Wednesday, April 11, 2012

029 Is there any thing like 'your religion' and 'my religion'?

Question: Is there anything like 'your religion' and 'my religion'?

Ans: This is a beautiful question.

This 'your' and 'my/our/their' (these are all possessive adjectives) apply not only to religions, but also to so many objects and persons, we believe are mine/ours/yours/his/hers/theirs.

We can call this, 'sangam = attachment' philosophically.

Some attachments come by birth e.g. my mother, my child.
Some attachments come from close family members: father through mother, siblings through parents, friends through schools, neighborhoods, jobs, hobbies etc.
Some attachments come by instincts: breast-sucking, food, sleep, rest, sex, etc.
Attachment to religion:
Being born in a particular religion (some religions have sub-segments) is accidental.
Babies do not have castes, when born.
Parents, relatives, neighbors, teachers, Governments emboss, etch, impose and impress castes upon individuals. It is just like branding of bullocks and horses with hot iron. Or 'ear-tags', if we have to use a milder term.
Perceived benefits and threats of punishments of God and adherence/disobedience to religion are injected to the minds of children and adolescents.
A person becomes like a fly trapped in a spider's web, by the time heshe reaches an age of 20, with embedded biases.

rAgam (obsessive love) and dvEsham (obsessive hate), start occupying minds of youth, from this point.

Extensive reading of both sacred books, history and science books can help persons to find out facts for themselves, but this does not happen because minds are already closed.

We have some films. A child of X religion gets lost in a crowd. A childless couple of Y religion picks himher up and nourish himher in the traditions of Y religion. This child, when it grows up reacts like a person belonging to religion Y instead of religion X. The extent of his fanaticism to religion X and hatred towards religion Y depends upon the branding made by hisher parents, neighbors, community, society, Governments, schools and colleges, books, internet, ... so on.

Gist: The ideas of 'my religion' and 'your religion' are imaginary. But this sangam (attachment) is difficult to get rid of, just as a branded horse cannot get rid of its marks. I read in some American literature, that slaves used to be branded with irons in Europe and United States. We are like that.

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