Fear of God?

 

Photo Credit: Your Thurrock

Fear of God?

The Abrahamic religions tell us to fear God and to live in Godly fear. But why should we be afraid of God? Isn’t God said to be the epitome of love and compassion? In a way there is no fear in love, but when you do love, then along with this love come other emotions – attachment, jealousy, fear; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But the one who fears has not been made perfect in love!

The west teaches us that the fear of God is nothing but reverence and awe of Almighty God, the Creator. The concept of sin has been drilled into people’s minds, so the moment they sin there is a feeling of guilt in such people. The people who live in fear can only overcome that fear through love, through acceptance of circumstances and watching their actions. Religions feed on fear, as fear gives such institutions the donation that they need to sustain themselves. So, fear is the fuel required by religious organisations to get donations, so that is what they propound – if you do this, this will happen, if you do that, that will happen and you will burn in hell, and so on and so forth!

The Sanatana Dharma says that God lies within each one of us, in which case how can we be afraid of our own self? The purpose of human life is to become aware of one’s divinity; to realise that we are a part of the Whole. This truth was discovered by seers in ancient Bharat (India), who spent their whole lives contemplating on the purpose and meaning of human life. This resulted in the Upanishads, a vast body of spiritual treatise.

The Sanatana Dharma is all about inner transformation. There is no initiation ceremony, taking vows or undergoing any purificatory rites to become a Sanatani. If you are convinced and have a desire to transform your life, all you have to do is abandon following the codes prescribed in your old religion, read and understand the Sanatana philosophy and start meditating.

It is through meditation that the individual consciousness merges with universal consciousness. Ancient sages affirm that there is no one religion that teaches an exclusive road to liberation. All genuine spiritual paths are valid and all great religions are like the branches of a tree - the tree of religion.  The Bhagavad Gîtã declares, “In whatever way they [human beings] love Me [God], in the same way they find My love. Various are the ways for them, but in the end they all come to Me.” (BG 4.11)