War and Woman
Questioner: Namaste Acharya Ji. I wanted to discuss with you the, you know, the recent abuse on Mr. Vikram Misri and his daughter. As he announced the ceasefire, they were — like — it was badly trolled, and people were not happy because the two forces decided to do the ceasefire, and he was just announcing it. And then people went as far as digging out details of his daughter and publishing it on social media, to a point that he had to really go protect it on his Twitter account.
So I just wanted to see your perspective on this particular attitude of weaponizing the daughters, because there's a respect or dignity attached for a father or family. It was quite disturbing, but I really wondered if we could have an in-depth conversation on this.
Acharya Prashant: Battles involve women, someway or the others. Please see the connection, there is somebody within the man — and most wars have been fought by men — there is something within the men that craves for territory, craves for respect. That same thing also craves for women. And therefore, we find such a strange thing: that while women have actively not fought many wars, they have been subtly at the center of a lot of wars.
Most noticeably — the Mahabharata war — you’ll not find a single woman on the battlefield. And yet, there is a woman, in fact a couple of women, in Karna’s mind, Bhim. The way he ultimately punishes and slaughters Dushasana, Arjuna….all the internal strife you find in Chapter One — women are there. Women are there not because they are the culprits, but because wars are fought by men. Wars arise from the ignorance of men, and women are one of the strongest objects of a man’s craving.
Most tempting, most lucrative — comparable to territory, comparable to prestige, comparable to money, riches.
What do you find in Durga Sapthsati? These two demons, they have everything, but they still go after Devi, right? They say, “Because we have everything, therefore we must also have this woman.” And then they go and tempt her. They say, “We have everything — all the riches are there, and all the territory and all the power. You also come to us.” And that brings them to their downfall. They are all massacred. That’s another story. But even riches don’t suffice. If riches are there, you say, “Since the riches are there, therefore the woman has to be there. Otherwise, what’s the use of these riches? All the riches are for the sake of the woman. I have to obtain the woman.”
So the woman — you must please understand — is very intimately related to some dark point within the man. That same dark point that breeds violence, drops nuclear weapons, massacres, kills, exploits — it’s all coming from the same center.
Here you find the daughter of the diplomat, the bureaucrat, being targeted. Do you see a distinction — gender-based distinction? Maybe the said fellow also has a son — I don’t know. But the sons would not be targeted, even if they do exist. Just as the terrorists didn’t target the women.
What did the terrorists do at Pulwama? They made a distinction. Similarly, the online terrorists also make a distinction. They say, We will — and when the terrorists were targeting the men, in some sense they were targeting the women. They were saying, “Now we are leaving you alive to go and suffer.” And the message was so strong that the operation itself was named “Operation Sindoor.”
Do you see how the war is linked to women? All wars are, in some sense, linked to women. Even when women are not the active participants, they keep wondering: “What have we done?” We are animals. We are animals with, unfortunately, a developed cerebrum. So just because of biological evolution, we have what you can call as intellect.
There is nothing conscious about the intellect. It’s just like the well-developed biceps of a gorilla, or the well-developed teeth of a tiger — just an evolutionary product, having nothing to do with consciousness. The hippopotamus — the kind of pressure it can exert on your skull — it’ll be crushed like a pumpkin or a watermelon. What has the hippo done? Nothing. But the pressure that the hippo puts is greater than even the pressure that a tiger puts between the jaws.
Similarly, you have intellect. It’s a random occurrence of evolution. A very random occurrence. And that’s the reason why life is so difficult to be found elsewhere — because random events have very major probabilities.
You see, entropy is in the favor of disorder, right? Whereas what you find in evolution is that, starting from disorder, you came to this orderly thing. The law of the universe says that even if order exists, over time the order will turn into chaos — disorder — right? Whereas in the case of the human being, you find that starting from just soil and amino acids, and then proteins, and then that single-celled amoeba, and then all the kinds of stages of evolution, then the monkeys—and finally you have become a very well-organized creature.
The probability of this happening is one in a billion-billion. It's a freak event of nature, and therefore you will not easily find life elsewhere. But you might find life elsewhere because then there are billions and billions of stars and planets. So even if the probability is low, yet there's — some think that it can be. What — what I'm trying to say is, we are just freak outputs of biological evolution. This brain included, and everything else about is — us — is totally animalistic. Totally.
You can glorify whichever aspect of human activity, human being, human thought, human endeavor, human culture, human civilization, human relationships. The fact remains that all of that is totally, totally animalistic, except for the urge to be liberated. Everything else that human beings have done is just an expression of the inner animal. Everything, without exception.
It could be your great city. It could be your great infrastructure. It could be your great literature. It could be your great leaders. It could be your great science, great technology — everything, everything is just an expression of the monkey or the wolf. A wolf is dignified creature. A jackal, some kind of scavenger, a vulture. Not a peacock — vulture. A vulture and a jackal. That's who we are.
Just that evolution has given us these lobes here, and that gives us the ability to manipulate our surroundings. That's all. The extent and the — and the dexterity with which a human being can manipulate his surroundings, his environment — a dog cannot do that. That is the only thing that separates us. In all other things, we are dogs.
There is no difference between a dog and a man, except in the ability to manipulate the environment. A dog cannot build a house like this. But the dog does build a house. A dog cannot own territory like we do. But the dog does own territory. Are you getting it?
A dog cannot control women in the structured and institutional way that we do. But the dog does want to control its mate. It cannot, because it does not have a Smriti or an ancient parampara, a tradition. It does not have forces of culture. So it cannot tell the bitch, you know, "You have to follow these things otherwise you'll go to hell. Come now, give me a good massage. And don't you dare call me Kalu Kutta, I'm Parmeshwar." But the same instinct is there. See how dogs fight over their mates. Are you getting it?
We are animals within. Animals fight. Animals are highly possessive about their women. Not because there is love, but because there is arousal.
The deep urge to inseminate the other. Deep and blind urge to just get to the womb of the other. That's all. Nothing else. You must please understand beyond disputes, beyond ideologies — the real thing that we find happening everywhere is just an expression of our animal nature. That's all. You may say the real reason is that Ukraine was being wooed by NATO and therefore Putin got a bit restless and he attacked. These are outer justifications. The real reason is, you know, animals fight. That's all.
Now is probably lying about how the ceasefire came about, right? And you will say, you know, "He is lying for this reason, for that reason." Put all that aside. The real reason is that animals deceive. Have you seen a chameleon? You know what camouflage is? In Prakriti There is such great use of camouflage. And that's what is happening. Simple.
Your question comes from a sense of hurt. Now what is hurt? The assumption that we are really good people. That we are really conscious people. That assumption is hurt. That assumption is hurt because that assumption is invalid. We might be cultured. We might be civilized. But the third C — consciousness — that is missing. We are — we might be cultured or civilized. We are not conscious. We are not conscious.
Entire cultures, entire civilizations the world over, entire flow of history—they are not based on something conscious. No, consciousness is not absolutely missing. It is found, but it is found in rare instances. Like a meteor streaking through the night sky once in 6 months. How long does it last? Like a few seconds. Those have been the exhibitions of consciousness in history.
In the long dark night of history, some conscious person or some event in consciousness happens in a flash, and it is gone. Like the shooting star, it's gone. And what's left behind is that old, ancient, everlasting, primitive dark night. Why are you surprised when you find all protocols of war being violated? When you find everybody lying to everybody else? The media is lying to the population. The leaders are lying to the population. The population is lying to itself. The two countries are lying to each other. The third country is trying to mediate and is lying to both the countries. Everybody's lying to everybody else — because that's who we are.
To keep the woman in control, we attached a lot of honor to her genitals, right? And because the man values her a lot—not because of love but because of — you know, the reasons — the man values her a lot. And her value comes through the genital root. Therefore, the man becomes very uneasy about the woman's sexuality. The woman in that sense becomes the man's vulnerability.
If a man is to be attacked, the easiest way is to attack his woman. And that's what you find happening here in the case of the bureaucrat, the said diplomat. A man might be difficult to attack, but he has one weak point — or many such weak points, vulnerabilities —which is the woman.
The terrorists did the same thing. Otherwise, why would there be sex selective slaughter? We thought that happens only in the case of infanticide and feticide. But that's also what is witnessed at Belgaum. Separate the two genders and massacre only one.
Even at the heart of the Bhagvad Gita lies the same problem. That's what Arjun is telling Krishna: "If all the men get killed, all the women will get corrupted because they will go and have sex with the lower Varnas."
So again, there, the great problem is the woman's sexuality. And that's what is bugging Arjun. "What will happen? The women are having sex. Here I am fighting and losing my life, and she's going and having fun. What — what's going on?" And not only will she have fun, she will also produce kids. She's very fertile. And then he says, you know, "Those kids — you know the story, right? They'll be Varna Sankars. And when they will offer the tributes in the month of Shradh, the diseased ones — they will refuse to accept those things. And then a great curse will befall the kingdom," and those things.
But all that is a story.
The real thing is, you know, the women — they will run away. They have to be controlled. Because that's who we are. Not conscious people. That's how it happens in the jungle. The female wants to control the male. The male wants to control the female. That's how it happens in the jungle. And that's who we have been.
And that's why the Bhagvad Gita is so sacred and so important. Arjun is speaking — or beginning to speak — from that ancient point of primitive ignorance. But Sri Krishna illuminates him.
But those instances have been very few and far between.
Don't be surprised. In war crimes — the foremost is rape. When the Japanese assaulted China, World War II—read about the rape of Nanjing. That was one of the biggest motivators. If you defeat the enemy, all the young girls and women—they belong to you. Rape them. So war and women—they go together.
Genghis Khan — he was fighting wars all his life. Somehow, he spared India. But the rest of Asia and some parts of even Europe — he totally vandalized. Vandalized to the extent that a very high percentage of people in Central Asia to this date carry his genes. He impregnated so many women. That seemed to be one of his major motivations: "If I win the war, I get to impregnate the women. Forty in a day." Imagine — entire populations bear the stamp of his genes.
War and women—they always go together. Because they come from the same center.
A warmonger is very likely to be a womanizer as well. And if he's not a womanizer, he will be pursuing some other sensory attraction because it all comes from the same center.
Bangladesh liberation struggle, the Pakistani army, the number of women that were raped — incalculable. In fact, it is as if men start wars just to rape women. That's the kind of evidence history produces. And still, the funny thing is, so many women, they clamor for war. You know, "We too are very nationalistic. We want war." Such deep ignorance. You could have called it cute had it not been so violent.
Partition of India. Widespread rape. Rape and rape. As if religion has something to do with vagina. But it does seem to have something to do with that. That has, in fact, been one of the ways of conversion — rape the woman, and you have been now proliferating your religion, because the kid that will now emerge will belong to your religion. Rape the woman, and the woman too will now be pressurized to accept your religion, because, you know, she's anyway bearing the child.
Think of one war where women have not been raped. Not that there don't exist any, but there will be very few — and reverse examples are also available. World War II — when German forces defeated the French and entered the French villages, the French women were ready to greet the German soldiers: "Please come in, you are much better." As if these two centers are not only close but concurrent — war and sex.
I'm not saying all French women — happened at a few places. In fact, there is one gender that should, with all resolve, rally against the scourge of war. It is a woman. Because war simply means devastation to women.
One of the motivations that the armies — the Islamist armies — had when invading India was that Hindu women are good. Good to be had. Not good in terms of "Wow, what a conscious friend I have. Kindly educate me." And the marauding armies, they would motivate their soldiers especially this way: "If you defeat the infidels, the women and the animals and the property is yours." And that's a very, very powerful motivator. The Islamists did win. It's probably one of the juiciest carrots that can be shown to a person: "You do this and you'll get sex." And you'll do anything.
Questioner: This is very helpful. But how do we have a message for women? Because when we read all this, I think it's a bit disturbing, right? And even I think personally — I remember a conversation long ago, um, 25 years ago now — I think almost 20 years — I was doing mechanical engineering and I was the only girl in my class of 50 boys. And I always studied in a girls' school, so it was new for me. But then one of my friends those days told me that men will always do things in their mind if they cannot, let's say, do it physically.
Acharya Prashant: You mean masturbation?
Questioner: Not that even. I think, for example, if you are their object, then they will rape you in their mind, and so they can, let's say, create some scenes or whatever. Because there was a lot of gossip — not just around me, but I think many women in the college. We had less than 10% women in the entire batch. So I think it's a bit, uh, disappointing, right? Because as you said, it's primitive, and it's very hard to...
Acharya Prashant: Again you're speaking from the same center. when I started, I said, you look hurt. And what is it that's hurt? The assumption. Now again you are saying you are disappointed. Why do you hold assumptions and expectations in the first place? Why? You must be having some interest there. You must be having some stake there. You want to believe that the 60 boys of your batch are all nice people. Why do you want to have that expectation? Maybe you want to pick one of them as a nice one for yourself. Therefore it hurts when you discover that each of them is a beast.
And yes, that is called masturbation in one word. Imagining a rape scene and doing all those. One doesn't imagine a rape scene for nothing. It is imagined so that one can ejaculate. That's masturbation.
Why do you expect that all these are nice people? Why? There has to be some stake there, right?
I'm forced to assume that one of them, at least one of them or a few of them, are nice people. I cannot just say that the entire society is rotten because if I say that, how will I get a partner? If I want to go out with someone, if I want to date someone, if I want to establish to myself that I have a nice fellow, nice partner for myself, then I have to leave some scope open. All right, out of these, you know, out of the 60, 40 are maybe rotten people, but at least 20 are nice guys.
And even if then evidence is available, you want to shy away from it. Not a single one in my campus days was not seeing women as objects of desire. Not a single one — including this one. But you want to assume, "No, no, he is a cutie fellow. Come, my teddy. Sit in my lap."
There — you have your own interests, including sexual ones. That's what — otherwise, why should there be disappointment?
Please think. You find a python coiling around its prey — are you disappointed? Why are you not disappointed? Because it's a python, and you have acknowledged that. And you have no stakes there. You don't have to establish to yourself that the python is the epitome of virtuosity. So when the python kills, you're not disappointed.
But when a fellow who is a candidate to be your boyfriend — when he is found masturbating in the bathroom — then you are disappointed. "But he was not supposed to do that!" What else is he supposed to do? Why do you think he comes to you? Right now it's in the bathroom. Tomorrow it'll be on your body. That's all.
"But that sounds so crude..."
Now, that's it. That's the jungle. That's it. That's Maya. That's this jagat where you are born. That's how people are. And if somebody says, "No, that's not the way I am," then he's a liar and a hypocrite. That's how everybody is.
Buddhas are one in a billion. You won't get them in your batch. Exceptions are possible, but you won't get them around yourself. If you really love the exceptions, then you'll have to go out of your circle. But you live in your circle and you want to assume virtue there. You know, "These are the 20 people I know — out of them, 10 are very good." That's not going to happen, sir.
You really have to strive to be someone who is not an animal. And the first, first step in that strife is addressing your own inner animal. And even if you have addressed it, it will take a long to discover one in the society, because they are very rare blossoms. But you want to expect that, you know, your family — everybody is a good boy. Sir, they are not.
"My mohalla, my society — they are good people. My batch, my college, my school, my office, my colleagues" — they are not.
Don't be disappointed. Just as you're not disappointed when the python coils around the rabbit and strangulates it. It's a very violent sight, but you're not disappointed. Yes, you are moved, but you're not disappointed. Mind the word.
Disappointment is with respect to expectations.
From the python. You expect nothing else. The tiger chases the buffalo calf and brings it down — does that disappoint you? No. Because that was expected.
Similarly, when you have people around yourself, please expect animal behavior all the time — and also from yourself. But because we are self-receptive people, we do not address our own animal behavior. We don't want to, first of all, see that we are animals in the first place. Therefore, we start expecting that others too are not animals. We are animals. Others are also animals. That's how Prakriti operates.
Instead, you glorify certain things as if they have dignity. Does a war have dignity? No. It's two rams ramming into each other. You know ram? What is a ram? That big sheep with the horns. Have you seen them? These are two animals fighting each other. Why do you glorify it so much?
There is a resurgent Aryan movement in Nazi, even in Germany now. They are saying, "No, Nazism was about our glory, our self-pride, our self-esteem. We have to resurrect the whole thing." Why do you want to glorify it? Why do you want to glorify it? Take it, see it for what it really is. There's nothing there. And you glorify your weddings and marriages. Why do you glorify them? What else are you going to do after marriage? Come on, please.
And you glorify everything that is animalistic instead of naming it for what it truly is. You don't do that. You give it an aura and a halo and a big name, and you treat it as something divine — festivals, celebrations, parties, nice things.
There is a dead animal, and you have so many vultures there. That's all. That's a party. You can call it an orgy. It looks very bad, right? When there is that carcass and there are vultures and jackals around it. Pathetic sight, you say, right? And you're having a so-called non-veg feast. An entire pig is laid on the table. And you're — how is that not the same thing? How are you not a jackal?
Everything that we do is coming from the jungle. It is animalistic. Don't be disappointed. If you will hold expectations from this world, you'll be hurt. If you hold expectations from the world, you will miss the Krishnas and the Buddhas, because you'll be looking for them in your familiar places. And they're not to be found there.
You'll be looking for them in the familiar way, thinking of them as familiar sights, displaying familiar behaviors, and you'll miss them totally. Whatever you do, if it can be mapped against something that the animals do, you should know who you are.
There is this tiger reserve in Rajasthan. This is today's news. In order to raise the tiger population, they almost domesticated the tigers and the population did rise. But in the process of domesticating, the tigers became used to being fed rather than hunting. They became pets rather than hunters.
Their population did rise. It multiplied. Now those tigers are killing the same people that fed them because they are not hunters anymore. They cannot run after their usual game — the deer and the other faster animals. The tigers can't run after them.
In fact, one person who has been killed yesterday is an officer, who was in charge of taking care of these animals. And he was dragged away by some tiger — tigress, actually. Kankati was her name. That tigress actually dragged him away in full sight of some 50 people on a busy road. And this man was actually the one who raised her, raised her, fed her. And she came and she took him away.
This is not ingratitude. Don't be disappointed. This is the animal. Even if you do so much for an animal, all that the animal cares for is flesh. Don't be disappointed.
Now you see why war and women go together — because they both come from the same center within the man, the primitive center of animal behavior. Just that we don't want to accept we are animals, so we glorify. We glorify our animal behavior and give it very respectable names.
There is nothing respectable about all these things that we do. There is hardly anything respectable about anything that we do. And if our actions, our institutions, our contracts — if they are respectable, then so is the behavior of the dog on the street. Why do you kick him away? Why do you use "dog" as a slur?
You do everything that the dog does, just in a more intellectual and organized manner. And intellect again is not consciousness. Intellect is very much material. Intellect is a very dead thing. An intellectual is not necessarily a conscious person. It's very easy to be intellectual.
Sometimes you don't even choose it. Your cells, your heredity, your brain structure is such that you will be an intellectual. It's not to your credit. It just happened to you. Being an intellectual is something that happened to you just as being a carnivore is something that happens to a tiger. Now, consciousness is not something that can happen to you. It is something that you beseech with love and dedication and self-observation. Are you getting it?
And therefore, mind you, there can be no intellectual solution to war, because war itself is in some sense intellectual. War, in fact, can be justified by intellectual means. War and intellect come from the same animalistic center within man.
Some of the biggest intellectuals have been warmongers. They used their intellect in the service of war. Don't have too much respect for intellectuals. They don't count for much. IQ and all is a very cheap thing. It's almost like the color of your eyes or skin. What have you done?
You are carried away by propaganda, aren't you? You see all these things draped in virtue, carrying holy colors, and you start thinking as if some great game is being played on, as if something dignified, respectable, commendable is happening, as if you must offer your venerations to the event.
You're just swept away, and then you get a rude shock. You find the diplomat's daughter being served rape threats, and you say, "How can this happen?" But that's what the whole thing is anyway about.
Take pride only in consciousness. There is nothing else ever to be proud of.Take pride in your commitment to freedom and truth.
And if somebody comes and says he's proud of something else, he is stupid and violent and dangerous. Remember, the violent instinct that is exhibited in the form of rape also gets exhibited in the form of all other kinds of aggression. So if somebody comes to you glorifying and justifying aggression of any kind, mind you, he's operating from the same center that manifests rape also.
There's nothing else to be proud of, mind you, please. There's nothing else that is venerable or honorable except freedom and truth. And India has been a little distinct from the rest of the world because India is one of the few countries — probably the only country — that chose to have truth as the basis of its nationhood.
India as a nation is respectable only because the nation, this nation, the Indian nation is committed to truth. That's what you find in your scriptures. That is also what you find in your Constitution. If tomorrow, assume somehow the entire population of India is gone — some strange weapon, some strange weapon is there that leaves all the infrastructure intact and only the people are vaporized — and then some other people come and occupy the Indian land, and those people are bloodthirsty, ignorant, insolent — would India still be called great?
India is great because in the air, in the Constitution, in the culture, there is still some remnant of devotion to the truth. The day that devotion to the truth is totally obliterated, India will no longer be great. Let there be no doubt about that.
Greatness is not something that you just get in inheritance. Greatness is something that you work for. Greatness is something you earn.
Tomorrow, if some other people occupy India, they change the Constitution. They say, "We exist just to invade other lands and take away their women and take away whatever — their property. That's what we exist for." Would you still call India great? No.
The only greatness lies in — remember — the eternal principles of Vedant, truth and freedom. Saty and Mukti. So if a person resonates with those principles — they are not principles really, but for the purpose of this, let me call them principles — so if a person resonates with those principles, that person becomes great. That person has become great because he's now aligned with greatness.
India, the nation, is great because it is aligned with greatness. India, the nation, is great only as long as it is aligned with greatness. Are you getting it?
So in the context of the war, if you really want to make India great, first of all, discover where true greatness lies. And strive to align yourself and the people around you, systems, institutions around you with that greatness. Only that will keep India great. Not all kinds of xenophobia and jingoism and war-mongering and other kinds of stupidities — the kind that you saw on national TV, the various channels.
Questioner: Thank you, Acharya Ji.
