THE SUPREME RELIGION

There has been growing religious intolerance in India which is a matter of high concern. It’s more of an issue about self-expression but I’ll stick to the religious front for now. So, as you can tell by the title of the post, I am going to be talking about my religion and I know that it is the most righteous and supreme religion there is. Let the judging begin!

First, let’s understand religion. A religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence (Wikipedia). Notice the use of the words beliefs and views. Since when did beliefs and views start being right or wrong? There always is a context in which a belief or a view is right and there always is a context in which they are wrong. My perception will depend on the context I place that belief or view. Thus, if I decide that a particular belief or view is wrong/right, there’s no problem with the belief or view, there’s a problem with my context. I may choose to follow/not follow a belief or view but at the same time, I need to be aware that there is always a different context in which the same belief or view must not be followed/followed. This is what my religion preaches. Also, by the given definition it is clear that religions are made to guide humanity; they are made FOR humanity and not vice-versa. This implies that if a particular custom or tradition no longer benefits the society, doesn’t advance it or make the society a healthier place to live in, then that particular custom or tradition should be done away with. It’s good to ask why; Newton did it and look where we are today. This is what my religion preaches and no, Newton isn’t my prophet. My religion asks me to listen to both sides of a story before arriving at a conclusion. It says that if I do not do away with my tradition of observing Earth only from the ground, I am never going to change my context and discover that the Earth is round and not flat. At the same time, I have to respect the person who believes the earth to be flat because he/she has never gotten off the ground.

My religion doesn’t make terrorists. I know you believe yours doesn’t either but have you really been following your religion? We all believe that terrorists are people who kill other people in the name of religion. So, are those people who kill other people in the name of cow slaughter not terrorists? People who kill other people because they ate another animal for dinner, or consumed alcohol legally not terrorists? They are all idiots (there’s a much different word for them in Hindi, starts with C). Aren’t those people idiots who choose to kill a guy and a girl just because they were holding hands, despite being of ‘different’ castes? Or worse, decided to marry each other? We all know who these people are, but there are a lot many, whom we do not know. There are a lot many who do not know themselves either. Do we understand what killing is? Death is just a step, before the last one, in the process of killing. Killing starts with desire, an intense desire to get away from a person. The second step is intention, in which desire manifests itself into a strong belief. Then comes decision, which encompasses planning, followed by action. Death follows action and the last step is to erase that person from our minds, soul and spirit, completely. If you have tried to avoid a person with a long beard, you’ve completed the first step of killing and become a terrorist. If you’ve judged a person with a turban, you’re a terrorist. If you have had any apprehensions about anybody based on their appearance, beliefs and views, you my friend, are a terrorist. I know you’re not causing death but like I explained before, smaller steps before death, lead to it. It’s good that you stop at the first step but you did take a step, didn’t you, however small it may be. A story isn’t complete unless you’ve read every word of it, however small it may be. An engine won’t work unless it has all the required parts, however small they may be. A drop will enrich an ocean, however small it may be. A negative thought will corrupt the mind, however small it may be.

Before the big bang happened, everything was collected at one singularity. After the big bang, that singularity exploded into different parts of the universe but all those parts were actually one before. The earth, moon, sun, all the asteroids, water, plants, animals, you and I, we were all one. Consider a cake is kept on a table. Looks delicious doesn’t it? You want to eat it? Go ahead cut it. Now, the piece that you’re holding, is it a different cake from the cake that’s on the table? If I cut the cake into 10 different pieces, are those 10 pieces different cakes? Now, I place each piece in a different room, have they become different yet? They are all the same cake, aren’t they? Then how are you and I different? We were all one cake billions of years ago, weren’t we? We look different because we got cut differently, or because perhaps you got the cherry on top and I didn’t. But we’re the same. There is an energy that is holding us together and it’s this energy that doesn’t let us cross the first step of killing. Sadly, some people can’t feel that energy anymore but we can all try emanating that energy towards them, can’t we? The energy called, love. And love, if is not unconditional, it’s not love, it’s a contract, an agreement. This is what my religion preaches. My religion called, Humanity.

THE EMPTY AND MEANINGLESS LIFE

Do you ever wonder how life got so complicated? Do you ever wish for simplicity in life, just like it was when we were kids? By the way kids today have a pretty complicated life themselves so, just think it over, but you get the point, right? I sometimes think about my purpose in life; how the universe is perhaps trying to teach me, train me for a better life ahead. Do you think about it too? Do you also try to understand the meaning of it all? If yes, you’re complicating life, my friend.

The day you were born, life started to become complicated. You were told you were born on a particular day of the particular month of the particular year. Who made these days, months and years? You were told that the building you were born in is called hospital. You were told that you came out of a tiny hole called a vagina. You were told that your name is this or that. You were told that going to school, respecting elders, loving one another, following etiquette, etc. is expected and is good. You were told everything. Do you remember questioning a lot of these rules as a kid? But then you stopped, because you started to make sense of it, rather, you started to get the ‘meaning’ behind all this. If there were things that couldn’t be explained with logic, you assigned the meaning of supernatural or religion to it. But everything had to have a meaning. There’s a little voice in the back of our heads that just can’t stop creating meaning out of everything. Even right now. As you’re reading this article, your little voice is asking, ‘Where is this article going?’, ‘Is the writer going to make any sense at any point at all?’, ‘What does all this mean?’, ‘What am I thinking now?’, etc.

Doesn’t your mind start racing if your girlfriend/boyfriend doesn’t call you when he/she is supposed to? Some of us are relieved but some are having crazy thoughts too, right? We are trying to ‘connect the dots’ like Sherlock and trying to arrive at a logical decision. Did you know that the word decision has its roots in the Latin word cide which means to kill off? So when we make a decision, we’re actually killing off all other options, all other views, all other possibilities. If one day your boss starts to treat you nicely, what does your mind say? It may say a lot of stuff but it can’t stop assigning a meaning to it. And that’s where you get all of life’s complications.

Quantum physics has proved that everything is an illusion. In many experiments it’s been found that an electron is not present where it is present, but where the scientists look for it, i.e., they saw the electron wherever they looked. On a macro level, it means that life doesn’t exhibit what’s true; it exhibits what we believe to be true. We see what we want to see, we hear what we want to hear, we feel what we want to feel and we live what we want to live. Take a second, let it sink. You would now realise that life isn’t controlling you, you’re controlling life, I mean the little voice in your head is. Terminator: The Judgment Day put it quite rightly, ‘NO FATE’ (well said James Cameron, well said). Do you see that life is what you make of it? It is what you create. You will always see the electron where you want to see it.

So what happens if the little voice in your head is no longer controlling you? I say no longer controlling because it can never shut up, unless you’re dead. So, what happens if you stop making stories, stop assuming stuff, stop trying to create meaning out of everything? What happens if you stop looking for the electron? What would you see? Think for a minute before reading further, because if you get this, you’re going to be a changed person. So, what do you see if you stop looking for the electron which appears to be wherever you try to look for it? Nothing! You see nothing. On a macro level, if you stop creating meaning out of everything, life becomes simple and simple and simple unless it comes down to Nothing. And that’s what life is, Nothing. Without self created meaning, assumptions and guesses, it indeed is nothing. Life is empty and meaningless. It sounds sad but it is actually true and the most joyous realisations of my life. Now that I know that life is empty and meaningless, I have all the space in the universe to create whatever I want to create. Of course I will listen to the little voice in my head and create meaning but I would no longer be bound by it. I would always be aware that in the end, there truly is Nothing that exists. Therefore, you are what you want to be. The meaning of life that you had been searching for all your life is yet to be created and guess who is the creator, YOU!