By Gregory Shullai
The roots from which different religions sprung up after the lives of the people that initiated it have expired, are deemed to be the original unchangeable roots of that religion and they are what we need to know if we desire to understand that religion, and certainly not what we hear from today’s proponents of that religion. By thinking that the vague religious practices we follow today have come about from the original sources, we are doing religion an unparalleled injustice because what has become of religion is so deformed, so decayed that everything that that religion relied upon is now being denied by its followers. The simplest way to refute what any religion stands for in the present day is to look at the organisation and the leaders that perpetuate that religion and compare it with its founder and one will see that the original teachings have now become redundant and defunct and are no longer taught to the people who follow it, and that in reality the present-day slogans and interpretations are doing more harm than good to the original religion. In short, the organisation that was tasked with perpetuating that religion has forgotten the purpose for which it was set up in the first place and has therefore made that religion “no good.” Therefore, in the present day, no religion should be confounded with the root from which it got its name – other roots such as politics, business, power, wealth, etc., are far more valuable to the organisation of that religion because that is what is making the people powerful…the true teachings never provided power instead they sought to uplift kindness and tolerance and humility – to bring to the fore the metaphysical, or the soulful aspects that were and are dormant in men and women then and now.
An understanding of the metaphysical is the nucleus of all religious teachings, and departing from this truth is in essence a direct assault on the origin of that religion, a most egregious injustice to the holy name of the founder or the place – a most horrible form of decay and honour to the source of its foundation, its faith and life. What did the founders of a religion deny or teach against? everything that now goes by the name of that religion. “The people honour God with their lips but their heart is far from God, in vain do they believe in their worship of God teaching as doctrines and dogmas the precepts of men – not the precepts of God.” (Gospel of Mark 7:7) Everything is acceptable to these commanders of the masses who essentially are crafty politicians that go about misrepresenting religious precepts in a political colour so as to mould public opinion to their side – the latter being somewhat similar to the gregarious sheep that follow shepherds and nothing more. A hypothesis of hate which a political leader avails of again and again, is in the long run more powerful than the deepest belief in something that cannot be proved. The senseless hatred that these leaders have towards everything good is so ghastly as to cause them to indulge in slandering and lying and creating something not good – even disrupting the celebrations of people of other faiths and demolishing buildings and structures of the members of other faiths.
Many religions today bear the mark of degeneration, not because of their priests and pundits or their scriptures, but because of politicians who have taken on the hue of a religious leader – politicians of all sorts of waste and refuse and an aggregate of morbid elements that huddle together and seek each other out in order to deflect and disguise the cause of other religions’ teachings. To a cunning politician, religion is not a holy phenomenon, nor is it the outcome of the customs of a particular race; it is something that is useful in acquiring power over people which is a route to power over the State and to wealth and self-enrichment. Basically, these cunning politicians who use religion are those who are unable to make a living from brain and/or brawn; at bottom people who possess nothing but rancour against all that is well constituted – against civilization, against science, against common sense. They become a curse on everything that is well constituted and necessary for the perpetuation of a race or a nation. Most of all such a person is contrary to intellectual movements and to all that makes common sense; whatever he/she indulges in becomes the perfect ground upon which idiots flourish – idiots who utter a curse against the intellect and the intellectual. Such people detest those who are gifted, learned and intellectually independent for the simple reason that these well constituted individuals would normally become the dominant players in society and this would tantamount to suicide for them. This is the principal goal when politicians attempt to preach and teach what a religion stands for – they do more harm than good to the people – in short, their lack of knowledge and wisdom finds a purpose in lies and deception and the worst kind of untruths that have ever been displayed.
As is evident from the above narration, the problem is not the religion per se, but its susceptibility to wolves in sheep’s clothing, for the simple reason that most of the people are illiterate and gullible, and these shrewd politicians read their scriptures only as a means to seduce those that are illiterate in the religious texts. For them it is vital that the public must not be allowed to receive education on the original texts else they will become capable of deciding for themselves whether to obey the commands and instructions of their ‘so-called’ priests and holy masters. For the politician who uses religion to promote his cause, whether the commands he makes are for the good or bad of their fellowmen and country is not to be discussed, and this order must be preserved. What is happening in certain parts of India is precisely this – the political masters are effectively getting their vested interests served, especially at the elections by inciting a religious divide. In those parts of the country where the education levels are high such manipulations are not possible.
This is the situation that is presently existing in India and that is how it must remain as far as these manipulative leaders are concerned so that when the temperature is to be raised the illiterate can be brainwashed into committing the most ruthless and inhuman acts believing that what they’re doing is the right thing. And this is bringing about the downfall of the people and the nation, so much so that for those who have eyes to see what is happening remains as the most ridiculous of spectacles. India now appeals only to the disinherited wherever they exist – and sadly they form the bulk of humanity in India itself. Moreover, it is so evident that what is happening in the name of religion today is so contrary to anything that bears any semblance to an intellectual progressive movement that one is frequently led to believe that religion now takes the side of the idiots who can do nothing better than utter curses at the intellectuals. The only way to refute this development is to show that the blunders being caused by these leaders is bringing about the downfall of the nation and that their teachings are bringing about more harm than good to humanity at large, in short that the manner in which they demonstrate their power, be it in word or deed, is no longer in the interest of the development of the people and the country; but there would be very few ears to listen to this truth.
In the first place, as it stands today religion should not be confounded with that one root from which it arose and got accepted by the people. It began with teachings that defended the masses from the control and evil of the wealthy and the powerful, but with the advent of politics, politicians now use these religious ideas and proponents to gain power and wealth and control over the people. Religion in India has now become the domain of politics. Politicians motivate the political processes on religious precepts because the latter appeal to the poor and the jobless which are the majority today. This way politicians stay powerful and become more powerful, more important in forming whatsoever nucleus they want to create around which their powers and their vested interests can develop. All the doctrines and precepts that any religion required us to hold as good and true continue in their speeches – the truth however is that their actions are an example filled with falsehood and sin and hatred for the poor and the minorities. The light in which we view politics – the colours which we recognize one party from the next have all changed. The whole of politics in India, with its reflection of development and unity as its significance has changed: politics, as the originators knew is dead in India, and with-it religion as well. India was fortunate in that it didn’t have to go through the experiences that swept Europe in the medieval period, when the nucleus of a democracy for the people by the people and of the people was taking shape – India borrowed the constitutions of other nations, and their experiences were the much – needed light, the much-needed guiding principles for its future, and this required that our politicians, especially the ones that were in the driving seat needed to be educated in political thought just as much as they needed political experience, because in being educated every injustice made a strong impression on the one who made it knowing that it had been committed in the past and knowing what the consequences were for person and State that came from it. One feared divine and public retribution and a civil penalty or a bad reputation. Those were the days when politicians believed that the things they did were either divinely or devilishly inspired. We have lent new colours to our politics now. Politics was noble when instigating one religion against another was felt to be a transgression of the most dangerous kind and indeed as a crime against a nation, as a distrust of everything good, lofty, pure and honourable – to that extent religion in democracy has made India bad and ugly.
