Religion

Religion is an inevitable part of our being as it speaks for our nowhereness. Religionism is appropriation of religionness. In India, till the onset of medieval times, the sages subjected religions to dharma and kept religionism under check. Mind ruled and it was not otherwise; religion was  subjected of mindfulness, it was not otherwise.

Religionism remains the original and continual fount of totalitarianism. It often manifests itself in secular language too as in Plato, Hegel, or Marx. Also, though exceptionally, it is firm believers who defy religionism. Gandhi is such a person, who remained a man of the soil despite he always looked at sky. 

 

Niraj Kumar Jha

Religion

Religion, unavoidably embedded in human consciousness, is an inevitability of existence. It is a must for humanity to be on the watch for the response being converted into a call and for aggravations of what it seeks to respond to.

 

Niraj Kumar Jha

Dharma and Religion

Now, a great number of Indians have come to realise that Dharma is not religion. Most of the earlier narratives in English used religion for Dharma and even now the practice mostly goes on despite the growing realisation. But even those who know about these phenomena mostly see these only in terms of variance. The greater fact is that these phenomena exist not in variance but in total contrast. Dharma is about nature but is not paganism, it is rather a philosophy as well as the science of coexistence: of harmony, first, among human beings, and, then, among beings, and, further, among beings and things. And more pertinently, Dharma though talks of the essence, but the finding of the essence is an evergoing quest. It does not accept the finality of anything. The Gayatri Mantra, the most recited and holiest of all in the Hindu life, only seeks the sharpness of intellect and by that a clearer vision of the reality, which may be existent and which may not be so. Religion in contrast is about superseding nature and about the end of the human quest. Such opposites can be multiplied to great numbers and that would not be such a great discovery but the unfortunate thing is that a ceiling is mistaken for the sky. 

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Religion v the Right to Philosophize

Philosophy imposed is religion. A piece of philosophy served with the sword, articulated in captivating rhetoric, propagated and practiced by exemplary conviction and dedication, put across through magical performances, or passed on by mixing moral value with cock-and-bull stories, imposes itself on people. Philosophy must remain a personal tool of making sense of existence. Personal autonomy must be recognized and respected with this right to philosophizing. Denial of this right is unjust and the breeding ground of so many ills. 

Niraj Kumar Jha

Spirituality and Religion

Yuval Noah Harari says (in his interview to TOI, Sep 2,2018) that spirituality is about questions and religion is about answers. I think this to be unlikely. Both spiritualism and religion respond to the inexplicable existential riddles and anxieties. Only difference is that one seeks to soothe his nerves by using his faculty and the other by his agency. The problem with the other is that he is very troublesome.

Niraj Kumar Jha