Let us break away from the manacles of religion and instead become more spiritual

 

Let us break away from the manacles of religion and instead become more spiritual

An all original poem by Sujay Rao Mandavilli

 

The general idea and concept of religion is pretty hoary and ancient indeed,

And has played a vital and pivotal role in human society and human civilizational history,

Religion claims to lay forth many a moral obligation and responsibility,

And claims to endow life with a degree of blissful harmony,

Eschewing all forms of bitter acrimony,

And not to omit religious sanctitude and sanctity,

And even births and gestates more obscure concepts such as the rites of passage and liminality,

With a history spanning one hundred thousand years,

Neanderthal men painting their caves in gay and bright art,

And Cromagnon men following their footsteps with magic and sacred spots,

That enlivened their culture and kept their spirits afloat,

The Egyptians, Mesopotamians and the Babylonians followed in their wake,

Keeping the simmering embers of religion awake,

We then had Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity,

And in due course religion began to be studied anthropologically,

Each religion is a different and a distinct beast,

With some common and some unique traits,

By the likes of Paul James, Max Lynn Stackhouse, and Edward Tylor,

Emile Durkheim, Clifford Geertz and James George Frazer,

Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach, Mary Douglas and Brian Morris,

Victor Turner and John Macionis,

Yet their works may be seen today and queer, quaint and outdated,

Esoteric, arcane and hackneyed,

That is why change is imminent, impending and must come we must all say and admit,

Religion has also callously sowed the seed of deep-rooted discord and contempt,

We have had many an incendiary and lavish war,

That categorically stems from the fact that each practitioner sees his or her faith as a gilded guiding star,

Needless to say, this will be seen as a puerile and tragically catastrophic madness when seen from afar,

We have borne witness since time immemorial to wars between rival religious groups,

Christians and Muslims,

Hindus and Muslims,

Shias and Sunnis,

Palestinians and Israelis,

And of the bitter crusades so to speak,

Therefore, let us get down to brass stacks in order that we may guard our sanity,

Religion has in many ways tragically outlived its utility,

And many religions have long become prehistoric dinosauric monsters as some may tend to agree,

Change must be enforced in sum and in essence,

And the contours and the dynamics of sociocultural changed captured in their quintessence,

Through a complete and a stiffly enforced separation of religion and state,

In order to accomplish this, intellectuals must light the torch and luminously and radiantly lead the way,

Developing secular constitutions that grant all rights and privileges to empowered and participating citizens,

This must be our lodestar and one of our primary and central missions,  

Universal and high-quality education must become a zealous high-priority too,

With religious education progressively relegated to the background too,

With experts in pedagogy roped in with steadfast determination,

Granting complete religions freedom including freedom to practice, freedom to convert, and freedom to non-religion,

This is essential lest freedom of speech fades into eternal oblivion,  

Saying no to archaic and often sinister religious-inspired and religious-derived laws,

And instituting and promulgating in their place well-envisioned and well-realized secular laws,

Taking steps to promote a scientific temper and a spirit of enquiry sweepingly in society,

Phasing out religious education and teaching universal human values commitedly,

Not weird and context-specific religious-inspired values blatantly,

Allowing free media without limiting barriers or obfuscation,

Allowing complete freedom of speech and free and open discussion of religion,

Moving all nations towards democratically elected governments in due course and without reservation,

We must fight to gradually bring all the above into fruition,

Let us not take any fortuitous and random chances,

Without pedagogy and religious reform warped and twisted religion disastrously and disruptively advances,

And the fair name of societal amelioration irrefutably sullies and damages,

Therefore pedagogical and religious reform must become our twin goals and aims,

We need to reform social sciences and historiography too comprehensively,

And usher in sociocultural change broadly and all-encompassingly,

And institute in esteemed institutions regardless of location a scientific study and analysis of religion,

Not lip-service to irresponsible and undisguised secularism,

Or shambolic anachronism,

Not an analysis based on dogma or hard-hearted ideology,

That is to say one emanating from a rival religion or a counter ideology,

Nor uncaring and tight-fisted rigidity,

Let us also cautiously explore novel off-beat alternatives to religion eventually,

Let us gradually move away from religion scientifically,

One step at a time or degree by degree,

Even if it is a slow and a tedious process as we will all agree,

Progress has its limitations and will hit barriers and roadblocks ultimately,

Let us therefore untie the Gordian knot and set the record straight, 

Reformist movements have taken place in Hinduism and in Christianity,

And is gradually picking up the threads in Islam as we can see,

Criticism of religion must be toned, graduated and measured and must not be based on a counter-ideology,

This is where intellectuals must play a part but have unfortunately failed us rather horribly,

With their shallow Eurocentric vision,

That borders on non-commitment to the intellectual cause and reason,

This is quite truly utter irresponsibility if not outright treason,

Half-progress is however better than no progress at all naturally,

Man spiritually empowered and finding a higher purpose,

Acting in the higher interests of humanity and always for a just and fair cause,

Treating the whole world as one family,

And seeking out a higher elevated unity,

This is the way to go eventually,

With evidence for or against a superior entity even-handedly evaluated without prejudice and holistically,

And scientifically, thoroughly and wholeheartedly,

With due diligence and due consideration,

Let us bring about changes in mind-orientation,

And ripple and cascading changes in cultural-orientation,

Tactfully, and diplomatically, with restraint and without provocation,

Let us bring about changes in mindspace, thought worlds, and worldviews too,

And bring about cultural remediation too,

Let us still understand that humans will be humans,

And religion is a central part of human identity and is unavoidably and inescapably identity-centric,

And plays many an important role and function personal, social, cultural, political and economic,

Some researchers have even spoken about a God gene,

And the importance of sacred places as opposed to the profane,

There are no artificial solutions,

No magical workarounds and short-term quick fixes,

Reform is however necessary even as humans fight each other in the name of religion preposterously,

And kill, maim or harm each other scandalously,

Let us hear the lion’s roar and feel and see the winds of change blowing sweetly,  

Let us grab the bull by the horns and usher in change quickly,

Let us harness the venom of the cobra,

And bite into the teeth of the tiger,

Let us all become more tolerant and welcoming,

Not rigid, overbearing and unbecoming,

Let us become less doctrinal and less fanatical,

And more tolerant and more spiritual,

Let us stop the infighting that borders on the mind-numbingly and chillingly preposterous,

By building a larger table rather than a taller fence,

Let us plan ahead and cast the net far and wide my dear friends,

Without regard for short-term implications or myopic considerations,

And the results will indeed be bountiful, rich-yielding and multitudinously splenderous,

Reform and change are necessary the sooner the better we must agree,

Even as we draw the boundaries between wishful thinking and reality,

Or hard-headed facts and fantasy,

If any individual, society or group believes it can subscribe to religion’s endemic flaws illimitably and without inhibition, 

They are living in a fool’s paradise we must reckon,

Religion must in the long haul be tamed if not outright intimidated,

Gradually and in slow and measured graduation,

We must fight and plod on and from our brow fret,

Even if ours is a victory bitter-sweet,

We will the rewards of our just and fertile efforts inevitably plow,

And will reap what we initially did sow,

In the hope of a brighter and glowing morrow,

This must morph into one of the fundamental pillars of activity in the twenty-first century activity,

We must not a catastrophic shipwreck in the history of civilization be,

We must also bide our time and patiently wait and see,

And realize that while religion cannot be brushed under the carpet or wished away with a magic wand,

We need not stick our heads in the sand,

And must patiently evaluate and understand,

Even if there is plenty at risk and plenty at stake,

New religions or new forms of religion can arrive in a reformed state,

We enduringly and forebearingly must wait for them at any rate,

Till society matures and evolves and is ready for fundamental, deep-rooted and comprehensive change,

We may also emerge as self-initiated beacons of change and thought leadership prodigiously supply,

Though not brashly and insensitively like the quintessential gadfly,

It pays for itself even if the wait is arduous, long and slippery,

Let us make spiritually and morality the basis of our rich and variegated civilizational history,

Moving off-ramp from the dreary highway of tedious boredom and the unwacky path desultory,

Then we will gloriously sip from the cup of unconstrained and unrestrained victory,

That will amply justify the wait, and humankind will march hand in hand in resolute and absolute victory.