Acharya Tulsi
There are different concepts about religion. Some people believe that religion is an essential requirement of life. Others look upon religion as a hoax; it cripples a man by imprisoning him in the fold of dead conventions. Probably on the basis of these concepts, someone calls religion the nectar, and another calls it the opium pill. These are two contrary statements. Both may contain some essential truth, according to Anekant, the Jain doctrine of none—absolutism.
For those who believe in the inevitability of religion, it is a pilgrimage from darkness to light. The light is within, inside man. One need not wander here and there. Only he, who turns his gaze within, finds this light. Introversion is religion, extraversion irreligion. Introversion is light, extraversion darkness. Introversion is good conduct, extraversion transgression. The more an individual looks within, the nearer he is to religion.
Those who regard religion as a ‘hoax’ are the intellectuals who mistake ritual worship and prayer for religion. They mistakenly accept as religion the rites and ceremonies performed by the temple-mosque-and gurdwara—goers. After reducing religion to a mere ritual, they are confused by the double mindedness of the followers of various religions.
Lord Mahavira was a successful religious preceptor of his time. To know religion he did not have to follow any tradition. He was in himself the knower and seer. He has expounded the two-faceted nature of religion. According to him, one form of religion is like nectar, the other a fatal poison.
He said, "Religion is light. It is righteousness; it is salvation and the noble refuge. One, who seeks the protection of religion, becomes free from contradictions, grows fearless and attains self-realization."
Portraying the other form of religion, he said, “Religion is like a deadly poison, a weapon wrongly grasped an unregulated, discordant note."
He who partakes of a deadly poison, dies; he who grasps the weapon by its cutting edge, loses his limb, and an untrained, discordant note creates dis harmonies everywhere. Similarly, hypocrisy, self-exhibition, superstition, evil customs, blind imitation and meaningless rituals, putting on the garb of religion, merely push an individual towards perdition. The inequities perpetrated in the name of religion are enough to drive one away from it.
If distortions in the field of religion are done away with, then religion leads one from darkness to light; it plants a sampling of equity on the soil of inequity, changes pain into pleasure, and driving away all illusion, establishes a man on the solid ground of reality. A factual observer gains an insight into both forms of religion and is not therefore led astray.
