In Calcutta under the name of mother Durga,
they kill,
sacrifice so many goats.
Is it worth it?
How many chickens,
how many roosters are killed in order to get a son?
You know there is a puja
in South India to get a son
and for that a very specific
puja is done.
They kill half a dozen roosters,
eleven or twelve.
There is a specific number to it.
It has again a psychological impact
that you are
hating a girl child and
you want only a boy child
and then you sacrifice
so many animals
for your desire
and then if you end up
getting a girl,
what happens
to your psychological treatment
to the incoming girl?
You will not like it.
And all these vibrations
are caught
in the atmosphere,
it affects your whole family.
In fact families can be destroyed
because of the curses
and the vibrations left behind
by the sacrificed animals.
See,
even today
in Calcutta
under the name of mother Durga they kill,
sacrific so many goats.
Is it worth it?
You are supposed to sacrifice
the dearest thing
that you have.
You know there is a beautiful story.
The Lord came in a dream
to Ibrahim
and told him,
“Sacrifice your most cherished
object that you have
in your family to me
and I will grant
you all your wishes”.
Right or wrong
he kept on thinking about
what is the dearest thing in my life?
He said my son
is the dearest.
And he took his son
on a mountain
and tried to sacrifice [him].
And then the voice came,
“Don't do that.
I was just trying to test you”,
and then says, “instead of that do something else.”
It was only to satisfy him,
satisfy his actions,
that something smaller will do.
You see.
Sacrificing what?
Sacrificing
animals or
God is desiring,
God is wishing that sacrifice your weaknesses?
Sacrifice your defects.”
Kill them,
kill your weaknesses in front of me
and see how happy
you become.
Your family can become.”
For example
if you have this killer desire
of getting
violent,
angry,
extremely greedy,
desire which prevails with passion
and you have the inclination to rape someone
if not by act,
but atleast in your mind.
Kill all these things.
That's why
our first step in Ashtanga yoga is all about
killing
all the negatives.
And all the negatives,
if you see,
violence, grabbing things,
hoarding things
are animalistic tendencies.
So if you have to really sacrifice something,
sacrifice your own weaknesses
instead of sacrificing something else.
Right? Imagine from some 'X' galaxy,
half a dozen aliens
came here on planet Earth
and they say, “We need about
one million humans
to sacrifice on our planet.”
Who would volunteer?
No one will volunteer. Right?
So you think, put yourself
in the same situation as animals,
who cannot speak, who cannot express.
Are you doing the right thing?
And let us see, you study.
Thousands of
cows have been sacrificed,
goats have been sacrificed,
roosters have been sacrificed, all kinds,
even humans are sacrificed
in some countries in certain tribes,
and you did that with a specific purpose. Right?
Was that purpose fulfilled? Study it.
Like, when you take medicine.
I have a headache,
I take paracetamol,
okay fine.
Was my headache cured?
If the headache was cured,
paracetamol worked.
Fine..
Rain is not coming,
you are not getting a son
or you are not becoming
a Crorepati (Having 10 million rupees),
things like that.
Or someone who has cancer
and his cancer
is not getting cured.
So in all these situations
they sacrifice animals.
Did it work?
I told one of my friends, you know,
he was suffering,
suffering with
some sort of, lack of money,
he was very poor.
And I told him why don't you open up a temple,
you will make a lot of money.
He said,
“How so?” “Look,
people who go to temples
go with a purpose.
They go with a fulfillment of a desire.”
Right?
You toss a coin,
either it will be a head or a tail.
Most of the time you know, it’s 50-50.
The same thing happens in temples.
Fifty percent whose
desire was to have that head,
they say, Oh deity is so good.
They spend all the money in the world,
“My desire has been fulfilled.
The girl whom I wanted to marry,
she said yes”,
and that temple
becomes heaven for them,
see.
Satisfier of all your desires.
Fifty percent who did not get
their wishes fulfilled,
they will say maybe I did something wrong.
And they don't
speak loudly about it,
because
they will say, “Oh I did not succeed
because there is something wrong with me.
I must have done
some sinful things”.
Take for example Tirupati.
Congress leaders go there,
BJP leaders go there,
TMC leaders go there,
TRS leaders go there,
all politicians go there before elections.
But who wins?
Only one candidate, right?
A candidate who wins
will flourish this temple,
help the temple to flourish actually,
with so much of goodness.
Others,
they will say “Maybe I did some 'papam'”
and they don't
want to be exposed and say,
“I forgive you God”.
Same thing happens with animal sacrifices.
It is total foolishness,
ignorance.
People are still
in the dark ages
and they believe
in such superstition
which is so wrong.
It is exposing
lack of wisdom on their part.
In some societies,
I would say, even the most
educated people
in certain societies, I would say,
in communities,
they do all these things
and it makes you wonder,
are we advancing
as humanity?
People used to sacrifice
all kinds of things in the past.
Is it worth it?
So I don't feel
and I strongly say that
such superstitions should be
prohibited legally
because they serve
no purpose.
No purpose whatsoever.
When it comes to it,
can it spoil your spiritual progress?
You think about it.
When you kill someone,
will you progress?
Coincidentally,
your wish may be fulfilled
but that is just a coincidence.
But hurting someone
for your own gain,
you can never progress.