PURITY NOT BY DEFINITION A FEATURE OF PROPHETIC FAITH

PURITY NOT BY DEFINITION A FEATURE OF PROPHETIC FAITH

The believer is no less impure and the non-believer no less pure by dint of acceptance or rejection of supposedly divine doctrine. Purity rests on one's chastity of living, thinking and action and not on affiliation to any cult or creed. There can be no doctrinaire securing of purity. Such doctrines are superstition, yes, pure superstition. That much for their purity! Anyone who loves without distinction all and sundry, lives a chaste life, is engaged in welfare work for humanity, is purer than the fanatic preaching from the pulpit words of hate in the assured belief that destruction of the infidel is the surest way to a heaven full of heightened earthly pleasure. Such sensuality in religious conception can hardly be hailed spiritual and, hence, cannot be deemed pure. Purity is, my friend, a different ball-game altogether and is not doctrinally ensured. It has to be lived out in real. The Hindu knows it only too well. It is termed 'brahmacharya' in Sanskrit. Have you any clue to it, you who call the believer pure and the infidel impure simply because your book says so?

Written by Sugata Bose