India is home to several religions. But is one religion better than another? Monk Gauranga Das has all the answers.
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00:00Religion as a domain, is it resolving any pain point or is it creating more pain?
00:05There is nothing called Hindu nature, Muslim nature, Christian nature, Jewish nature.
00:10Nature is nature. Religion is tourism. I said yes.
00:13Namaskar. Gaurangadas Prabhuji, I wanted to start by asking you and for our viewers,
00:20what is the importance of religion and is one religion better than the other?
00:26All the religions accept that the root cause of all this fear is change.
00:33So if you have to understand how this change happens,
00:36then you have to actually break down religion into five topics.
00:43The first topic is nature consisting of earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence, ego.
00:51We are all comprised of nature. We exist in nature. We interact with nature.
00:56We try to control and manipulate nature and successfully controlling and manipulating nature makes us,
01:02you know, successful progress and all of that. So that is known as prakriti technically.
01:09The second topic is Kaal or time. All of us are under the influence of time.
01:16The time affects us. Birth, old age, disease, death, it changes the nature of the body.
01:23Time is acting. Third topic is karma or action. We engage in activity.
01:30Now that activity may be inspired by four levels of intention, fear, desire, duty, love.
01:39That's a different thing. But everybody is engaged in action.
01:42Even if you say I won't act still, mind is active. So therefore, if you look at all these three,
01:49there is nothing called Hindu nature, Muslim nature, Christian nature, Jewish nature. Nature is nature.
01:56Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence, ego. Kaal, there is no Hindu Kaal, Muslim Kaal, Christian.
02:03Time is on time. Karma, action. Everybody is engaged in action.
02:09There is nothing called Christian desire or Muslim desire or Hindu desire. It's all fear, desire, duty, love.
02:16These are all things which are inspiring action. So these three are common and these three are the items which constantly change.
02:26Okay. Nature changes, time changes and action changes. Activity changes. But if there is a dead body and you want to do the last rites,
02:36you may spend four, five thousand on the last rites. But if the person is still alive and the doctor says there can be a liver transplant
02:46and one is willing to go for a one CR surgery and transplant. So what makes one invest that one crore
02:55and what makes one feel that no, let us just spend five thousand and do the last rites.
03:00What is the difference between the two? Existence of the fourth topic, soul or the Atma.
03:07And the topic of the soul is also common in all religions and the soul is described and defined as something totally different from the body,
03:15completely spiritual. But soul is unchanging. Fifth topic is all religions except there is a God.
03:24So 4.5 out of 5, there is acceptance. It's the same. The last 0.5 is what is the nature of that controller?
03:37What is the name of that controller? How do we connect with that controller and all of that? So when that question arises,
03:45then we are speaking about five different questions which all religions are dealing with.
03:54In principle, but they don't recognize that. So all religions speak about five things. And now I am talking of another five,
04:04which is charting the journey of the soul from where we are now to where our destination needs to go.
04:13So many times when I visit, you know, conferences on tourism, people ask me, hey, what are you doing Baba?
04:20You are a sadhu, Baba. You are into religion, you are into tourism conference. I said, don't you know religion and
04:25spirituality is also dealing with tourism. They said, what? Religion is tourism.
04:29I said, yes. Tourism is to take body from one place to another. Religion is to take the soul from one place to another.
04:36So therefore the first point in all religions is where is the soul now? The second point is
04:45where do you want the destination of the soul to be? So some may say mukti, some may say jannat, some may say heaven,
04:54some may say, but it's some kind of liberation beyond death. Then the third element is what is the experience on reaching the destination?
05:04Third topic. So all religions speak about that experience. Fourth topic is what should be the path for the soul to reach that destination?
05:13And fifth is what are the obstacles that soul will face in reaching the destination? So these are the five topics.
05:20So if you, you know, list down these five different, you know, points on the left hand side, and as soon as you change the details of one of these five,
05:33the name of the religion will change. Where I am? What is the destination? What is the experience?
05:38What is the process and journey? And what is the obstacle? That's it. So all religions deal with these five only.
05:44But there is so much of debate because they don't understand that just like in health care, there is homeopathy, allopathy,
05:53naturopathy and then I say if nothing works there is thirupathy. But ultimately all paths are dealing with trying to relieve the pain of the body.
06:03Okay. So therefore all religions have one common agenda, help the soul, connect with the Supreme Soul through a process of eternal service.
06:16And that process of connection is technically what the Gita calls as the yoga. In other parts it is known as prayer or prarthana or whatever.
06:28But religion and spirituality basically indicates that if I begin my day by connecting deeply with my eternal identity as the eternal servant,
06:41then I begin the day with the confidence that whatever changes may happen in the day, nothing can change my relationship with him.
06:52So I begin the day with a deep confidence. And therefore, you know, even like Prime Minister Modi is deeply spiritual and he does regular sadhana and prayers.
07:04And like that many, many powerful successful leaders across the world in different domains have gained depth in their personalities
07:14and depth in their ability to face challenges with courage based on establishing a relationship which never changes.
07:23That gives you the confidence to cope with things which will change in the day. And with the social media age,
07:30where the distraction levels as per Microsoft which did a study between 2012 and 2017, the distraction levels have come down from 12 seconds to 8 seconds.
07:42Probably even lower. Probably 3 to 4. Even goldfish has 9 seconds. So we have gone lower than the goldfish.
07:50That's the idea. So, you know, that's why I say that religion may be of different names, different denominations.
07:57But fear is definitely palpable. Fear is a real problem and the fear is caused by change.
08:06And we need to have an ability to cope with the change by immunizing ourselves, immunizing our consciousness.
08:17So that when we face the change, we are not affected. So, I say prayer or prarthana or yoga, contemplation or meditation,
08:27whichever practice and whichever religion you may belong to is basically the immunity we create against the virus of change.