Religion is a dirty word. Which is a pity because I like many other people have experienced that religion is a road that can lead from questioning to understanding. It can connect you to your inner self – one who’s thinking is more inspired.
So why the fuss? It’s not scripture that’s at fault. I doubt that a prophet, sage or enlightened being wanted to impose outdated and confining do’s and don’ts on us centuries later; the idea was to connect to an idea of Dharma as relevant to the Age. There is no denying that Ram personified “male virtue” at the time the Ramayana was written, as probably Draupadi did “female virtue” or the Pandava brothers “righteousness “but those times are gone. Those stories still have meaning but they can’t be applied blindly as our clerics would have us believe – they need to be contextualized to our time and situations, because ideas of morality change over time. Today if a woman was expected to marry and sexually satisfy 5 brothers- everyone pushing for it would be put behind bars!
A soldier’ s Dharma is different from a schoolteacher’s is different from someone’s mom. There is no stereotype of good that we’re required to pigeonhole ourselves into but we can all start to operate from the dictates of our conscience, which is to live according to Dharma, which is what scripture proposes.
Our seers recognized this but unfortunately for us religion has been misused time and time again ,because it is the easiest way to rile and polarize large groups of people. So our clerics have used it to perpetuate their institutions and get rich, our politicians use it now to mobilize votes or Nazis like Hitler used symbols like the ancient Hindu swastika for other horrific goals, right-wingers use it to target homosexuals- it’s been used for all the things except for which it was intended.
Scripture, chants, mantras, prayer and ceremonies- the rites and rituals that make up religion all over the world- they bring our mind and senses from outside to within, they bring one-pointedness and awareness- they prepare our body and minds for an experience of divinity.
There is no immediate gratification here, it’s not a concept you can understand and poof you’re enlightened! The same way one progresses on any path there is a long learning curve. One starts by easy to grasp things like the stories about god and morality – which are easy to engage with. To inculcate discipline and bring about a meditative attitude regular prayers such as the Namaz or Japa is prescribed – all these seemingly simple rituals have deeper meaning. By engaging with ritual an understanding is created that is experiential rather than intellectual; one literally walks the path.
Mystics and seers gave us these stories so that we could walk easier to experiencing states of bliss. We distorted that knowledge, some in ignorance and some in vested interest; a lot of us chose to ignore scripture in dissent. But scoundrels, rogues and fanatics should not and cannot appropriate my religion and ideas of morality.
At my own halting pace what I read of scripture has been otherworldly and incredibly inspiring! When all around there is tumult and chaos and I haven’t found it in myself to root or stay calm, scripture has given glimpses of light. When things seem bleak and dark it is something that exhorted me to do better and be better.
So no, scoundrels, rogues and fanatics will not appropriate my religion or my scriptural texts- they will not define what it means to be Hindu, catholic or Muslim. All scripture leave room for interpretation and individual understanding and no groups have copyright on morality any more than others, especially not groups with blatant political aspiration.
One’s relationship with divinity is not a human right it is a by-product of existence and one should personally define that relationship rather than having it defined for us by fundamentalists, the power hungry or even the news or intellectuals.
Religion is the way back home, the way back to divinity and it should no longer be only a dirty word.
