Religion
As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.
Many of us repeat the above lines in one or the other way or have atleast said it once in our life time in one form or the other. I read it in Swami Vivekananda’s famous address to World Parliament of Religions.
The moment we hear the word religion, we start thinking Hindus, Muslims, Christians and what not..!! But do we remember the meaning of the word Religion? Have we ever taken it as a word rather than a Debate tool? Have we ever taken it as it was meant to be taken?
Religion’s prime meaning is belief in God- the Almighty. But today it has become a word primarily to deliver discriminating views (And I am saying this irrespective of any religion!).
It is okay to use words to differentiate groups of people but it is never okay to use them to discriminate them.
I remember a short story:
A couple is driving towards their native village during a dramatically tensed condition. Suddenly they come across religious fanatics who are willing to kill anyone who is not of religion X. They stop the couple and ask them to recite a few lines from the sacred book of religion X. The man does it and to the surprise of the woman, the fanatics let them go. Actually the couple was following religion Y and recited the lines from the sacred book of religion Y. when the wife asks her husband how did the fanatics let them go, the man replied, “The fanatics never knew anything about any religion and neither had they read any sacred book. If they had, they would never had choose this path.”
This indeed is a story but it really has a very deep meaning. Usually we do such silly things on the name of religion that are quite contradictory to what our religions teach us.
The history has noted that whenever something happens against men’s will or hurts the EGO, men has always used religion as a cloak and levied his ideas or beliefs wearing the cloak of humanity and religion.
We complain about religious inequalities, unfair practices and such other things but have we ever thought who created it? Who promotes it? May be the answer will hurt me, it will hurt each of us, but alas! The answer is me, you, and us…
We all know a proverb, Charity begins at home. We know that to gain something, we need to sacrifice something.
To gain equality and to rise above this religion thing, we need to sacrifice one thing. And that is our EGO.
I remember a story from Swami Vivekananda’s famous speech:
Once there lived a frog in a well. It was born and bought up in the well. It had never seen the world outside the well and thought the well to be his world. One day a frog from a nearby sea somehow landed in the well. They both started discussing things. At a point the frog from the well asked the other one, “Is your sea as big as the well?” The other frog smiled and replied, “Oh yes. In fact it would be utter nonsense to compare the vastness of the sea with this well.” To this the frog from the well replied grinning, “Oh don’t lie. I know there is nothing bigger than this well.” At which the other frog laughed. This made the frog from the well too angry and he shouted, “You know nothing and you ought to be thrown out of this well. Get lost.”
Aren’t we behaving like the frog from the well in case of religions? I say the well of Islam is bigger. The Hindu says his well of Hinduism is bigger. The Christian says his well of Christianity is bigger. But we need to come out and put aside our wells and try to swim in the sea of the almighty lord.
We want our religion to be bigger but never try to make humanity bigger nor do we wish for the same. We ask for the wellbeing and prosperity of ourselves and our families but how many of us ask for the prosperity of the whole man kind? It’s not my cup of tea anyway... Right??
Social media has added to our woes and hardships on account of religion rather than promoting humanity and brotherhood.
I got a message on a social messaging app a while ago. It stated a very good idea:
Are you a Muslim and pissed off about abuses hurled at you? Are you a Hindu and pissed off about racist comments? Do you think the country has suddenly become so intolerant and dangerous to live in? There’s a very easy solution, just switch off your internet connection for a few days and there you are. Merry as ever away from all such worries.
The message is indeed truly correct. We just worsen up things over social media. Men has progressed a lot over the time. We have so many inventions and discoveries for ourselves. But one main thing that is lacking is the knowledge for proper use of our advancements and technologies.
The atom bomb came from the head which gave the most useful laws and inventions to mankind. If only we had the knowledge to use the outcomes of human brain properly, we wouldn’t have digressed this much.
There has been much fight over the evolution of religions but the Almighty and the human have always been remained like two parallel lines: they never start and they never end but always exist side by side, just look around to find him.
Every man, every religion has some positives and negatives, like a coin has two sides. We need to take positive from everyone and this is the way mankind will sustain.
Religion and Politics
Let us just take a look around the corner, a sneak peak on religion and politics.
As we all know that since we could recall, religion and politics have somehow been related all this while. Somewhere it would be no exaggeration if I say that many a time politics was induced or generated out of friction between religions.
Talking specifically about India, politics has been played all the while on religions. Words like vote banks refer indirectly to an area with influence of particular religion/s. Vote bank word itself smells biased and unjust, especially for any democratic republic country.
Media is said to be the most effective and important tool for democracy, for citizens of a democratic republic country like India.
Unfortunately, during pre-election or post-election or any political discussion, even on the national electronic and print media one would hear/see/read the word vote bank. It seems one of the most common word in the politics of the republic democratic of India.
People get offended if you do not stand up during the recitation of the national anthem but freely speak and discuss disgusting words like vote banks.
We all know the tensed situation that arises when we point out something wrong related to religion or politics. But we never try to confront the truth. Even when we all know the truth very well.
If you are reading this part of the article then I would praise the editors and publishers at MatruBharti for taking a step towards true democracy and away from the well of religions towards the sea of unity.
Lately, it is the power of thinking, deciding and judging that makes men the supreme creature and best creation of God. So we must learn to tolerate and understand each other.
A last example: There are two parallel lines, a big and a small. If I need to make the smaller line bigger what would I do? Erase the bigger line? But the best solution is to make the smaller line big by drawing another line from one of its end.
Similarly rather than putting down each other’s religion, we can just lift humanity and mankind above religion. It’s simple as that…
Let us all try to come out of our wells and swim in the vast sea of the Almighty. May he shower his choicest blessings upon us all and guide us from darkness to light.
