Real Atheism || Acharya Prashant (2022)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

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

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

00:16They seem to be confused about what religion is. What according to you is the importance

00:23of religion, whether if somebody is born into it or is it by choice, whatever it is?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

02:37Nietzsche who declared God is dead and you have today's age when people can be cloned

02:44and man is fighting death and disease and all the divine rights of the gods are being

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

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

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

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

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

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

04:03he picks up some soil, picks up a bone and chants some verses or mantras or special words and does

04:12this and does that. It all sounds so juvenile. People won't really take it seriously. So, that

04:22kind of atheism was not only waiting to dislodge the conventional kind of religion

04:34but I also think that it is very much alright that it that is happening.

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

04:49Real religion not confined to any particular sect or stream or organization

04:58or belief system. You could call it essential religiosity and what is this essential religiosity?

05:05This essential religiosity is about the thirst of the mind to truly honestly

05:13reach a point, a destination, a state where it can be at rest, where it can be at peace.

05:23Now, this is real religiosity. This religiosity must not be shunned, it cannot be done away with

05:33because if man keeps aside real religion then he will turn neurotic.

05:42Religion is not something that you take upon yourself. Religion is one's fundamental crying

05:49inner need. It's like thirst of the body. The body has thirst, hunger and such things

05:57and the mind has restlessness and ignorance and unfulfillment and loneliness.

06:09And these are the states of the mind that the mind is actually born with.

06:20We take birth with these things. There is fear inside, there is loneliness inside,

06:26there is ignorance and there are a lot of animalistic tendencies that we are born with.

06:32So, these are there and therefore man needs true religion. If man does not have true religion,

06:41man will suffer endlessly and therefore it is a bit unfortunate that

06:52in the name of atheism even true religiosity is being rejected.

07:05Atheism is wonderful if atheism is used as a counter narrative to all the stupidities

07:15of popular organized religion. In that sense, a lot of great saints were actually atheists.

07:27A lot of religious reformers were actually atheists because they did not subscribe to the

07:32prevailing notion of Godhood. And the prevailing notions of Godhood, you would agree, have been

07:41very rotten at many points in history, at many places on the earth. And that is why there

07:49has been a need for religious reform and when we have had those reformers, we have been grateful

07:56to them. So, that kind of atheism is alright. But I become a bit nervous when I see people

08:11discounting even core spirituality by asserting that they are atheists. Now, if you are atheist,

08:19that's alright. See, you may not want to have a God and that is alright. One can understand

08:30that God is a bit of fiction. But it is not understandable if somebody says that he or she

08:39does not want to have peace or truth. Now, real religiosity is about having peace, not about

08:46having God. It's another matter if you start calling God as synonym of peace or truth or

08:55understanding and that is a different thing. But that does not usually happen in the popular version

09:00of religion. So, the religion that wants you to believe in stories and a certain kind of cosmology

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

09:22it is pretty much alright. But it would be a tragedy if we start saying that we don't need

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

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

09:54need to know the core truth. Why? Because we are atheists. Then there is a great problem.

10:04So, if the trend away from religion which we are witnessing in America, in Europe, in Japan,

10:18even in countries like ours, if the trend away from popular religion results in a cleansing of

10:26religion, results in people moving away from religion towards spirituality, then it's a

10:33welcome thing actually. It's a welcome thing because we do not want superstition in the name

10:39of religion, do we? We do not want strife in the name of religion and we very well know that a lot

10:46that goes by the name of religion is truly rotten. We do not want all that. So, if people are

10:53dispensing with all that, people are dropping all that and by dropping all that they turn truly

11:00religious or spiritual, then it's a welcome thing. On the contrary, if someone says I am

11:08atheistic and I do not believe in Bhagwan or Ishwar and therefore I am refusing to read the

11:17Gita even or I am keeping Vedanta aside, I do not want to go into the philosophy of the Upanishads,

11:26then it's a scary thing, very scary thing. You see that has been, if I may continue and add to this,

11:35you see that has been the intended relationship between religion and spirituality.

11:40Religion is the outer case, religion is the shell within which the core, the kernel of

11:54spirituality is enclosed. So, people were taught to be religious so that they could be spiritual

12:02but Maya is so wonderful that religion instead of becoming a gateway to spirituality became a

12:14barrier against true spirituality. So, therefore when religion is challenged or when religion

12:24is dropped or discarded, sometimes I take it as something auspicious. It's good that

12:31people are discounting the usual kind of religion. But if along with religion, spirituality too

12:41becomes something abhorrable, something that can be avoided and something that is taken

12:50as outdated and repugnant, then we have a great problem. We cannot throw the baby away with the

12:59bath water just because most of what we call as religion is a huge mess. We cannot claim that even

13:13the core of religion is something we can do without. No, we cannot do without that. Man

13:27is a religious animal. We cannot live without true religion. Equally, if we have bad religion,

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

13:43very very careful and attentive in negotiating it.

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