Vedanta & Freedom: The Biggest Superstition You Never Question

Questioner: Hello, sir. It's my pleasure to meet you. So, I'm Deepak Arbat, a B.Tech final-year student of the Material Science and Metallurgical Engineering Department.

As we all know, there are many Indians who are still superstitious. Most of them believe in myths, beliefs, and other rituals without really knowing the reasons behind them. My mother is one of those individuals. She spends most of her time in activities related to God, rituals, and religious meetings. My father also believes in God, but he's mostly a socially oriented guy. So, he acts on the basis of society. There are many people who take advantage of ordinary people based on sacred texts. They try to trap them in rituals and superstitious activities. So, as an educated individual, what should be my approach so that my mother will stop doing this kind of stuff, or reduce this kind of stuff?

Acharya Prashant: The easy approach is science, obviously. If people believe that, for example, the lunar eclipse happens because some great demon comes and puts a veil on the moon, then, by demonstrating how the celestial bodies move, and the proofs that are available, you can do away with the superstition. So, science is a very powerful means when it comes to that. But the deepest superstition cannot be taken care of using science alone. Please go into it.

You think you are somebody. We want to explore superstition. You think you are somebody, right? That's how we behave, right? We say, "My body," for example. "My body." So, there is this body, and there is somebody who controls this body, or owns this body, or lives within the body. Is that not the hidden belief that all of us have? Please tell me.

Questioner: Yes.

Acharya Prashant: There is something within the body, and that's who I am. "My body." Right?

Listener: The thoughts which make us...

Acharya Prashant: Yes, yes. "My thoughts." Not just thoughts, "My thoughts." So, there are not just thoughts, but there is also an owner of thoughts who declares, "My thoughts." Right? And that is something we believe in without any proof. Or do you have proof? Is there a proof?

Listener: Yeah, but that's why their insecurities or their vulnerability make them believe that, because that's how superstitions…

Acharya Prashant: Yes, yes. We'll be starting from the basics. Is there proof that there is something inside the body? There is no proof, right? Right? It's almost like saying there is this hall, let's say, and there are a lot of sounds emanating from the hall. So, you imagine, you posit, you assume that there must be somebody inside the hall. That's what is happening. This hall, let's say, is the body. This hall is the material body, right? And there is some movement happening and some sound arising, just as we move and we speak. So, you assume that there must be somebody inside the hall. But is it necessary that there is somebody inside the hall? The hall itself might be vibrating. Is that not possible? The hall itself might be vibrating.

Questioner: It might be.

Acharya Prashant: Might be. It's the nature of matter to move, and matter can move for many physical reasons. But we imagine that just because we walk, or we eat, or we breathe, therefore there is somebody inside. And this is the first superstition.

The self is the first superstition. The ego is the first superstition.

Now, you have believed in it without any inquiry. Without any basis, without any proof, you have believed in it. This will oblige you to similarly believe in a lot of other things. The self is the mother of all superstitions.

Now, for example, this body can be seen to be arising from the soil. That is fine. We know where all the elements, all the material, comes from. We know that, right? You take in oxygen. You eat stuff arising from the soil. So, we know that the body is material. We also know the chemical composition of the body. You burn the body, and you will know how much carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc., you get. So, you know that this is soil. These are minerals. This is carbon. This is water. This is all that, right? You know.

But the one sitting within the body, that you have assumed to be somebody beyond the material, right? You don't say that when somebody dies and the body is burned, then the one within also gets burned. Do you say that?

Questioner: Generally, we say it has left before.

Acharay Prashant: So, you are imagining, and that's the first superstition, that there is something within that is not material, that will not return to the soil.

And then, if there is somebody within that is not material and does not return to the soil, then surely you can also imagine that there is somebody beyond matter who made the one that sits within the body. Now, superstition has taken one more step. Right? Without having any proof or any necessity of the self, you invented a self. And this invention will oblige you to make another invention called God.

Because the body can be said to have come from the soil. But where does the self come from? If the self exists, then God must exist, the Creator kind of God. The Creator kind of God who creates.

And if it's the Creator God that creates things that are invisible, like the self, then that God can create a lot of other things also, and make rules, and do anything, because none of that requires any proof. Do you see how far superstition has gone? And if you can have a God who is a Creator, you can also have so-called negative forces that are destroyers. And now you have ghosts and demons and all kinds of bad things roaming around in an invisible way. All this is superstition.

So, superstition, if you see, starts from the self. And the self, to prove itself, to sustain itself, imagines a lot of other things. You have heard that common saying: "To protect one lie, you have to come up with..."

Listener:* One hundred different lies.

Acharya Prashant: One hundred or one thousand. Right? That's what. This is the one lie we start with the self, that the self exists. And then, to protect and justify this one lie, we have to invent an entire structure of superstitions, an entire network of superstitions.

So, superstition, then, is something that not science alone can take care of. Science is useful, yes. But what you require is self-awareness. Only the deeply spiritual person can be free of superstition. Even scientists are superstitious.

Have you not seen superstitious scientists? Now you know the reason. Because science deals with only the external. Science doesn't get into the self. Science takes the self for granted. Science says the self does exist. The self exists, and therefore all the phenomena do exist. Therefore, science does take care of superstition, but only in a partial way.

Science is necessary but not sufficient. What you require is knowledge of the world and knowledge of the self, inquiry into the seen and inquiry into the seer. And only then is superstition uprooted. As long as the self, the ego, remains, you'll have superstitions of not one, but a thousand kinds.

What is superstition? Superstition is an unfounded, unexamined belief.

"Now I'm 28, so I must marry." How is that not a superstition? "Being a woman, I'm crossing 30. Where are my kids? How is that not a superstition? Please tell me, how is that not a superstition?

Questioner: Isn't it also because of the biological cycle?

Acharya Prashant: No, but, "I must have it." If you say biology wants it, that's one thing. But when you say, "I must have it. I want it," that's a totally different thing.

Listener: The source of the belief, or where it comes from, determines...

Acharya Prashant: You are not taking it as a belief; you are taking it as a Truth. Now, that's the problem. That you take as something axiomatic. That you take as something axiomatic, something that is inviolable. "I've already crossed 30. Where are my kids? I'm a woman."

But you think of only the uneducated ones as superstitious. We say, "You know, this one believes that there is a dayan on the tree. See how superstitious!" But you believe that if you have hit 35 and still don't own a BMW, then life is wasted. How are you not superstitious? And you would have heard it. Or, 35 years, that's too much, right? It's a new generation. Thirty-five was my time.

“Before 30, you must own a Merc. Otherwise, you know, the ancestors will get unhappy.”

Questioner: By the definition of superstition, every human being will have that, you will see. Except for the fact that it's affecting their own family or their own being socially. For example, there are superstitions which purely thrive on their insecurities or their vulnerability.

For example,there are people in rural villages where they are not much educated. They lack a sense of their own individuality and critical thinking. That's where they lack. So, that's where these people thrive through their preaching skills or their so-called deep thinking, with which they instruct them.

Acharya Prashant: Please understand. Believing becomes a very comfortable habit. Once you get into that, knowing appears troublesome, and questions appear like insults. Have you not seen, you go and question the elders, and see how they take offense?

Listener: Yes. I am an elder. I know better. Experience thing.

Acharya Prashant: Because knowing sounds like rebellion. Believing has become the very substance of life. And that, I'm saying, is an insult to life, because your nature is to know. If you believe, you are insulting yourself. Your nature is to know.

And this is an institution of knowing, or do you come here to believe? Do you come here to believe? When you're told something, aren't you offered supporting proof? Please tell me. Or are you told that, by the decree of the highest authority, this has to be accepted? Does it operate that way?

Questioner: Not anymore.

Acharya Prashant: Not anymore. It used to.

Questioner: It used to, definitely. I mean, think of the Catholic times. That's how education happened.

Acharya Prashant: At that time, the IITs didn't exist.

Questioner: Yeah. The university still exists.

Listener: And don't superstitions also come because of holding on to things?

Acharya Prashant: No. It comes from believing in a holder. If there is a holder, what else will the poor one do? It will hold. Now, the thing is, you hold without there being a holder. And that's the comedy.

You consume, thinking that consumption will satisfy you, right? But the problem is, there is no consumer within. So, he can never be satisfied. Therefore, you go on consuming. Had there been a consumer, at least at some point he would have been satisfied. But when there is no consumer, just a dark hole, a black hole, a bottomless abyss, then there is no one to be satisfied.

Listener: It's a presumed need that we create.

Acharya Prashant: You think you take this (pointing towards the bottle) in, and somebody is receiving it.

Listener: Yeah, that's the presumption.

Acharya Prashant: Nobody is receiving it except your stomach and intestines. But you believe somebody is a consumer. There is no consumer. There is this (pointing towards the water bottle) material going to this (pointing towards the mouth) material, going to this (pointing towards the throat) material, going to this (pointing towards the stomach) material, and then being excreted out as material. There is no consumer.

Therefore, nobody can be satisfied. So, you hold on to the perception of being dissatisfied. Please understand. So, you are holding on. You don't do anything without self-interest, do you?

Whatever you do, even the smallest thing, there is some selfish interest in that, right? So, you hold on to something. You believe this (pointing towards the water bottle) will be of use. The thing is, there is no user in sight. So, this can never be of any use. It can be of use to something like itself.

For example, food is material, and therefore it can be of use to the material intestines, and to the material muscles and the material bones. Food is useful. But you don't think of yourself as intestines or bones. You say, "I am the owner of the bones." No, you are just the bones. But you don't agree to that. You don't agree to that. Otherwise, it would be very, very amusing. You propose to someone, and you say, "You know, my hormones are proposing to you."

Because that's what is really happening. You say, "No, I love you." No, it's not that you love him or her. It's the chemicals rushing out. But we don't want to accept that.

Questioner: So, the things like when we think about caring, kindness, or understanding, how can we decide whether these are just chemicals or whether these are the comfort zone?

Acharya Prashant: Don't you see? Don't you see how we salivate? Don't you see how it's all so reactionary? Don't you see how, today, science can capture all your inner processes as biochemistry and display it to you on a screen? Even what you are thinking can be coded into a graph, and you can watch that. The entire activity of thinking can be displayed here on a screen. Obviously, it is all material.

Questioner: So, if it is all material, then I'll come back to that thing again. Why does the guy in a coma want to wake up, if everything is material? He is also material. He will die in a coma. Why does he want to wake up then?

Acharya Prashant: Right. Wonderful.

Listener: I will answer that because he loves his life.

Acharya Prashant: What he's saying is there is nobody. Nobody is in a coma. That's what his assertion is. It's a beautiful thing that he has raised. Please understand. Just as there are several categories of material, there is another kind of material called the ego. And this material has a special property, that it is the observer and experiencer of all other matter.

Listener: That's the property of human beings, right?

Acharya Prashant: That is the property of that particular element. You could place it in the periodic table.

Listener: Yeah, we all are born with an ego.

Acharya Prashant: Yes. Yes. Getting it? It is the observer and the experiencer of all material, not the consumer, and therefore not the sufferer. And it is this not suffering, not consuming, not associating, that is called awakening or joy. Not suffering is called joy. Not putting yourself in a relationship of ignorance is called awakening. So, it is this one. This one. But who is it, really? It is not material. Who is it? It is the observer of all material. Just the observer. Just the observer.

Questioner: So, if the guy in the coma is going to die the same death as the guy who has awakened. Then what would be the ultimate purpose?

Acharya Prashant: The ultimate purpose is to live up to your nature. It is material that changes forms, and that change of form you call death.

Questioner: So, ultimately, we are satisfying our…

Acharya Prashant: Understand. The nature of matter is to change form, right? But this thing, the observer, since it is just the observer, therefore it cannot change. It is the observer of all change. It itself cannot change. Therefore, its nature is not to die. But the nature of matter is continuous activity, continuous movement, therefore continuous death. Continuous birth, continuous death. Waves rising, waves falling. Continuity.

When this one associates itself in an improper way with that which is mortal, then it does something against its nature. By associating yourself with that which is material, and therefore would die, you too become mortal. But your nature is not to be mortal. Your nature is to be just the independent observer of all change. Therefore, you are immortal. But you have done something that makes you mortal. What have you done? You have identified with the body by saying, "This is my body." Now, the body will die, and if you're saying, "This is my body," you too will die. And that is against your nature, because you cannot die. Therefore, you suffer. Therefore, you suffer.

Questioner: And what exactly is "you" here?

Acharya Prashant: Nobody. Just nobody. Just the observer.

Questioner: What is the state of you?

Acharya Prashant: No state. It is the observer of all states.

Questioner: If it can observe, let's assume it can observe, what in the real sense, do we call observing? We see, we hear, we listen.

Acharya Prashant: Yeah. But when, we see, we hear, it is always motivated. It is always from a point. It is always by being somebody. We observe as somebody. The nature of the ego is to observe as nobody. Almost like that point somewhere that's looking at everything purposelessly, desirelessly. And it is so minuscule a point that you cannot look at it. Somebody there is observing this entire phenomenon without being observed himself. And that you call the witness, seeing, but not being seen.

Questioner: So, don't we again come to that conclusion that there is a self which is observing?

Acharya Prashant: We see very clearly that when you are not the observer but the participant, you suffer. You see very clearly that when, instead of being the observer or the witness, you choose to be a participant or a consumer, then you suffer.

Questioner: So, once we understand ourselves to be an observer, is that called mukti?

Acharya Prashant: Yes. You start from your own suffering. Yes, you start from your own suffering, because mukti means nothing if there is no bondage. So, you start from your own suffering, and you then go into it because you love yourself. And you say, "Why? Why? Why, if this is life, must it be like this?" And then you come to the roots of it. And then you say, "It's easy. You just have to drop the whole thing." And then something else continues to happen.

Questioner: So, isn't dropping everything also a selfish interest?

Acharya prashant: No, not really. It is your nature. Nature.

Questioner: And that means our basic nature would be ego.

Acharya Prashant: Your basic nature is to be nothing. Not to hold on to it. Not to give it up. Your basic nature is to be unobtrusive. Your basic nature is to just know, know. And that's why this kind of discussion is very topical in an institution of learning, because you're here to know, know.

Listener: It's also based on the philosophy of Vedanta, right? Like in Vedanta, where your Brahman, the Supreme Being, and your Atman are the same.

Acharya Prashant: Brahm, not Brahman.

Listener: Sorry, Brahma. I'm sorry. It's one way of seeing, but there's also another school where...

Acharya Prashant: You see, yes this is there in Vedanta. But if you go to the Chinese, if you go to Lao Tzu, or Liezi, or Zhuang Zhou, you find the same thing. You go to the Greeks. You go to Socrates, and then you go to the Stoics and the Cynics, you find the same thing. It is one thing anybody who loves life would come to. So, it is not as if it belongs to one particular philosophy. Even if you go to the Sufis, for example, and you study them deeply, you'll find the same thing. Right? So, there's not one particular philosophy. This is life itself.

Questioner: In Sufism, they call it Ana al-Haqq.

Acharya Prashant: Yeah. It is the foundation of seeing itself.

Questioner: I was going to say that word, foundation.

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