In letter, not spirit

There is too much in-fighting over religion within our community today. The word religion comes from the Latin word meaning "to bind.” To bind with what? Obviously, to bind man with man (collectively) and to bind man with God (subjectively). Has any religion in history succeeded in doing this? In fact, most wars are fought in the name of religion.

In most religions a prophet brings a message from God. He then preaches to a few who constitute his disciples. The others, the masses, are merely followers. Those who truly understand and follow the message are intuitive, tolerant and loving towards all others. Those who are stupid, dense or materialistic only follow the letter and not the true spirit of the religion.

The prophet merely plants the seeds of a religion. He is not interested in organizing it. This is done after his death by his disciples who form a bigger group to give outward expression to inner teachings, invariably adding their own interpretation. This is the story of every religion. At first, it is pure but as time goes on it degenerates into intolerant organized violence, such as the dis­­tor­ted version of the Islamic jihad in today’s world of terrorism which Prophet Muhammad never preached!

Over time, religion begins to lose the spirit, becoming stronger only in letter. Its followers begin to quarrel among themselves as to what was actually said and what was meant. Over the centuries, the religion gets totally distorted and gradually fades away to ultimately disappear. Only the letter of the religion endures while its true spirit and revelations become mutilated by their ignorant followers or narrowed by their bigoted zealots. Thus all religions rise, grow and fade. In the world today there is a downward disintegrating trend in most religions which is why people are now becoming more spiritual rather than religious.

Nevertheless, we must have a religion which is a personal relationship between oneself and God. Such a relationship can exist inside one’s own heart and in the secrecy of one’s own most intimate feelings. Religion is not something to argue about or discuss with other persons since the worship is to be conducted in silence between man (microcosm) and God (macrocosm) after adopting an attitude of goodwill, respect and reverence to all men. This sort of personal religion will bind one to God and is the true essence of worship.

We need both religion and spirituality since something within us is unsatisfied and both dwell within us. Supreme divinity is always available to us, but unless we live out its true spirit (in our case, good thoughts, words and deeds) in our daily lives, we are neither religious nor spiritual.

RUBY LILAOWALA

rubyphiroze@hotmail.com