god?

walking home, a 10-year-old child attempted to hand me a flier with a message from god, the one and only message apparently... this while another preached over a microphone, telling me that i was a sinner bound for hell. what a sad existence to put one's faith in a god that would condemn decent people to hell for eternity.

people have often asked me if i am religious, and i always hesitate to answer yes. for one, i fear the word 'religious' invokes a sense of blindness. though it's not the hard and fast rule, religiousness can often equal close-mindedness, condemnation, and often, hate. secondly, i refuse to call hinduism a 'religion.' hinduism is a term that was given to the indian way of life by colonizing westerners who needed to call it something, for lack of a better word. and because the word "religious" is generally associated to western practices and beliefs which require dogma, a concept strikingly different than eastern philosophies, the term religion seems as applicable to the indian way of life as it does kant's.

since i was a child, i learned that hindus believe - and i think it is the truth - that god has as many names as there are creatures and, therefore, we also say that god is nameless. since god has many forms we also consider him formless, and since he speaks to us through many tongues we consider him to be speechless. in the words of gandhi, "is there one god for the mussalmans and another for the hindus, jews, and christians? no, there is only one omnipresent 'god'. he is named variously, and we remember him by the name which is most familiar to us."
because my heart and mind have always agreed with this concept on every level, i never really understood western hierarchical beliefs. it just seemed to me that if you claim that only your version is right (which you could never know), and that everyone else is wrong (and will subsequently go to some version of hell), then that ideology itself was hate disguised as religion - a complete contradiction if your religion is supposed to teach love. ultimately, i've observed the following: that we've got just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love each other.

it is sad to me that my christian friends have to defend their faith against proselytizing preachers, and that my muslim friends must prove to others that religious fanaticism is not in accordance with the teachings of the koran. how can people possibly "know" that they are right? at the end of the day, isn't my god going to have to be your god (if there is one to begin with)? or - and the evidence suggests that it's more likely than not - maybe there is no god. maybe no one is up there. perhaps he isn't at temple or church, or in the repetitive rituals people perform. what then?

it is for this reason that i have always believed that god is the self and inherent in everyone. god is our highest state of consciousness; god is our personal best; god is who we find when we learn to follow our bliss and pursue that which makes us come alive.

so what should you believe in? i don't know. that is up to you. but perhaps we can start by bettering ourselves instead of condemning others. talk about humanizing religion.