Religion – My Belief

Dear friends,

I thought I would share my views on religion, - a much debated issue throughout the world…What do we need religion for, especially when we see all kinds of fundamentalism and fanaticism happening in the name of religion that leads to artificial hatred and loss of precious human lives.?. Do we need something that breaks the world into small pieces based on narrow beliefs, superstitions and parochialism?

Well I guess religion, by its very definition was not supposed to make people behave like the way they do…Religion, actually is supposed to be something, that can hold together people’s life in a way that would make them righteous and conscientious in all our approaches and that would make us practice all the virtues that there should be in a human being and would make him/her afraid of all the vices that are avoidable by all means.. This practice would instill a belief system and value system in us that would carry us along and would make this world a better place for living…So all the prophets ( no matter which religion they gave birth to) talked about some basic virtues as principles to follow in life and has advised love and compassion for all fellow beings…Since God is about limitless wisdom and mercy personified, the prophets also gave us pearls of wisdom and taught us mercy in a manner that would make it acceptable to rank and file…Never ever in any religion would someone see any word of hatred if someone is talking about prophets only…It’s only later on that some “self-proclaimed” learned class (or so-called “shastrgnya”) came up with their own interpretation of religion that started causing all the problems…Still now the rites, rituals, practices and prejudices that are followed so rigidly are based on false or cunning interpretation of wisdoms in order to control the psyche of the population…It’s this brainwashed psyche and it’s illiterate, half-literate interpretation and the “cock-sure” conviction that gives rise this outrageous rigidness leading to fundamentalism and fanaticism and even artificial hatred and regional divides across the nation..

We shouldn’t forget that if we anyone is following the path of God, he/she should be righteous and conscientious in his approach and should have love and compassion for all the fellow beings…Practices and wrong prejudices or superstitions and the rites & rituals ( I mean the means) should not be followed blindly that would lead to the kind of hatred and rivalry that would defeat the very purpose for which region was first conceived.. According to Vivekanada also “The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves and have conviction in the power of goodness." ...Wouldn’t you agree?

Humbly yours,
-Dev

"The most heinous and the most cruel crimes of which history has record have been committed under the cover of religion or equally noble motives." --- Mahatma Gandhi