Lately media got over-flooded with news about abusive spiritual teachers and religion groups attacking each other. But do we need to shame religion, spiritual teachings or maybe people who constitute it?
Since centuries people are committing crime in name of religion. Except that news about this got amplified through technology and social media, not much has changed even in 21st century. Unfortunately, each single religion can be on one or another way connected to aggression and rage and not because the underlying spiritual teaching would advice people to do so, but rather because of interpretation and hidden agenda of the human mind blurred by fear, anger and ignorance.
These destructive human emotions are creating ground for even more unhappiness, which expose people to damaging influences. They get driven to abusive spiritual teachers, gurus and priests; to self-announced “holly people”, who preach punishment, killing and revenge; or they get engaged into fights between Muslims and non-Muslims.
But whenever people hurt, abuse or kill another living being, no matter how they justify these deeds, they can’t run away from their own responsibility. Even when they try to disguise behind the premises of certain religion, with each “wrong-doing” they drift away from the very basic of the spiritual teaching each religion is build upon. And exactly this basis is the only condition, which qualifies someone to call himself Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jew… This is as well the reason why generalisation and judgments, based only on the robes and clothing someone wares, country and family someone gets born in, or simply because of the news in social media, cause more damage than one can possible foresee.
With declined capacity for faith, which modern world faces, all these news about dark side of humanity make the trust in human values backsliding too. Perception of World is becoming increasingly “black and white” version of it and blaming attitude start over-dominating human relationships.
And still, people like to think about themselves in superlatives, living an illusion of being evolutionary advanced species, not only in respect to other living beings but certainly comparing to their ancestors. They prise themselves for being civilized and knowledgeable, for having more progressive culture than their neighbours, for living only one and true religion. They often choose spiritual teachers based on popularity or medial fashion and believe in instant enlightenment propagated by life coaches, famous media stars or religious leaders who are more concerned about own status in the world than World itself.
Once surface of this illusion gets scratched, not as beautiful reality is disclosed, showing that for many people, religion has less to do with spirituality as much with promise of universal absolution. It serves as camouflage of their real motivations: wish for getting more or at least more than someone else.
People like to excuse their mistakes by calling their human nature to responsibility and knowingly or unknowingly they deny that this darkness is only an expressed urge of their body to progenerate. Still if there would be no light under this darkness, there would be no hope for humanity. This what makes humans Human is their compassion, empathy and attempt to grow beyond constrains of their material world.
And these constrains, no matter how cold it may sound, include some over-dated cultural traditions, selfishness considering reproductive practices, restrictions considering intellectual development, distribution of resources and rights and obligations of each person to contribute to this World.
Getting aware of impacts caused by these constrains is an important step toward happier World. The one in which people are seeing their own share in all “Good and Bad” happenings around; the World capable to express more of compassion and less of self-orientation; the World which uses its Mind and Body instead of being used by it; the World in balance.