Abhijit Naskar's Blog - Posts Tagged "bhagavad-gita"
Religions, Prophets and Politics
"The Church has carried out some of the most inhuman and above all un-Christian acts of human history, yet, it is still gloriously hailed by the majority of human population as to be synonymous with Jesus Christ." - Neurons of Jesus
You have heard countless times from me, that Religion is not a book, it is not an institution, and it is not even a person. Religion is realization of the self.
The Bible, the Quran, the Vedas and all the scriptures in the world are mere inventions of man (not woman) in the pursuit of understanding the self, and to some extent, in the pursuit of authoritarianism. Scriptures from the past have nothing to do with the neurologically created and experienced sensation of divinity and religion. However, all the books which humanity so gloriously worships as sacred, attempt to codify the divinity that is born with the human body and dies with it. This divinity or simply religion is born with the self created by the brain and ceases to exist when the self dies upon the death of the brain.
Religions began as realization of the self, but ended up being retaliation against each other. A handful of individuals in human history, empowered by their own neurons of divinity, experienced something quite extraordinary. They experienced something beyond this mortal world. They experienced being one with an Omnipotent Entity or Abstract Source of Energy. Despite the fact that, these experiences were all taking place exclusively within their own brain, they manifested as extraterrestrial encounters. Hence, the pre-conceived notion of Supreme Entity somewhere up in the sky, got more deep-rooted into the psyche of the ignorant masses.
When a person lacks understanding of the physical universe, and its phenomena, the primordial nature of the mind is to fill in the gaps with all kinds of gibberish concepts that originally come from our primitive days in the wild. And one of these concepts is that, there is a superhuman entity somewhere out there, who keeps an eye on us. That is the most natural knack of the primitive part of the mind. Because here, by believing so, we are psychologically entrusting an imaginary father figure (or mother figure in some religious beliefs, such as the Hindus) with our security and peace of mind. It does act as a placebo effect, but unlike the placebo pills used in our clinical trials, this placebo effect of a father figure or a personal God, has immense biological impact upon all aspects of human life, through the neurobiological substrates of the mind.
In simple terms, when a person believes that a God is truly concerned about the well-being of life on earth, and especially of human life, the belief adorns that person with various positive psychological elements such as emotional stability, in times of distress and a highly functional moral compass. Here this belief has nothing to do with reality whatsoever, rather it serves the evolutionary purpose of self-preservation.
However, if history has shown anything, it is that where there is a God, there is an institution trying to lock up that God in its lifeless structure of orthodoxy, in order to have authority over people and sell tickets to the Kingdom of that God. Thus emerged all the pompous lies about the extraterrestrial Kingdom of God or Heaven.
"By infusing Jesus the man with the divine magic – by making him capable of earthly miracles as well as his own resurrection, the early church turned him into a god within the human world. Thus, the church reinforced the monopoly on the so-called route to heaven, i.e. salvation only through Jesus Christ. And during those days, whoever kept the keys to heaven would rule the world. " - Neurons of Jesus
This way, religion became politics. It became everything but realization of the self. It became a matter of doctrines, books, hierarchy and superiority of institutions. Hence, today the majority of the human population, perceives religion to be synonymous with certain books. And that is why there are so many conflicts in the name of religion and God in this so-called modern world.
A Christian would ask you to believe in the Bible, to believe that the Bible contains divine irrefutable commands from God. A Muslim would ask you to believe in the Quran, to believe that the Quran contains glorious messages from God or Allah. A Hindu would ask you to believe in the Bhagavad Gita, to believe that the Gita contains answers to all your problems given by God or Brahman. Thus, a religion becomes merely a matter of blind faith upon texts of the dead people. Hence, no religion can maintain a healthy relationship with another for a long time.
To quote from my book In Search of Divinity
"It is not much use to talk about religion, until one has felt what the founding fathers felt. Why is there so much disturbance, so much fighting and quarreling in the name of God? There has been more bloodshed in the name of God than for any other cause. And it is all because people never attempt to reach the fountain-head. They are content only to comply with the customs of their forefathers, and want others to do the same."
The point is, what the individuals, whom humanity venerates as prophets, experienced was something beyond the laws of their contemporary religious dogma, and as such, all of these individuals were hailed by the religious institutions of their time and society, as heretics. However, their ideas did indeed succeed to influence a bunch of people stuck in obscurity. So these people embraced these individuals as their own personal Gods, and in the mind of those ignorant people, every God must be worshipped with utter obedience. And their way of showing obedience was to concoct laws and rituals to ascertain the divine significance of their personal God in the spiritual patriarchy of religious prophets. Thus, obedience for one divine Teacher, turned into obedience for a God. And in time, it turned into obedience for a set of laws. And quite unexpectedly, one person's battle against religious orthodoxy or fundamentalism, led to the birth of yet another orthodox circle. This happened at various corners of the world in various circumstances.
In Asia, Buddha, a Hindu, stood up against the orthodox Hindu society, and ended up constructing yet another religion called Buddhism. And on the other side of the world, Jesus, a Jew, stood up against the orthodox Jewish society, and ended up being the personal God of yet another religion called Christianity.
You have heard countless times from me, that Religion is not a book, it is not an institution, and it is not even a person. Religion is realization of the self.
The Bible, the Quran, the Vedas and all the scriptures in the world are mere inventions of man (not woman) in the pursuit of understanding the self, and to some extent, in the pursuit of authoritarianism. Scriptures from the past have nothing to do with the neurologically created and experienced sensation of divinity and religion. However, all the books which humanity so gloriously worships as sacred, attempt to codify the divinity that is born with the human body and dies with it. This divinity or simply religion is born with the self created by the brain and ceases to exist when the self dies upon the death of the brain.
Religions began as realization of the self, but ended up being retaliation against each other. A handful of individuals in human history, empowered by their own neurons of divinity, experienced something quite extraordinary. They experienced something beyond this mortal world. They experienced being one with an Omnipotent Entity or Abstract Source of Energy. Despite the fact that, these experiences were all taking place exclusively within their own brain, they manifested as extraterrestrial encounters. Hence, the pre-conceived notion of Supreme Entity somewhere up in the sky, got more deep-rooted into the psyche of the ignorant masses.
When a person lacks understanding of the physical universe, and its phenomena, the primordial nature of the mind is to fill in the gaps with all kinds of gibberish concepts that originally come from our primitive days in the wild. And one of these concepts is that, there is a superhuman entity somewhere out there, who keeps an eye on us. That is the most natural knack of the primitive part of the mind. Because here, by believing so, we are psychologically entrusting an imaginary father figure (or mother figure in some religious beliefs, such as the Hindus) with our security and peace of mind. It does act as a placebo effect, but unlike the placebo pills used in our clinical trials, this placebo effect of a father figure or a personal God, has immense biological impact upon all aspects of human life, through the neurobiological substrates of the mind.
In simple terms, when a person believes that a God is truly concerned about the well-being of life on earth, and especially of human life, the belief adorns that person with various positive psychological elements such as emotional stability, in times of distress and a highly functional moral compass. Here this belief has nothing to do with reality whatsoever, rather it serves the evolutionary purpose of self-preservation.
However, if history has shown anything, it is that where there is a God, there is an institution trying to lock up that God in its lifeless structure of orthodoxy, in order to have authority over people and sell tickets to the Kingdom of that God. Thus emerged all the pompous lies about the extraterrestrial Kingdom of God or Heaven.
"By infusing Jesus the man with the divine magic – by making him capable of earthly miracles as well as his own resurrection, the early church turned him into a god within the human world. Thus, the church reinforced the monopoly on the so-called route to heaven, i.e. salvation only through Jesus Christ. And during those days, whoever kept the keys to heaven would rule the world. " - Neurons of Jesus
This way, religion became politics. It became everything but realization of the self. It became a matter of doctrines, books, hierarchy and superiority of institutions. Hence, today the majority of the human population, perceives religion to be synonymous with certain books. And that is why there are so many conflicts in the name of religion and God in this so-called modern world.
A Christian would ask you to believe in the Bible, to believe that the Bible contains divine irrefutable commands from God. A Muslim would ask you to believe in the Quran, to believe that the Quran contains glorious messages from God or Allah. A Hindu would ask you to believe in the Bhagavad Gita, to believe that the Gita contains answers to all your problems given by God or Brahman. Thus, a religion becomes merely a matter of blind faith upon texts of the dead people. Hence, no religion can maintain a healthy relationship with another for a long time.
To quote from my book In Search of Divinity
"It is not much use to talk about religion, until one has felt what the founding fathers felt. Why is there so much disturbance, so much fighting and quarreling in the name of God? There has been more bloodshed in the name of God than for any other cause. And it is all because people never attempt to reach the fountain-head. They are content only to comply with the customs of their forefathers, and want others to do the same."
The point is, what the individuals, whom humanity venerates as prophets, experienced was something beyond the laws of their contemporary religious dogma, and as such, all of these individuals were hailed by the religious institutions of their time and society, as heretics. However, their ideas did indeed succeed to influence a bunch of people stuck in obscurity. So these people embraced these individuals as their own personal Gods, and in the mind of those ignorant people, every God must be worshipped with utter obedience. And their way of showing obedience was to concoct laws and rituals to ascertain the divine significance of their personal God in the spiritual patriarchy of religious prophets. Thus, obedience for one divine Teacher, turned into obedience for a God. And in time, it turned into obedience for a set of laws. And quite unexpectedly, one person's battle against religious orthodoxy or fundamentalism, led to the birth of yet another orthodox circle. This happened at various corners of the world in various circumstances.
In Asia, Buddha, a Hindu, stood up against the orthodox Hindu society, and ended up constructing yet another religion called Buddhism. And on the other side of the world, Jesus, a Jew, stood up against the orthodox Jewish society, and ended up being the personal God of yet another religion called Christianity.
Real Sanatana Dharma
Hinduism - this is a term which has, in reality, nothing to do with the religion it refers. In fact, the people who follow that religion referred by the term Hinduism, do not even have a clue what that religion really is and where its fundamental roots lie. That religion is originally called Sanatana Dharma or the Eternal Duty/Religion. However, do not focus too much on the words here, because these words that are used to point a religion are all shallow with no practical implication in modern society whatsoever. People take the words to be the real thing and forget to ask the question - what that real thing might be - that real religion might be! They have made a mess of this world in their attempt of proving their unshakable loyalty to certain words. So, let's go beyond words and ask the question what real Sanatana Dharma is, instead of believing what the deluded and power-hungry priests of the Hindu society have been imposing on a people as religion for ages.
"Sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ."
Or to put in simple language, real sanatana dharma or real eternal religion is the religion that's not a religion - a religion without doctrines, without the need of a thousand scriptures, without the need of a million illusory gods, goddesses and messiahs. That's Real Hinduism without all the illusory and imaginary 33 million Gods and Goddesses for you to show your childish obedience to, and in fact, that is real Christianity - that is Buddhism - that is every single religion on earth that has ever done any good to the world.
Religion means liberation from doctrines, rituals and illusory gods, messiahs, prophets and trinities of organized institutions - religion means liberation from all labels - religion means liberation from all self-centric activity - religion means liberation from all egotistical pride and every form of tribal loyalty. One cannot understand religion, in the truest sense of the term, unless one is genuinely willing to give up the so-called religious identity that has been imposed on him or her by his or her culture. That's what the ancient Indian philosopher Vyasa intended to refer to in the above shloka, but the authoritarian Hindu priests turned it into a potential tool for controlling the ignorant people of the Indus Valley Civilization and started preaching that one cannot attain God unless one renounces all religions and becomes a Hindu.
The truth is, you can attain the great ultimate godliness, only when you renounce all petty sectarian identities of religions, including the so-called identity of Hinduism. And once you do, you no longer are a Hindu or a Christian or a Jew or a Buddhist, in the common sense of the terms, yet at the same time you become the ultimate combined manifestation of all those terms - a manifestation of pure divinity with actions of compassion and kindness being the tools for real worship. And that my friend is Real Sanatana Dharma, Real Christianity, Real Buddhism all together.
In simple terms, it is only when you stop calling yourself a Hindu, that you rise as a true Hindu, it is when you stop calling yourself a Christian, you rise as a true Christian, it is when you stop calling yourself a Buddhist, you rise as true Buddhist. As long as the label of an organized institution, created by orthodox barbarians, holds more value to you than the necessity of everyday human kindness, than the necessity of true compassion, than the necessity of true liberation, you can never in a million years become religious. So, shred the labels and rise as a human being - a human being of compassion, a human being of kindness, a human being with real psychological freedom.
Recommended Reading:
In Search of Divinity: Journey to the kingdom of conscience
"Sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ."
Or to put in simple language, real sanatana dharma or real eternal religion is the religion that's not a religion - a religion without doctrines, without the need of a thousand scriptures, without the need of a million illusory gods, goddesses and messiahs. That's Real Hinduism without all the illusory and imaginary 33 million Gods and Goddesses for you to show your childish obedience to, and in fact, that is real Christianity - that is Buddhism - that is every single religion on earth that has ever done any good to the world.
Religion means liberation from doctrines, rituals and illusory gods, messiahs, prophets and trinities of organized institutions - religion means liberation from all labels - religion means liberation from all self-centric activity - religion means liberation from all egotistical pride and every form of tribal loyalty. One cannot understand religion, in the truest sense of the term, unless one is genuinely willing to give up the so-called religious identity that has been imposed on him or her by his or her culture. That's what the ancient Indian philosopher Vyasa intended to refer to in the above shloka, but the authoritarian Hindu priests turned it into a potential tool for controlling the ignorant people of the Indus Valley Civilization and started preaching that one cannot attain God unless one renounces all religions and becomes a Hindu.
The truth is, you can attain the great ultimate godliness, only when you renounce all petty sectarian identities of religions, including the so-called identity of Hinduism. And once you do, you no longer are a Hindu or a Christian or a Jew or a Buddhist, in the common sense of the terms, yet at the same time you become the ultimate combined manifestation of all those terms - a manifestation of pure divinity with actions of compassion and kindness being the tools for real worship. And that my friend is Real Sanatana Dharma, Real Christianity, Real Buddhism all together.
In simple terms, it is only when you stop calling yourself a Hindu, that you rise as a true Hindu, it is when you stop calling yourself a Christian, you rise as a true Christian, it is when you stop calling yourself a Buddhist, you rise as true Buddhist. As long as the label of an organized institution, created by orthodox barbarians, holds more value to you than the necessity of everyday human kindness, than the necessity of true compassion, than the necessity of true liberation, you can never in a million years become religious. So, shred the labels and rise as a human being - a human being of compassion, a human being of kindness, a human being with real psychological freedom.
Recommended Reading:
In Search of Divinity: Journey to the kingdom of conscience
