Spirituality and religion

The last time I went to the temple on Thaipusam was when I was a teenager. I went with my friends and we gave offerings – it’s called ‘archanai’, where you pay a few ringgit to have the priest chant a special prayer in your name with God’s blessing and gives you some fruits to eat that carry the blessings, accompanied with flowers and betel leaves. I find these gestures generous and sweet, just like the free breakfasts and sometimes lunch or dinner, they offer everyone in temples.

I like the freedom I have in temples, to sit and just feel the energy around me. To pray at my own pace. In the quiet stillness, you feel God. Around you, inside you.

I was raised a Christian, and as a teenager, I got in trouble with relatives when they found out that I had gone to a temple and did all this when I was ‘supposed to be a Christian’.

They complained to the priest and when I look back, this is why I feel stifled by Abrahamic religions. There is so much control over every element of our life and we seem to live in constant fear of validation by everybody else but us. Do this, don’t do this. And these do’s and don’ts keep changing as you grow up, and you realise that it’s humans who keep meddling in a relationship you need to have with God all on your own. This meddling made me go away from religion and seek God on my terms for a while, because I didn’t need another human, full of his imperfections and his limited knowledge of life and the universe, interpreting God to me.

I believe I am better equipped to open the channels of communication directly with God, the all-powerful, all-knowing. God does not need puny humans to fight his battles for him, neither does he need a translator. If he can build the universe, he can choose to speak directly to me, one of his creations. I realised that having middlemen was just how people turned spirituality into a business and distanced myself from it. Fear makes for a thriving business and many charlatans in all religions keep using that fear to get people to part with their money and suffer needlessly in this life for atonement in the afterlife.

I don’t believe in a vengeful God. I believe in a kind and loving God, who gives us everything we need. People need to know the difference between spirituality and religion, and then they will never fall for the trickery that men impose on other men in the name of religion.

My father used to tell me that we must respect all religions because there is but one God and that people are raised to see God in different ways. So, I grew up being curious about all religions and wanting to understand what makes people religious. I have been to mosques, I have been to gurdwaras, I have been to churches my whole life and this year, I have started going to temples.

In all these places of worship, all I see is a simple yearning to live a good life. To do good by others and to do good with one’s own life. It’s a fundamental truth, an innate sense of goodness we all have inside us, the inherent need to be the light amidst the darkness, be it the darkness in our souls, or the darkness around us.

Sadly though, a need to control people to manipulate them, for power and monetary gain has made many misinterpret the scriptures for their good.

There is a line in the Bible “The Devil can quote scriptures for its use”.

This is what we need to be careful about. This is why we need to trust our instincts, and not fight with one another over which religion is better than the other. That is what the Devil wants us to do. Fight each other, create divisions, create fear, create enmity. God speaks within our hearts and minds and if we listen hard enough, we will hear God speak to us, guide us and bring us to that peace we all want.

We, humans, are all one, just raised to recognise the blessings of God in a myriad of ways. I feel the calm of just sitting in the temple and speaking to Murugan or Ambal in my head when I visit temples. I can do that in church too, pouring my heart out to Jesus and Mary. When I went to Pulau Besar, Malacca, I asked the spirits of the Prophet’s descendants to bless me, at their tombs.

I see God in people. So, I have faith in people.

The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune. Feedback can reach the writer at [email protected]