Crossroads

I guess there is a time in everyone’s life when they feel they have reached an unknown place, and they dont know where life goes from then on. The feeling of uncertainity, the feeling of what’s going to happen next. Especially when people everywhere around seem to be in the most perfect place in their lives. Why is it that the world seems to have this template, which people need to follow in order to be called successful, and therefore acceptable. People say everything will eventually fall into its place, that’s the norm of life. But, what if, when the pieces fall into their place, you dont like where the pieces have fallen.
I guess most of the people avoid this period of uncertainity and pick a safe path, a path which is trustable and has been tested to give the most promising results. I actually envy such people. In a strange way they know what they want. They have picked a path, and they are happy with it, relaxed, peaceful, calm in their lives.
But ofcourse, people who make a difference in the world are the people who are not scared of the uncertainity. These are the people who are always restless to be different. These are the people who have the dare to pick an untested and a never travelled path. A great person once said “ be the change you want to see”! how many people would really dare to be the change. Everybody wants to enjoy the fruits on an evolved and enlightened society, but only a few, very few, would want to be a part of the change, the evolution. In a way I guess that is justified, because if everyone had what it takes to be the change, imagine how many zillion pages our school history books would contain! I guess nature has its own way to even out greatness in those few people with the mediocrity of a zillion other humans.
Then again, there are these other kind of people who tried and failed. For every Vascodagama, there would have been thousands of people who set out to discover distant lands and were never heard of again. For every Dhirubhai Ambani, there would have been lakhs of people who came to the city on that very same day as him, tried their luck and failed, or simply didnt make it as big as him. What is it with great people, what are they made of! Or is it just about being at the right place at the right time. Is it just a stroke of luck that decides between being in the mediocre group and being etched in the human history forever!
I guess that’s the downside of picking the less travelled road, there’e a chance you may lose direction, chance of finding a deadend, chance of only red signals all the way, chance of just missing the green light at every signal. Its like forming a pyramid, there should be people at every level to hold the one at the top! There are people at the bottom, there are people who almost made it to the top! A person who dares to be different should also have the dare to face the consequences. If you are scared of falling off the pyramid, you better stick to the bottom levels!

What is Life...?

Isnt that a million dollar question! Many great philosophers say that each man has to try on his own, in his own life to find an answer to that question. Probably one of the things where experience doesnt really count. I have had people ask me why I dont believe in god, why is it so hard for me to believe in the many learned minds who have spent their whole lives finding out the purpose of a human beings’ life. I definitely repect all the great religious leaders in our history, who are trying to teach the world through their own experiences. But, there are so many theories, so many beliefs! Who do you believe?
That is where your birth, your upbringing comes into picture. But, what if a hindu was not born a hindu, will he still in the course of his life embrace hinduism and put all his faith into it?! Highly doubtful! Like a river, wherever it is born, wherever it flows, has to end up in the ocean; will a man, wherever he is born, whatever his upbringing is, will he end up embracing a faith he is destined to ?! Looking at the people around, I will have to say No! Faith and religion in almost all cases depends upon a person’s birth and upbringing. Imagine a child is not brought up according to any particular religion, and you tell the child that it is free to pick whichever faith or belief it wants. What will the child do! It now has all the freedom in the world to embrace anything, any faith, pick from the many theories that exist in the world! I have seen a hindu’s child being a hindu; a muslims’s kid following islam; an atheist’s child probably ending up an atheist, but what would a child left to its thinking, its choice; what would the child do!
I think any person who truly wants to find out what life is should think like a child who does not belong to any faith and has the freedom to embrace anything in the world. Why is that the first rule in any religion is complete submission to the belief, unquestionable faith !? Go to any religion, the ground rules are the same. If you want to be here, have faith, believe in only this and nothing else. And if you want to do more, be a goodwill ambassador, tell the rest of the world that this is the belief that will take them to heaven, spread the word. Complete devotion to Vishnu, unshakeable belief in allah, or submission to jesus is what will take you to heaven and will give you a good life after death because this is the purpose of your life. Then there is the book! It has everything, how to live life, what’s good what’s bad, what will get you in the good books of god and what will count as a sin, it even has points on how to sin and wash off your sins!! Thats the great thing about these books. If you sin and you are kicked out of the religion, you will be let off the hook, you wont be a follower anymore, so you can sin and jus follow the rules in the book, wash off your sin and still be a staunch follower of the religion!! Then there’s the aftermaths of a bad sinful life, what can be your punishment, and thats why in order to avoid all that, you better follow the rules!
So now you know why the world is such a happy, peaceful place! You have people sinning all the way, and then washing off their sins all the way back. So hell must be an empty place after all, if you have forgiveness for every sin you do, why in the world would anyone end up in hell! And whats the single fastest way to forgiveness? Yeah you guessed it! Complete submission to the faith again!
My purpose of saying all this is not to just ridicule all the people who are followers of all the different religions in the world. It is to tell them open your eyes, open your mind. Dont you see a pattern in all these religious rules, dont you think that by asking you to have unquestionable faith, it is asking you not to reason, not to think, saying dont question is actually suppressing the free thought process of the brain. Drawing boundaries and limiting the thought process of an individual is no way of getting someone to follow any theory. If every sin has forgiveness, then why do we give death sentences and life imprisonments to criminals. If god is willing to forgive, then who are we to punish. May be there is a god. But the ways of approaching him need to be questioned. There are many things in these religions and their books that are meaningful and need to be respected, but unquestionable faith and complete submission is something that needs to be given a proper thought; proper, unbiased, fearless thought.