Recorded at the Vedanta Society of Western Washington on May 28, 2017.

In this lecture, Swami Bhaskarananda examines superstition as belief in something that has not been proved true and surveys the many forms it can take in religious, social, political, scientific, medical, and spiritual life. He traces changing ideas about heaven and hell, deities, the devil, auspicious and inauspicious times, astrology, and palmistry to illustrate how beliefs once regarded as true may later be displaced by new understanding. Drawing on Swami Vivekananda's teaching that humanity progresses from lower truth to higher truth, he argues that rational thought, experience, and trustworthy testimony are essential for overcoming superstition. He extends this principle to social assumptions about racial, ethnic, or cultural superiority and to political ideologies, emphasizing that distinctions created by human beings should not obscure the Vedantic teaching that the same divinity is present in everyone.

The second half of the lecture considers how scientific and medical ideas also change as knowledge advances, using developments in theories of matter, electricity, malaria, and influenza as examples. Swami Bhaskarananda then turns to what he calls humanity's deepest spiritual superstition: identification of the true Self with the body, senses, vital energy, mind, and ego. Since these are experienced as things one possesses, he argues, they cannot constitute the ultimate Self. Drawing on the Vedantic declarations Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma, Aham Brahmasmi, and Tat Tvam Asi, he explains that the highest truth is the divinity of all existence and that complete freedom from superstition comes only through realization of this nondual reality. Until such realization is attained, he recommends rational inquiry, personal experience, and reliance upon trustworthy sources as practical means of moving from lower understanding toward higher truth.