Skip to main content

Genuine Religion



The season of Advent has begun for Christians who will be celebrating the birth of Jesus 25 days from now.  These 25 days are supposed to be a season of abstinence from certain foods and drinks so that the believer prepares himself spiritually for Christmas.  Religion has no significance unless it makes one a better person and the practices like abstinence are meant to help one in the process of self-renewal.  But can a set of practices or some rituals make anyone a better person?  They can help.  But Jesus was explicit in saying that religion is not a matter of rituals or regulations.  Religion is an attitude of love and compassion.

The parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the best in the Bible.  A wayfarer was beaten up by thieves, stolen of all his possessions including his clothes, and was left “half dead” on the roadside.  A priest came along but went away doing nothing to help the dying man.  Then can a Levite.  A Levite is a semi-priest in Judaism.  He too refused to help the victim.  The third person to come was a Samaritan.  The Samaritans were religious converts and were held in contempt by orthodox Jews during the time of Jesus.  


The Samaritan in Jesus’ parable went to the wounded man, treated him with whatever medication he had with him, took him to an inn and looked after him.   The priest and the semi-priest were not religious, according to Jesus.  Religion is not the uniform of the priest, or finding one’s residence in an ashram or presbytery.  Religion is not recitation of prayers or performance of rituals.  Religion is love and compassion.   That’s basic message of Christmas, of any religion. 
Labels:

Comments

  1. Sunshine-struckDecember 1, 2014 at 7:02 PM

    I wish all religious leaders, especially the fake ones got this message right. In which case, we wouldn't have to spend 27 crores to arrest the so-called self-styled Godman! And put up with so much hatred, greed and lust in this world!

    I wish...!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalDecember 2, 2014 at 10:22 AM

      Unfortunately, the situation in India is going to be vitiated further by certain sections who think they have the support of the Union govt.

      Delete
  2. AnkionthemoveDecember 2, 2014 at 12:21 PM

    I think religion is an internal choice of being of service to others,we go overboard with everything..Nice article

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalDecember 2, 2014 at 9:24 PM

      Religion is an attitude, a set of values and principles, a mental framework, a worldview... define it as you like, but without good actions it is all useless.

      Delete
  3. D.NambiarDecember 2, 2014 at 4:35 PM

    I swear. In any religion for that matter.
    It's weird that people think that one is 'good' when he or she is into fasts and regularly attending prayers even though they are doing badly in the 'consideration for others' department.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Saru SinghalDecember 2, 2014 at 10:07 PM

    So right - Religion is an attitude of love and compassion.

    Thanks for sharing the story, it kinda reinforces goodness.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalDecember 2, 2014 at 10:20 PM

      December makes me feel a bit nostalgic for Christmas. This Christmas I will be in Kerala enjoying quite a different atmosphere, after a long, long time.

      Delete
  5. wingsDecember 3, 2014 at 10:06 PM

    Actually ordinary mortals create the rituals of a particular religion for the mob. They don't love anyone but themselves. They have many masks to express goodness. They use religion for the same purpose. Religion is only an illusion. It will never die. Thinkers will keep questioning it. Keep questioning it. Keep....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalDecember 4, 2014 at 7:50 PM

      Ordinary mortals make all the difference. I won't question you on that. Illusions are necessary, I won't question again. But you want me to keep questioning and I will. There are so many things to question :)

      Delete
  6. wingsDecember 4, 2014 at 9:13 PM

    Sir, may I know, on what you want to question me ultimately? ...:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalDecember 5, 2014 at 11:09 AM

      Not you, not at all. I want to question my PM, his party, and so on.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
18 comments
Read more

Hindutva’s Contradictions

The book I’m reading now is Whose Rama? [in Malayalam] by Sanskrit scholar and professor T S Syamkumar. I had mentioned this book in an earlier post . The basic premise of the book, as I understand from the initial pages, is that Hindutva is a Brahminical ideology that keeps the lower caste people outside its terrain. Non-Aryans are portrayed as monsters in ancient Hindu literature. The Shudras, the lowest caste, and the casteless others, are not even granted the status of humans.  Whose Rama? The August issue of The Caravan carries an article related to the inhuman treatment that the Brahmins of Etawah in Uttar Pradesh meted out to a Yadav “preacher” in the last week of June 2025. “Yadavs are traditionally ranked as a Shudra community,” says the article. They are not supposed to recite the holy texts. Mukut Mani Singh Yadav was reciting verses from the Bhagavad Gita. That was his crime. The Brahmins of the locality got the man’s head tonsured, forced him to rub his nose at t...
14 comments
Read more

I’m Alive

Illustration by Copilot Designer How do you prove to anyone that you’re alive? Go and stand in front of the person and declare, “I’m Tom, Shyam or Hari”? No, that won’t work in India. Let me share my personal experience. It’s as absurd as the plight of Kafka’s protagonist in The Castle. A land surveyor is summoned for duty, only to be told that the mere fact a land surveyor was summoned does not prove he is that land surveyor though he has the appointment letter with him. I received a mail from the Life Insurance Corporation of India [LIC] that I should prove my existence in order to continue receiving my annuity on the sum I had invested with them five years ago. They’re only paying the interest on the sum I have given them. They’re not doing me any charity. Yet they want me to prove to them that I am still alive in order to continue getting the annual amount they are obligated to pay me. This is India. LIC is a government undertaking. If I don’t follow their injunction, I wil...
11 comments
Read more

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...
16 comments
Read more