Be your Own Light

Be your Own Light

– Anant Sri

The term home-coming or returning-home is beautiful. But beautiful words also turn ugly falling into the hands of non-attentive and non-spiritual people. Nowadays this happens to more or less all beautiful words. Returning home means returning to your original habitat, to return to the home of your consciousness, back to your eternal self. And this returning home has to be there for all.

Conversion is dull-witted and absurd. To lead to the ultimate self, to the ultimate, should have been the way of religion, in which they have more or less failed. There is no need of any religion as crutches for spiritual journey.

Communities, either old or new, all are dangerous. They are based on greed and fear, and this is horrible. It is imperative that now man moves ahead of his fear and greed.

When religions and sects are seen as life patterns and ways to lead towards ultimate life and ultimate truth, they have a utility. But frightened people have made religions and sects like a group or army of fighters. That is why every religion and every sect is bent on dying and killing for their stipulations, their identity and their security. Discussions on harmony of all religions have no meaning.

We have to treat religions and sects as different systems and styles for taking man to the ultimate truth for that is what they are actually meant for. We have to adopt a liberal and playful attitude.

We can develop a time bound or periodic system of religious life style. Each person should have the freedom to adopt a life style of any religion for three or six months and completely live in that. If it suits him, he may continue in it or else he may experiment with the life style of some other religion and see.

No religion should be decided for a baby right from its birth. Just like we wait for a specific age for admission of a child into a school, likewise we can decide upon a mental age when we can introduce the child to various religions and their systems and assist him in choosing the religion that is in accordance with him. But this should be just like adopting a life style, without any rigidity, without any imposition. And once a person evolves into his natural state of self, he should have the freedom to free himself from all religions and sects.

Religions should be taken as a sport. Each sport has its own way, its own arrangements and its own rules. But it is never that a person playing one game is not allowed entry into the other. Religions and sects should be treated playfully, the way these sports are treated. And efforts should be put to ensure that more and more people attain to their ultimate self and ultimate truth. Gradually the need for religion and sects should continue to decrease. When people become more conscious they can proceed by their own light. The more the consciousness grows in humanity, the less will be the need for religions.

Now we can begin with some experiments so that birth of a cult-less spirituality can take place. We should end the rigidity in religious places and adopt a liberal life style where everybody has the freedom to go to any religious place. By this it is meant that let us become simple, and give more importance to human freedom.

The rigidity in religious clothes should also end. If possible let all variations end, but if you wish to enjoy the variety then become a little playful. Similarly we can do away with religion and caste while naming a child. Allow all meaningless rituals to end. Religious books should be respected but all expressions of their rigidity and fanaticism should be ended.

Religion is a search for man, it is his choice. Marriages should be free from all narrowness of religion and caste. If every house has people living in a variety of life styles then there will be no place for any friction and violence.

Just like the world becomes more beautiful with a variety of flowers, likewise the world will be more beautiful with various religious life styles if they are liberal, playful, uninhibited, compassionate and full of human freedom, sensitivity and awareness. Foremost, if feasible, end all superficial differences of religions and casts. If you are to bring religion in the category of science then all superficial differences of religions and sects have to end. You have to free messiahs, prophets, incarnations and Gurus from the impression of supernatural. Accept them in their ordinariness, amongst them, none is first and none is last.

Illumination in the eternal mystery of consciousness should be understood as an endless continuity. Don’t try to borrow illumination. End the mental barrier of following. Be your own light.