I was at a bar today and down 2 beers. We shared the table with my friend’s friend’s friend. He happened to be deeply interested in religion and after 20+ years of studying Christianity he has turned to the eastern philosophies of Hinduism and Buddhism. We had a pretty interesting discussion about God, consciousness, concept of the finite and infinite, the Self etc. I do not claim that I understood all that he was saying but I did get the gist. He too was aware that he was in the process of understanding things and so was eager to discuss it with someone who would hear it out. Apparently not many people choose to discuss this.
From all the things we discussed, there was one particular thing that I would like to mention here. I asked him whether the cause of all the religion based conflicts in the world is the deliberate misinterpretation of religious texts. His answer was pretty interesting. It was a thing that I have been aware of and probably you all are. But talking about it today, in this context, totally made sense. Conflicts in this world will never end.
Why do conflicts arise? It is because of differences. The reason for the difference can be as simple as two hungry people claiming the same last piece of bread or as pointless as two religions fighting over their concept and interpretation of God. It would be simple to say that these conflicts can be resolved by resolving differences….by condemning the wrong and embracing the right, by defeating evil and glorifying the good. But that is where the catch lies. All these terms are relative and subjective. What is right for one person may not be the same for another. What is good for one will be evil for another. And there is no way you can change everyone’s perception. In theological language… although we share the same consciousness, our perceptions of the finite and levels of awareness are different. Pretty heavy, isn’t it? The same cross seen by Christians and seen by the rest, evoke a different emotions.
The very existence or presence of something depends on the absence of another thing. Darkness is absence of light. Good is absence of evil. Honesty is not being dishonest. And if you observe, these are abstract things, just concepts. Hence if there was never any evil in this world, we would not have known the concept of Good. We would not have known light as we know it if there was no darkness. Thus, there is always a conflict, and it is eternal. There is nothing anyone can do to resolve it. Let us assume that all religions are dissolved and the whole world follows one religion or absolutely follows none. Then there will be thousands of other reasons which would give rise to conflicts.
The very concept of Utopia exists because the world is imperfect and there is discontent. It is that illusion, that mirage which we dream of. But alas, it is just what it is… an illusion.
