Religion
By JIRARA
© JIRARA, October 2020
Published by JIRARA on matrubharti.com
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Disclaimer: This is the work of fiction as far as all the characters, their names and the names of all the events are concerned and all these are imaginary and hence any resemblance to the persons (and their lives) dead or alive, and any places are coincidental. Even if a few events might look realistic/’real’, these are fictionalised and the associated names are changed in order to maintain their privacy, honour, and security. No intention whatsoever is meant to hurt any feelings of whosoever, irrespective of their personal/cultural beliefs, social or political inclinations, religion-orientations/practicing/philosophy, life styles, and work/business. The ‘I’, ‘my’, ‘me’, and ‘mine’ (if any used) do not necessarily mean the author of this book, and these and other such pronouns: her, hers, his, he, she, him, you, your, yours, ours, theirs…; are used for effective personification and dramatization, and the readers should not take these on their ‘own persons’. The readers should take these stories/verses/thoughts with/in good spirit. The presented ideas and material are based, where feasible, on readings and (thought-) analyses of scientific/other open literature (which seemed most profound and trustworthy), with as much care as possibly taken. The readers are requested to verify these notions on their own, and use their own discretion. However, these stories/verses/thoughts/ideas (mostly original) are expressed here with an intention of increasing awareness of the readers with a hope that in an overall sense, their (and ours) consciousness would be heightened (in all and multiple directions), so that we all can live our lives on this planet with true happiness, ever-lasting peace and real joy (irrespective of our orientations). The author and the publisher will not be responsible for any negative effects/situations arising as a result of reading these stories/verses and/or following the suggestions if any. No discussions/dispute of any kind will be entertained at any time and in any way, manner, and/or forum. JIRARA.
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Preamble: The views expressed here on the subject of religion are of my own.
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Religion
In fact “religion is belief in a god/gods (including goddesses) and the activities that are connected with this belief, such as praying/worshiping, in (inside of) a building such as a temple, church or mosque”.
However, from the most common sense point-of-view, the religion should be practiced by an individual in his/her personal precincts, and it is not and should NOT be any display of these personal practices in public (especially when these congregations disturb, with screaming loud music, the peace of the environs, peoples’ sleep, students’ studies, and road blocks, etc.). The main reason is that the belief in ‘God’ (‘Creator’) is one’s own personal choice, and it should be kept as such. No individual how great s/he might be, has any authority/right to force other individuals to believe in one or the other ‘God’ of his (that is ‘authority’s) choice: all the people of the world have right to choose their own ‘God’, and worship him/her. Whenever this freedom is snatched away from the peace loving and innocent people, it has put black stains on the humanity; and to that extent we are not evolving to become super humans; we remain in lower steps of ladders of spirituality, meaning we are far from reaching total peace, and godhood of love.
When the religion is brought to the crowd (and in open), then it gets contaminated with the mentality of the crowd; whatever might be the intension of the crowd puller; then the purest form of the religion gets coloured and this further gets maligned. It does not then remain a benign form of pure worship to the chosen deity.
The main purpose of following a particular religion is to obtain peace of mind, by practicing whatever procedures and rituals are prescribed by that chosen path of the religion. In most cases, these rituals overgrow the common sense of the wisdom, and then these very ritualistic practices that are originally for calming the minds of people, become instruments of hurting the very practisers. Then, it is not a true religion at all, it is just a methodology to suppress the freedom of the individuals, this freedom is guaranteed by the law. Unfortunately, even the official protectors of the law of the land, and law makers themselves get into the rut, and become instruments of disharmony in the society; these so called half-hearted, and half-trained preachers escape any punishment; because they believe they are above the law. Then, the real purpose and the aim of the religion are lost under the carpet.
When any religion becomes a practice of tyranny, the truth and character of humanity are tarnished beyond repair; the psychology, and sentiments of the affected people are considerably damaged and their pride of belonging to the country of their origin is tremendously hurt. In this case religion does not serve an iota of purpose of bringing peace to the people at large.
The need of religion comes fundamentally from the belief in ‘God’, which was/is invented by the very humans who were not sure of hundreds of things happening to them, and in their surroundings. The uncertain minds of humans get solace in this concept and belief, and then thousands of stories are woven around these ‘Gods’ and propagated throughout the ages all over the world; the creators and authors of these myths can and should be regarded as highly intelligent and very imaginative writers of such literatures, and might qualify to be awarded some Nobel prizes! Here, the emotional minds of the people are at work, and not the judgemental ones.
In fact, in one eastern philosophy it is said that the ‘knowledge yagna, gnyan yoga’ is the highest kind of practice of the religion, which removes the ignorance from our minds. Many followers practice the conventional rituals (monotonously and mechanically) without giving much of a scientific thought, whether these practices are really required or not; and that we keep spending lots of efforts, time, and even money; and in many cases we remain in the state of false sense of security. In an overall sense their spiritual index might not have enhanced even a little bit.
In following some such religion practices, some often forget about their rational intellects, and rational thinking, and become cynical to a level, as if they are the greatest and purest devotees of the ‘God’, and others are ‘useless’ people. This is the height of the ‘foolishness’ of these self-proclaimed protectors of the ‘God’ and the religion. In fact nobody has given any right to them to behave like this, in fact they did not have any other sensible works (and training) to do, and with scanty knowledge of some tenets of the religion, they found an easy path to follow some dogmas and learnt an art of deceiving the followers by giving assurance of heaven to them, if this gullible public followed the paths dictated by these bigots. Such contrived practices all over the world have become a ‘series of cults’, and people rush to follow these to get fast rise to the status of ‘God’, and in many such cases the followers lost their peace of minds, and even lost their lives; a permanent redemption (my musing) to the abode of ‘Gods’!!!
In fact, religion is the origin of one’s duty to him/herself or to the others to attain the peace of mind. It is a pious performance to the self, by being kind and benevolent to others. It is not any aggrandisement and grabbing of wealth in the name of ‘God’, it is not in any ‘killings’ and cheatings of the innocents followers. It is not in deceiving the devotees. Even it is not demanding from the Gods and Goddesses of any favours and services for the benefits of one’s personal self. And it is not at all any business and commerce as often seen in many places of worship, in many parts of the world.
According to me, any religion is an eternity that might have salvaged the humanity from the jungli-ness of the few humans, from the man’s inhumanity to just a simple man; why then give to it any colour: social, or political?
It is unfortunate that this real meaning of religion is not properly understood by many of us. In this modern world the humanity has made tremendous progress, and yet we have given many colours to the benign religion: a) social, b) political, c) language, and d) affluence; and in the name of religion/s and/or gods there are people in this world who would not hesitate to eliminate others, who these self-declared protectors of the religion believe, are atheists. This a bane of the human society, wherein all the children of ‘Gods’ have equal rights to live, prosper and attain peace of minds.
It is not at all ascertained so far, that the believers, have brought more succour and more peace to the societies, than the ‘non-believers’ have ‘not’ brought the peace. According to me, the science has answered many more questions of the humanity, than any or all the religions of the world put together.
Any peaceful practice of any religion by one and all with an underlying sense of spreading the virtue of kindness and compassion is far more honourable than any other kind of thought about these religions. This is very difficult to practice, but one and all should aim for this goal.
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