Spirituality - real or hoax?

A few days ago Chnadu uncle shared a video with me on Facebook. This video was from THiNK 2012, on its website it says that "THiNK is designed to be India’s most eclectic, thought-provoking and egalitarian platform for ideas from across the globe." I didn't know about this initiative, but I am very glad to know that something like this has already started in India and people are willing to discuss these issues on an open forum. This particular session was about Faith, Reason, and Inner Engineering which featured Jaggi Vasudev and Javed Akhtar, the session was moderated by Shoma Choudhary, here is the YouTube link for that session

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpL_kSEHOco&feature=youtu.be

I enjoyed watching the video, both speakers are very passionate about what they believe and put their arguments very assertively. I found Mr. Akhtar very aggressive and passionate about his beliefs. It clearly shows the way he answers questions in this video. I think he should tone down his aggression a little bit, this aggressive tone might switch off many people. He is trying to convey some very good ideas and raising some very valid questions. These are the questions that most people don't like to answer or try to ignore conveniently and his tone might make their job easy. Religion and spirituality are very complex subjects and both of them are heavily commercialized. It's a big business and in both fields, there are big institutes and they function like big corporate houses. These people try to protect their interests, get new customers, and market their products very aggressively and Mr. Akhtar throws light on all these things. He also raises a very important point that they are all (religion, spirituality, and things related to them) products of our minds. Our mind is the thing that differentiates us from other animals and is the main reason for our progress as well as problems. He also acknowledges that religion can encourage people to do some extremely good things (charity, social service, etc.) and also shows the other side that at the same time it can incite people to do extremely bad things (communal riots, terrorism). His argument sounds very valid when he says that the use of common sense and rational thinking can produce better results than extremist views propagated by organized religions.

Jaggi Vasudev also tries his best in his video. He maintains his calm and gets most of the time in this video. He used his time nicely to tell about his approach towards religion and spirituality but for some reason, he doesn't try to confront Mr. Akhtar directly and doesn't even bother to answer many of his questions. He is very diplomatic in his approach and delivers what his devotees expect from him. But as I said he conveniently dodges all the difficult questions for example when he and many others claim that mind and body are different then how come anyone who experiences divine intervention always gets a message in the language he/she knows (which is in their mind) not in some totally different language? Why do they always blame our "imperfect senses" and then use the same senses for their divine experience? Do we have other tools other than these imperfect senses to experience and understand the world around us?

I found another link where again Javed Akhtar expresses similar views about spirituality at the India Today conclave session,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZnQ159u-iE 

In this video also he is raising the same questions and questioning the attitude of the whole spirituality industry.  Sri Sri Ravishankar (who was also part of this discussion) posted his reply to Mr. Akhtar's questions on his blog. I like Sri Sri, he never gets into arguments, never loses his patience, avoids confrontation, and is very polite in his approach. He always goes back to his own place and then replies to allegations or questions directed to him. He did the same when Dr. Zakir Naik tried to put him in a difficult position and he did the same thing with Mr. Akhtar. Sri Sri's politeness is something that everyone should learn from him but at the same time he also never tries to answer any of the questions directly and whenever he answers them uses the same words which are used millions of times, like there is no point in arguing with ignorant, spirituality is a matter of the heart not head, how something can be a hoax if millions of people are practicing it, and things like that. Unfortunately, this is the same regular response given by many people before him. I expected much more from him and we need much more from these spiritual leaders. They need to come up with something better than this to prove their point that they are selling something genuine.

There is nothing wrong with marketing and selling your product. Nothing wrong with earning money, creating big spiritual organizations, and spreading your message but then what's wrong with accepting that this is what I do for a living, this is my occupation. Why give a label of divinity to it? Why to say that it's not a business? Doing business is not a crime, that too a non-profit business that does a lot of social work along with earning money. What's wrong with making money legally using your talent and knowledge.  Why are they so hesitant to accept it? Why all these gurus and their followers are so hesitant to accept that their movements are cult movements?  Do they fear that accepting some of these things will make some dent in their image, hurt the feelings of their devotees, or make it somewhat less divine and godly? Are they scared of losing their devotees (or customers)? There are many questions like this and I hope that they show some courage in accepting some of these things or offer some reasonable and logical explanations, and answer some of these questions. Many people need religion, God, or spirituality. For many there is absolutely no alternative to these things and many of these Gurus and cult movements fulfill this need. These things are very important for many people and Mr. Akhtar's comments might sound totally insensitive towards their needs but the questions he is asking are very important. Just dismissing his questions and objections or ignoring them only proves him right.

These questions and objections need serious consideration. At the same time, one should not trash all these Gurus or movements, most of them do this thing for their living. It's their job or business. I am sure there are few who are genuinely interested in spreading the message of peace and love and don't care at all about money. Hopefully, people from both sides (who criticize and who support these movements) find some balance in their approach because we need balance in every section of our lives otherwise things get very complicated. Many people need such gurus for their survival and mental peace, at the same time people who question them are very necessary to keep check on these Guru's activities. I feel that both these groups are required in the current scenario and the right balance between both these groups will allow us to run the system efficiently with minimum side effects. 

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright (only for text, videos are from YouTube): Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

References:

1. http://thinkworks.in/about/

2. Link for text of Javed Akhtar's speech at India Today conclave

3. Sri Sri's response to Mr. Akhtar's speech