Zanv Hindu, zanv Muslim, zanv Christanv, zanv Buddhist , ami sogli bhav- boinni, tech mogall Devachi bhurgim…
It sounds so at home to begin this article in Konkani our mother tongue. Long live Goa! and her children. Yes we are all one, children of the soil where ever we are, whoever we are whatever creed we belong to one God following different paths.
When we pray, we do not pray for Baptist things, or Jewish things, or Muslim things, or Catholic things. We all pray to our God for the exact same things regardless of our organized religious differences. We pray for God to protect our families, our friends, our neighbours, our country, peace on earth, an end to the pain and suffering of others, for food to feed the starving, that God may grant us peace within ourselves, and to give us an understanding of exactly what kind of person he wants us to be. Among many others, these are the important things and the things we have in common that should unite us.
Each of us has within ourselves the ultimate religion, and it is the same. It should unite us, but doesn’t because we’d rather give it a name, write books about it, build places to go to worship it, and create deities of those men who say they know more about it than we do. How can anyone say that the very things that keep us apart will ever unite us? Organized religion does just that and always will. The goal of a true religion should be to work toward peace within us and harmony with others. It should consist of the things that bind us all together, not tear us apart. Only when we recognize this, will there ever be a true religion.
It is my belief that there is only one God. He is called by many names and worshiped in many ways by different religions, BUT he will judge each of us using the exact same criteria that will not be based upon any particular religion’s beliefs. It will be based upon our relationships with each other and the type of lives we lived. Until everyone recognizes that each of us contains the true religion within ourselves, because it unites us all as one with God, we will never have peace within ourselves or with each other. These are the things that God will ultimately judge us by. Open the newspaper and you will see so much of violence in the name of religion. The world today needs respect for otherness in order to hear the cries of the whole human race. We need to learn to live next door to people of other creeds. Oh! Those good old days, the Hindus came to the Christian neighbor’s house to help make Christmas sweets and the Christians neighbor was in the Hindu house at the festival of lights Diwali what a beautiful exchange where has all this gone?
This is the least I can do, put before us the real intent of Religion and challenge ourselves to trust one another. It would be good to follow the example of the bee flying about the garden. Like the bee suck out what is wholesome and sweet and reject what is useless follow this rule and you will enter into the battle of daily life better.
