RELIGION IS
A KINDERGARTEN TO SPIRITUALITY
While we know what Religion is and we have some idea about what Spirituality is, we need to realize one very important fact - Religion is a kindergarten to Spirituality.
What does this mean? It means that if we want to achieve the Ultimate Goal of life, and be liberated from misery and suffering, then we need Religion. It does not matter what Religion we follow, but we need a Religion that will help us build our basic foundation of faith, hope, trust, and enthusiasm. Without Religion, we cannot evolve Spiritually and thus we cannot achieve the Ultimate Goal of life.
Religion teaches us about God
Religion is the way to learn about God when we are just children. When we are born, we need guidance in every matter, not only from our parents and family but also from our teachers at school. How else would we learn to brush our teeth, to write, to speak - all this is taught to us. Similarly, as kids, we are introduced to God through religion.
If there was no Religion, we would learn everything else but not know anything about God. We are taught as kids to go to church, temple or mosque. Every time we mention these places of worship, it does not mean that it does not include other places of worship like a gurdwara or monastery or synagogue. It may be any place of worship as per the Religion we follow, but we are taught to go there and to pray. We are taught to fold our hands. Religion does many things – it makes us understand God, believe in God and also love and trust God. It makes us follow certain rituals and superstitions that makes God real in our life. While these may or may not be relevant in our achievement of the Ultimate Life Goal, Religion must be appreciated for its role in building our belief as we grow up. Our parents and teachers teach us both, to love God and to fear God. This has a positive consequence. It builds in us morals, values and ethics that make us good human beings.
How else could children understand God?
If there were no Religions, then it would be up to parents to teach children about God. In that case, each parent would teach something different to their children and there would be no organized thought about God. This would only be confusing because as kids would speak to their friends, they would differ in opinion. Even with organized Religion, we can still see the amount of conflict in thought between one Religion and another. If there was no Religion, one wonders what would be the scenario. Of course, there are people who believe that probably if there was no Religion and if all kids were just taught to believe in God, it would be much better. Then there would be no war between one Religion and another. There would be no competition as to whose Religion was better. The basic purpose of Religion is primarily to teach kids about God. While Religions intend to teach this, in their over enthusiasm to grow the popularity of the Religion, people misinterpret the message and become fanatics. That is a pity!
Thus, Religion is actually meant to be only a kindergarten, nothing else! Once we understand that God exists, then it is for us to use our intellect and discover the truth about God. After all, nobody has seen God, met God, but everybody can experience God. God exists everywhere, in the sun, the moon, the stars, the birds, the animals, and the flowers. All these are said to be creations of God, but in reality, they are manifestations of God. They appear as they are, but in reality, they are God appearing as nature. This is what Religion should have taught us but unfortunately, because of the personal Gods of each Religion, we have been taught to believe in our Religion and our personal God and nothing else.
Every myth has a purpose with it
While Religions do a lot of good, they are to be blamed for one thing. They teach us a lot of myths - things that are far from the Truth. Why is this so? As kids, we cannot understand God easily. Thus, Religion has no other choice. It is difficult to teach kids that God is formless and nameless. How would kids understand this logic? Kids need to know that God lives somewhere and does something. This is something even adults who are over 50 or 60 still don’t clearly understand. So how can we expect kids to understand that God cannot have skin and bone, but that God is a Power? Thus, Religion uses myth and superstition to teach us about God. While these are in principle, not the Truth, they may have certain important benefits. They build our faith in God. They build our love for God and eventually, they take us towards God.
Every ritual has a purpose. For example, in Hindu temples, we are told to break a coconut. In reality, this is an exercise that is meant to help us overcome our anger. But not many people pay attention to the thought or reason that goes behind the ritual. We get caught in the myth.
Once, a father was explaining to his child that the moon was up in the sky. Instead of looking at the ball of light in the heavens, the child thought the finger that was pointing to the moon was the moon.
Such is the case with many rituals. In Shiva temples, we perform Abhishekh, which symbolically means that we cleanse ourselves when we pour water, milk, honey, curd, and sugar on the Lingam, the symbol of Lord Shiva. But people understand this ritual very differently. They think it is us giving God a shower. Ridiculous! But that is what a myth does. While the purpose may be positive, a ritual is misunderstood and this makes Religion impractical and useless. If the ones who teach Religion and who explain it to us were careful, then we would understand the true meaning of prayer and God. Millions of people repeat religious slogans known as mantra and say "Om Namah Shivaya," "Om Ganapatyae Namah," and "Om Namho Bhagvate Vasudevaya" but they don't know the meaning. They don't even realize what they mean. They chant these Spiritual and Religious mantras for decades and die repeating the mantra without understanding its meaning. It actually means "Om," a symbol of the Divine, "Namah," Namaskara or bow down, and then the name of God. It means "O Divine! I bow down to You as a manifestation of Shiva, "Om Namah Shivaya," "O Divine! I bow down to You as a manifestation of Ganesha, "Om Ganapatyae Namah," "O Divine! I bow down to You as a manifestation of Vasudev or Krishna, "Om Namho Bhagvate Vasudevaya." When will we stop praying without understanding what we are saying? Should we just pray or should we understand what we say to God?
These are just some instances or examples of how myths can be both useful as well as harmful. But each myth that was created was actually done so with a positive intention.
Religion does not take us further
While Religion teaches us the basics about God, it does not make us realize that we are a manifestation of the Divine. It does not make us realize the Truth about God. It lets us believe in the myth and we live and die believing the mythology of Religion. We don’t go on a quest to discover the Truth. It is sad to mention here that this is because most Religions are selfish and want followers to be blindly loyal to that Religion rather than discover the Truth about God. If we discovered the Truth, then we would not really follow Religion and we would stop going to our temple, church or mosque. This would be the end of Religion. So, Religion it seems, has no option but to let people remain in ignorance so that people continue to follow Religion, praying to a God with name and form.
Religion should only teach the basics, the ABC about God to us and then let us discover the Truth. This is the role of Religion and this should be the role, nothing else!
A kindergarten can only do that much
What does a kindergarten do? Does it teach us mathematics, science, and computers? No, it does not! It just teaches us the basics. It teaches us a language and common-sense practical learning that prepares us for primary and high school, and college education. Imagine if kindergartens were to start teaching us the university curriculum. That would be madness. Kids would go crazy. They would not understand anything. So it is with Religion! It is just a kindergarten to Spirituality.
Unfortunately, Religion imprisons us to be in a kindergarten throughout our life. We get hung on to our Religion, its myth, superstitions and become addicted to it. Religion must make us understand that God exists. In fact, it should encourage us to provoke our minds and our intellect to delve further and realize the Truth about God. Instead, it makes us slaves to myth, rituals, and superstitions and we live and die believing in the mythology of Religion. As adults we should understand what has gone wrong with us, and what is going wrong with our children and while we encourage our children to follow Religion, we should not encourage them to follow myths, rituals, and superstitions blindly. We should encourage our children to explore God, the Truth about God and realize the Power called God.
Going beyond basics
As intelligent human beings, we must go beyond basics. We must try to realize the Truth. We must open our ‘real eyes’ to see what is myth and what is the Truth. Unfortunately, we are blind. While less than 1% of the world is visually blind, 99% of the world is Spiritually blind. We must open our Spiritual eyes and go beyond the basics of Religion to realize the Truth about God.
God is our goal, our Ultimate Goal and He does not live in institutions that most people misunderstand as the abode of God. God is omnipresent, present everywhere, omnipotent, all-powerful, and omniscient, knows everything. We should not limit God to be a person, a saint or a statue. God is a Power beyond human comprehension.
If we just live and die following the dictates of our Religion, we will remain ignoramus and not find out the truth about God. We need to go on a quest, a search to find out the Truth about God, about heaven and hell, about life and death. This is not taught to us by our Religion. Our Religion teaches us the basics and then makes us go on a merry-go-round all through life till we die. It is most unfortunate that while Religion is an excellent kindergarten to Spirituality, it is an enemy to our Ultimate Goal of realizing God. It, in fact, stops us from this Goal.
We need to liberate ourselves from the rituals, dogmas, superstitions and the mythology of Religion, and search for the Truth. We do not need to change our Religion because all Religions have the same agenda. They are all good kindergartens. We need to get a TC, a Transfer Certificate from our kindergarten and apply to the university of Spirituality, a path that is beyond Religion. It is not affiliated to any Religion. It is only focused on the Truth about life.
Searching for God
As intelligent beings, we need to go on a passionate quest in search of God. We need to ask: who is God, where is God and what is God? We need to understand what our Religion is saying. We need to respect the fact that our Religion is teaching us about God, about faith, hope, and trust in the almighty. This is absolutely fine. But then, we need to ask questions. We need to find out where God could possibly be. Could God be made of skin and bone? If we were to go to heaven or hell, who goes, as the body is cremated or buried right here on earth. We should not accept rituals with blind faith. We should not follow superstitions just because somebody told us to. We need to go within and we need to question everything that we do till we realize the Truth.
Our goal is God, the Creator, the one who gave us life. We must fall in love with our God, whatever be our Religion. This must be clear that Spirituality is not about changing our Religion but going beyond it. It is about using our Religion as a basic foundation and then climbing beyond the basics of our Religion to discover God, the Truth about God and to realize God in the temple of our heart. In fact, all Religions mention somehow, somewhere that the Kingdom of God is within, that God is wherever we are and that we are the manifestation of the Divine. No Religion denies this but it is in fine print. The other dogmas and rituals overtake this Truth and we sink in the myth of our Religion.
If we really love our God, whether it is Jesus, Allah, Shiva, Krishna or any God that we believe in, then, we must go in search of our God. It does not matter if it is the Holy Spirit, our Father in heaven, our beloved prophet or our saint. Our passionate love for our God must lead us to that God, take us to where that God is and until then we must not rest. This is our goal of life, our Ultimate Goal and we must achieve this.
Questioning every belief
While it may sound like we are going against our Religion, we need to question every belief that we have been taught.
We need to question every ritual and superstition that we are told about. This is the only way to realize the Truth about God.
In Hindus, there is a belief called Vastu which means the ‘science of architecture’. It means that our happiness and our misery is based upon certain Vastu or the way our homes and offices are built. So, if we want to be happy, we need to break our doors, windows and rebuild our home as per Vastu. In China, a similar Energy principle is called Feng Shui. As intelligent beings, why do we follow this myth? Why do we let superstition overtake our intelligence? We believe in palmistry and astrology and behave like little kids who are told fairytales. Till when will we believe in the dogmas of Religion? When will we question this myth and realize the Truth? We should not be embarrassed or feel shy to question our Religion. After all, we are doing it because we are in search of God. For this amazing quest, asking questions is just one way of reaching the final Truth. If we are scared to ask questions, if we are controlled by our Religion and do not question, then we will live and die in ignorance without realizing the Truth.
There is no doubt that Religion is good, all Religions are excellent kindergartens, but can we live all our life in kindergarten? Imagine a 70-year-old still learning ABC in a nursery class. Well, that is the case with most of us. Many Religions just zap their followers with beliefs that are blindly followed and we live and die in the kindergarten of life. It is time to break this tradition, not to blindly accept every myth we are taught to follow, every ritual and superstition. We must break free from this imprisonment and realize the Truth.
Evolving from kindergarten till we graduate
We need to ask questions and find answers till we graduate. How does it happen in life? Don’t we evolve from kindergarten, then to middle school and high school and finally to university till we graduate and get our Masters? So it is with life! We need to go beyond Religion. We cannot get stuck in the kindergarten of Spirituality.
Our goal is to discover the Life Energy within, the Spirit, the Soul or the Atman. We need to discover that life that is within us, that life which gives us breath, without which we would be dead. We need to discover the Truth about that. It means we need to ask questions about who we truly are. Are we the body, the mind or the Soul? What are we in reality? Why are we here? What is the purpose of our life? We need to ask questions until we discover the Truth. It is called self-realization and God-realization by most Religions of the world. We need to question until we find the answers. It will be like a giant jigsaw puzzle. We need to find the pieces one by one till finally, we solve the puzzle. We must get all the pieces in place and we must see the clear picture for ourselves.
To realize the truth, we need the help of a Spiritual Master or Guru, who takes us from darkness to light, from ignorance to wisdom. We need to find a Spiritual Master who will help us realize the Truth. Of course, finally Truth cannot be taught, for what is taught may be true or not, but what is realized intuitively is the Truth.
Ultimately, we need to realize the Truth and that comes from our own self-effort. We need to ask questions and investigate until we finally realize the Truth. We have an intellect and this will intuitively make us realize the Truth.
If our quest is true and genuine and we passionately seek our God, we will find God. But we need to ask questions, we need to go beyond Religion and we need to Spiritually evolve climbing from one peak to another, from one realization to another, overcoming one myth and another, till we finally see the Truth, plain and pure as it is and then we will realize God. First, we need to graduate from the kindergarten of Religion to start this journey. If we remain in the kindergarten all our life, then we will never start to graduate Spiritually and we will never realize the Truth about ourselves and about God.
Most of humanity just goes around in circles
It is a real pity, that most of humanity does not graduate. They do not evolve, do not go beyond their Religion and they remain in kindergarten all through life. As kids, we grow up from wearing short pants and start wearing long pants. But Spiritually, we are still in our short pants. We have learned nothing, we just go round and round in the merry-go-round of life and we finally die. We don’t discover the God we so passionately want because we are held as hostage in the kindergarten of Religion. Unless we have the courage to step out and ask questions, unless we have the common sense to question every myth and superstition, we shall never evolve and realize the Truth and God.
The choice is ours. If we really seek God, want God, Love God, then we must go on a quest to find God. We must realize that we don’t have to change or leave our Religion. We need to use our Religion as a kindergarten and then we need to graduate. We need to go beyond and realize God, and that is our Ultimate Goal of life.
Just like children are taught about Santa Claus,
Religion shows us God and then makes us pause.
We get so carried away by the fairy tale,
Soon our life gets over and it’s sad we fail.