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“I am a woman, a man, an Indian, an American, an Indian American, Caucasian, BIPOC, Hindu, Muslim, Catholic..."
All these identities that bind you to a body that wants to be affiliated with a certain race, gender, sex, ethnicity, religion, and nationality are limiting your experience as a sentient creature with a limited amount of time here in this world. Pondering over advancement to improve one’s quality of life is an unavoidable element of life. This advancement may be towards the betterment of one’s own species that focuses on longevity (which is what evolution is about) or towards spiritual betterment, an advancement that helps a living being transcend into a position that alleviates the agony and miseries of their current situation.
And if we think about it, any advancement is meant to solve the suffering that a creature is enduring. Such affiliations with different roles do not help either. Every war we have fought is the result of an attachment to a religion, nation, philosophy, or ideology. It is usual to say that eradicating such wrath and animosity against opponents leads to peace, but nipping it in the bud is what we should strive towards. But how can we put a stop to it? People commonly claim that religion and ideologies are the sole causes of war. I disagree, particularly with the notion that religion has done more harm than good. Before any civilizational progress, when we were living like animals, life was short and difficult to survive. Any living creature is here on Earth to advance, and hence the very nature of experiencing the world becomes pondering over everything that is around you, including your own existence. And religion is a product of such ponder. It helps bring perspective on some things for people who follow it by bringing discipline into one’s life.
Unfortunately, over time, the product of such ponder has eliminated its core idea and become fundamental. The higher the number of people who follow it, the more mundane it becomes. The idea of religion is personal to one’s life. The interpretation of “God” may be different for everyone. One might see God in nature, and another might see God as an all-powerful being living in a higher dimension. Whatever it is, at its core, it is just a therapeutic way to deal with life. Delegating “fate” in the name of God takes the load off one’s mind. People simply do not want to think about and deal with the harsh realities of life, so de-loading all the work onto a third party in the name of faith is easier.
