Still looking for the right heading...:)

Im no authority on religion neither do I have much knowledge about it so would invite views to get other dimensions of the same :) Im writing about Jainism in particular because I was born into it and have heard my elders talk of its preachings I could relate to but now my growing dissatisfaction for the way its being practiced led to a discussion with one of my relatives. It helped me connect my spirituality with the base of all religions and clear my confusions to a certain level. In April sometime there was a report on how two elephants were used to pull a rath in Indore in peak afternoon, the rath was double storied with close to 20 people sitting in it including the maharajsab ( Jain saints)…I was aghast to see the picture of the elephants whose legs were tied up with short thick iron chains, so that they can be controlled as there was a huge crowd following the rath…When I started discussing this, the immediate reaction of some people was that they are Digambars and not Shwetambar jain… it disgusted me even more… this is just one example. Time and again I’ve come across incidents where I feel ashamed of how the meanings are distorted and every religion now is adulterated in the way its being practiced, for obvious reasons I like to call my self spiritual and not religious…

So it was on this basis that our discussion started… Mr. Banthia immediately marked me saying you cant criticize a religion as the basic of each religion is simplicity and humanity therefore not believing in it would be wrong. It’s the people who complicate religion, not the religion itself…it was interesting as he asked me if I knew the original meaning of Dharm… which I didn’t…he said it's simply rules to live in a society… he clarified… rules not only to live your own life but to live along with other people… he said the way religion is being practiced now is very complicated. I immediately said yes I cant relate to many things and they confuse me… Mr. Banthia too agreed and said it’s the perception of the people which makes it bad, by just following it blindly without understanding the essence of it.

Luckily my elders were open enough to let me find my own way… Im very spiritual and believe very strongly in energies, in nature being the mother of all creations…and I feel whether it is Mahavir, Buddha, Christ, Shiva or any other God, they all left everything, went and lived their own journey into enlightenment through their own experiences,though their circumstances were different, their times in history were different and their experiences were different but what was similar was that they attained enlightenment by letting go of things... by simplifying life and their thoughts… that is what took them to a higher level where they could absorb the positive energies and float in the atmosphere feeling totally light. Probably they then preached to show the way to everyone but everyone has to go through their own journeys with their own experiences and realizations to find their own enlightenment. For this you have to get to know yourself inside out… probably that’s how I relate to religion… I cant feel the energies in the universe by just praying … I have to connect to it to absorb and create more positive energy to sustain myself, to let go of things and to feel light…

To this his wife asked me how would you get to know yourself inside out and here comes my favorite part…I guess Im lucky that its part of my profession too. In art we express ourselves but how would we express if we don’t know what exactly are we feeling and why?? Therefore one keeps questioning everything one does and sees and feels…analyze them and try to figure out where its comes from… most artists you speak to, the ‘I’ would come in the conversation again and again…not because they are ‘I’ centric or because they don’t look beyond the ‘I’ but because they keep constantly questioning the ‘I’… It’s a journey to look and search for your self, to relate it to others around you and understand the human nature better… its amazing that when you analyze things you might just feel, what you thought of yourself was not what you really are…one reacts to things in a completely uncharacteristic way. Its a long life and one tends to develop knots while living it…while questioning the negative energies one also identifies the knots buried quietly in the past…once you know the knots and accept them, you move on…its not a days process…its in phases, sometimes you are in a certain phase and another time in a totally opposite one, growing and experiencing with time…it just keeps simplifying…you feel more connected to the power in the universe and more positive about things around and most importantly at peace with yourself.

To this Mr. Banthia said there is another way of putting up the same thoughts which incidentally helped me connect to the so called religious thoughts as well. He said when you say you let go, you are using the path of Ahinsa…you forgive, understand that the other person might have a reason to do what he did and also that you had a reason to do what you did, and probably work on those reasons to solve the problem and move on, not let it hold against anyone…that is Ahinsa. Ultimately we both agreed that its important to understand what religion, is to you and why do you need it. Everything exists for a reason, once the purpose is known it becomes easier to identify the road… there is no formula …you have to experience it to ultimately simplify life and let go of it all…strange that a thought like religion, faith or belief in its original form is so beautiful but in today’s world and circumstances man has made it to sound like an abuse.