Real Atheism || Acharya Prashant (2022)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00 Acharyaji, my first question to you is that we have a lot of people, in fact increasing

00:09 number of people who are saying that they are atheists, they do not follow any religion.

00:16 They seem to be confused about what religion is. They don't know what according to you

00:22 is the importance of religion, whether if somebody is born into it or is it by choice,

00:27 whatever it is.

00:32 You see there are two kinds of religions. The first one is the usual, formal, organized,

00:45 popular kind of religion that is generally known by that name. The word religion has

00:56 been appropriated by organized systems. So in most of these organized belief systems

01:09 and there is a story, a story concerning a particular God. So usually when people say

01:24 that they are not religious or that they are atheists, they mean that they do not subscribe

01:33 to that belief system or any particular belief system. So they say that we are religious

01:39 or irreligious. And that was kind of bound to happen because every story is just that,

01:51 a story, a product of the mind and every belief system is just that. It's something that you

01:59 believe in. It does not really have any truth to it. So all the religions that found themselves

02:12 on belief were bound to lose charm one day and that's what is happening. Since the advent

02:25 of science and right from the day Newton showed the universe to be deterministic and then

02:36 you had Nietzsche who declared God is dead and you have today's age when people can be

02:43 cloned and man is fighting death and disease and all the divine rights of the gods are

03:02 being usurped by man, there actually remains no need to belong to a belief system because

03:14 the beliefs themselves are being very openly shown to be false. So that kind of atheism

03:28 was waiting to dominate thought and society and that's what is happening. If you can't

03:38 tell this generation, a well-educated youngster some fairy tale, some cock and bull story

03:49 about one supreme figure sitting somewhere high up in the skies and on his whim one day

03:58 he decides to create the universe and the universe he creates through this and that

04:02 means he picks up some soil, picks up a bone and chants some verses or mantras or special

04:10 words and does this and does that. It all sounds so juvenile. People won't really take

04:20 it seriously. So that kind of atheism was not only waiting to dislodge the conventional

04:30 kind of religion but I also think that it is very much alright that it that is happening.

04:41 But then apart from this particular definition of religion, there is the real religion as

04:48 well. Real religion not confined to any particular sect or stream or organisation or belief system.

05:00 You could call it essential religiosity and what is this essential religiosity? This essential

05:06 religiosity is about the thirst of the mind to truly honestly reach a point, a destination,

05:18 a state where it can be at rest, where it can be at peace. Now this is real religiosity.

05:27 This religiosity must not be shunned, it cannot be done away with because if man keeps aside

05:38 real religion then he will turn neurotic. Religion is not something that you take upon

05:45 yourself. Religion is one's fundamental crying inner need. It's like thirst of the body.

05:52 The body has thirst, hunger and such things and the mind has restlessness and ignorance

06:04 and unfulfillment and loneliness and these are the states of the mind that the mind is

06:18 actually born with. We take birth with these things. There is fear inside, there is loneliness

06:25 inside, there is ignorance and there are a lot of animalistic tendencies that we are

06:30 born with. So these are there and therefore man needs true religion. If man does not have

06:40 true religion, man will suffer endlessly and therefore it is a bit unfortunate that in

06:55 the name of atheism even true religiosity is being rejected. Atheism is wonderful if

07:07 atheism is used as a counter narrative to all the stupidities of popular organised religion.

07:19 In that sense a lot of great saints were actually atheists. A lot of religious reformers were

07:29 actually atheists because they did not subscribe to the prevailing notion of Godhood and the

07:37 prevailing notions of Godhood, you would agree, have been very rotten at many points in history,

07:44 at many places on the earth and that's why there has been a need for religious reform

07:53 and when we have had those reformers, we have been grateful to them. So that kind of atheism

08:01 is alright. But I become a bit nervous when I see people discounting even core spirituality

08:15 by asserting that they are atheists. Now if you are atheist, that's alright. See, you

08:22 may not want to have a God and that is alright. One can understand that God is a bit of fiction.

08:35 But it is not understandable if somebody says that he or she does not want to have peace

08:41 or truth. Now real religiosity is about having peace, not about having God. It's another

08:48 matter if you start calling God as synonym of peace or truth or understanding and that

08:56 is a different thing. But that does not usually happen in the popular version of religion.

09:03 So the religion that wants you to believe in stories and a certain kind of cosmology

09:12 and certain stories of Genesis, if you want to discount that religion by becoming atheistic,

09:23 it is pretty much alright. But it would be a tragedy if we start saying that we don't

09:32 need compassion, that love is an outdated value, that we do not really need deep understanding,

09:44 that we do not need simplicity, that it's alright to wallow in falseness, that we do

09:53 not really need to know the core truth. Why? Because we are atheists. Then there is a great

10:03 problem. So, if the trend away from religion which we are witnessing in America, in Europe,

10:17 in Japan, even in countries like ours, if the trend away from popular religion results

10:25 in a cleansing of religion, results in people moving away from religion towards spirituality,

10:33 then it's a welcome thing actually. It's a welcome thing because we do not want superstition

10:39 in the name of religion, do we? We do not want strife in the name of religion and we

10:44 very well know that a lot that goes by the name of religion is truly rotten. We do not

10:50 want all that. So, if people are dispensing with all that, people are dropping all that

10:58 and by dropping all that they turn truly religious or spiritual, then it's a welcome thing. On

11:04 the contrary, if someone says I am atheistic and I do not believe in Bhagwan or Ishwar

11:12 and therefore I am refusing to read the Gita even or I am keeping Vedanta aside, I do not

11:21 want to go into the philosophy of the Upanishads, then it's a scary thing, very scary thing.

11:31 You see that has been, if I may continue and add to this, you see that has been the intended

11:37 relationship between religion and spirituality. Religion is the outer case. Religion is the

11:49 shell within which the core, the kernel of spirituality is enclosed. So, people were

11:58 taught to be religious so that they could be spiritual. But Maya is so wonderful that

12:07 religion instead of becoming a gateway to spirituality became a barrier against true

12:15 spirituality. So, therefore when religion is challenged or when religion is dropped

12:25 or discarded, sometimes I take it as something auspicious. It's good that people are discounting

12:33 the usual kind of religion. But if along with religion, spirituality too becomes something

12:43 adorable, something that can be avoided and something that is taken as outdated and repugnant,

12:54 then we have a great problem. We cannot throw the baby away with the bath water just because

13:03 most of what we call as religion is a huge mess. We cannot claim that even the core of

13:14 religion is something we can do without. No, we cannot do without that. Man is a religious

13:27 animal. We cannot live without true religion. Equally, if we have bad religion, it will

13:36 not let us live. So, it's a tightrope walk and we have to be very, very careful and attentive

13:45 in negotiating it.

13:46 [Music]

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