Some people call me religious. I wear a Rudrakhsha on my body and hand, occasionally you may find a mark of vermillion, sandalwood or the typical orange sindoor of Hanuman on my large forehead after I have visited some places that have been termed as 'Houses of Gods' - temples, I do read the Ramcharitmanas or Gita and carry them with me many times whether I manage to read them or not, I used to observe fasts. At my home you would find pictures of Lord Hanuman, Divine Mother, Jagannath, Jesus, Ganesha, Idol of Krishna and Buddha, picture of my grandparents. None of them speak back to me, sometimes I doubt if they are even listening. I use many languages to communicate with them, always understanding the full meaning of what I say. The language varies from Sanskrit, to Hindi, to Awadhi, to Oriya, to English, to Punjabi and sometimes even silence. I cannot make the distinction as to which one of them I am referring to when I say something, I dont usually consider this neccessary. Also, not all the times I mean exactly as I say. Neither do I have the sincereity or conviction behind all my words. I know this.
A few days back somebody asked me "What is your denomination?", I shouted back on the phone "Denomination, as in?"
"What religion, what faith do you belong to?"
I could not answer that immediately. I thought for a while and said "I am a Hindu by birth, that is how I would put it". I wanted to celebrate Christmas with them.
Some kids whose company I was fortunate to have in one of the Saturday afternoons asked me which religion I belonged to. These kids could not speak or hear. They gestured, one did a cross and the other directed her upturned hands towards the sky. I could not understand immediately or I was trying not to understand, I can't be sure. I asked someone to tell them that 'I am an Indian'. She took her thumb and did a upward motion in front of her forehead. I don't know what that means exactly. Did the two kids who asked this question and all others who were standing there (of age 5,6,7,8,9 etc) understand the question or the answer ?
Name and form. As they say in scriptures 'Nama' and 'Rupa'. Take these things out you will get 'Brahma' or anything else you want to call it, again the delusion of words. The moment you put these dual handicaps of name and form, you have diluted the reality. So, with everything which has a name and a form.
'neti, neti', translated 'not this, not this' this is how you approach what is 'Absolute'.
i have few more things to discuss...and would but lets think.
The moment we put a name to a person, we start the division, this religion, that faith, this region, girl, boy etc. The moment we see a person, again we start to make divisions-in addition to all that what is mentioned before, colour, rich, poor, beautiful etc.
Back in school I have read somewhere that asking for somebody's religion is not at all a good behaviour. After school when I started meeting people outside my world,that is my school, people used to ask me, which religion you belong? At that time I used to be angry on them(though I couldn't show it to them,maybe because I was not having an explanation for this emotion) and used to tell my religion. I wonder what is there in a religion. Why people ask questions like this? I wonder whether it would have changed something if I would have belonged to some other religion.
ReplyDeleteSo many questions are there but I dare not ask anybody. Don't know why?
But you my friend have really started a good topic. I hope in future I could add something to it.