Sujit De
Thecla Pereira has highlighted the problem of religion in her article, “Unity points to God” (Herald, Other Voices, July 30, 2016). Unfortunately, all religions carry with them inherent problems of creating divisions and hatred among us. With its emphasis on rituals and static approach, religiosity contradicts the essence of spirituality. Religions confine themselves to mechanical rituals and thus obstructing the spiritual path of realizing the One. Sri Aurobindo in ‘Letters on Yoga’ said, “The religious life may be the first approach to the spiritual, but very often it is only a turning about in a round of rites, ceremonies and practices or set ideas and forms without any issue”. The Mother (Mirra Alfassa) said, “God gives Himself to His whole creation; no one religion holds the monopoly of His Grace”. She also explained why religion throttled spirituality. She said, “The first and principal article of these established and formal religions runs always, ‘Mine is the supreme, the only truth, all others are in falsehood or inferior’. For without this fundamental dogma, established credal religions could not have existed. If you do not believe and proclaim that you alone possess the one or the highest truth, you will not be able to impress people and make them flock to you”.
Sri Ramkrishna and Swami Vivekananda hammered hard at the walls of religion to make us realise its inherent problem. Swami Vivekananda worshipped and touched the feet of a four-year-old, poor, Kashmiri, Muslim girl. With this singular act he defied divisions of religion, region, race, caste, class, creed, gender and generation to hoist the flag of humanity. Actually, Swami Vivekananda did a Sri Ramkrishna who himself practised Islam, Christianity and other religions to live his words – ‘many opinions, many paths’. They tried to make us realise that utter confinement to a single religion could kill humanity.
Oceans of human blood could have been saved had we realised the limitation of religiosity. It is a pity that the juggernaut of religious prejudices is still marching forward in this 21st century. Thus, we need to assimilate the teachings of the great souls for taking us, in the words of Tagore, to “Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit”.
