Leave your religion and flip flops at the door, please

Preah Khan, Angkor pic by Mark Ulyseas
Preah Khan, Angkor pic by Mark Ulyseas

by Mark Ulyseas

Most of us confuse religion with faith. Rituals and ceremonies are man-made. Does God need to be celebrated with the very things He has created? If I was God I would be insulted if my believers landed up at my doorstep bearing things that I had made… Further, if they brought those (offerings) into my home wearing their religion, instead of faith, like flip flops.

Today the world is fragmented by a religious fervour that defies logic. Religious symbols have become multinational brands. Outlets are opening on the hour every hour of one brand or another. The enticing neon lights lead many of us into a world of perceived miracles.  We make God out to be some cheap magician, waving a magic wand.

Could it be that we have tragically misunderstood the message of and from the Universe?

Why do we need religious books with rules, the dos and don’ts for followers? Isn’t it enough to honour the Universal Spirit by serving and preserving all life?

The human tribe, which is decimating the flora and fauna, has now turned on itself slaughtering its members and making the earth into one large open air abattoir.

Millions of children die of hunger every year while people and their pets grow fat on overindulgence. Diet pills and exercise regimes are the fad for fat people who can’t keep their mouth shut.

Has religion and its attendant paraphernalia of ceremonies succeeded in comforting our conscience; As long we say our prayers, make the stipulated offerings, do penance and pretend to live a ‘religious life’, all will be well?

Could it be that the human tribe is lost in a desert of self-deceit and self-importance, dangerously flirting with the idea that we are the gods themselves?

Has faith become a figment of our imagination and reality, religion?

Perhaps it would be wise to leave our religion and flip flops at the door of life, and to enter it with our faith.

I shall leave you now with these words of my friend Dr Ivo Coelho, Priest and Philosopher, from his article Faith and Religion – ‘Our spontaneous tendency is to think that we are the lion. But in the end, the lion is God. Faith, I learned, is not something I do for myself. It is a gift.”

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Om

January 25, 2015 © Mark Ulyseas

 

One Reply to “Leave your religion and flip flops at the door, please”

  1. Pingback: Leave your religion and flip flops at the door, please – markulyseas - My Telegraph

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