Gita’s Wisdom: A Solution to Riots
Questioner: 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 Muharram procession or a Christmas gathering. Those who are doing, 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 are doing? Huh?
Make it even more personal. Let's say, there is a riot. 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 there are some people who 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 dark?
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, 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 of 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 100 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. One of you starts making boorish sounds here. What would happen? 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 stairs, 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 stray 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 creating noises and 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, some other places. When that toxicity is coming to you as a general member of the 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 you 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 himself 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 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, right? 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 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 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 time scale. 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, an atheist, it does not matter. A Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Christian does not matter. You will continue to be violent.
