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Acharya Prashant
  • 3 years ago
Full Video: Superstition in the name of rituals || Acharya Prashant (2019)
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mfL4L3GQRo&t=0s

Video Information: Vishranti Shivir, 01.11.2019, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Context:
What is real spirituality?
How do rituals take up the name of spirituality?
How to get rid of superstitions?

Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Transcript
00:00 I had been introduced to a fire ritual, it's Agnihotram, which is performed during every
00:15 sunrise and sunset.
00:18 But in this ritual we use ghee, the cow dung, everything.
00:23 Once I got to know that use of ghee is there in this and I'm using the cow dung, I'm
00:28 not willing to continue this any further.
00:31 In English they had translated it as fire sacrifice.
00:35 I did not actually get the actual meaning of that word.
00:41 Let's say your son is in class 10th.
00:46 He would be one day.
00:54 And he comes to you with his board exams results and he has flung in science, 15 out of 100.
01:13 And you ask him, "How come?
01:18 How did you manage this?"
01:20 And he says, "But I did study science, I invested so much time in studying science."
01:25 And you say, "Okay, let me see.
01:31 Show me your books."
01:34 And he brings the books to you and the books appear so very untouched.
01:42 They look brand new, virgin.
01:46 And the pages are smelling as if they are freshly out of the printer's shop.
02:00 You ask him, "My son, it is very clear that you never, even once opened your science books
02:06 and you are lying to me, stating that you have been diligent with your science studies."
02:17 He says, "No, I have been studying science."
02:19 You ask him, "From whom?"
02:23 And he says, "That Panditji.
02:27 He is my science teacher.
02:34 That Muhalla temple is there and that Panditji is there and he knows all the sciences in
02:38 the world and he has been my science teacher.
02:48 I used to go to him to understand Newton, Pascal, Bernoulli, Kepler and he used to tell
03:00 me, he used to perform all kinds of sacrifices and tell me, "See, this is how you have to
03:08 understand Archimedes."
03:19 If the matter at hand is scientific, if it relates to matter, then would you refer to
03:34 Pandits and scriptures or must you refer to scientists?
03:42 Please.
03:48 50 years back, 100 years back when people used to fall ill, even then they would go
03:57 to the local priest and he used to perform all kinds of wonderful miracles.
04:08 He would beat someone up with some stick and the fellow would get cured.
04:15 Cured as in cured of this worldly existence.
04:24 And at that time it was considered medicine.
04:27 Today if you do that, you will say the fellow is so foolish, illiterate, full of superstition.
04:46 Maybe even today in some remote interior part of the country it is still happening.
04:54 If the matter refers to medicine, would you go to a priest or to a doctor?
05:07 So if you have to talk about gases and environment, would you listen to the so-called religious
05:19 people and priests or would you rather consult a scientist or environmentalist?
05:27 Tell me.
05:31 And when I say that you have to go to a scientist, that does not mean YouTube.
05:36 Scientists are not found on YouTube.
05:38 If you have to take the opinion of a scientist, go to a proper scientific book or refer a
05:46 research journal.
05:50 What kind of scientific literature is this that certain people who were performing a
05:55 certain ritual sacrifice got saved at the time of Bhopal gas tragedy and the poisonous
06:05 gas could not impact them because they were performing a certain yagya or something else.
06:12 What kind of science is this?
06:14 Where does this science come to you from?
06:16 WhatsApp?
06:17 YouTube?
06:18 I often ask people, how do you know this?
06:23 They say, you know, science is proving this.
06:26 Somebody, rather a lot of people have been telling me water has memory.
06:32 A month or so back it happened.
06:39 Somebody asked me about it and a video was published and I rubbished this thing.
06:45 The molecule is a molecule.
06:46 What do you mean by memory?
06:49 So people have been coming to me with proofs and what proofs?
06:53 The proofs are YouTube videos.
06:57 It is news to me that now scientists publish themselves on YouTube.
07:08 Scientists are not found on YouTube.
07:11 Pseudo-scientists can be found.
07:16 Scientific superstition can be found.
07:20 Scientists are found elsewhere.
07:21 Go to them and ask them.
07:25 The matter is very simple.
07:28 Elementary science would give you conclusive answers to the question that you have.
07:35 So there is a certain chemical reaction happening, right?
07:38 You say you pour ghee, you put in dung and there must be some wood and some other material
07:48 and then all of that is put to fire and then there is a flame and there are gases.
07:55 It is a very easy experiment.
07:56 It can be conducted even in a school laboratory, a high school laboratory.
08:01 Just collect the gases and analyse which gases are present and then ask yourself if this
08:11 chemical reaction is producing nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, various oxides
08:20 of sulphur, a little bit of maybe methane, a lot of water vapour.
08:33 How can it contribute to the cleansing of environment, bhai?
08:39 How?
08:40 How exactly?
08:41 If anything, it will contribute to climate change.
08:45 If anything, it will produce a lot of ash which will increase the amount of suspended
08:52 particulate matter in the air.
09:00 I do not know of any gas that can purify the environment.
09:12 In markets you do have air purifiers but they are not purifiers.
09:16 Air has a certain composition.
09:19 What do you mean by adding something to the air so that it gets purified?
09:24 What kind of logic is this?
09:25 What kind of science is this?
09:32 Even a class 6 student knows the chemical composition of air.
09:36 It is a mixture of gases.
09:40 Gases combined in a certain proportion, just mixed.
09:46 Combined not in the sense of chemically reacting, just mixed.
09:51 All the gases retain their individuality.
09:54 Nitrogen is nitrogen, oxygen is oxygen.
10:00 Now there is 80% nitrogen in the air and if you add oxides of nitrogen to air, how is
10:07 air getting purified?
10:08 Tell me.
10:09 And don't trust me on this because on this matter I cannot be an authority.
10:19 Go and consult a scientist and there are so many scientists who are public figures as
10:27 well who will be prepared to answer your questions online.
10:34 Just send this query to them.
10:42 We have greatly reduced religion and brought it down to the level of crass materialism.
10:53 Why?
10:54 Because we are material fellows.
11:01 What is the domain of religion?
11:05 What is the question that religion deals with?
11:08 Religion does not deal with gases and material and fire and oxidation.
11:17 All that is not the rightful domain of religion.
11:20 Religion deals with only one question.
11:23 What is this 'I'?
11:26 What is it up to?
11:28 What does it want and why does it suffer?
11:32 Religion deals only with ego and the liberation of ego.
11:40 If in the name of religion you find other things being discussed, then this is the work
11:49 of some fraud.
11:51 Do you get this?
11:57 The proper domain of religion concerns just one question.
12:03 What is this ego, this 'I'?
12:08 Why does it suffer and how can it be liberated from its suffering?
12:12 That's all.
12:13 Finished.
12:14 Instead, if you find that religion is talking of other things, then that is not religion.
12:26 That is some kind of tribal superstition.
12:36 In the name of religion, if you are talking of fruits and vegetables, wear this, don't
12:42 wear that, eat this, don't eat that.
12:53 Your house should face this direction and a thousand other things that you associate
13:01 with religion.
13:04 Those are not in the purview of religion at all in the first place.
13:10 Religion has nothing to do with those things.
13:17 Nothing at all.
13:24 Are you getting it?
13:31 So please tell me, what is the one thing that religion concerns itself with?
13:37 Ego and its liberation.
13:41 That's all.
13:42 What is the ego, from where does it come and hence how it can be liberated?
13:47 That's all.
13:49 Instead, if you find that in the name of religion somebody is talking about planets and stars
13:58 and this and that and a thousand other things, then all that is just a sham.
14:05 Either the fellow himself knows nothing or he is out to fool an entire population.
14:20 Getting it?
14:28 Clear?
14:32 No religion can save you from carbon monoxide.
14:43 Not at all.
14:49 Or from the gas that was released in the Bhopal gas tragedy.
14:52 Which gas was it?
14:58 Whichever gas.
14:59 It doesn't matter how spiritual you are.
15:05 If your neck is inserted in a container of nitrous oxide or carbon monoxide, you will
15:12 not be saved.
15:14 Material is material.
15:17 The body is material and the body will react to material just as material reacts with material,
15:22 just as molecule reacts with molecule.
15:26 It doesn't matter whether it is the lung of a Buddha or the lung of the most fallen
15:39 being in the universe.
15:41 Both will react similarly to a poisonous gas.
15:49 All these miraculous things that you hear that some great Babaji was there and Babaji
15:54 was given poison and Babaji still did not die.
16:01 Surely the poison was supplied by Babaji himself.
16:07 Babaji is running lot of shops in the background.
16:11 One of the shop sells fake poisons like everything else that is fake in his shops.
16:20 Did Socrates not die when he had to drink poison?
16:25 Hemlock it was I suppose.
16:31 Or did it happen that because Socrates is Socrates, so he will not die?
16:36 Did Christ not bleed when he was impaled?
16:49 A very ordinary hunter struck Krishna and that was enough for his body to succumb.
17:02 Body is body.
17:12 Ramana Maharishi, Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Jiddu Krishnamurthy all died of cancer.
17:25 Gautam Buddha himself died of a stomach ailment.
17:33 And they were luminaries.
17:38 They could have performed some yagya and said, you know, to hell with cancer.
17:45 Here is the divine yagya.
17:50 If you want to really understand what yagya is, then go to the Bhagavad Gita.
17:55 There Shri Krishna has explained the real meaning of yagya.
17:59 Yagya means to devote your actions to the Almighty.
18:07 That is yagya.
18:09 Not that material thing that you keep doing in the morning and evening.
18:14 Burning wood, putting in ghee and all that.
18:17 That is a very gross form of yagya.
18:23 Material yagya is what Shri Krishna talks of in the Bhagavad Gita.
18:32 And please get rid of this myth that yagya releases gases that purify the atmosphere.
18:38 No, not at all.
18:44 So the Amazon is burning.
18:46 Just pour lot of ghee on it.
18:48 That will be a great yagya.
18:51 And the great atmosphere of not only the earth but entire solar system will be purified.
18:59 Nonsense.
19:03 These are the people who have no respect for religion.
19:06 These are the people who have no respect for Shri Krishna.
19:08 And these are the people who actually have no respect for the great word that is yagya.
19:13 Yagya is a beautiful and a great word.
19:18 But these people who do not understand anything and yet are very egoistic have spoiled everything.
19:27 They just touch even the most sacred of words, institutions, pointers and distort them.
19:43 [Music]

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