Keep God out of Religion

Today I chose to pen down the second most sensitive topic of our Country- Religion. The first one has lately been politics.

I truly agree and believe that we Indians are the most lucky ones in the entire world, to have a rainbow full of various festivals, traditions, languages, religious stories and morals in our platter.

If we speak particularly about God, guess most of us would imagine of an Almighty King, a superior in religious hierarchy, sitting at the clouds watching over us. But the face and clothes of the King will be imagined differently by different people as per his or her own religion.
God plays multiple roles in our life at every step. We look upon him as our friend when we want to speak our hearts out. A secret Santa when we have a list of wishes to ask for. A counselor which gives us hope for a better tomorrow. We also fear him as a strict police commissioner, holding a baton to stop our conscious from doing something wrong. And most importantly as a therapist to give us a peace of mind.

There are plenty of religions in this world. Each religion have plenty of sects too. Which in total makes it an arey of too many religions. Each religion the believers have different faith and most believers belive very strongly that the faith the other religions believers have is wrong.

In all this drama slowly slowly we humans do not realise that we have forgotten the God and made the religion itself as our God. And the true values, teachings and morals of God which were the base of every religion does not matter to us any more. We don't tend to understand a mere fact that technically God can exist without religion but religion cannot exist without God. It's well said by Reggy Adam Herbert "If you search your God in religion then religion will become your God, But if you search your God as he is then God will become your religion"

If being religious means believing that yours and only your religion declares just the perfect truth, then I am not religious. If believing in God means that you have to be religious, then I do not believe in God either.

Cos that's not how I see God or experience religion. For me my faith in God is believing for the fact that there is a truth and reason of each and every one of our being in this world, which is much more than our daily desires, happiness and sadness. This truth to understand is not possible for us in life. Therefore just strive to be a good human and respect all the other humans who are the creation of same God.

This doesn't mean that religion is not important or is not correct thing to follow. Religion enhances the practices and beliefs in faith. It brings in morals, values and principles. And most importantly it disciplines us. It brings in unity among our family and relatives.  Religion is the reason for festivals, rituals, ceremonies, fun, excitement, something to look forward to in the year. It also brings friends and neighbors  of same and different religions close to one another if practiced and viewed in the right way. But if religion is taken too seriously, it can give an excuse to us people to be selfish and greedy. 

To just prove and justify our behavior and belief which we would have chosen anyway, we conveniently put upon and take support of the "religion".  Where the cause and effect in this scenario is purely individualistic and religion has nothing to play here. We human have sadly turned religion to be so dauntingly enigmatic.

I shall conclude with a smart line I read a while ago in my college classmate, "Shirley Coses" article which made me grin. This would make you think and smile for sure. It is something that we all are kind of apprehensive about but also wish deep down our hearts sometime or the other in life. But, would never accept. --

"Heaven better be there and a God in it."