IF I COULD SHOOT RELIGION WITH ITS GOD

IF I COULD SHOOT RELIGION WITH ITS GOD
More than half of the world may say that giving religion to the world was the wisest thing done by the men from history. Sometimes I couldn’t refrain from the temptation of this loaded statement and have said yes with the crowd. The idea I had about it was in a denominations of fractions mathematically. I didn’t know religion but I knew which god to pray. I knew to go in a temple to pray but not in a mosque or a monastery. And I didn’t know what religion had to do with so many people but I knew that when majorities of hands are raised for something it’s safer to lift my hands too. I was taught that way and I followed it sincerely.

I grew up and grew older with time. I grew wiser and foolish at the same time. I confronted two different persons inside me but failed to differentiate the wise and the fool. The World was my frame of observation. All my trials of judgement turned futile as I repeatedly failed to figure out the wise and the fool. I bought time for long and finally opened my eyes to a new found truth.

I found that I am not bicameral like U.S senate or like the equation of government-opposition system of Indian parliament. I am one and two different individual cannot exist inside me; the wise and the fool at the same time. This illusion rests in the simple fact that I viewed myself and all the other things from the prism of this world which consists of me, you, them, and all the miseries and prejudices. Now I walk faster ahead of myself to see who I am and it gives me pleasure to know that the wrinkles on my forehead tells my story of chasing wisdom. I am a wiser and better man than before. The boy I was has escaped the ablution of this predator world to become a good man!...doubtful??

Now when I ponder over the thoughts of this world appreciating, applauding and endorsing the achievements of religion in humanity I can’t refrain from doubting its very own foundation. I travel back to my past to pull my hands down which was once raised to promote religion. I am afraid to see that the damage it has done is way more profound and widespread than its celebrated achievements. To see its destructive forces it is not necessary to take refuge in the facts, figures and statistics of religious catastrophes but to simply observe ourselves, our thought process, our prejudices, other people like our family, friends, colleagues, enemies, their lives, their thinking, their likes and dislikes, their choices, their opinion and their feelings on religion. It gave me a sinking feeling when I found their beguiled realities veiled in their soul which is extremely disparaging.

Our mind and feelings speak all of it loud. We are not at all free from religious prejudices how much ever we deny. It is like a parasite which doesn’t leave. It is present in our shortest of sayings, smallest of actions and deepest of feelings. It has ingrained in our everyday life without much hassle and has become a staple food for thought. I see the thought of religious difference in my neighbour’s 7 year old boy, I see it in his eyes, I see it in the priest taking his rounds in a temple or a fakir, a monk doing his service in a mosque or a monastery, I see it in my best friend, my mentor, my locality, my city and in my family. Everyone is infected where I shall run. I can’t look for solace in solitude as I am also infected and carry the parasite too.

These ill feelings, prejudices, religious differences do not always culminate in a communal clash, fight or religious tension. It also does not mean necessarily that all the people with such sentiments are bad human beings and a danger to the society. It’s just that we have become accustomed to such living and we don’t consider it wrong. This is the trajectory of our manner of reconciliation with religious intolerance and we call it secularism. This is not healthy and beneath it lays the most unseen danger of humanity. A quite danger which resides in silence of our sophisticated but ignorant lives. This danger may not manifest itself as ugly faces of war between two nations of different religious principles, communal riots or disharmony in the near future but as a disturbance to individual inner peace, enlightenment, relationship, love, respect, friendship, self harmony, conditioning of mind, attaining wisdom, and self realization. These effects are immediate and it multiplies billion folds by captivating human minds all across the world. That makes it the most fatal of all the possible dangers of any kind. And sooner or later all the resentments and disharmony of these infinite people will certainly culminate into the most catastrophic times of humankind. Moreover an old adage says that ‘peace in the world much depends on an individual’s peace with himself’.

To illustrate the point I would like to share an incident that happened with me. I was on a college trip to Goa with my college friends. It was the beginning of the year and all were in elated moods. Much to the demand of the crew we decided not to leave any of the known places and beaches unexplored. The legendary St. Francis Xavier of Assisi church in Goa and some age old temples were our final stop by’s after an exhausting weeklong visit across the wilderness of beaches. Everyone in the crew were bonded together like glue to each other, giggling and celebrating every moment until the time when few decided not to go to the temple. The reason, the same old thing; it’s not a good place for me and I am not supposed to go there. I don’t belong to this religion. Happy faces turned pale, suspicious, and cynical. Groups were formed and resentment made its way swiftly across our sentiments. Though nothing much happened after but the trip did not end in a good spirit.

I did not question the act as I have no authority but it left a deep impact in my thinking. People from my known circle acted in a silly way I had never imagined. They are educated and from established cross section of the society supposed to guide the ignored and the underprivileged but when such thoughtless action were delivered from their kitty, situation looked bleaker than ever. When smallest of such actions can send repercussions to the vulnerable sentiments of human hearts for a long time to come, how we can imagine of any peace at the first place. One such act dissolves all the goodness, harmony and camaraderie between people known to each other from years. It divides heart and brings distances. Years of togetherness ends and forgotten by one whimsical act. This is the misery of religion and to me it is unacceptable that religion is the best gift to humanity.

If all of us look at our own pasts and can recall every moment when we had ever praised a religion to be superior, ever advocated for it, ever denied a friendship for religious difference, ever belittled someone for it, ever refrain from helping, ever felt our feet stopped by a religious meanness or even for once harboured the feeling of religious bigotry in our thoughts, remember, each of those times we have documented a crime in our own little means. Each of those times we have resurrected a wall on our way to self illumination. And knowingly or unknowingly we have contributed to a bad cause. The feeling of belonging to any religion is also an act of crime, from it projects all the prejudices, attachments and destruction.
This is not religion. It never taught to divide and isolate. It would be too shallow to live with a misinterpreted meaning of religion. While the misread notion of religion is stopping a father from accepting or considering the love of his son or daughter, making a lover to give up on love, stopping two neighbours from communicating, indulging nations in wars, making someone bereft from his basic needs, creating hierarchy, creating divisions, dividing friends, and creating chasm in mankind, the eternal meaning and purpose of religion looks antediluvian. Sometimes I wonder thinking about the overwhelming responses that will make me numb when these fundamentalists, religious proponents and hypocrites would be asked to define religion. What they say will not change religion but it will certainly change and misguide minds.

As far as I have understood religion I think it is simple to comprehend and can be described in a simplest way. Please remember, I am not giving a new definition to religion but I am debunking what religion is told to be.” Religion is not something that gives you comfort, security and happiness by crying the eulogy of someone. If you dedicate all your mind, understanding and native intelligence to some name, some God or whatever then what is left for you. It is no less than slavery. Then why do you live at the first place. You become a puppet of mid day hypnosis. Be a light to yourself and guide your own path. Don’t go by your instincts, your memory or your experiences as they are all projections of your thoughts which are the product of your past. Simply observe your mind and its nature without any influences of past, thought, prejudices or anything of any kind. The decision it makes then is your religion and that is right.” It is not so easy though. It needs great penetration, complete concentration and observation. It may sound utterly stupid but much descent and thoughtful than the publicly accepted, so called stupendous religion. This is how I would like to understand religion in simplest words.

Just like a shepherd would never misguide his sheep, a sound, fresh and active mind can never misguide itself to a wrong action. But Religion does it. I show my love to Krishna or Jesus, Allah, Buddha or whatever, and then it sends resentments to another person who differs in his choice of God. Then the same old story follows. What a silly thing it is. How great is religion...damned religion! It is biased and racist....

We do good things and pray God hoping that we will get something good from him as reward or he won’t let us burn in the ‘Lake of fire (hell)’. We do all the sins in life and finally take his refuge for the fear that we will be punished and we can’t reach heaven after death. It’s all insecurity, desire and fear in the end. That defines our existence haaan?.....What a miserable circle of thoughts and principle we are surrounded with. Men from history did their greatest mistake in making religion and all its Gods. God himself must be ashamed of what has been made out of him.
I openly debunk all of it. I don’t belong to any of them. I don’t know their principles, don’t follow their guidelines and don’t listen to their lies. I just belong to me and I wish to live and die without any titles on me.

I wish I could shoot religion and all its Gods should I had the most powerful gun in the universe. All the problems of the world would come to an end...... No fights, no afghan, no Iran, no terrorism, no minority, no majority and no discrimination. World in its most beautiful form with all the beautiful people. One united world with one thinking and one goal. The world looks extremely beautiful and peaceful this way. Isn’t? Don’t you think this could be the one solution to everything????........................................................................................................................................No, no, no! Not at all. Religion is the product of our mind and destroying it don’t bring any difference. Religion is an abstract well presented by mind. Mind is the source and the cause. Religion is not the target, mind is. Fault is in our consciousness, reasoning and in our very own minds. Fault is in our acceptance, desires and ignorance. We wish to live in an imaginary security from an imaginary fear. Can we drop all what we have learnt and been taught? Can we free ourselves from all the burdens of religious dogmas, propagandas, beliefs, political agendas and so on? Can we use what we have and recover what we have lost? Can we rely on our native intelligence and find together the real meaning of Love, compassion and God? Can we pledge to become a free thinker???????..........................If no, then mind is the cult. So shall we shoot the billions of minds? Or you will shoot your own mind?