"Aliens (looking at Earth from space): as near as I can tell, they're fighting over which religion is the most peaceful!" That is what the fight, which has become so extreme now, is about, the most righteous religion/God. Basically, to be religious also means that we hold on to its beliefs so strongly that we don't allow us to find any perfection in any other religion. Our religion is what teaches us the ways to know or to approach the mighty God, but it also teaches us to be limited while we go exploring Him. It's, too, true that we're so much loyal to our own religion and antithetical to every other, that eventually we become to hate the people with a different belief, and spread that hatred around us. "Everything has a first cause, and the first cause for Him? It's none of your business." This extreme and blind faith in Gods is so common that people hardly perceives anything wrong about it, while others, who're said to literate, refuses to even believe in Gods. However, the answers to following questions will illustrate my point of view towards Gods and our beliefs about them.
First thing first, does God exist? It's, no doubt, a very controversial question, but I shall answer it under my own knowledge or awareness of God. Everyone of faith, feels or knows their God by their own way; I, being a Muslim, would talk about existence of Him as I've happened to know. Once a man came to Hazrat Ali (a.s) and asked him to prove that Allah truly exists. So, Imam Ali (a.s) told him to look at the sun with his eyes open for some minutes. Doing so, the man, after some seconds, looked away as his eyes began to hurt. To this, Imam said, "Your eyes aren't able to see a thing He created, how come you'd be able see Him?!" It's quite hard to fully convince someone about existence of Him. As far as I'm concerned, I believe, we can feel God in the nature, and nature is all around us. My knowledge is short of explaining how He is, but I can surely feel him when I pray to him, when I ask from him, when I stop myself from doing something wrong; I feel Him in the happiness that I get helping someone, I feel Him when I submit myself in front Him, I feel He listens to me, and I feel that He cares about me. I find His existence in my hopefulness; the hope for tomorrow and the hope that helps me stand when faced with fiascos. The more I talk to Him, the nearer I get and the more I feel Him. “The higher a man's conception of God, the better will he know Him. And the better he knows God, the nearer will he draw to Him, imitating His goodness, His mercy, and His love of man." Our knowledge isn't enough to either question His being in wrong sense, and wrong we'd be if we deny His existence without going deep in research. After all, "Young man, young man, your arms are too short to box with God." However, though my feelings may not be any solid prove of His existence, but they surely defines how I see God and His being. _/
Today, the question whether does His existence really matters for us, is needed to be answered before the question that does God exist. After Christianity and Islam, the third in the list of religions with most population, are the people 'unaffiliated with religion', which is 16.3% of the world's population. They, with their reasons, aren't the believers in God, but we having faith in Him, don't actually care about His existence. It's because we're so busy in our own worlds that we hardly get time to recall Him and His importance in our lives. Their being religious only buys them the epithet 'people of faith', but are they, indeed? Though they seem to believe in God, do they really know Him? Do they feel His existence? Or do they take time to feel Him or thank Him? No! They're so busy that they hardly have time for themselves, and unless they know themselves, they can't approach Him. Estimated results show that people spend 40 hours a week working, that's 10.3 years of their lives; add more as they uses their phones 85 times a day that makes 5 hours each day. So, how could a person take time out for Him, and for His existence in himself/herself? We, just so merely, do the basic honors to be in touch with our beliefs just to be saved on the judgement day; take out the concept of hell and heaven, and see us become like 'who is God, again?'
Among all the Gods/religions, who is, without the favoritism and pride of our own God/beliefs, the most righteous God? Research shows that there're estimated 4,200 religions, today; that means almost those many Gods. Among these, Christianity comes out at top with 31.5% of the world's population, followed by Islam that spreads over 23.2% of the total population. We can tell that every religion would preach love, affection, brotherhood, and all the goodnesses, so why all these misconception and hatred about every other religion? By the example of Sun, given in the article, we can see why. "Each man wants to have a special God of his own, or at least a special God for his native land." It's that pride of our own God that blinds us to be limited and hateful towards every other religion. But is our God really ours?
What if there's only one God, worshiped in different religions by different names? Then, our God is not really ours, is He? In words of Mahatma Gandhi, "God has no religion." Yes, He is of everyone; he is one, and He is the creator of us all. It's the misconception of us that has divided and belittled Him by our own selfish, little perspectives. We people are like eyes, we see everything but ourselves. We see everything wrong with every other person of other religion, but are we ourselves that flawless? I believe, we have no right to criticize any other religion. They're right with their beliefs if they're loyal to their God. It's very important for us to rationalize His existence and what He really created us for. The concept of 'One God' could really bound us all together, and we could make peace in our world that is suffering by the 'religion-phobia'. Not only that, we could nourish back love, kindness, affection, brotherhood, that we miss so dearly nowadays. And "If wars are started with secrets and lies, maybe we can start peace with transparency and openness."
One of the reasons why religion happens to be a big reason for terrorism or war, is our misconception about religions, different sects in every religion, and disharmony among the people of faith. Coming line shall define, somehow, that how the conflicts started in the first place; it is Jesus speaking to His followers, "Okay everyone, now listen carefully. I don't want to end up with 4 different versions of this!" Though it doesn't ring a bell that how various religions came into being, but it does give us a hint that how different sects got formed in a religion. The message that were conveyed to people by the prophets, were explained differently by different people, as they perceived it their way; it has continued till now, from generations to generations, even being reformed at some stages. Now, to argue or to value the differences with the aim to split ourselves into different sects isn't a wise decision, after all. It has been years since they got started and yet not solved, and it'll take years to solve them; even worse, we might not come up with any solution and they might get more complicated. Because the disunity and the hatred between our people has built a wall that splits us into two or even more groups. On the other hand, there're even bigger conflicts between different religions, because people want other people believe what they believe. But "Religion is like a pair of shoes... find one that fits for you, but don't make me wear your shoes." So, as a result of making others, forcefully, wear our pair of shoes, terrorism happens to be at its peak. We now have Islamophobia that people feel afraid of so terribly around the world; it's because some hell-deserving groups, such as ISIS, are on the mission of spreading Islam all over the world and start the 'world war III'. In other words, they, for their own sake, want to rule the world. Though it isn't as straight as it seems which means there are countries supporting them for their benefits, religion is used as a tool to spread a wave of fear and to start wars. Why? It's because we're so weak in our faith, and we're weak because we don't actually happen to know God. We're being used against each other, yet we fight so eagerly to kill our own people. We need to cease and realize what is going on. Before being a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Jew, let's be a human first. And when given the choice between being right and being kind, let's choose to be kind. _/
While being so extreme in proving our own God in our own favors and persuading others to believe wat we believe, do we really care that much about His creations, His beings? In last 40 years, 20% of amazon has been cut down; about 700 million cars, yearly produces 900 million carbon dioxide; 100 billion plastic bags are thrown away each year, less than 1% of which gets recycled while others cause about 1 billion birds to die, according to World Watch Institute (WWI). Getting to know all these, I'd say, "I wish people cared as much about the Earth as they did about who they think created it." Before we know God or become His follower, we've to be human first. Tomorrow's Earth is today's responsibility, so we need to hand it over to our coming generations in a good, livable condition. But we're not, in our race of humanity, animals have won. We've become so self-centered that we hardly care about anyone/anything else. Animals are going extinct, because we desire to hunt them for own useless purposes, and because earth has become so polluted that they hardly could live. It's said "If animals could speak; human kind would weep!" God created us all, if we're called superior it doesn't mean we can be cruel. But are we superior in being kind than others, wiser than others, smarter than others? We're one, we're all connected; when asked how treat others from Ramana Maharishi, he replied, "They're no others!"
Am I Muslim? The other day someone texted me asking, "Are you a Muslim?" My immediate answer would've been 'Yes!' but I paused because I felt like this question has been asked by my conscious, so I really had to search for the answer deep within me. No doubt I'm a Muslim and proud about it, but it took me a while to say 'yes' because I was afraid my answer would be a lie. It's sort of a blessing that we're born in a Muslim family, I had heard in TV show, and by now, I realize that he was right about it. Apparently, we've been Muslims by generations; there's nothing we did to become a Muslim, and that really is a blessing. I say this because if we're to become a Muslim, we'd hardly follow the teaching or we'd hardly be able to live a life, accordingly. I don't know if it's so in every religion that people aren't too related to religion being a religious person, but the way I see around me, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, are just the epithets we give ourselves. We know the basics, of course, and also do the basic honors/duties but do we really do it with a pure intention or say, with full awareness of what we're doing? I'd touch a common example of offering our prayers. So, does lengthy prayers are worth more in front of God than the short ones? Or is it really important to be strict in following each step before the prayers or during it, like 'Wazzu' and the loud or quiet reciting of the 'Rakaats'? Or offering our prayers in any condition we're in, no matter what? Well, the first answer to all these questions would be 'yes', and there's no denying it, but what I feel more important than all these, is the connection you built between you and God, because that's the main point, right?! What good would they do, the formalities, or what guarantee would they owe that your prayers are being accepted, if you're not in connection with your God? If you're not deep into His thoughts? If you're not asking Him with all you have? Even if we remember our God in any situation and thank Him for everything, that'd be much sincere and worthy than the prayers offered in a hesitation. So, in order to be called a Muslim, Christian, or Hindu, I'd have to know what it is like being that person.
Due to our false concepts about God, who in ONE, and the formation of different Gods for our purposes and believes, the world has become a hell that we live in. We kill, we fight, we hate each other just because our ideas differ; our knowledge about God is so limited and possessive. Whether we're asked the reasons for His existence, for role of religion in our lives, for the misconception of Gods, or the reasons for proving our own God the most righteous, we fail! Our knowledge is so limited that we can't even be good to each other, to other creatures, to the nature, and to our own habitat, that we're known as the most DANGEROUS animals on Earth. My God!, we kill each other for our own desires, and kill each other in such unthinkable ways that're out of the course of humanity. We kill each other on behalf of different believes; yet the one who dies, shouts 'Allah-o-akbar' and the same words are of the suicider. Puerto Libre defines it beautifully, as he writes, "Excuse me Sir. The train for a better world?" A better world could be our motherland, Earth if we begin to live in harmony. I know that the differences that divides us, that is our different believes about God, are based on strong and deep foundations, and are most likely to continue, but it's not wise to let them be the causes that divide us, or the reasons for us to turn us on each other. Let the differences be there, and let the sleeping dogs lie because as much as we talk about them or bring them to lives, they'd grow and we'd become more distant from each other and would hate each other, even more. Let's be respectful to each other’s' believes and religions, while exploring more about our own God. Let's live in peace, and let others live in peace as well. Let's be more kind, more understanding, more respectful, and most of all more human! "If equal affection cannot be, let me be the kindest one."
Ejaz Hussain (8.2.2016)