​Terrorism threatens human life – what is the spiritual perspective on this?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
thank you through shastra and through shastra shastra and through shastra shastra is scripture is the books of wisdom and shastra is the weapons and both of them are used to protect so scripture protects people from ignorance from illusion from misconception and shastra protects from physical attacks so just like if you consider compare the body to society to the body then you know the head represents intelligence and arms represent strength so the brahmana are considered to be the head of the social body the kshatriyas are considered to be the hands and both are needed for a functioning body for a robust functioning body so like that for any society to be effective there has to be a combination of brahmanas and kshatriyas working together so the brahmanas work for intellectual protection proper education, removal of misconceptions helping people to learn the principles of living so in that sense the brahmanas provide for spiritual well-being and the kshatriyas are meant to provide for material well-being so every society needs to have both these limbs for functioning robustly and the terrorists as I said earlier are the opposite of kshatriyas rather than being protectors they are destroyers rather than acting in a principled way they act in a cowardly unprincipled way so the understanding from the scriptural perspective is that there is God and there is people’s there is people’s conception of God so these terrorists may say that we are fighting in the name of God but their God you could put God in double quotes their God is a projection of their own conceptions so their God is a God who hates the people whom they hate that is not the God who is the well-wisher of all living beings that is not the God who is the sustainer of all living beings so that God is simply a product of their own prejudice, their own imagination they may be fighting in the name of God but any idea or any conception it ultimately depends on who is using it even the best most sophisticated surgical instrument which can cut very precisely to heal even very difficult kind of different kind of problems in the body that same scalpel can be used to kill so knowledge of God and devotion to God they are actually meant to elevate people but when religion is misused as a tool for as a tool for for rationalizing one’s own ego for rationalizing one’s own agendas then religion can become a very destructive force so it is not religion that is destructive it is rather the mentality of the people who are using that religion for their own purposes that is destructive so from the spiritual perspective from the Bhagavata’s perspective it is described there are three gunas sattva guna, rajo guna and tamo guna mode of goodness, mode of passion and mode of ignorance these three modes are basically three different ways of looking at the world and the same object can be seen very differently by people who are in different modes so when people are in tamo guna when people are in sattva guna they see religion as a means for elevating one’s knowledge, elevating one’s consciousness when people are in passion they see religion as a means for increasing one’s own prestige if I am in a religious society then if I show the world that I am religious then people will respect me especially in India there are politicians who come to the temples especially in festivals not to take darshan but to give darshan they want photo opportunities I am such a good person I came to this temple so their religion is simply a tool for prestige it is not a means for approaching God and when one is in the mode of ignorance religion becomes a tool for destruction I use my religion to rationalize my heartlessly attacking and killing others so from the scriptural perspective this is a perversion of the role of Kshatriyas and a complete perversion of the purpose of religion so we do need vigilant protection so vigilant protection with weapons against such aggressors at the same time some people are incorrigible they are just lost in their own misconceptions they just have to be disciplined and punished but there are others who may be more open to be educated and so where Shastra works to elevate people’s consciousness that is excellent that is the best way but there are people for whom Shastra will not work they are just too caught in their own ideas so for them Shastra is required so that combination of head and hands of scripture and weapons both are required for the protection of society