Who is today’s Ravana? What evil does man need to fight today?

Question: Acharya Ji, pranaam. We have seen movements led by great teachers like Kabir Sahib against numerous social issues like untouchability, caste system etc. Also, there have been many, like Guru Gobind Ji who fought battle against invaders in the epics. We have Pandavas against Kauravas in Mahabharat, Lord Krishna against Kans and Sri Rama against Ravana. So, what exactly, or who exactly, is the Ravana or Kans of this age, this century? Against whom we must constantly fight in the external world?

Acharya Prashant: Good question, Sandeep. Sandeep, the enemies in the outer world where easier to identify until now. But today, we are standing at a very unique point in history. Until today, the enemy used to be a person, a group, a system, an army that would oppress the commoners. So, it was a spottable, identifiable enemy. There would be a few who would be the exploiters and the masses would be at the receiving end. Today the situation is very different. Man has conquered the external world like never before. The earth has been conquered, the animals, the trees have been conquered long back. The waters have been conquered, space has been conquered, diseases have been conquered. It is surmised that before the end of the century, we may have immortal human beings. In some material way, death too has been conquered.

Man today has unrecalled and devastating power over his surroundings. Within a few decades, it would be possible for man to blow up the entire planet earth and go and settle on another colonized moon or planet. Mans space vehicles are already reaching far and, in a few centuries, or maybe in a few millennia, they would start travelling to the farthest corners to which travel is possible. What remains then to be conquered? The entire animal kingdom is shivering in trepidation. And obviously we are talking about only those animal species that still remain. The others have not only been won by us, but actually obliterated long back. Pathogens, all the little microscopic beings, they too are more or less at our mercy. Some of them are still waging their little petulant battles, but obviously they are doomed to be defeated. Even some mosquitoes are turning resistant to annihilatory chemicals, but their defiance is defeat foretold.