My Religion (Concluding Part)

The religion of self...the age-old but often neglected concept of finding god inside oneself...making oneself - and only oneself - the medium of achieving one's goals...this is my path now.

For too long have we attributed our problems to god and sought a solution from him. Truth is, all the solutions lie within us. In our so called "humbleness" before god, we go even to the extent of calling ourselves "moorakh-khal-kaami". What we don't realize is the immense strength that we have - the human will/spirit - which is all we need to overcome our problems.

Let us understand one thing first - a superior force does exist. We can call it time, energy, fate, chance, god or anything else. Anyone who looks at the universe and the world that we live in, with its virtually unimaginable magnitudes and complexities, cannot deny the existence of a superior force. But the sway of that force exists to our natural world, or our physical life. Nature with all its glory and its disasters, Our own body with its amazing complexities and so many conditions and diseases, and death itself - these are all part of natural life.

The human life, which arises out of interactions with other human beings, is different. True, luck or fortune does play a part in a man's life. But man's attitude and resilience is the deciding factor in his life...period. All emotions, all thoughts, all morals and values, all complicated issues and situations in man's life have come about as a result of man's interactions with fellow men; and so it is only natural that the solution to all the problems must come from within man. After all, Heaven and hell are here on earth; and good and evil are not two entities formalized by god - they have come forth from man's understanding of life and living.

But then, we are a curious species. Throughout the ages, we have seen examples of human spirit conquering all - nature (though that is becoming unfortunate), obstacles, barriers and the most daunting of all challenges - our own temptations and desires. And yet we find ourselves to be weak, afraid to the point of cowardice and think ourselves to be utterly helpless at times! What can be more pathetic than worshipping the strength of human spirit (as shown by our mythological and historical heroes), and yet not realizing it in one's own self!

Man is the maker of his own destiny. He decides his own fate. You can tell me that he still is limited by circumstances, but I say that he always has a choice - to rise above mediocrity in which he dwells and achieve godliness, overcoming any and every circumstance. Of course, it takes a lot to realize this choice. He has to have amazing will, strength, courage, hope, persistence...and fearlessness (The last quality, of course, is the most important of them all). But that is the beauty of it, that is the task of life, to develop all this within oneself. Not money, not fame, not any other material thing. Those are things that go away with time. The sum of our experiences, virtues, emotions, and this rising-above-the-ordinary; is the sum of a man's life. Through this, he achieves the peace and joy (Anand) within himself. These are things that no one - not even death - can take away from him. And at the end of his days, when this man looks back at his life, he has the satisfaction of knowing that he gave life his best, led his life right and that he has no regrets...which i think is the essence of living a conscientious (Viveksheel) life. 2 things, hence, summarize our living - Vivek and Anand (and guess who was a combination of both!)

A man has to build in himself these virtues, though in most cases, life does it for him. Removing desires is the absolute best way to go about it. Desires, expectations etc lead to misery in one way or the other; and it is better removed (Most of the time again, it is life which removes it for us!). But desire is human, and so very difficult to remove. The next best thing is to develop a capacity, a tolerance for suffering. One should believe that one will achieve his desire/goal/aim through his sheer will, but upon failure, one should not lose heart and not give into the pain (though pain itself is not really a bad thing!).

Of course, we do not realize the beauty of crises in our lives, ones that teach us all the above-mentioned virtues. I guess pain is essential to the human experience. One cannot learn to rise high if he has not been put through the tests of life. In fact, the pain should propel one further to achieve his goal. The difficulty though is that people refuse to rise above the crises. They indulge in their pain, torment themselves, remaining stuck in their problems...but they never care to learn from the pain and move on. We want life to be a bed of roses, and pricky thorns are just the thing to throw us off the road. What we fail to see is that if life remains a bed of roses always, we'll never achieve the essential human experience. We'll just come, survive, consume and go...not living at any moment in between. Pain and failure is what teaches you to the importance of life, the importance of everything, so that you appreciate everything much better. Of course, to achieve anand, pain must be overcome; and pain can be overcome by developing a resistance, a tolerance within yourself. And this tolerance comes from having suffered pain. It is something like consuming a little poison each day to be immune from poisoning. Pain is the enemy and also the weapon to defeat the enemy. So one should stop fretting about misery and suffering that befalls him - in a way, that is one of the best things to have happened to one.

The only true religion in the world is believing in oneself, believing in one's own ability to overcome pain, to do the right thing no matter what it takes, to live and live joyously, bringing happiness to the life of fellow human beings. Knowing that you are the solution to all your problems. Finding the strength inside you to face the circumstances and proceed on to the path of truth. And the truth is simpler than we think - that we have limited time on this earth, and we should utilize it to bring good to the world, to nature and to humanity.

Of course, What is good and what bad, what is right and what is wrong, ie, the subjectivity of morality, is a topic that need another post to do justice to it.