COMMUNIALISM, SECULIARISM AND TRULY RELIGIOUS MIND

COMMUNIALISM, SECULIARISM AND TRULY RELIGIOUS MIND

COMMUNALISM

Religions have promised roses but you end up with only thorns. – UG Krishnamurti. Millions have been killed in the name of God, in the name of religion, faith and belief. Mankind is divided by religions. Even in the modern civilization we can observe one faith against another, one sect against another, locking horns and trying to establish it’s own superiority. The fight is not just between religions but among the various subsects of a particular religion too. Even the politicians thrive on this division, stimulating people and encouraging them to stand up for their religion, and we feel very enthusiastic to stand up and fight for such cause as it gives us the strange  sense of being righteous and nobler to be identified with such great cause. Religions, with their hierarchical structure has captured and dominated human mind for centuries, and man, in his despair and in search for security submitted to these institutionalized religions, hoping that it will take him closer to the God.

But a closer introspection and skeptical evaluation of these religions will reveal the futility of submission to any structured, organized or institutionalized religious body. Even the study of the religions will show that institutionalization of religions contradicts the very purpose of religion. Religions, as we know today is set of beliefs, ideas dogmas and prejudices and we identify and conform ourselves to a particular box of ideas - prejudices - beliefs – dogmas and then hold the other box in opposition, fighting against it or trying to win them over to our point of views. From the earliest days of religious history, holy war was considered sacred institution, undertaken as a cultic act of a religious community. War between Protestants and Catholics, between Islam and Christians or between Sunni Shiite and Christians to the French war of religions and Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Although every religion encourages the idea of peace and tolerance, almost no one remains in peace or tolerates anything when it comes to their religion. History is full of religious wars and some of them have continued for years and killed millions.

SECULARISM

To combat this problem of communalism and realizing the catastrophic consequences of wars human mind has developed the idea of secularism. ‘Secularism draws its intellectual roots from Greek and Roman philosophers such as Marcus Aurelius and Epicurus; from Enlightenment thinkers such as Denis Diderot, Voltaire, Baruch Spinoza, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine; and from more recent freethinkers and atheists such as Robert Ingersoll and Bertrand Russell. ‘The term "secularism" was first used by the British writer George Jacob Holyoake in 1851. Although the term was new, the general notions of free thought on which it was based had existed throughout history.

Holyoake invented the term "secularism" to describe his views of promoting a social order separate from religion, without actively dismissing or criticizing religious belief. An agnostic himself, Holyoake argued that "Secularism is not an argument against Christianity, it is one independent of it. It does not question the pretensions of Christianity; it advances others. Secularism does not say there is no light or guidance elsewhere, but maintains that there is light and guidance in secular truth, whose conditions and sanctions exist independently, and act forever. Secular knowledge is manifestly that kind of knowledge which is founded in this life, which relates to the conduct of this life, conduces to the welfare of this life, and is capable of being tested by the experience of this life. ( From Wikipedia ).No doubt the idea of secularism is more utopian than real. Contemplating honestly on this subject of communalism we should realize that the problem lies else where and no external agency, no legislation to control man’s behaviors will ever help. This may sound pessimistic but this is the reality of the situation. On lighter note, to justify myself I would quote Nietzsche- “Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach honesty.” 

As UG Krishnamurti has rightly said “ As long as you waved your flag you cannot talk of peace because other chap is also waving his flag.” True, how can we possibly think of the world where false and truth co exists, where the cause of division and love that is binding, that is inclusive and whole can co exists? We need to identify the root cause of division, in all it’s manifestations as class division , as ideological and religious division and eradicate it from the very root. The patch work of pseudo secularism is not going to help.

To sum up the flaws of secularism in few words I would quote the saying of J Krishnamurti - “When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.”

To sum up we must remember " 'Self' is the greatest disease and pestilence on man" - Shri Bhagavan and any action springs from the ‘ I ‘ whether communalistic or secular is divisive.

A TRULY RELIGIOUS MIND

“A truly religious man does not belong to any religion ” – J Krishnamurti.

Religion as I have understood from my limited study and contemplation is a passion to discover the ultimate source and the dissolution of individual consciousness into ( If I may say) God – consciousness and in this process we negate all that is false, all that is creating division and strengthening the ‘I’ consciousness. So the structure of religious culture is built on a wrong foundation because instead of demolishing the barrier and divisive consciousness it has strengthened it.

“I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. ... The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth.” – J Krishnamurti. One may argue that religions are there to help people to lead to the truth as all religions expounds the theory of love and brotherhood but it has not done it’s job on contrary it has amplified the divisions and leads to mass – scale  massacres.

“The truly religious man is not the one who practices so-called religion, who holds to certain dogmas and beliefs, who performs certain rituals, or pursues knowledge, for he is merely seeking another form of gratification. The man who is truly religious is completely free from society, he has no responsibility towards society; he may establish a relationship with society, but society has no relationship with him. Society is organized religion, the economic and social structure, the whole environment in which we have been brought up; and does that society help man to find God, truth it matters little what name you give it - , or does the individual who is seeking God create a new society? That is, must not the individual break away from the existing society, culture, or civilization? Surely, in the very breaking away he discovers what is truth, and it is that truth which creates the new society, the new culture…What is religion? Actually, what is religion? First of all to find out what is religion we must negate what it is not. What it is not; then it is. It's like seeing what is not love. Love is not hate, love is not jealousy, love is not ambition, love is not violence. When you negate all that, the other is, which is compassion. In the same way if you negate what is not religion then you find out what is true religion; that is, what is the truly religious mind. Belief is not religion, and the authority which the churches, the organized religions assume, is not religion. In that there is all the sense of obedience, conformity, acceptance, the hierarchical approach to life. The division between the Protestant, the Catholic, the Hindu, the Moslem, that's not religion. When you negate all that, which means you are no longer a Hindu, no longer a Catholic, no longer belonging to any sectarian outlook, then your mind questions, asks what is true religion? This is free from their ritual, without their masters, without their Saviour; all that is not religion. When the mind discards that, intelligently, because it has seen that it's not religion, then it can ask what is religion. Religion is not what I think, but religion is the sense of comprehension of the totality of existence, in which there is no division between you and me. Then if there is that quality of goodness which is virtue, real virtue not the phony virtue of society, but real virtue, then the mind can go beyond and find out, through meditation, through a deep, quiet silence, if there is such a thing as reality. Therefore a religious mind is a mind that is constantly aware, sensitive, attentive, so that it goes beyond itself into a dimension where there is no time at all. - J Krishnamurti

This is the truth that our Upanishads and Vedantas has talked about, they have never gave an idea of institutionalized religion but talked about religious mind which has the quality of questioning and negating that which is false and breeds division.

Om 
Purnamadah Purnamidam
Purnat Purnamudachyate
Purnasya Purnamadaya
Purnameva Vashishyate
Om shanti, shanti, shanti

This insightful verse from Isha Upanishad  celebrates the idea of whole – ness ( the absence of plurality ) That is the whole, this is the whole; from the whole, the whole becomes manifest; taking away the whole from the whole, 
the whole remains. Om. Peace! Peace! Peace!

To sum up : The human being realise that we are all One, basically not as an idea but as a fact
because when you go to India you see the miserythe confusion, the anxiety, the despair of people
If you come to Europe, it's exactly the same thing .You'll sense a thirst to realise, not verbally
but in your heart, in your blood, your whole thinkingthat humans beings right through the world
go through the same agonies that one goes through the loneliness, the despair, the depressions
The extraordinary uncertainty, insecurity whether they live ten thousand miles away or two thousand miles, or here they're all psychologically bound together.If one realises that profoundly in your guts
In your blood, in your heart, in your mind then you are religious.

THE MEDITATION OF ‘SEEING ‘ OR ‘THE CHOICELESS AWARENESS’

What is true Self Knowledge is it assuming about immortality of soul, of re – incarnations or of supposed eternity of Atman, or repeating to oneself that one is brahman?? I believe none of these, I am afraid however profound, lofty or esoteric these phrases sound but these are all in the area of conceptions and speculations based on the ideas we have gathered by reading scriptures and religious books. These are second hand knowledge without much substance.

Then how to begin with this profound meditation of self – knowing, of understanding and freeing one own self. We must “Start near to go far ” , we must begin with “ Where we are not where we want to be ”. That requires tremendous patience and passivity of mind, not a mind that is eager and greedy for the results , mind in becoming, becoming somebody in the realm of spirituality. We must start with the process of self exposure, exposing ourselves to ourselves. We must watch our own movement of thoughts, our mind, the SELF ( totality of emotions- feelings – thinking which creates the I – consciousness, sense of an individual entity ) without judging, without condemning, suppressing or justifying but just to see without any identification. To quote mystic – philosopher- seer J Krishnamurti “So, being aware of a thought or a feeling as it arises, without condemning it or identifying with it, you will find that it unfolds ever more widely and deeply, and thereby discover the whole content of 'what is' .To understand the process of 'what is' there must be choiceless awareness, a freedom from condemnation, justification, and identification…The awareness of which I am speaking is of 'what is' from moment to moment, of the activities of thought and its subtle deceptions, fears, and hope. Choiceless awareness wholly dissolves our conflicts and miseries.”  “Like most people, you have ideals, have you not? And the ideal is not real, not factual; it is what should be, it is something in the future. Now, what I say is this: forget the ideal, and be aware of what you are. Do not pursue 'what should be', but understand 'what is'. The understanding of what you actually are is far more important than the pursuit of what you should be. Why? Because, in understanding what you are, there begins a spontaneous process of transformation; whereas, in becoming what you think you should be, there is no change at all, but only a continuation of the same old thing in a different form.” – J Krishnamurti. But we want comfort and not the discovery of truth, we don’t want to destroy the illusions which give us certain sense of security, identity and vitality. Sri Bhagavan has point out our reluctance to ‘See’ ourselves as we are “ To postpone ( seeing ) is another trick of mind for its continued security , to postpone ( seeing ) is the height of hypocrisy, to postpone ( seeing ) is to deny freedom forever”.

We can assume about God, about eternal soul but that is not going to free us, to the most it can balm our aching mind and drug us to sleep, mind being the product of time can never know the TIMELESS, mind being the perpetrator of all problems and sorrow can never touch ecstasy. That is why our sages and seers talk of mano – nasha, annihilation of mind. ‘Seeing’ or ‘ The choiceless awareness’  can be the first step towards it. For my personal experience I can only say that this process of ‘awareness’ helped me to a great extent, I have experienced moments of deep relaxation, joy and penetrating insights. May we all awaken into Awareness.