Genuine religion should be one that provokes you to see yourself as you really are. Then enables you to understand your need for God and causes you to seek after God. Religion should create in you an intense hunger and thirst for righteousness, not self-righteousness.
Throughout various cultures and religions, many instruments have been devised by humans to aid this upward reach of the soul: rituals, meditation, ascetic discipline, festivals, holy days, memorized prayers, visits to religious buildings, pilgrimages and so on. Yet there remains a vast gulf between who one is, the religious activities one does and a disconnect between individual and God. You maybe an ardent follower and doer of the methods prescribed by your religion and in your heart truly desire to please God, but the religious activities themselves do little to actually connect you to the true and living God. This happens because religion elevates the activities themselves to the status of God. For most folks, doing the religious activity becomes all - leaving them with no real desire to seek after God and no real intimacy with God.
The distinction then is between the heart that focuses on doing religious things and the heart that truly seeks God.
How many ritualistic folk actually take the time and effort to find the meaning of each and every part of the ritual they perform? How many dig deeper into the meaning of all the symbolism? If they did they would find knowledge that would cause them to seek after the truth. They would realize that most rituals are a shadow and a copy of what is truly intended - man being able to meet God by bridging the chasm caused by sin.
Or the person who prays five times a day in a language he does not understand? If only the person decided to communicate to God with his heart and mind in a language he knows, he might draw closer to God. But religion gives us ready-made prayers, sometimes in a language we do not understand. How is that true communication with God?
My point is that the religion in the world engages the human in rote and ritual and dulls true spiritual desire. Ritual and rote maybe good for discipline to some extent but they have little effect in uprooting the deep roots of sin. Does the soul get over addictions, perversions or lose its sinful inclination by performing rituals or repeating chants? The only place where the impurities of the human soul are burnt are at God's feet. If time and energies are spent on man-made religiosity then there is no time or desire left to seek God - which is the intent of all religious motivation. One Sanskrit scripture translates as "Cleansing of sins is not possible by baths, pilgrimages, giving dana (charity) or by following dharma (religion)". Rather these actions were meant to help man realize that he is sinful and that he needs God. Yet religion makes these actions the focus and leaves out what is most needed - fellowship with God. The religious activity makes one feel somehow "approved" or "purified" when in reality it has done nothing to change one's sinful nature.
Religion is supposed to cause one to pursue a relation with God and instead it obscures God behind the veil of religious activity.
To quote an Indian ascetic : Religiosity might help, on occasion, with cleaning the cobwebs of sin but relationship with God alone will reveal the key that eliminates the spider that weaves these cobwebs.
Religion then is the biggest barrier between human and God. It keeps man occupied and pseudo satisfied in the horizontal plane of religiosity and prevents man from looking up vertically and directly to God.
Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
...that boils down to, every human being on earth has a religion of his own :)can be similar to many others. since the truth is same to every last creature on earth.
ReplyDeletewell, 'OM' is said to create vibrations in entire body physically and then converts the experience into spirituality. then there must be some method in how they derived this short and powerful 'word.' only when one says it the way it is originally explained, it completely manifests on the person otherwise the effect would be minimal.
so, even chants might have its definite purpose. but as i personally see it, there could be a reason for many of those hyms are deliberately not deciphered! cos they are known to have hidden truths of universe. only one who works towards purity that is towards God will undertand it oneday. just my thoughts.
i admired your thought on this. very practical.
Suchin, thanks for your thoughts and your kind words. You are right, truth is the same for every creature on the earth - truth has no boundaries of latitude or longitude!
ReplyDeleteIf a certain hymn or word is an inspiration of God then it should have the same impact in any language! If God inspired a wise hymn then it must be for the benefit of all mankind and must therefore be understandable by all creatures in their own language, don't you think?