip, there is an entire system that has upheld that tip. Right? Else that tip would have disappeared. So, we talk of the 10-20 or hundred fellows that indulge in active rioting. But we do not talk of the thousands and lakhs, who passively support these rioters. And if those thousands and lakhs disappear, would these handful of rioters still manage to survive? I'm asking you, please tell me.

Okay! If one of you starts making boorish sounds here, what would happen? Just one of you, just one of you. Just one of you starts making unpleasant sounds and starts distracting everybody. What is it that we'll immediately find? Let's say somebody at the back. If he does that, what would happen? Everybody would turn to the back and give him angry stares, right? So, he will have to stop. Is that not so? That's the power of the ecosystem! That's the power of the ecosystem! This is a society. One person cannot go astray here.

The entire feeling, the cumulative feeling of this Audi has to be corrupted for something seriously active to happen, right? So, there are one or two fellows at the back who start making noises making faces, and doing things. And what will the rest of the hall do then? As shared members in the conspiracy, they will either just gently smile or they will pretend as if nothing has happened, right?

Somebody throws something at the speaker from behind and the rest of the audience keeps sitting as if nothing has happened. What does that prove? Everybody is partaking in the conspiracy, correct? That's why I'm talking about the ecosystem.

You are talking of the 5,10, 20, or 100 people who engage in active violence. I'm saying behind that display of active violence. There is a lot of passive toxicity. And from where does that passive toxicity come to society? It comes from a few nodes, TV, social media, and some other places. When that toxicity is coming to you, as a general member of society, then you don't resist. But when there is arson and looting and murder and rioting, then you start saying, “Oh, why are these people actively fighting each other?” They are fighting each other because of the content that is being beamed to you daily on national television and on social media.

Now tell me, do we want to talk about the tip of the iceberg or the entire mass? And since all of us are responsible when that act of looting or rioting happens, therefore, each of us has to turn to ourselves and ask, “Why does this happen, why does this happen?”

Terrorists sometimes hide in a particular house in a village. They cannot hide in that house, if the rest of the village is not complicit! Right? Now, do you want to blame that terrorist, that house, or the entire village? We will fight because we are animals. We require the enlightening effect of wisdom literature to transcend our animal disposition.

Note that, when someone stabs another one in the heart, you can capture that on the camera, and you are quick to denounce that as an act of brutality, right? You just saw that happening in front of your eye. The dagger was sharp, and it went right into the flesh and blood, it just sprouted out like a fountain, and all that is so dramatic, you can see that. How about those who are killing you daily by poisoning the air, and you are getting killed daily? But is that so visual, so optical and so dramatic? Is it? We never come to know of that. But the principle behind both these murderers is the same! And as intelligent people, you must recognize that!

The principle behind the stabber, and the polluter is the? And that is the principle of the animal, the beast! I will live in my self-centered ignorance. That's the principle of the stabber and that's also the principle behind the polluter. Therefore, you require wisdom! You require wisdom! And that's the entire purpose of spirituality to take us beyond the bodily instincts. Seen how animals fight?

If in a particular space, there are ‘n’ number of rabbits and more rabbits are born, the elder stronger, typically male rabbits kill the younger ones because they want to have some kind of a monopoly over the resources. They say, “If we have more rabbits that's not good for our physicality, food will become scarce, divided.” That's who we are.

We all come from the jungle, don't we? Historically. How long was it? Very recently? Till very recently we were chimpanzees and orangutans, were we not? You can say a few million years. That's a blink of an eye when it comes to the historical timescale, till yesterday we were in the jungle as beasts. So, we share our basic instincts with the beasts. And that's the reason we stab and we pollute.

And that's the reason why we require the Bhagavad Gita so much. That's the reason why the Upanishads have to be the central documents, the most respected scriptures. Otherwise, we will continue to be violent. Irrespective of whether you are a man, a woman, a religious person, an irreligious person, a devotee, or an atheist, it does not matter. A Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Christian does not matter.

You will continue to be violent. You could be very well educated. You'd still be violent. You'll be violent now in a subtle way. You could be a rustic fellow, crude and uneducated and you'll be violent. Violent in your own crude way. So, the ways of violence will change. The internal violence will remain because the beast is violent. What is meant by that? Ignorance is violence. Ignorance is violence. What does ignorance mean? The feeling that “I am the body and I have to live by the bodily dictate.” That's ignorance! Ignorance does not mean not knowing. Ignorance means living in the wrong kind of identification. Not knowing your central identity is ignorance.

Are you getting it?

So much ignorance is so powerful, that it consumes even religion. You were talking of rioting in the name of religion. Do you know that more people have died in the name of religion, than due to any other cause? You have to keep biological causes aside, and you have to keep mass extinctions aside. So, we are not talking about cosmological events here. We are also not talking of things like the black plague here, we are talking of wars that human beings fight and the atrocities that they commit. More people have died in the name of religion, than anything else. Think of the Crusades, the long wars between the Muslims and the Christians. If you study history, you will know how bloody they were.

More recently, look at 1971. When we talk of genocides, we often ignore that place and that year, that was not that much in the name of the language. Though language was an issue, Bengali versus Urdu, that was also not so much in the name of ethnicity, Punjabi versus Bengali. That was more in the name of religion because the Pakistani army, when it got violent, killed both Bengali Muslims and Bengali Hindus. But mostly and the murders and the rapes were just countless. And all that in the name of religion. And it's not as if the so-called peaceful religions have not indulged in violence. Look at Burma. Look at Burma.

Even the long struggle that you had in Sri Lanka was religious in some sense. Hindus versus Buddhists. Ignorance is so powerful and its appetite is so huge, that it can consume even religion, when the central purpose of religion is to defeat ignorance — that's Maya! That's Maya for you!

To make things worse, you have religious scriptures that directly command their followers to slay the non-believers. Now, what do you do? If you come across a non-believer, “Slay him!” This is in the name of religion. Even Co-religionists fight with each other. They keep declaring each other as enemies of religion. So, we will ostracize you or declare you apostates and do all these things.

Look at what happened to the Ahmadiyyas in Pakistan. There is a large section among Sunnis that do not even want to accept Shias as Muslims. And look at how the Hindus have perpetrated caste atrocities, in the name of religion.

Till very recently you had trouble in Great Britain. Do you know of an IRA? Do you think of that only as something political? No! There was the Protestant versus Catholic angle there. Throughout the world, note this statistic; It is very strange that the more religious the people are, the less educated they are, the poorer they are, and the more the number of kids they beget.

Maya Ashen religion as well! This is hard data! The more religious you are, the less money will you have. The more religious you are, the less educated will you be. And the more religious you are, the more will be the number of kids you will have. And religion was supposed to be a liberating force. And this is what we have done to religion.

Questioner: Namaskar Sir, I'm Mukesh Ayal. I'm a 1983 pass out, from IIT Delhi. My first question is, the rioters are not born rioters. That’s my feeling. Whatever I say is my feeling. Though, whatever we have seen so far, a rioter is a rioter. When it is between two communities, well-defined communities, everybody knows I don't want to name them. The rioter is a sannyasi, when the third community takes out a similar procession through the same street, do you think there is a motivating force behind those rioters to make them rioters selectively and make them sannyasi selectively? That is my question.

Acharya Prashant: I didn't get the sannyasi angle.

Questioner: I'm sitting in my house; I find today X community. I will not name that community. I am from the Y community. X community is taking out a procession through a street. Through the same street, then I am throwing stones at them. I am abusing their priests or whatever you name their religious persons and doing all sorts of nonsense. So, in that case, I am being motivated by somebody to become a rioter. If the other Z community passes through the same street, I am sitting on my sofa and I am clapping and participating, not actively, maybe passively, through my balcony and enjoying their procession. So, do you mean to say, or do I have a feeling that that rioter is being motivated by somebody to become a rioter against that procession of a particular community?

Acharya Prashant: What you mean to say; is that a lot of that is reactive, purely reactive. Because there are conditions a Hindu watches a Muslim, let's say there is no point hiding names. You are talking of Hindus and Muslims here. That's okay. That's the fact. That's the fact. Yes. So, there is no point. Yes. So, what we are probably saying is that the Hindu watches the Muslim indulging in some things and as a reaction, he too becomes aggressive. That is likely. That is quite possible. That is possible.

Questioner: Why he's a rioter who starts pelting stones at a particular religious procession? If a similar procession passes through of different community third community…

Acharya Prashant: You are saying of different third community, you saying?

Questioner: He's enjoying that procession. He's enjoying that Satsang being played there. He's enjoying the Shabad kirtan being played.

Acharya Prashant: So, you are then predisposed to oppose. Obviously.

Questioner: No, but he's not born as a rioter, he is motivated as a rioter.

Acharya Prashant: You are conditioned. You are brought up. You are brought up. That's the role of the ecosystem we talked of. The kind of things we consume from the TV, from the family, from society. If continuously those things are present in the environmental and cultural elements then obviously, slowly something is being built up. And if you are lucky, that will never explode. If you are not so lucky, it may come to a tipping point someday, and then there might be active violence. Even if there is no active violence, passively, you are being indoctrinated to be violent within. So, we know how that is happening. Yes, that's true. See, I'll come back to that.

We are animals. And animals are not supposed to understand. Animals live by their bodily instincts. They don't really understand. Understanding is not even needed! Correct? No animal ever sits down and wonders. There are no transcendental philosophical, or spiritual questions in their mind. They are meant to do as their body commands them to do. So, we will favor those of our type. We'll oppose those of the other type. The lion was never taught to hunt the deer. It comes from his body or does it not? The fish was never taught to swim, it comes from its body. Similarly, from our body, violence comes. It is the body. Violence comes! And that will remain till we are not properly spiritually educated!

It's about rioting and it's also about our otherwise so-called peaceful looking life. Look at the relationship between the man and the woman, the husband and the wife, the father and the son. Don't you see a lot of violence there? It's just that the violence is tacit, implicit, hidden. Violence will be there! I repeat,

“Ignorance is violence!”

And what is ignorance? Living without knowledge of the self: is ignorance. If you don't have self-knowledge, you will be violent. If you are crude, you will hit the other in the body. If you are not so crude, then you will pollute the air and do all kinds of hidden things. But you will remain violent.

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