God? Or Gods?
The three largest religious scriptures in this world, The Holy Quran, The Holy Bible and The Veda constantly reminds its followers to submit themselves to the will of the supreme power namely the Almighty God. But over the years, the very definition of God has been modified to suit the situation and circumstances of the modern world.
The essence of an almighty power has taken many forms and names over the years. In fact the situation today is such that, the purity of the word GOD has taken a downturn with the ability of languages to play around with this term. For example, the English language makes it possible for the term GOD to have a female gender (GODDESS), the term GOD FATHER or GOD MOTHER attributes a human to the stature of the almighty. The fact is that the supreme power of this universe has no form whatsoever and hence cannot be attributed to a human or have a gender.
Today religion, which is technically the message of god to the people of this world to lead a peaceful and harmonious life, has been reduced to a community of believers or blind followers without even fully understanding their religion. I believe to fully understand a religion you must observe and study the religious scriptures which form the basis of every religion and not its followers. Sometimes the followers of each religion might not have fully understood the founding principles of their religion. This is what leads to differences in opinions and hatred within humans on the basis of religious divisions.
A very interesting example of differences between a common Muslim’s ideology and a common Hindu’s ideology can illustrate my view point. A common Hindu believes in a philosophy called pantheism. He believes that everything is god. He worships cow, snake, tree and every element of nature as god. Now a common Muslim believes that everything in this world is god’s creation. He believes that everything in this world belongs to god. The only difference here is that a common Hindu believes that everything in this world is god and the common Muslim believes that everything in this world is god’s. To bridge the misunderstanding between the followers of these two religions all we have to do is solve the difference of the apostrophe. This very difference in opinion is due to the overtaking of material desires over spiritual well being. And because of this material desires that arise in us we fail to understand the holy scriptures in its rightful meaning. The problem of the apostrophe can be easily solved by taking a closer look into the Hindu scriptures. The Chandogya Upanishad in fact mentions that “God is only one”. This shatters the basic belief of every common Hindu who worship number of gods and not just one. Its further mentioned in the Vedas that “There is no likeness of god”. This means that there cannot be idols or any form for god. Again this shakes the foundation of a common Hindu’s beliefs. Atharvaveda mentions that “Truth is one. God is one. Saints call him by various names”. One of the attributes given to god in the Veda is “Bhrama” which translates into “The creator”. Being raised as a Hindu I know for a fact that Bhrama is one of the gods that a common Hindu worships. The whole point here is that a common mans belief in his religion is not the crystal clear image of the principles of that religion. A commercial world has broken down every essence of religion and the common man chooses to believe only those principles that he likes. This altogether changes the face of that particular religion.
The founding fathers of our nation have always requested us to live with peace and harmony between the diverse religious environment of our country. Ultimately for such a situation to be realised we all will have to learn to shake hands with each other when both our religious view points agree upon certain aspects and at the same time also learn to shake hands when we have our differences.
The essence of an almighty power has taken many forms and names over the years. In fact the situation today is such that, the purity of the word GOD has taken a downturn with the ability of languages to play around with this term. For example, the English language makes it possible for the term GOD to have a female gender (GODDESS), the term GOD FATHER or GOD MOTHER attributes a human to the stature of the almighty. The fact is that the supreme power of this universe has no form whatsoever and hence cannot be attributed to a human or have a gender.
Today religion, which is technically the message of god to the people of this world to lead a peaceful and harmonious life, has been reduced to a community of believers or blind followers without even fully understanding their religion. I believe to fully understand a religion you must observe and study the religious scriptures which form the basis of every religion and not its followers. Sometimes the followers of each religion might not have fully understood the founding principles of their religion. This is what leads to differences in opinions and hatred within humans on the basis of religious divisions.
A very interesting example of differences between a common Muslim’s ideology and a common Hindu’s ideology can illustrate my view point. A common Hindu believes in a philosophy called pantheism. He believes that everything is god. He worships cow, snake, tree and every element of nature as god. Now a common Muslim believes that everything in this world is god’s creation. He believes that everything in this world belongs to god. The only difference here is that a common Hindu believes that everything in this world is god and the common Muslim believes that everything in this world is god’s. To bridge the misunderstanding between the followers of these two religions all we have to do is solve the difference of the apostrophe. This very difference in opinion is due to the overtaking of material desires over spiritual well being. And because of this material desires that arise in us we fail to understand the holy scriptures in its rightful meaning. The problem of the apostrophe can be easily solved by taking a closer look into the Hindu scriptures. The Chandogya Upanishad in fact mentions that “God is only one”. This shatters the basic belief of every common Hindu who worship number of gods and not just one. Its further mentioned in the Vedas that “There is no likeness of god”. This means that there cannot be idols or any form for god. Again this shakes the foundation of a common Hindu’s beliefs. Atharvaveda mentions that “Truth is one. God is one. Saints call him by various names”. One of the attributes given to god in the Veda is “Bhrama” which translates into “The creator”. Being raised as a Hindu I know for a fact that Bhrama is one of the gods that a common Hindu worships. The whole point here is that a common mans belief in his religion is not the crystal clear image of the principles of that religion. A commercial world has broken down every essence of religion and the common man chooses to believe only those principles that he likes. This altogether changes the face of that particular religion.
The founding fathers of our nation have always requested us to live with peace and harmony between the diverse religious environment of our country. Ultimately for such a situation to be realised we all will have to learn to shake hands with each other when both our religious view points agree upon certain aspects and at the same time also learn to shake hands when we have our differences.
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