Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Religions are source of spreading messages

I think that though all religions can be visualized same but they can be seen as different source of teachings by the god. I cant agree with the fact that they all have same teachings. But I don’t mean that they all have different values. Its like one is a doctor and another one is an engineer, both have same values but different purpose in the society. Same case is of religions. Basically all religions have same core teaching, to preach god. But along with that, there are other main teachings for humans given by each religion and they are different for every religion holding same importance in society.

Hinduism has focused over karma or action with no desire of obtaining fruit. Islam has pointed of being self perfect or to be on the path of truth at all circumstances, the main motive of jihad. Jesus in Christianity has thought to love others and live in peace. Buddhism tells to escape from sorrow by eradicating desire from life. Jainism tells to follow ahimsa i.e non-voilence. Sikhism tells that one can accept any religion and its teachings to achieve God (as written in http://www.onelittleangel.com/wisdom/quotes/sikhism.asp?level=1).

In above, we can feel that though main teachings of all religions are different, they all hold same value for human welfare and would give same result. I don’t say that any of those religions do not say all those teachings, but their focused teachings are different. This may be the trick of god or eminent personalities of spreading different important messages in human society in the form of religions through Lord Jesus or Lord Buddha with different believes in each of those. So, religions are equal in terms of values and not in terms of teachings. They are source of spreading messages. Or in other words, they are just images hiding the real messages behind them where all their practices are just formalities to upport those messages. And as its no bad to follow any message or teaching, any individual of any religion can follow teaching of any religion. One should not see other religions as different culture but a fake idea to spread messages for human welfare.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

JIHAD BEFORE KAL YUG!

The statement may seem quite controversial. If in wonders, suppose the great warrior Arjun of Mahabharata walks out and is asked about the above statement, he would definitely deny on that. But one should know that it’s useless to look over a term if its definition is being followed.

Jihad is the effort to for an individual to purify himself from inside. It is to obtain self perfection for an individual which can be only attained if that individual always stands on right track, no matter how strong situations comes in his way. To sum them up, it simply means to protect ‘Dharma’ from ‘Adharma’. And to deal with it, it talks of every possible move, from a bit of peace to the storm of war against evils. But it never conveys anything about aggression over innocents. Not only this, it never directs Islam followers to engage war over evils as a first step. War has been preferred only as a response to the war over the suppressors of the truth or Islam’s beliefs. Thus, ‘Dharma’ has to be protected from ‘Adharma’ by any mean and at any cost.


Now if we revert back to our great epic ‘Mahabharata’, the same definition can be visualized. It’s no use to explain the fact that while Pandavas were on the truth side, injustice and cruel measures were supported by ‘Kauravas’. But even when there were clouds of war between them, it was Lord Krishna who promoted the idea of ignoring war as much as possible if the truth could withstand in terms of peace between them. And so he asked for five villages only from Kauravas.

But when the same Kauravas left no other way for Pandavas to protect truth and opened war against them, the same Lord Krishna provoked Arjun to stand up against the enemy and fight for the truth. He made him to realize his duty to fight for justice and to even go against his beloved ones. Thus, to be on truth and obtain self perfection, he had to break down emotional wall within his heart.



Even in Ramayana, in order to give justice to Sugreeve and to protect him from the cruel behavior of his brother Bali towards him, Lord Ram punished Bali by killing him in wrong manner. He had no problem of being identified as coward at that time just to support justice and obtain self purity.

Not only this, when Ravan who was suppose to be an idol of all evils at that time, kidnapped Seeta, even then the Lord Ram was ready to forgive Ravan till the last moment of war if he returns his wife back to him. So, like Lord Krishna, Lord Ram also tried to ignore war up to his best level but when he realized that the truth cannot be protected without engaging war over Ravan, he did that. Thus, through Mahabharata, Lord Krishna has taught us to stand up for justice and truth by any means and if necessary, there is no flaw for adopting war against evils hindering the truth and win it by hook or by crook.


Jihad is the same concept. In other words, it is just a term given to what all had been done by Pandavas or Lord Rama for the protection of the truth. I never say that Jihad has been followed in Hinduism nor I want to blame any Muslim for using it in wrong terms. I just want to clear out the real meaning of Jihad using Mahabharata and Ramayana example. It is to stand for the truth and also not to oppose evils, but the oppression made by those evils. War should only be treated as a response to the aggression made by those evils and should be driven when there is no other way left out. They should realize that whosoever is spreading terror at the cost of Jihad is actually fulfilling his own personal intentions and those who kill innocents under their commands are real evils of Jihad just like those in Ramayana and Mahabharata.



POSSIBLY ALL RELIGIONS DEFINE SAME WAY FOR SALVATION


Views that are focused:


1) Article focuses over the thinking that none of all religions can be wrong about any belief, including salvation process. Also, salvation should be same for all individuals.

2) All beings in this world can be divided in 3 major levels, each level carrying multiple small stages. First is plant life like trees, grass, flowers,, microbes etc forming various stages. Second is animal life, starting from small insects to huge whales. Last one is human life. Thus, first stage of life in first level is least advanced being and humans forming last stage are most advanced.

3) When going from first to last level, ability to do work increases for beings and so increases ability to do sins. Variation of type of life for a species also increases from first to last level. Thus, beings like microbes or small plants in first stage have same type of life.

4) Every soul created first takes life of least advanced species so that every soul gets same type of life. After death, they advance to higher stages of same and then of higher level until they reach human phase. Type of life for any stage would depend upon sins performed in previous life. Physical and psychological problems, absence of God in new life would act as hell for that soul.

5) Ability of humans to decide upon their actions enables them only to get salvaged. Article describes person's duties to be performed towards society, family or themselves. An individual's desire for performing those duties determines his salvation. So, every new soul created have to go through many phases for salvation or to achieve God.

6) Individual attains salvation if performs or desires to perform his duties. If he carries unforgivable sins, he goes to hell or take another birth for short time to clear out sins.

7) If not desired to do duties, he takes another birth as any being, depending upon previous actions. For getting human life as another chance of salvation, physical problems, mental stress, absence of God, all are kind of hell to clear out his sins. If sins were devastating, he gets life of previous stage or level and whole cycle repeats. It's like in hell permanently.

6) When universe collapses with no places left for re-birth, all salvation deprived beings enter paradise or hell at the day of judgment. Those in hell finally enter heaven after clearing all sins.

7) Article links salvation processes of most of the religions in logical sense and not in vain.

8) Article does not point to any religious belief but has obtained practical approach to unite the religions. Recommended for people with good knowledge of salvation for most of the religions.


Explaination:

From over centuries, people have divided this earth into many countries and they have also divided themselves into various religious groups. Among all the religions, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism are major one. Each of them that have been established has given different teachings to its followers regarding way of living, way of praising god and helping others, way of obtaining salvation, about existence of God and human soul and every other factor. Many of such factors are almost same in some manner. Hindu believe human soul as part of the god while Christian thinks it as a creation of the same. Islam, Christianity and Hinduism believe in existence of heaven and hell. What defers among them is the concept of salvation. While Hinduism and Buddhism say it is to be free from cycle of birth and rebirth, Islam and Christianity believe in a single life only. I believe that all of them are somehow right. I can’t agree over the thinking that any of all religions can be wrong about any kind of belief like salvation. Actually, what I think is that every human being has some duties which are necessary to be obtained. And those factors determine his salvation. In terms of various religions, they can be good deeds or desireless actions. Deireless because good deeds or any work for personal benefits only are actually evil actions only.


But the most unfortunate thing for that individual is his unawareness for the same thing. Without engaging those responsibilities, he begins to achieve his own aim and trace down the path that deviates him from the right track. Humans though tend to achieve different destinations in their life but do not bother about the fact of fulfilling their responsibilities. What I believe that the precious human life must be made for some specific purposes. I don’t say that any individual don’t have any right to go towards his desired goal but along with that he should also take care of his responsibilities.Responsibilities may be towards society, family or him. For society, helping needy people, donation to various government organizations, avoiding and preventing others to waste water, polluting the environment etc can be done. For family, taking care of parents for their whole life, not making use of friends or other relatives should be taken into account. For him, always trying to be on right track, never to forget the Creator, etc would be the main issues. It is required that whatever he does should be up to his maximum level Donating money for a month if he can do the same for his whole life or treating some friends with good intention while others with selfish mood does not accomplishes his responsibility.

The main reason that supports my thinking is a question that keeps hitting my mind. Why we are born as humans? Or specifically, why humans are made? The concept of karma is right but we cannot take birth as humans just to have fruits of our previous actions! Otherwise, just to bear fruits, we should have taken birth in the form of any other being like a tree or an animal with no ability to decide upon the type of action in our life and then die. As we are humans who can only decide what to do in his life, the Supreme one must be expecting something from us as otherwise animals can also bear fruits of their previous actions. Definitely the kind of life that one gets as a human and all kind of happenings in his life depend upon his actions in his previous life as any other being but there should be a reason of his birth as a human life. This reason what I believe is a form of responsibilities. These may be difficult to carry out but that what humans suppose to do.

Some sort of duties should be performed by every human being for the sake of earth, as if every being begins to take care of his society, family then the world will improve automatically. And that makes me to realize that may be the concept of Hinduism, Islam and Christianity about life after death is same. I totally agree with the concept of reincarnation process in case of animal life as they would not carry any specific duty decided by their own. Animal soul would take birth by birth till it attains human life by his actions. So technically, animals can't attain salvation but their actions would decide whether to take birth as human in next life or any another being along with the type and span of life. For a human, life after death would depend upon his intention of realizing and performing his responsibilities.


If an individual tends to deny his duties all the time till his death, he would definitely make the god to realize about the failure of his human life and instead of human, he should had taken birth in the form of other being. So the god would give him another life as a human in the form of another chance. The type of life that whether he should take birth in rich or poor family or with a great look or physically disturbed or as an animal is all dependent over his actions. To clear out all sins that he would have done, bad physical enviroment, weird mental status, saperation from God in his new life would act as hell. If born as animal because of his sins, he has take birth again and again to attain new human life and then carrying out basic duties to attain salvation. It's like going to hell permanently. So logically speaking, one should prove himself to meet God which can only be done by doing his responsibilities.

If the same individual performs or tries to perform all his duties up to his best level, then he would make the god to think about the success of his life and so his soul would deserve to meet him. Then after death, his soul should meet him either directly in heaven or after spending some time in hell or take another birth as any being for short span of time to clarify his sins that he would have done in earthly human life. This would depend upon whether his sins are forgivable or not. It should be necessary as punishment helps to clarify sins of every individual and to meet god, all his sins should be cleared. Practically, if he has proved himself, then there is no need to take another birth just to bear fruits of his any action, if left.


Not only living beings, even the whole universe has a fixed period. So, when it will collapse, there would be no place left for any being to take birth to obtain salvation. At that time, all those beings who wouldn't be salvaged, they would either enter hell or heaven which would be determined at the day of judgement. And those in hell would finally go to heaven when their all sins get cleared. At that time, all their good and bad deeds would be taken to determine their future. It would all be done by God.

So, if humans take birth to perform their corresponding duties, then I think all religions says somehow same thing about life after death. Responsibilities of any person must be determined by all the duties related to the area from which that person belongs. For instance, someone in tribal areas should be given the duty related to protection and proper use of natural resources. One living in areas like Afghanistan would be responsible for not supporting terrorists even at the cost of his family to free his country from terror. That would be the reason that he has taken birth in Afghanistan as a human rather than an animal.


This is all I have to say in accordance to my belief and my estimation. And I definitely accept the fact that not everyone would like to agree over my belief. So I do expect every reader to post his view over it.