By Dr. Anurag Nath (kritiranjan)
Out of millions of the life forms inhabiting the earth, Man can be safely called the most intelligent and most advanced. I shall not call us the best creation…owing to our track records in killing and mutilating our fellow beings and the havoc our race has caused upon nature. Whatever be the circumstances today, it is said that God has created us – the humans after His own image. As a perfect being which is even considered as superior to the celestial beings called “angels” in many scriptures.
What makes us the most powerful? The best of all? What is that “ingredient” which makes us so special, even though we have limitless limitations? The answer is quite simple actually. It is our own freewill. It is our ability to question, to differ, to reason, to infer and to chase the truth in as many aspects as possible. That, in simple words means Our freewill.
According to the scriptures of various sects, God has bestowed upon Man the incredible power of freewill. We are not conditioned, programmed or anything like that in our intrauterine lives. But the astonishing or rather the shocking point is that the “programming” or “conditioning” starts after a child is born. The family, the immediate environment, peers, community everything runs in a race to erase even the trace of humanity in the child. I am not saying being religious is bad or a kind of evil. Neither am I starting a debate upon theism and atheism. My intent in this blog is far more deeper than that. Being truly religious is a matter of achievement and pride. If there were truly religious people in the world, the world would have been free from all the miseries by now. Because if a person is truly religious, irrespective of the faith he or she follows, he shall never commit a crime, shall never hurt, shall help those who are in need, shall never commit adultery and shall follow his own faith keeping due regards to all other faiths. If we open any scripture of any particular sects, we will see that the above mentioned points are common in all of them. The beauty which remains latent is that although the Almighty God wants us to follow all these principles in our lives, HE has still kept our freewill intact. We are free to chose our own paths. Though our deeds shall definitely reward or punish us according to the deeds, whom we also called ‘karma’.
The point is when the Almighty God did not impose HIS will on us, who are we to impose our will on others? Records and analyses say that out of the killings and destructions in the world, most are in the name of religion. Which is itself an irony, given the virtues and deeds dictated in the scriptures.
No two things in this vast universe are the same. We, just like our creator are unique. It is but very normal and very likely that we may differ from each other in thoughts and mindset. The Almighty God or the Supreme Being is an entity which is in actual sense very abstract and limitless for our meagre minds. That is the reason that we see a particular aspect of God which is not visible to others and they see a particular aspect which our eyes do not observe. Both are partially correct as both are unable to see the whole truth. But no one can be called wrong.
There is a famous story of an elephant and four blind men. Once, a group of four blind men went to see an elephant. Without vision, they went on to feel the elephant with their hands. One grabbed its legs and inferred that elephant is like a pillar. Some other said its like a fan owing to the fan shaped ear of the elephant. Some grabbed it’s tail and another its trunk. Accordingly, they all inferred and differed from each other on what the actual elephant looks like. Only a man who can see, understands that all these are actually different aspects or viewpoints and that the truth is far greater than this.
This exactly is the difference between spirituality and religion. A spiritual person is limitless, unbound by the limitations of sect, caste, creed or sex. A spiritual man is truly religious, The world needs spirituality and people who actually follow the religion, not extremists who can not tolerate this divine gift of freewill.
What makes us the most powerful? The best of all? What is that “ingredient” which makes us so special, even though we have limitless limitations? The answer is quite simple actually. It is our own freewill. It is our ability to question, to differ, to reason, to infer and to chase the truth in as many aspects as possible. That, in simple words means Our freewill.
According to the scriptures of various sects, God has bestowed upon Man the incredible power of freewill. We are not conditioned, programmed or anything like that in our intrauterine lives. But the astonishing or rather the shocking point is that the “programming” or “conditioning” starts after a child is born. The family, the immediate environment, peers, community everything runs in a race to erase even the trace of humanity in the child. I am not saying being religious is bad or a kind of evil. Neither am I starting a debate upon theism and atheism. My intent in this blog is far more deeper than that. Being truly religious is a matter of achievement and pride. If there were truly religious people in the world, the world would have been free from all the miseries by now. Because if a person is truly religious, irrespective of the faith he or she follows, he shall never commit a crime, shall never hurt, shall help those who are in need, shall never commit adultery and shall follow his own faith keeping due regards to all other faiths. If we open any scripture of any particular sects, we will see that the above mentioned points are common in all of them. The beauty which remains latent is that although the Almighty God wants us to follow all these principles in our lives, HE has still kept our freewill intact. We are free to chose our own paths. Though our deeds shall definitely reward or punish us according to the deeds, whom we also called ‘karma’.
The point is when the Almighty God did not impose HIS will on us, who are we to impose our will on others? Records and analyses say that out of the killings and destructions in the world, most are in the name of religion. Which is itself an irony, given the virtues and deeds dictated in the scriptures.
No two things in this vast universe are the same. We, just like our creator are unique. It is but very normal and very likely that we may differ from each other in thoughts and mindset. The Almighty God or the Supreme Being is an entity which is in actual sense very abstract and limitless for our meagre minds. That is the reason that we see a particular aspect of God which is not visible to others and they see a particular aspect which our eyes do not observe. Both are partially correct as both are unable to see the whole truth. But no one can be called wrong.
There is a famous story of an elephant and four blind men. Once, a group of four blind men went to see an elephant. Without vision, they went on to feel the elephant with their hands. One grabbed its legs and inferred that elephant is like a pillar. Some other said its like a fan owing to the fan shaped ear of the elephant. Some grabbed it’s tail and another its trunk. Accordingly, they all inferred and differed from each other on what the actual elephant looks like. Only a man who can see, understands that all these are actually different aspects or viewpoints and that the truth is far greater than this.
This exactly is the difference between spirituality and religion. A spiritual person is limitless, unbound by the limitations of sect, caste, creed or sex. A spiritual man is truly religious, The world needs spirituality and people who actually follow the religion, not extremists who can not tolerate this divine gift of freewill.
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