Kingdom of God is Within You (Naskar’s Version, S.2457-2459) ― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

Leave it to the monkeys,
and every secular democracy
soon turns into a fanatic republic –

Christian Republic of America,
Islamic Republic of Turkey,
Jewish Republic of Palestine,
Sanatan Republic of India,

all run by prejudice legalized as piety,
and no humanity to speak of –
jungle grows tall in every corner,
survival of the chosen as ape gospel.

God’s original name is Human,
but it isn’t very profitable,
so the apes cook up fancy names,
and sprinkle in tales of magic.

Organized religion is the planet’s largest circus,
where apes commodify divinity to sell tickets –
more divide means more fear, means more control,
divine distant from human is the holy grail of commerce.

Human is the first and final name of divinity,
but that goes against the entire religious
industrial complex – for the purpose of brevity
I say religious, but I mean fundamentalist.

There’s not one religion but two,
one is commercial religion,
rooted in fear, prejudice and bigotry,
and the other is lived religion,
rooted in kindness and inclusivity –

the atheist and the believer
drink from the same water,
breathe the same air,
eat the same food –

mother nature, the actual origin of life,
doesn’t segregate between believer and
nonbeliever, it’s only the savages who do that.