Mar 04 2015 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

Vedanta - Ego, Burden on Faith

DEEPAK M RANADE





Religion, faith, belief in God or a prophet are all enablers in our quest for salvation. The tenets and principles of almost all religions are based on fundamental humane value systems such as compassion, empathy , respect for fellow beings and Mother Nature.By including ancestors, spirits and gods in the social realm, humans discovered an effective strategy for restraining selfishness and building more cooperative groups. The adaptive value of religion institutionalised morality . So, religious belief was more epistemological than ethical in nature. God would never hold His creation to ransom by demanding or expecting subservience to ritualistic behaviour or practice. Intolerance is the trademark of a highly developed ego. When religion and belief become slaves to dogma and doctri ne, it becomes a self-defeating exercise. Religion, culture and ideologies elucidate a way of life, a code of conduct that sustains society's fabric. Their diversity can thrive only on a deep-rooted mutual respect.
Salvation will be possible only when the scope and comprehension of religion and God evolve to another level.A rigid approach to following any path is ideological sycophancy . When a religion is shorn of ego and is free of its followers' obsessive compulsion to propagate, it would no longer need to assert itself to survive.
Religion is a subject matter of interpretation and freedom of choice. Liberation would be possible only when God is deconstructed to a formless, internalised state of mind. Salvation lies in ending the parallax between the god within and the god without.