Do we need a religion?
One friend recently posed this question and said there is no need of a religion. Most of us feel the same seeing the way the religion is used for narrowing our perspective and dividing people and their minds. I argue that religion is important in moderating the behavior of human beings. That it is being vulgarized and used for selfish motives is an altogether different issue.
Religion as such seeks to impart sense of what is good and what is bad from the society point of view. It may be argued that law and order mechanism too can take care of this. Externally imposed control mechanism such as police system often fails to deliver goods and cannot be expected to be fool proof. It’s costly too. But if good behavior is imbibed in the way of life of people, the same discipline can be achieved more precisely and with almost zero cost.
Concept of God, 'puny' (opposite of sin) and 'pap' (sin), hell, heaven, according to me are excellent and the most ingenious institutions put in place by the early generations. If we observe most of the socially useful work done by kings, zamindar’s and other rich people, it was not the result of their intention to benefit the public by spending 'their' money. It was almost always with the intention of securing their place in heaven. We remember good deeds of people of earlier generations and their name and fame continues. What can be better heavenly pleasure for them than their name permanently written in the minds of successive generations!
According to the Hindu religion, the ultimate goal each individual is to attain nirvana, which is escaping from the 'Janma Parampara' or cycle of rebirths. In other word, the goal is to achieve 'oneness' with God. 'Satsang' (meeting with good natured people) is recommended as an effective community approach for attaining individual salvation. It should not be difficult to understand then that the community approach adopted by political or religious groups in organizing Morchas or Yatras, are devoid of the 'sat' element. Hence, these efforts cannot be construed as religious. In fact, they are anti-religious. In no religion, this type of group efforts must have been recommended. If any organization interprets so, it should be treated as terrorist outfit and not a religious one.
One more aspect to the practice of any religion is that over time, all religions without exception have been polluted by selfish elements and the very basic tenets of the religion are masked by the malpractices. By seeing the practices one should not confuse and adversely comment on the religion. This problem is not new and that’s why within each religion, successive reformers attempted to cleanse the religion. If you see the Hindu religion itself, there emerged so many religious leaders like Adi Sankaracharya, Ramanujacharya, Madhwacharya and the like even before other religions came to our country. All of them attempted to reform and rejuvenate the Hindu religion. But peeling the rust off iron window grill of a sea-facing house is not a one time affair. We have to peel it off and paint it and after some time when paint is lost we have peel off rust again and repaint. When other religions entered India and started competing with the main stream Hinduism, other saints like Kabir, Sai Baba, Ramakrishna Paramahansa preached harmony and oneness of all religions- which is an absolute truth beyond doubt.
But the religion is used to divide people. Importance is given to increase the number of followers of a faith through coercion or use of money or through irresponsible (towards the country) procreation. All this pushes us close to the conclusion that religion should not be given importance and should be left to personal choice. Then uniform civil code, holidays for religious festivals, and similar religion linked practices like blocking traffic for religious processions too should go. This is just demand. No body should be asked to state his religion in any form for education, job or any other purpose. People should understand that country's well being is above the well being of any religion. Solving poverty and achieving economic progress are priorities and not Mandir or Masjid. National interest cannot be subordinated to the interest of any sectarian interest - either caste, religion or region.
When the world is marching ahead, instead of catching up with it, we in India are too busy with 'road blockers'. Countries like Korea, Malaysia, Singapore which were worse than India not so long ago in the past, are standing too tall at a formidable height.
ARISE, AWAKE, AND STOP NOT TILL THE GOAL IS REACHED - Swami Vivekananda
Courtesy: RJ Kovvali JS
(Thanks to Dilbans for some of the ideas)
Religion as such seeks to impart sense of what is good and what is bad from the society point of view. It may be argued that law and order mechanism too can take care of this. Externally imposed control mechanism such as police system often fails to deliver goods and cannot be expected to be fool proof. It’s costly too. But if good behavior is imbibed in the way of life of people, the same discipline can be achieved more precisely and with almost zero cost.
Concept of God, 'puny' (opposite of sin) and 'pap' (sin), hell, heaven, according to me are excellent and the most ingenious institutions put in place by the early generations. If we observe most of the socially useful work done by kings, zamindar’s and other rich people, it was not the result of their intention to benefit the public by spending 'their' money. It was almost always with the intention of securing their place in heaven. We remember good deeds of people of earlier generations and their name and fame continues. What can be better heavenly pleasure for them than their name permanently written in the minds of successive generations!
According to the Hindu religion, the ultimate goal each individual is to attain nirvana, which is escaping from the 'Janma Parampara' or cycle of rebirths. In other word, the goal is to achieve 'oneness' with God. 'Satsang' (meeting with good natured people) is recommended as an effective community approach for attaining individual salvation. It should not be difficult to understand then that the community approach adopted by political or religious groups in organizing Morchas or Yatras, are devoid of the 'sat' element. Hence, these efforts cannot be construed as religious. In fact, they are anti-religious. In no religion, this type of group efforts must have been recommended. If any organization interprets so, it should be treated as terrorist outfit and not a religious one.
One more aspect to the practice of any religion is that over time, all religions without exception have been polluted by selfish elements and the very basic tenets of the religion are masked by the malpractices. By seeing the practices one should not confuse and adversely comment on the religion. This problem is not new and that’s why within each religion, successive reformers attempted to cleanse the religion. If you see the Hindu religion itself, there emerged so many religious leaders like Adi Sankaracharya, Ramanujacharya, Madhwacharya and the like even before other religions came to our country. All of them attempted to reform and rejuvenate the Hindu religion. But peeling the rust off iron window grill of a sea-facing house is not a one time affair. We have to peel it off and paint it and after some time when paint is lost we have peel off rust again and repaint. When other religions entered India and started competing with the main stream Hinduism, other saints like Kabir, Sai Baba, Ramakrishna Paramahansa preached harmony and oneness of all religions- which is an absolute truth beyond doubt.
But the religion is used to divide people. Importance is given to increase the number of followers of a faith through coercion or use of money or through irresponsible (towards the country) procreation. All this pushes us close to the conclusion that religion should not be given importance and should be left to personal choice. Then uniform civil code, holidays for religious festivals, and similar religion linked practices like blocking traffic for religious processions too should go. This is just demand. No body should be asked to state his religion in any form for education, job or any other purpose. People should understand that country's well being is above the well being of any religion. Solving poverty and achieving economic progress are priorities and not Mandir or Masjid. National interest cannot be subordinated to the interest of any sectarian interest - either caste, religion or region.
When the world is marching ahead, instead of catching up with it, we in India are too busy with 'road blockers'. Countries like Korea, Malaysia, Singapore which were worse than India not so long ago in the past, are standing too tall at a formidable height.
ARISE, AWAKE, AND STOP NOT TILL THE GOAL IS REACHED - Swami Vivekananda
Courtesy: RJ Kovvali JS
(Thanks to Dilbans for some of the ideas)
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