Respecting the right to worship

  

Because we seek the meaning of our existence outside of ourselves, we humans have not realised our own potential and our own divinity.

Rarely if ever looking within ourselves, wherein our soul is the same as that which encompasses the entire universe.

That is why we humans need someone or something to worship.

Our arrogance and unlimited desire to dominate, does not allow us to accept that others have essentially the same desire but expressed differently. That is why more blood has been shed and destruction wrought in the name of religion than any other cause.

Every individual is inherently born free.

However with the passage of time we get shackled by some individuals or institutions to them through some ideology or the other. The more sophisticated the ideology the more tactfully are individuals robbed of their individuality. Crude ideologies impose rather than convince and seduce.

Freedom and liberty essentially means that individuals have the right to choose, as long as it does not intentionally harm others. In essence liberty is the right to be wrong.

Philosophies are realised, ideologies are imposed.

If an idea or thought has to be implemented using mainly fear, it will be unsustainable as many ideologies, religions and belief systems have discovered to their dismay. 

All empires eventually crumble under the strain of imposition and fear.

The best of humanity can flower only in free societies.

There is too much talk about tolerance and intolerance, and that misses the entire point for we need respect for the other not tolerance.

To achieve individual peace

One can be truly happy and content, only when we are at peace with ourselves. That peace which comes from a freedom discovered in solitude.

~ Gurvinder Singh

                               

One may ask, 'How can one be in solitude when so much has to be done and achieved?'

Sure food and shelter has to be arranged, security ensured, Families particularly children and the elderly need to be cared for.  Development and learning have to be pursued, and a thousand other things need to done. bills have to be paid, So what?

We do what we must , but what if we are not there tomorrow? Surely, they will still get done, but by others. We hold ourselves in far greater importance than does the universe. 

                 

Imagine our individual lives as being drawn into a cyclone. 

Lives and things, problems and opportunities, work and responsibilities etc. A multitude of factors are constantly swirling around us, in this cyclone where peace eludes us.

We can choose to be in the swirl where everything is a noisy blur . Those living in the swirl seem to live exciting and extremely active lives, dodging, running from fears and towards wants. However being active merely for its own sake, achieves little, while nourishing the ego. We land up living mostly feelingless, flowerless and hence fruitless lives. 

We cannot escape this cyclone called life, so where can we find individual peace?

There is a place. We can choose to be at the centre of the cyclone where everything is peaceful and silent. Everything is clear and we do what we must, when we must without being attached to anyone or anything. Active only as and when needed. 

This may appear selfish but its not so, for  we act with awareness and meaning. In India we have a word for it called 'Sw-arth' coming from two Sanskrit words 'Swayam' for 'the self', and 'Arth' for  'meaning'. Translated it is 'meaning of one's existence'. 

Religion, politics, family, society, and rulers/government and now employers ordain the meaning of ourselves to us. Treating us all as identical. That is not desirable even if it were possible, but these forces have almost total domination over our existence. That is why individuals always rebel against these forces sometimes openly but usually clandestinely. The individual rarely discovers the meaning of his or her own life. 

When we learn to silence these forces by travelling within ourselves where each one of us is absolute master of his her life, we learn who and what we are, we discover our 'Swa-Arth'. Once we discover that meaning of oneself, freedom is natural.

This is why all great masters have always advocated silence, contemplation and finally meditation. Life goes on we live a meaningful existence, not in the uncontrollable swirling mess but in control and in total awareness right in the peaceful eye of the storm.

To live peacefully with the world its necessary for us to be at peace with ourselves.

Falling or rising in Love?

"In fact a mature person does not fall in love, he rises in love. The word ’fall’ is not right. Only immature people fall; they stumble and fall down in love. Somehow they were managing and standing. They cannot manage and they cannot stand – they find a woman and they are gone, they find a man and they are gone. They were always ready to fall on the ground and to creep. They don’t have the backbone, the spine; they don’t have that integrity to stand alone."

"A mature person has the integrity to be alone. And when a mature person gives love, he gives without any strings attached to it: he simply gives. And when a mature person gives love, he feels grateful that you have accepted his love, not vice versa. He does not expect you to be thankful for it – no, not at all, he does not even need your thanks. He thanks you for accepting his love. And when two mature persons are in love, one of the greatest paradoxes of life happens, one of the most beautiful phenomena: they are together and yet tremendously alone; they are together so much so that they are almost one. But their oneness does not destroy their individuality, in fact, it enhances it: they become more individual."

"Two mature persons in love help each other to become more free. There is no politics involved, no diplomacy, no effort to dominate. How can you dominate the person you love? Just think over it. Domination is a sort of hatred, anger, enmity. How can you think of dominating a person you love? You would love to see the person totally free, independent; you will give him more individuality. That’s why I call it the greatest paradox: they are together so much so that they are almost one, but still in that oneness they are individuals. Their individualities are not effaced – they have become more enhanced. The other has enriched them as far as their freedom is concerned."

"Immature people falling in love destroy each other’s freedom, create a bondage, make a prison. Mature persons in love help each other to be free; they help each other to destroy all sorts of bondages. And when love flows with freedom there is beauty. When love flows with dependence there is ugliness."

- Osho

Oshio

No freedom in the crowd

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone, and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

In a shoal of fish, each fish tries to do two things. First it tries to get to the centre of the shoal and secondly it tries to replicate the behaviour of the fish next to it. It provides a sense of security to each individual fish.

Human beings in a society generally behave in the same way. So an individual in a community sacrifices his or her individuality to fit in and acquire a sense of security. This approach is pretty good for animals and animal expectations. Banded together a group is physically stronger than the individual members. But what about the intellectual, and spiritual expectations of individual humans?

If the individual fails to comply to the guidelines laid out by leaders in society, then the members of the society isolate and drive out the non conformist from within their midst.

People everywhere are seeking to be free from others. A society is free only when individuals within it are free. Unfortunately the vast majority of humanity has willingly submitted to others, the political, spiritual and intellectual aspects of their lives.

The reason this has happened is that they do not know what to do with their freedom

Try this and ask yourself, 
'If I am free, then what do I do with my freedom?'

If you are baffled to discover that you have no satisfactory answer, maybe its time to start questioning some of the assumptions you have made about your life. 

Bye Bye religious freedom

"Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so." 

-Robert A. Heinlein