One fact is deeply proven that religion as a “Sanskara” ever remains alive in our conscience. The term ” Sanskara” is a Hindu term and carries a unique description. A Sanskara may be of two types. One is in the form of ritual, sacrament and rite etc. For example praying or kneeling before the religious icon or getting baptized, is physical form of Sanskara. But in another form, it is consisted of your deep religious belief, your strong affiliation with your faith and mythological norms. In nutshell, whatever religious teachings and upbringing you imbibe whole though in your life, you become habitual to that, is also a Sanskara in subjective form.
The truth is, the process of “Sanskara” has been in application from the time immemorial, and we observe it all other religions. This Sanskara helps us to look into the matter from the angle of ethical or unethical precept. Since time immemorial ethical teaching has been a part and parcel of our religious faith. For paradigm, we are taught , “killing of any living object is a sin.” Along with it, we too have been detailed about the sin and also of its counter part i.e. of virtue. The “virtue” is directly related to ones “good deeds or practice.” If we are inclined to follow the good practice, god will always be kind and generous to us. Implicitly, man is warned thus, whatever deed he does, he is answerable for that to god.
We often hear, whatever “wrong” someone commits, that is always witnessed by someone.Then , who is this witnessing everything? If a man committing a crime in an isolated or deserted place, under the impression, “no one is here to witness me.” He may console himself, no body is witness here of my misdemeanor. But somewhere in side his heart, his inner man warns him, ” you are under the watchful eyes of the god.” There is a reason for this misdemeanor. If a man commits some thing wrong in public domain, he my be subject to punishment and his image may also be tarnished. This impels him to commit the sin without coming into the notice of any one.
An another aspect of committing a sin in isolated place also lies there. A man somewhere in his dormant mind always remains thankful to god for his earned repute and wealth. He doesn’t wish to lose that on becoming his image soiled. In this paradigm, it’s clear, “ the concept of fear of god is always kept alive in every religion.” In every religion, the supremacy of god and practice of religious faith run parallel to each other and incessantly. This may sound weird, but in every community, religion is accepted as inseparable part of “living of life.” In every community, some religious “rituals, rite” been prescribed to practice strictly.
In every community we notice the presence of priest, Imam, Father or Panditji or guru etc. They are devolve with an obligation to promote and inspire the members of community to follow the rituals. It also depends upon the community, how members follow and observe the rite. In Hindu’s family, after daily morning bath, at least one member of the family is bound to attend the prayer inside made small temple and light a holy fire there. The members of other religious communities, be it Christian or Muslim or Sikh etc, tend to follow the ritual according to their custom. It specifies, why the observance of religious faith is essential?
Our saints and seers knew, if it was not followed incessantly, the members of community may “distract entirely” from the concept of the god. To them the concept of god and rituals were two facets of the same coin. The flag bearer if every religious community keep on giving efforts to maintain this practice. Apart from it, in every community the huge religious events are planned, where people in bulk attend the religious festivity. Further. In Muslims, it is mandatory for man that once in a week he is to attend the Namaj on Jumma (friday.) In Hindus, visiting the temple is considered an auspicious deed. People there often visit the temple in all days of week. In Christianity, the practice of “Sunday Mass” is observed regularly.
The important festivals occurring in every community are also part and parcel of the same concept and these festivals are celebrated with zeal and fervor. Not only this, the rite of wedding ceremony in almost all the communities are performed under the assumption, as if, under the blessing of god. What is this all? This is the customary way to keep alive ones religious faith. In another words, ” to keep alive the religious faith is like to maintain ones religious symbolic identification.” The reason to support the concept is the same, that been mentioned at the beginning of the blog.
The religiosity and ethics are assimilated together. Our forefathers had conceived and developed this idea long back and adopted that, as customs of community. To follow the ethical values and social norms, they evolved and blended this with this concept of religion. They formulated the theory of “existence of god and its sovereignty” and made every one answerable to this supernatural almighty entity. This is a proven truth, we need an animated, energetic religion to run a social system in a methodical way.
At the last, one fact also surfaces up, when in practice of religion in various communities, the arrogant feeling of ” my religion excels other faith” evolves, this too bring the conflict among different faiths. But this is also the part of the human matrix. This conflict may sometimes be intense or not to milder as well and this tendency seems hard to get avoided. Penned by….. Vinay Pharasi —–
