We Worship Belief, Not Truth—And Here's the Cost
Questioner: Namaste Acharya Ji. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to ask my question. My question is from a recent debate in my college on how our country is so hypocritical. We had two examples: secularism is promised, but there is division, and slaughter is banned, but we lead in beef production. My question to you is, how did we fall so deeply in illusion, like the unreal thing, and how do we break out of it?
Acharya Prashant: See, illusion is belief, is it not? When you see through illusion, then it is gone, right? Illusion stands only as long as you believe in it. There is something unreal, but you take it as real. That is what you call an illusion, right? So,
Belief is the culprit. When you glorify belief a lot, then illusion will lord, that's it.
You lose a taste for facts when your entire inner structure is founded on a belief system. Then how can you respect facts? Truth is gone, finished. The moment you start worshiping beliefs, truth is finished. That entire population will then live in self-reinforced illusion and deception. That entire population will become very skilled at cheating itself, because that's what belief essentially is. You are cheating yourself to begin with, and later others. Instead of finding out, you are saying, "No, no, no, why take the trouble? Why go through the pain? I'll simply believe in something." And that's the thing with our country. We have worshiped belief so much. Goodness!
What do you think is more important, your feeling about something or the fact of that thing?
Questioner: Fact.
Acharya Prashant: But we don't respect facts at all. We worship our feelings. You are talking to someone, and the moment he says, "You are hurting my sentiments," you withdraw, don't you? You'll have to retreat. In fact, even the law says that if you hurt public sentiment, then you can be booked. Now, public sentiment is most likely to be offended when you utter the facts. Utter facts, and people will be hurt because they don't live in facts. They live in beliefs.
Even the constitution says that your fundamental rights are subject to public morality. That's the expression that the constitution uses. And public morality is founded, more or less, on their beliefs. "This is moral, this is immoral. This is what we like, this is what should be permitted." So all your fundamental rights stand in the shadow of the public belief system. That's the problem. Nothing else.
This country very urgently needs to respect inquiry, to respect hard facts, and to put it very mildly, say two hoots to sentiment.
Why should your sentiment be respected? Yes, if you come up with something truthful, I ought to respect that. He believes he's a kangaroo, and I ought to offer respect to that. But why? No, but you cannot hurt the feelings of people. And then you see, don't we love to declare Indians are very emotional people? Do you see where that is coming from? That is coming from the great respect we have been told to accord to emotion. We are emotional for a reason. It offers benefits. The moment you display emotion, you get what you want.
I tell you, "I want a lot of money from you." You will question me. You will debate, right? You'll want to know the truth. You will want to inquire and explore. But instead of going through this long process of presenting and debating facts, if I tell you, "Give me money," and I start weeping and shedding huge tears, you are more likely to give me the money. And that's why we are a very emotional people, because emotion serves a very, very material purpose.
But when emotions rule, truth is the first casualty. Somebody wants to do something stupid, he'll simply say, "You know, I'm very emotional about this matter." Take that as a warning. The fellow is going to do something very stupid, very unethical, even very evil.
All kinds of evils are sanctioned in the name of feeling, belief, emotionality, sentiment, all these things.
And if you question beliefs, then, as I said, you can be tried, lynched, hanged, booked.
Anybody can believe in anything. How does that become respectable? In fact, if you are resorting to belief so much, then your intelligence becomes disputable. You don't become respectable. We are supposed to know, right? We are, because we are equipped to know. Why do I believe? Why should I believe? I can know. But knowing requires effort and honesty. And you don't want to put in that effort. You don't want to be honest. So you simply go for believing.
As you sit on this planet, it is so easy to believe. No? That there is a grand canopy over your head and the stars are all studded there. That the earth is the center of the universe and there is a great black canopy there with the stars studded on it. Such a cheap belief. You don't have to do anything. It just comes to you as intuition. "Yes, obviously I'm here and those are the stars up there." But it takes a lot to know that the sun is not going around the earth, that the earth is going around the sun, and that the earth is not the center of the universe. Those stars are sometimes a million times bigger than the earth, and the earth is not stationary. The earth is going around at thousands of kilometers per second. Will you ever believe in this? No, you'll never believe in this. This has to be known. And you are a human being only because you can know.
Even animals can believe. And whenever you want to hunt down an animal, you want to make it believe in some stupidity, right? And it falls prey to its own stupidity, and then you can hunt it. To be a believer is to be hunted. But it's not so easy to hunt down a knower.
Questioner: When we were debating on this topic, I came across, when we were putting facts like the slaughtering houses and the on-paper agreements, the people who believed they were secular got offended very much. Some of their beliefs were shattered. I guess they were a bit angry or something; they were not accepting the fact that they are supporting that hypocrisy or that they are believing in falsehood.
Acharya Prashant: So that's fine. You take belief as your truth, and when it is challenged or demolished, you will be hurt. But if you are hurt, it's your own fault. Why did you believe in something so fragile, right?
I believe there is boiling water in this (holding a cup in hand), and I want to use it for some reason. And when I come close, I discover it's freezing cold. I'm hurt. Who's responsible? Why did you believe? Why didn't you go and test?
But testing is not a word very, very common with our people. Our culture does not like this word very much — testing, inquiry, questions. We don't dare to question. Instead, submission and meek surrender is taught to us as a value. All kinds of authority figures are there, and you are supposed to just kneel down to them.
Anything more on that?
Questioner: No. From your example, I remember the theory of everything wherein Aristotle proposed that the earth is circular, but the earth is the center of the universe. I don't know, I might mistake that name.
Acharya Prashant: When you come with your question, some basic due preparation is needed, right? Who was Aristotle? You are dragging him into this.
Questioner: Sorry. Copernicus, the scientist who proposed that the earth is not the center of the universe, that the sun is the center. But he too was in fear of releasing his research in public. I would relate it to that.
Acharya Prashant: Yes, obviously, because popular religion at his place in his time was all founded on belief. It still is. It was founded on belief about the individual and about the universe. First of all, whether the sun goes around the earth or the earth goes around the sun is none of religion's business. Religion is an inquiry into the self, right? So that's the first thing. Religion should have nothing to do with all these things. Leave it to science.
Secondly, you are promoting belief, and religion's mandate is to demolish belief. Religion's mandate is to promote inquiry. But as your example suggests, that has never really been the case. First of all, religion gets into all kinds of worldly things. Who made the rivers? Which tree is sacred and which tree is not? What to wear? Where to sleep? Whom to marry? What to eat? Religion gets into all these things which are none of religion's business. True religion is just an inquiry into the ego, the self. "Who am I?" That's religion.
The mandate of religion is freedom from belief, not a reinforcement of belief.
But that was not happening then, and that is not happening now, and it's all very bad.
Anything else?
Questioner: Thank you so much.
