I was born into a family which was conservative, religious but still a little broad minded as far as treating the children was concerned, more so because of my father, who, as per his own admission, has a belief in God, “Out of fear and for well being of his children”. I think most of the middle class people are like that, who earn their salaries, go once in a week to a temple, influence their children with their beliefs and so on, but nothing additional beyond that. For such people, a temple or a prayer is a part of the overall system, of which I say it is more of precedence and conditioning. I call it precedence, because their parents were following that. For example, at my mother’s place, the daughter in laws should not have any dish made of eggplant because of some precedence. At my parents’ place, we don’t see the burning of “Holi”. I used to be amused by all that ever since I had some grey matter in my brains but I didn’t speak out about it as I knew that my banter would not stop them from doing what they believed in. Secondly, as an adult when I stayed in different parts of the country on work, I realized that even the religion I am born into, by default, Hinduism has different interpretations in different parts of the country, each community claiming to be more genuine than others, which made me realize that it is apparently all man-made and a localized phenomena. In North India, there is one day which is considered inauspicious is considered very auspicious in Maharashtra, that too by people who claim to be following the same religion. One day a realization dawned into me and I had a thought.
When all human beings are alike physically with the same set of bones, same way or procreation, same heart or set of arteries, what in us follows a particular religion or follows a particular path in life. Is it our heart, or intestines or kidneys? Of course the answer is “No”. It is in fact, our mind, the brain of ours which follows all that because we are all conditioned with those beliefs. Imagine a person who is mentally challenged. He/she doesn’t have any notion of beliefs or religions as his/her mind is not fully developed. The same applies on birds or animals, which are in one to one consonance and harmony with nature. Do they need a religion? Similarly, the basic nature of a human being is to be in harmony with this existence and a developed mind has enormous potential, if it could be used for creative and “out of the box” thinking. Otherwise, we all are the same individuals, purposeless, egotists, limited in our own beliefs and thoughts. We should expand our vision, rather than narrowing it down on either our community or religion or in any other pseudo belief. Shouldn’t this mortal life be lived qualitatively and with consciousness?
