What Is Religion?

[krsna]

BY: GOKULANANDA DASA

 

 

Mar 16, VANCOUVER, CANADA (SUN) —

Religion (derived from the Latin meaning obligation or binding duty) is a system for the worship of God, applied differently according to varying cultures and traditions. All the major religions share the common ground of worshipping one Supreme God and acknowledging man's duty of obedience to Him. Yet the details of such allegiance to God will differ dramatically from one religion to another, often contradicting each other's conceptions. Also, many other speculative theistic systems have come and gone; some are shrouded in arcane doctrines, while others zealously advocate fanatical delusions imposed through political and even physical cohersion. Such tyranny in the name of religion has spoiled its true purpose of uniting all of God's children and has "given religion a bad name": what was meant to be the best became the worst.

 

All such distortions are due to a poor fund of knowledge. The Vedas declare "Dharman tu saksad Bhagavat pranitam": dharma, or religion, are the laws given by God, as our grateful obedience to Him. True religion is never man-made but always descends from God as His revelation, His divine teachings in the sacred Scriptures, or Sastras. As in the Latin origin of the word religion, the Sanskrit dharma means the constitutional duty and intrinsic function of the soul: loving service to God, which is sanatana, ever-existing in the soul. By following God's laws in the scriptures, we can harmonize our consciousness with His to gradually realize our reciprocal loving connection to Him. The dawn of such awareness is called true faith, which is both the means and the goal of all religion.

 

The scriptures are God's codes and serve as a map to lead us to Him beyond this temporary world's imperfection and illusions, within and without. This "map" is clearly understandable only by those with implicit faith. Such faith in God's infinite mercy and kindness is the natural primeval inclination of every soul. God reveals His axiomatic truths, the self-evident sastras, within the hearts of His faithful servants. Their realizations are like the magnifying glass, which brings into focus the rays of the sun-like divine knowledge; they are inseparable from the scriptures, as the rays are to the sun.

 

To quote such a perfect saint, Bhaktivinoda Thakur explains: "Revealed truth (amnaya) comes only through the reliable source of these divine agents through which the Infinite can make Himself known". These God-realized saints thus embody and preserve the Sastras' transcendental potency and integrity. By their living example of pure devotion, they inspire all sincere aspirants to hear the truths about God from them, to better nurture their own dormant faith through the force of their perfect realizations. There is inestimable benefit in hearing their empowered utterances. These rare lovers of God exist only to glorify His divine personal excellences by all their words and deeds. They thus embody the essence of all religion: the soul's innate impetus to selflessly serve God's pleasure in pure love.

 

As the ripened fruit of the Vedic tree of knowledge, the Srimad Bhagavatam is glorified as the topmost scripture by learned transcendentalists, who have declared it to be the paramount theistic revelation brilliantly illuminating the path back to Godhead. The Bhagavatam teaches the science of God-realization, pure devotional service, centered on the unmotivated glorification of God's Names and Pastimes. By applying its prescribed methods of self-realization, all sincere aspirants can experience in their own consciousness the transforming potency of its teachings.

 

Above the worship of God (by obedience to His laws) is the full surrender of one's whole being, to which the Bhagavatam aims to bring all sincere practitioners. The Bhagavatam also succinctly defines what is true religion: "Sa vai pumsam paro dharmo...The supreme occupation(dharma) for all humanity is that by which men can attain to loving devotional service unto the transcendent Lord. Such devotional service must be unmotivated and uninterrupted to completely satisfy the self."(SB.I-2.6)

Since the soul originates in God, we can be truly happy only by serving Him with unconditional love. The Lord gladly reciprocates such pure love by blessing His faithful devotees with purity of heart and illuminating knowledge of their eternal identity in service to Him: "Vasudeve bhagavati bhakti-yogah prayojitah...By rendering devotional service unto the Personality of Godhead, Sri Krishna, one immediately acquires causeless knowledge and detachment from the world."(SB.I-2.7) These attainments are the necessary proof of the veracity of any authentic spiritual path. Thus true religion is scientific and verifiable by its desired results: gradual indifference to all mundane infatuations, allowing for the full blossoming of the soul's innate attraction for the Lord's eternal service. Such is the real perfection of religion: the complete union of the soul with God's infinite love and beauty. Jai Sri Krishna.