Long time ago, as far as the written history stretches back, people have been living on this planet according to what they can see and hear and experience and think . They lived like the frog that lived on a well and thought that that was the expanse of reality ; of course the frog never saw the Ocean. People were living ignorant of the existence of the other higher and different planes of existence . Because of this, every now and then, a mysterious thing happened at some place on this planet : A saint or a sage or a messenger would come and teach about other planes of existence which he has known of and experienced somehow . The people would be educated into the existence of these subtler realms that are supposed to open vistas of their inner knowledge and thus operate changes in their understanding of reality and therefore in the quality of their lives .This is how religions started and spread .
But it is common to all religions that -after a tangible period of time- people lose touch with the originality and inspiration of their religion . Because of a break in the connection with the original inspiration due to lack of true fervent adepts, the true purport of religion seems to fade away and vanish leaving place to a repetition of verses and ideas that were once full of life but became confined to certain places and texts and people started losing touch with the essence of the message.
Religion thus becomes a burden , something that is not understood nor assimilated nor lived; it becomes a burden rather than a message and a life . What is required is that religion remains alive and Muslims or Christians or any group of religious people awaken to the real purport of religion . The religious aspirant has to become alive and bring back to life the religion which message has been carried misunderstood and neglected .
The problem is not therefore that of absence of unity and sectarianism in a religion, but the absence of religion itself in religion. The problem is the relation between the believer and his faith and the quality of this relation . How is the believer related to his faith ? Because what we have seen lately is that the believer could relate to his religious faith in a way that is causing him to kill innocents and betray his country in the name of religion. It is required to develop a true understanding of one’s religion and awaken to the reality of religion otherwise it is better not to claim religion and find other references in the secular or material or moral realms.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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