The Science of Liberation

 

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The Science of Liberation

All methods of worship or religions as they are referred to, talk about love and humanity as the core of their values. Unfortunately, human beings subsequently became religious leaders and then that led to the use of religion as a tool for gaining power and control through the use of fear and war.

Everywhere in the world, whenever anyone spoke anything other than the existing organised religion of that time, the first thing that the people said was, ‘Kill’. In Europe, thousands of women were burnt at the stake simply because they showed other kinds of possibilities and capabilities that were not logically understood by people. So, they were labelled as witches and burnt at the stake. Persecution has always been the thing. Some of the famous ascetics that we know who were persecuted were Jesus Christ, Mansoor and Socrates. They were persecuted simply because they showed other kinds of capabilities which were not considered normal in those times.

So, wherever spirituality happened in the West, it always happened in secrecy. It always was individual or in small groups, never as a society. But in this culture, there has never been anything called persecution for spiritual people. At the most, they called one for debates and asked questions. Because the pursuit is truth, so people sat down and argued whether what they knew was true or what the other person knew was true. If his truth was more powerful than ours, we become a part of the other person. If our truth was more powerful than theirs, they would become a part of us. It is a very different kind of search. People were searching to know. They were not just believing and trying to prove that their belief was right.

There is no belief system to the Hindu way of life. Someone believes in God, someone else can choose not to believe in God. Everybody can have their own way of worship and way to liberation. If there are five people in a family, each one can worship the God of their choice, or not worship anything, and still be a good Hindu. So, we are a Hindu irrespective of what we believe or don't believe.

At the same time, there was a common line running through all these. In this culture, the only goal in human life is liberation or moksha. Liberation from the very process of life, from everything that we know as limitations or hurdles and to go beyond that. God is not held as the ultimate thing; God is seen as one of the stepping stones. This is a Godless but a devout nation in the sense that there is no concrete idea of God. When one says Godless, we need to understand that this is the only culture that has given humans the freedom not just to make a choice of Gods, but to create the sort of God that one can relate to. We can worship a rock, a cow, our mother – we can worship whatever we feel like – because this is a culture where we have always known that God is our making.

Everywhere else people believe, ‘God created us.’ Here we know we created God so we take total freedom to create whatever kind of God we can relate to. People worshipped whatever aspect of life they related to most, and that was perfectly fine.