What is Religion? || Acharya Prashant on, Ramana Maharishi (2015)
Speaker: So, this morning we are here, trying to look at what is Religion. It would be easy to go into this deeply researched and heavily documented topic as just another objective topic, but I wonder, whether we ask ourselves some very subjective, very personal, very intimate questions. I wonder, whether we ask ourselves, “Why we wake up every morning?” I wonder, whether we have really asked ourselves, “What brings us, here, to this hall, at this hour?” I wonder, whether we ask ourselves, “What our eyes are looking for, all the time?” Very few of us would have asked themselves – “Why they feel thirsty all the time. And why there is a need to eat? And why does one feel like living on? And why do successes never feel complete?”
So as I said, we could either take Religion as an academic or philosophical topic, and create a distance between the topic and ourselves. Or we could go into it in a more intimate way. When you look at the people around you, or at the fellow in the mirror, what you see is a search.
Today is a Sunday morning and if you stand at a crossing and look at the faces of the people going past you, coming towards you, you see a certain seeking. Of course, there is no point asserting that the seeking is of what we classically call as ‘a spiritual nature’, yet everybody is definitely searching. I like to say that man is a restlessness. And he is restless for something that he has no idea about – that aggravates his restlessness. He can feel a deep longing in his soul, but he has no means to really ascertain what he longs for. So it’s a very punishing predicament.
