Religion, meaning, misinterpretation or misrepresentation

Siberia doesn't mean much to India except for the Siberian Lions and some rubble of the cold war relations with Russia. But soon it may become one of the most controversial , till date unimportant, places in the recent India history if the Siberian court of Tomsk bans Bhagvad Gita as an extremist piece of literature.

Religion to me has been important so much so that I pray every night before dozing off. Hailing from the spiritual city of Rishikesh probably has its own effect. But its has neither been a burden nor an obligation. If anything, my faith in god has been a force which has maintained my drive in all walks of life.

Which brings back the question of what is god, if he is there at all! I believe he is there,omnipresent, omnipotent. But there is more to the concept which is very much relevant to the debate of Bhagvad Gita being tagged as an extremist scripture.

God concept probably emanated from the tendency of humans to find a safe haven or find a higher reason attributable to someone else, for the mistakes they made. Something on these lines can be probably comprehended in Attribution theory of motivation, if spoken in purely technical terms. Or we can say, we were always looking for Macavity. Hence, Macavity is God. He is blamed for whatever wrong that happens. Similarly. the term destiny got coined to pass on the buck to a different power beyond the control of the mortals when something happened, right or wrong. So, even destiny can be treated as equivalent to God in terms of impact and functions performed.

The concept quickly became important to those who did not believe they could carry on against the struggles in life without some aid. Hence, God became their partner, faith became their friend. The concept gave people support, made them realize their potential and helped them achieve what they possibly never imagined. As in words of the poet Rahim:

अनुचित उचित रहीम लघु, करहि बड़ेन के जोर ।
ज्यों ससि के संयोग से, पचवत आगि चकोर

meaning that whatever inappropriate or appropriate small people do, its always backed by someone stronger, which in our case was God, who was believed to give us strength and ability.

As the concept caught on, it became a way of life. Different people believed in different ways of life and hence, religions came into being. Beliefs were christened, routines engraved in stone and regimens were taught to commoners which would be rules for generations to follow.

But as always happens, beliefs of different factions were different and tussle to stamp one's superiority over the other led to friction and till today, the rift is consuming lives after lives.

In between all this, there were a need to lay down set procedures and all religions, hence, had their wise men writing codes for a good life. these codes went on to become the very essence of every faith and anyone who reads them can easily understand that these codes are nothing but logical thoughts on how to lead a simple and happy life.

The issue now is the misinterpretations and misrepresentation of these holy scriptures and this malevolence is rooted in the deep seated distrust and superiority complex of one faith towards the other. So in an orthodox society like Russia, Bhagwad Gita probably isn't an acceptable literature because the mere act of accepting the book of a a pagan may not go down well with an orthodox society.

The Gita propagates Karma Yoga and Sankhya Yoga where it urges mankind to be action oriented and always believe in hard work and power of good deeds such as sacrifice to drive their existence. And its the same message which is talked about in any other religious scripture. Even the simplest of minds can tell you what is the right way to live. There is nothing astounding written in any religious scriptures except "do good and be good" and this is no rocket science.

So why the hoopla about religious words and acts and their meanings and interpretations? Whatever be the decision by the court of Tomsk, it is not going to lay the matter to rest. Religion emanated from God concept which in turn was to make mankind believers, so it could strive harder. Now the meaning has been twisted, and ironically enough, is well on course to become the reason for obliteration of mankind.