In this writing, i tried to explain what kind of experiences one might have in course of finding answers to different questions of life. Enjoy reading...
A Child is born in Europe; other in America, another in China and so on. Some of them are born to a Christian family, some to Jew one, some to Muslim one, some others to Hindu and so on. This is a random process out of our control but there must be some logic behind it, there is some balance in it, there is some overall plan! There must be one :)! I think everyone who gets a chance to live in this world is special and important one since he/she got this privilege of coming into existence.
At the starting age a child is curious, he/she tries to put things into his mouth to test/taste them; he/she is not able to discriminate between harmful and harmless.
Does this process of learning for a child proceeds like that? Does it mean that a child born to a family will inherit the faith of his/her parents? The answer could be "yes" if we consider short period of time, as long as child is unconscious about the realities of the life since a child does not have many choices, he/she does not have much knowledge, he lacks physical and mental powers so it is almost impossible for him to decide about a big thing like philosophy of life. So a child has to stay to the philosophy of his family and parents and there is nothing wrong in it, i feel, it is natural. But...
Will a person follow the way of one's family all the time? Even after one gets choices, even after getting knowledge of the different realities of the life! If it could have been the religion of parents to be followed and there could have been no other way for the new generations then most probably people could have been following only one way of life: parent's way. There could have been no generation gap, there could have been no disagreements among people but reality tells a different story. There are not only many religions; there are even sects among specific religions; not all family members may follow one faith/religion; people of new generation both agree and disagree either partially or fully to the philosophies of their parents/family. People convert from one way to the other! So it shows that religion adopted by a family could or could not be followed by the next generation.
I personally think that a belief, which requires a religion(way of life) afterwards, does not come from the family or society! There is no doubt that surroundings do affect our learning process and decisions but to say that a belief will be imposed by others is not true. I think that even if all the people of world will try to force one single person among them to change his/her belief, they will not be able to do it; only that specific person himself can convince his inner self. There is a very good chance that one can pretend to be a believer after being forced but one can be convinced internally by himself or herself only.
There are many outer coated believers; limited to smiles and reading beautiful verses but hearts are just cold. Having a long beard or wearing certain religious symbols does not necessarily qualify a person as a believer.
So i think all of us have equal chance and have to put equal struggle to reach to a particular faith. All of us are born with almost empty brain (in the sense of worldly experiences) and we learn and fill it with experiences. Even if a person agrees to the faith of one's family or society; one can't do it blindly, he/she can't inhale it without processing it. To reach to a particular satisfactory level of inner conviction one will have to make a lot of experiments and learning. If self conviction of a person is weak or not enough then that individual will struggle even if the faith he/she follows will be the best one! That person will face both internal and external conflicts. His/her own body and conscience is going to tease him/her.
Our inner self is hungry for something; it is not going to let us remain contended or happy all the time if it does not get the food in the form of a belief :). People try to satisfy their spiritual hunger by many different ways; of course depending upon what is available to them :). For example in few countries, they visit shrines, visit places of worships, consult some spiritual authorities (which could be fake ones too :)), visit graves of pious people and so on. Here in Europe too, people adopt different ways to fulfill this need; some visit Church, some believe in Buddhism, some believe in some kind of Nature, some believe in themselves and there are those who try to convince themselves and others by being Atheists(how far they are satisfied by it, we can't say, they themselves know better :) ) etc. Everyone is going to try something to fulfill or get rid of this spiritual need but which one is going to be satisfactory?
It depends upon an individual, i think! Life is open chance for everyone :). To reach to a convincing belief is important for everyone whether he/she is born to a strong believing family or to atheist one or to a tribe in the forest of Africa or to the royel family of a country.
I feel that the most important role to reach a good decision is played by our intentions; if they are correct and are followed by sincere dedicated efforts then everything is possible. There is no use of pretending to be a believer or nonbeliever; one must be natural. It is not something which we have to prove to others, it is something purely for our ownself.
Something about the religious people: we should be clear that not all religious people necessarily are good or bad. There could be corruption, both intentional or unintentional, by them. Let me share with you that those who understand religions they understand the human psychology quite well since it is clearly described in Scriptures. They can hit at very sensitive feelings of human beings either positively or negatively. If you will try to figure out, you would find religious people at the core of control of the World Order. Those who are good of them they are very nice, extremely nice and vice versa :).
Surely this challenge of search may not be met only in one day or by one experiment but there should be efforts. We must not be answerable for something which remained out of our reach/comprehension even after best of our sincere efforts but we must surely be answerable for things within our capacity!!! If we want to keep ourselves busy here and there and want to suppress internal voices by only limited and insufficient means then things will remain complicated. This is not a matter to be postponed or to be put into a dustbin; i think we simply can't afford doing so.
I firmly believe that only a true and natural belief will fit to our internal needs; our body and soul are not going to accept something unnatural so we should not be afraid of making experiments and learning. One can stay to a belief, whatever it could be, which he or she has presently and can compare information to it to test its strength in a controlled way. Its not a boring search; its pretty interesting one.
We should be active instead of being passive; Even miracles happen for those who prove themselves worthy of it.
Best Wishes and over to you :).
P.S: As usual feel free to agree or to disagree and for comments to my personal views. You can give comments directly here(there is no need to have a gmail account) or can write me an email at zaheer.abbas@hotmail.de
