I get dreams to act violently against Muslims – what should I do?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So if you feel aversion to say Muslims because of at one level they are physically aggressive and they do terrorist activities. Also, some Muslims are intellectually aggressive and they misrepresent the Vedic literature.
So if we sometimes get violent dreams about attacking them or whatever. So how do we deal with this dislike and this thought pattern? Our mind itself is not very easily controllable. The mind’s emotions can come because of various stimulations.
And when they come, we, even if we tell them, we don’t say, I don’t want to feel like this, that doesn’t help much because the emotion is already there. What we can choose is our response to that emotion. So Krishna says, No.
He says that in the senses, in the sense objects, particular senses for particular sense objects, attachment and aversion is already situated in them. It’s already there. But Krishna says, Don’t come under their control.
Why? These are obstacles. Paripantha, actually pari means thieves. Pantha means the path.
So Vishwanath Chakrathakur explains that, this is 3.34, that on the path of spiritual advancement, attachment and aversion are like thieves. Thieves that will steal our consciousness away. Like a person who is travelling and has some wealth.
Thieves may steal away that wealth. So like bandits or decoys will do that. So it’s like that for us.
So the attachment and aversion are there and they will go away gradually by purification. But while they are there, we don’t come under their control. That means that we have to see that there are certain default reactions which I have, but then also there are certain principles according to which I want to live.
So I will make sure that at least my emotions don’t lead to actions. That’s the first thing. Second is that then I try to process the emotions.
What caused this emotion? Is it that these emotions are because of certain experiences we have had? One of the simplest definitions of prejudice or bias is that we make a broad generalization from a small sample. Our experiences are for real. Like this devotee who told me certain uncomplimentary things about Muslims.
He was from Sindh province and he had actually seen violence happen. Not he himself had seen, but his parents had told him about that. So partition was a very brutal time.
So he had his experiences. But objectively speaking if we consider in today’s world almost every fourth person is a Muslim. So if all Muslims were violent, the world would be a hellish place already.
It’s not that most people they practice religion because they want to make sense of life and they want to have some higher power. At least they want to have that feeling that they want to have some higher power assisting them in their life. So if we see आत्मो पमियेन सर्वत्र समं पश्चिति ओर्जिना सुखंबायिदिवा दुख्षं सयोगि पर्ममतः Krishna says the topmost yogi in 6.32 is one who can see the essential similarity of all living beings.
So yes, certain people may be belonging to certain religion but at their core they are also souls. And they also have the same human aspirations that everyone else has. Some of them, maybe a large number of them also.
The exact number is debatable. But the thing is that there are some who may be violent and maybe their religion also has a history of a lot of violence. But still we have to see that from the perspective of the modes.
There are people in goodness, passion and ignorance. And there are Muslims who are in the mode of goodness also. I have a Muslim friend who told me once that it’s easier for me to talk with moderates of other traditions than extremists of my own tradition.
So moderates are broadly in Satrughna. The extremists are in Rajoguna. And if the extremists, the hardline is that they become violent, they are going to Tamoguna.
So the extremists say that this is the only way and if you don’t follow this way you are going to go to hell. That is the hardline. The extremists say, not only are you going to go to hell, we will send you there faster.
So we have to see that there are people in goodness also. And we may have had experience of people in passion and ignorance. So we try to process the emotion through intellectual analysis and then try to make sure that the emotion is not disproportionate.
Somebody has hurt us, we have had bad experience, naturally some response will be there because of that. But it shouldn’t become excessive. It shouldn’t become generalized.
As far as fantasies of violence are concerned, they just come, if you don’t entertain them, they will go away. To some extent, we all have, what shall we say, there is lust and anger in everyone. And if you see in movies, thousands of people or millions of people see some stunts.
You know, one hero beating up 10 people, 15 people, 20 people, 100 people, whatever. How many people actually emit it in real life? Very, very few. Some people may do it, but it’s exceptional.
So same way, so then what happens is that that attraction to violence that is there because of the anger, because of the tamoguna present within us, that is played out on the movie screen. And then by seeing that, by enjoying that, there is some satisfaction. It’s not necessary that will lead to action.
If the person has a violent disposition already, then seeing that violence may give you new ideas how I should do violence. But if the person doesn’t have that violent disposition, it’s not that just by seeing that person will get it. So if the violent fantasies are coming, if we don’t act on it, they will just come, they will stay for some time, they will go.
It is quite common, I would say, among people who are very strongly involved in some kind of religious divides or not religious, some kind of regional conflicts. So I know devotees who are Jews, and even now if they meet somebody who is German, they have difficulty in dealing with them because their grandparents have been killed or great-grandparents have been killed. So that’s just natural.
But then over a period of time they get to know each other. And Sachinath Maharaj is German, Radhanath Maharaj is a Jew. And both of them are good friends.
So at an advanced level, those things don’t matter so much. But I think Radhanath Maharaj also said this, Sachinath Maharaj’s grandfather was actually a fighter in the Nazi army. And Radhanath Maharaj’s grandmother from this side was actually killed by the Nazis.
So it’s not just two parties, but actually there has been that direct confrontation in the ancestry has also been there. But over a period of time we transcend that. There’s no need to be disturbed about the violent fantasies.
Just come, we don’t entertain them too much. They come, they go. And you can try to, if they keep coming again and again, too frequently.
If they keep coming too frequently, then you may just want to channel them spiritually by reading some of Krishna’s pastimes. The Mahabharata, Adhra Mayan, the pastimes of war that are there over there. That is described over there.
The Bhagavatam also, just read that. That will get satisfied. And over a period of time, unless you act on it, it’s not going to worsen.
So basically anger is an indicator that something is important for us. A bias or a negative dislike is an indicator that something is incompatible over here. So there is a conditioned vision.
There is a philosophical vision. So we need to gradually come from the conditioned vision into the philosophical vision. So, if it is a serious issue, then you can read some books.
There are 2-3 devotees who have written books about similarities between Vaishnavism and Islam. You may want to read that, just to see that. There is good over there also.
All that good may not be so easily manifest, but it is there. So it depends. Sometimes some emotions, they are circumstantial or peripheral.
You just neglect them, they go away. Or they just stay at a dormant level. But sometimes they just become too strong.
Then we have to specifically address them. You see how it works. Most of the time it doesn’t.
If it’s not troubling you too much, then just neglect it, it will go away. That’s the best way. Ok.