UNDERSTANDING RELIGION

“The cosmic religious experience is the strongest and noblest mainspring of scientific research. My religion consists of a humble admiration of illimitable superior spirit who reveals Himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe forms my idea of God.”(Albert Einstein).

Religious experience has been expressed in a variety of ways by people down the ages. Some believe, in religion there is a tendency to believe in the existence of a Absolute Being in which all reality, hence all truth is embodied. It is also thought to be system of dogmas and rites a few infallible principles of symbols and rituals. The religious person in this sense is one who has an implicit faith in life no matter what situation he encounters but handles life situations with an aim to improve them. Even a man who is antagonistic to formal religions and to all cultic connotations may in him a quality which can be termed as religious.

Again religion seen from a social point of view is that, it works to bring about social resurgence. The individual’s relation to God is found in his relation to the social group. The religious advocates who profess the concept of “Universality of Religions,” suggest that the fundamental varieties common to all religions should be inculcated and the universal religious sentiment of reverence and dependence on God cultivated.

In recent years the world is witnessing a great change in the very nature and mindset of man, a change not for the good but for the worse, not that he is worse morally or religiously but because he is ceasing to be an individual. His individual reality is at a standstill owing to the excessive power which the mechanized world has endowed him. Again the future will remain at a standstill unless the mechanized world is under spiritual control.

For a civilization to sustain free and disinterested spirit of enquiry is a must and any religion which never encourages has no chance of survival. Modern man feels, he is rootless as he is unaware of his real self. He is completely occupied in the changes and chances of mere existence. Reality can be encountered in the real sense only by those who have attained integration and harmony by overcoming the conflict within themselves. Religion is the great remaking of oneself. Man has to undergo a great change- an inward change in order to free himself from the sleeping forces of the enslaved spirit. Religion awakens the real in man and recreates the being itself.

He is said to be a reborn soul. He sees the Divine Spirit permeating the whole universe. The soul that has received emancipation is free from the bonds binding one to the world, and is raised above the three qualities of ‘Serenity’, ‘Passion’ and ‘Inertia’. He is devoted to the all round development in the world, renounces all interest in the fruits of work is lifted above the distinction of good and evil, renounces even the scriptures, and is always lost in God.

When a state of perfect harmony is established the self is said to be born. It is the spirit which is immortal, and which was lying hidden manifests itself. It is to realize the totality of self without the loss of ego consciousness. Prof. W.E. Hocking says,” The great prophets reveal to us the new being, who bases his hope for the coming world civilization on a partnership of the great religions, on the growing unity of their unlosable essences, the understanding acceptance of variety, and the quite convergence of purpose in the identity of a historic task.”

A study of all major religions is essential for the understanding of one’s own. But no one can indeed master al the scriptures of the world. The sense of deep spiritual unrest and dissatisfaction will at once cease if we work for a new spiritual reconciliation and outlook which should be in the light of recent development with the aim of living together in harmony for times to come….