Fearlessness..The True Religion

Many moons later I return with a question from a dear friend that sends me gallopping on the stride of thoughts. 

 I am asked "so what is religion"??

 And I ponder, taking my usual walk looking up waiting to receive the answer and then it all gushes like a torrential wave....

Well here is my understanding of the question.. 

 A real religion gives you fearlessness: let that be the criterion. If religion gives you fear, then it is not really religion. Unless religion is personal, unless religion is not abstract but real, deep in your roots, deep in your guts, unless it is like blood and bone and marrow, it is futile, it is of no use. It is the religion of the philosophers not the religion of the sages. The real religion is not imitation of anybody else, it is a search to find out your own authentic self, who you are. Real religion is always a process of unguilting; false religions are always a process of guilting. They try to make you more and more guilty: anger is there, lust is there, sex is there, greed is there, attachment is there, hate is there, love is there — and everything is condemned. 

You become guilty, you start feeling wrong; you are wrong, you start feeling condemned, you start hating yourself. If you start hating yourself you will never be able to find God, because He is hiding in you. Whatsoever you ask is really irrelevant. I will answer the same because I have got only one answer. But that one answer is like a master key; it opens all doors. It is not concerned with any particular lock — any lock and the key opens it. Religion has only one answer and that answer is meditation. And meditation means how to empty yourself. Be happy! and meditation will follow. Be happy, and religion will follow. Happiness is a basic condition. People become religious only when they are unhappy — then their religion is pseudo. Try to understand why you are unhappy. 

All people who are creative are close to religion. Religion is the greatest creativity because it is an effort to give birth to yourself, to become a father and mother to yourself, to be born again, to be reborn through meditation, through awareness. Poetry is good, painting is good — but when you give birth to your own consciousness, there is no comparison. Then you have given birth to the ultimate poetry, the ultimate music, the ultimate dance. This is the dimension of creativity. On the rung of creativity, religion is the last. It is the greatest art, the ultimate art — that’s why I call it ‘the ultimate alchemy’. Meditation or religion is a totally different world: it is relaxation, it is let-go. The whole work of religion, of meditation is to make you aware of all that is mind and disidentify yourself with it. 

Life exists without rules; games cannot exist without rules. So real religion is always without rules; only false religion has rules, because false religion is a game. In the West theology has overpowered religion. When theology overpowers religion, then religion is nothing but philosophy. And the philosophy is also not very philosophic — because philosophy can exist only through doubt, and theology bases itself on faith. So it is impotent philosophy, not even philosophy in the real sense. Religion is not based on belief or faith: religion is based on awe, religion is based on wonder. Religion is based on the mysterious that is your surround. To feel it, to be aware of it, to see it, open your eyes and drop the dust of the ages. Clean your mirror! and see what beauty surrounds you, what tremendous grandeur goes on knocking at your doors. Why are you sitting with closed eyes? Why are you sitting with such long faces? Why can’t you dance? and why can’t you laugh? I don’t want you to drop your personality forever; I simply want you to be capable of putting it off when it is not needed. This is the whole art of real religion: to teach you how to put the mind off and how to put it on. The very courageous, the really strong people, the really adventurous, become attracted towards paths of self-realization or paths of self-transformation.

 Religion is the greatest adventure there is. Going to Everest is nothing, going to the moon also is nothing; going to the highest peak of your being is the real task. Because in the first place, we are not even aware that the peak exists. In the first place, we are so unconscious that we don’t know what we are doing. We don’t know what we are doing with our lives. A real religion is always of meditation. What type of foolishness has settled in the human heart? When the flower is there, you avoid; and when only the emptiness is left, then you worship. You are afraid of real religion. That’s why you become a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Christian. This is a trick of the mind, a deception. This is a way to avoid religion, because religion will transform you. 

Religion will destroy you as you are, and religion will give a new birth to you. Something unknown will come into existence through religion and you are afraid of that — of dying. of being reborn. So you belong to old traditions. What to renounce? For what reason should you fast? Celebrate and dance! A real religion is celebration; a false religion is renunciation. A religion is alive in the heart, it has nothing to do with temples and churches or gurudwaras. If you are moved, if a rhythm arises in you, if you start dancing seeing Krishna or his statue, suddenly the flute on his lips is no longer just a symbol to you, it has become a real dance. You can listen to his tune, you can hear his tune. Real religion consists of becoming utterly silent, unconditioned, unhypnotized. It is going beyond mind, beyond ideology; it is going beyond scripture and beyond knowledge. It is simply falling into your own interiority, becoming utterly silent, not knowing a thing, and functioning from that state of not knowing, from that innocence. 

When you function out of innocence, your actions have a beauty of their own. That’s what virtue is — AES DHAMMO SANANTANO. 

Live and cherish yet be poor in spirit. Have the least materialistic attachment and then you shall have an ocean space to seek the divine truth. 

In a reverb and ponder, 

I sink into thoughts again to breathe from breathlessness

 Ratin...