Being religious V/S Religious Bias

Looking down on the present condition of India and the world, it seems the social situation is grave and terrified. 

Since the beginning of civilization, our planet has been attacked for quite a number of times now. These include a huge list from "the battle of Panipath" in Mughal period to the attack in World Trade Centre in recent past. If we look into our own country, we find several attacks, starting from the riots in India in the days of Indian freedom struggle to the recent Hyderabad Blast. Needless to say, these incidents are not something to take pride on for a nation.

If we look deep into the reason of these casualties, we shall find a common reason in all- religion. Right from the dawn of civilization, many massacres have taken place just to keep particular religious biases intact! Take the example of Babri masjid and Ayodhya issue or that of Hindu-Muslim riot: we see the same picture. The question of the day is- are these quarrels necessary in the name of religion?

The answer is a bold and flat 'NO'.  Not only are these quarrels unnecessary, but also they are heinous. We fight for Allah or God or Bhagwan, it does not affect Allah or God or Bhagwan, but it affects ourselves. We get bleed, our kins, near and dear ones die for unnecessary reason.

The point is, being religious is good, but keeping a bias in mind is worst and it spawns all kinds of quarrels. When we are born, we born as human. Our society gives us a stamp of religion and we confine us into some rituals. But is it really important to stamp us in a particular caste or creed? Even if we get a stamp, is it necessary to think other religion untrue?

We know the answer, it is blowing in the wind. We know that religious bias is not good. But still, our society has so many conflicts between different religions. If we look into the reason, we shall find that it is because we don't understand the meaning of religion, we don't know the purpose of religion. 

 
What does 'religion' mean? Is it just a sect? No. Swami Vivekananda, the greatest world teacher says: "Religion is the manifestation of divinity already in man." This sentence is immensely important. This defines that we are already divine, religion is only a tool to discover it, doesn't matter which religion do we belong to.

Our Holy Quran says: "The same religion has He established for you as that which He enjoined on Noah- That which We have sent by inspiration to you- and that which We enjoined on Abraham, Moses, and Jesus..." (Quran- 42:13). How beautifully does this line describe harmony in religions! Not only Quran, if we read the religious scriptures, whichever religion is it, and if we go deep into it, we shall find that it's morale is Universality and Brotherhood. No religion wants bloodshed.

On 11th September, 1893, Swami Vivekananda announced in America:

"Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilisation and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honour of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal." 

The world did not yet realize the importance of His words, and most ironically on the same day after 108 years, in the same America, took place world's biggest massacre recorded till date: the famous World Trade Centre was destroyed into pieces; and some religiously biased people did this unpardonable crime. Post that also, people have not been quite aware about this issue, so many other incidents like this took place after that, around the world, too. We can take incidents like attack in Mumbai, blast in Pune or even the recent blast in Hyderabad in our country. What is the net result: bloodshed. And those blood do not belong to any specific religion.

Friends, we still have time to rectify. Before the world gets shattered in the war created from bogus fight between religious sects, it's our responsibility to understand the importance of the greatest religion- Humanity, and make others understand this. A human cannot have any religion apart from humanity. Does not matter what race or which color the person next to us belongs to, the point is that he is a human and we must be humane to him/her: this should be the attitude. If we carry this attitude till our last breath, we can gift a malice-free wonderful world to the next-generation, and like the world-famous singer John Lennon we can also 'imagine' and who knows, even sing:

                                        "Imagine there's no heaven
                                               It's easy if you try
                                                No hell below us
                                              Above us only sky
                                          Imagine all the people
                                              Living for today...

                                Imagine there's no countries                                                 It isn't hard to do
                                         Nothing to kill or die for
                                             And no religion too
                                          Imagine all the people
                                             Living life in peace...

                                     You may say I'm a dreamer
                                        But I'm not the only one
                                    I hope someday you'll join us
                                    And the world will be as one"