Superstition and fear of the hereafter fuels devotion more than the thirst for spiritual enlightenment. Houses of God keep proliferating everywhere as the human house suffers more and more.
Everything in life is fraught with infatuation for the fleeting as death destroys all. The more attached a person is to worldly things, the more he suffers, for his is a sinking house in a sea of cosmic delusion. And in this he builds his arc of hope that death will make him meet his Maker while he inflicts death on all those who disbelieve in his fantastic notions of God and truth.
The Divine seeks refuge in concrete from Arabia to Alaska as He is driven from the human heart everywhere. This is the present predicament as man grapples with the problems of a proliferating population, a technology he uses but does not understand and an industry which is destroying him with its crushing burden as human labour of love and common sympathy vanishes into thin air with the growing mist that clouds human vision.
Will man triumph in his sinking vessel and swim ashore before the sea absorbs him or will he keep up his puerile pretence that his divine protector will save him unto a blessed heaven after a hateful earthly existence? Who will answer this and like questions that trouble thinking man for none seems to know anything beyond vague ideas and dogmatic assertions neither of which stand the test of reason. Sages say that in purified contemplation arises realisation of the truth but how many can attempt this ascent of the Everest? Most are doomed to a fleeting flicker of an earthly existence of no consequence and before they have learnt anything worth the call, they are swept away into the icy chill of the waters that ever drag in their sinking vessels to an unfathomable end.
In such a scenario the easy alternative that works best and brings solace to a vast number of people is what may be termed popular religion with its puerile prescriptions for perfect living and the promise of a postmortem salvation. Fantastic claims of faith-based religions are material for easy acceptance by billions who hang on to these simplistic solutions of life and Nature for sheer comfort in a world of dreadful uncertainties. Thus the major world religions prosper as they feed on human superstition while feeding the fire of human ignorance with the fuel of irrational doctrines and dangerous dogmas. And they keep building the houses of their God who can never find residence enough either in the vast cosmos or in the human heart where concrete seeks not to build His abode or the citadels of his devotees. Thus it goes on from Arabia to Alaska, from the Vatican to Vienna.
No comments:
Post a Comment