By M L Satyan
Bengaluru, March 23, 2020: My long-pending personal dream seems to have come true. All the worship places such as temple, mosque, gurudwara and church are closed all over India. This is the same case in other countries too. What a scenario!
I am happy that it has come true now, thanks to the dreaded virus. Now the time has come for us to ask: Do we need these worship places at all? Who created them and for what? Who actually benefit from them?
The famous singer K J Jesudas sang a song a few years ago. The words of the song go like this: “Human being created religions; Religions created Gods; Human beings and Religions together divided the land and minds of the people”. This is the bitter truth.
God never created any religion. It is the invention of human beings. Religions always used as an effective tool to “brainwash” people. Let us recall what Karl Marx had said about religion: Religion is the“opium of the people” is one of the most frequently paraphrased statements of German philosopher and economist. It was translated from theGerman original,”Die Religion … ist das Opium des Volkes” and is often rendered as “religion… is the opiate of the masses.”
“Marx was making a structural-functionalist argument about religion, and particularly about organized religion Marx believed that religion had certain practical functions in society that were similar to the function of opium in a sick or injured person: it reduced people’s immediate suffering and provided them with pleasant illusions which gave them the strength to carry on. Marx also saw religion as harmful, as it prevents people from seeing the class structure and oppression around them, thus religion can prevent the necessary revolution.
Marx argues that religion is the product of humans, or rather, the product of the societies that humans create. Religion mirrors the inequalities of the society in which it exists, so the poor become the virtuous, the wealthy will find it difficult to enter heaven. Religion is therefore a wish-fulfillment fantasy: it is how those who adhere to it would want society to look if only they had power. Of course those who promoted religion in the nineteenth century were often those who wanted to maintain this inverted vision as a fantasy, in order to prevent the notion that it might become real in this world gaining traction.
For Marx, the ultimate aim of the fight against religion is not religion itself, but rather the type of society which causes the suffering which creates the need for religion in the first place. Religion is therefore an understandable but misguided response to the suffering caused by exploitation in feudal and capitalist societies.
To engage with the metaphor directly: if you are under the influence of opium then you are detached from reality. And you take opium precisely for this reason – because you do not want to face reality, because you are in pain, or because your circumstances have become impossible to deal with any other way.
Religion, as a kind of spiritual opium, prevents people from realizing that their suffering is not the ‘natural’ state of affairs that will be rectified after death, but a material situation that can be changed in this life. To achieve this realisation, however, people first need to throw off religion because the very purpose of it is to make them accept their subjugation by preventing them from understanding their true situation.” (Joseph Cronin)
All of us know very well that every religion has captured as much wealth and properties as possible. All in the name of God! Does God need land, palatial palace-like worship place, silver, gold and cash offerings? Every religion has converted God into a commercial commodity and earns money through their own creation of “rituals, liturgies, prayers and sacraments etc. Ultimately the “religious leaders” enjoy the acquired wealth.
In the initial stage of human society, people did have a notion of God/Divine and they related themselves in their own ways. Mostly they worshiped through nature in their own creative ways. There was no mediator or broker in between. In course of time, the religious leaders found a way to “convert religion and the worship places” into a booming business. Precisely for this purpose, the religious leaders “devised methods” in order to make people come to the worship places.
Take the example of Christianity. Look at what happened in the early Christian communities: “All the believers continued together in close fellowship and shared their belongings with one another. They would sell their property and possessions, and distribute the money among all, according to what each one needed. Day after day they met as a group and they had their meals together in their homes eating with glad and humble hearts, praising God, and enjoying the good will of all the people.” (Acts.2:44-47).
During the first three centuries, the followers retained the innocence of the apostolic tradition; although the church’s wealth had become substantial, they managed to act in harmony with Christ’s injunction about poverty. However, later on, they no longer sold their properties upon being baptized.
They had come to harmonize the possession of wealth with the teaching of Christ conveniently quoting or ignoring sundry passages of the Gospels. They did this by following the example of the church, which as a corporate body, had begun to accumulate wealth. In this manner the apostolic tradition of poverty was abandoned.
The Catholic Church thus gradually became the custodian of wealth acting as the distributor and administrator. The church gained a new status. This was reflected in the multiplication of prestigious cathedrals, church buildings, the opulence of the vestments of her prelates and the magnificence of liturgy.
Devotion to saints became an immense, steady source of wealth for the church as a whole and for the clergy in particular. The whole of Europe was dotted with shrines and pilgrimages and the sale of indulgences were the order of the day for centuries.
Catholicism, which claims to be His church, is one of the wealthiest institutions on earth. How come, that such an institution, ruling in the name of this same itinerant preacher, whose wants was such that he had not even a place to lay his head, is now so top-heavy with riches that she can rival the combined might of the most redoubtable financial trusts, of the most potent industrial super-giants, and of the most prosperous global corporation of the world? This is a question that has echoed along with somber corridors of history during almost 2000 years.
Why do people fight in the name of religion and God? Why God and religion are commercialized? Why are religious rituals institutionalized? Why, for many people, especially in India, religion has become the opium? Why fake gurus and religious leaders emerge and become millionaires within short span of time? Why religious leaders get entangled in various types of sexual abuses, corruption and other crimes? The answer is that most of the people continue and happy to be religious.
A religious person belongs to a particular religion and follows its rules, regulations, rituals and ceremonies. Religiosity focuses on priesthood and priestly tradition. A religious person is often fanatic, self-centered, insensitive and ambitious. Religious people are orthodox and conservatives. They become autocrats, hypocrites and maintain a lot of secrecy. They will focus on uniformity in matters of dress, rituals, ceremonies, rules and laws. They develop “guilt feelings” and become pessimists. Moreover, religiosity divides people in matters of religious beliefs, practices and worshiping places.
On the contrary, a spiritual person rises above caste, color culture, religion, rules, regulations, ceremonies and rituals. A spiritual person looks at the whole world as one joint-family (Vasudaiva Kutumbakam) and prays “Loka Samastha Sukhino, Bhavanthu” (O God, let the whole universe be happy). Spirituality focuses on prophetic call given to everyone. A spiritual person is open, transparent and democratic. Spiritual persons are always other-centered, have a clear vision and become trend-setters. They are progressive and give importance to self-realization and personal transformation. Spirituality focuses on pluralism and unites people. Pluralism is not tolerance of difference but it is acceptance, appreciation and promotion of difference.
Finally, remember the words of Rabindranath Tagore: “Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom do you worship in this lonely dark corner of the temple with doors all shut? Open your eyes and see that God is not before you. God is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the path-maker is breaking stones. God is with them in sun and shower, and his garment is covered with dust. Put off your holy mantle and like God come to the dusty soil. Come out of your meditation and leave aside the flowers and incense. What harm is there if your clothes become tattered and stained. Meet God and stand by him in toil and sweat of thy brow”.
My sincere and personal appeal to all religious leaders: Please do not keep the people at the level of religiosity for your selfish gains. Do not ask them to come to the worship places. Stop dictating to them what prayers they need to say and how to say them. Leave them alone to pray or perform their worship in their own ways. Allow them to develop an intimate relationship with God. Do not come in between them. Please remember that they pray much better without any mediator.
When your worship centers are empty, you will definitely feel insecure and fear that you have become losers. No, not at all! This process will enable people to move towards spirituality and become spiritual. Their spiritual empowerment is the need of the hour and the lesson you need to learn from the present situation.