Robert Green Ingersoll, a well-known US lawyer and agnostic, denounced religion as something funny
and ridiculous and said:
Many people think they have religion when they are troubled with
dyspepsia.10
C.F. Forbes (1817-1911), a British writer, belittled religion by saying that it is incapable of creating and
sustaining a feeling of inward tranquility, even that superficial shade of tranquility which a day-today
event like being well-dressed can produce:
The sense of being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which
religion is powerless to bestow.11
Virtues like kindness, compassion, charity and doing good to others are some of the characteristic features
of a truly religious person. But religion can never be equated with any one of these virtues. This, however,
is the mistake that many leading intellectuals have in the past made when conceptualizing religion; they
have defined it in terms of one or more of its (peripheral) concomitants or offshoots. For example, John
Keats, one of the well-known Romantic poets, equated religion with love, which for him was presumably
physical love. He said:
Love is my religion – I could die for that.12
Thomas Paine held a similar view:
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.13
Matthew Arnold described religion as morality touched by emotion:
The true meaning of religion is thus not simply morality, but morality
touched by emotion.14
The number of thinkers who have condemned religion or have equated religion with one of its
characteristic qualities is practically endless. Examples like the ones listed here can never be exhaustive;
10 Robert Green Ingersoll Liberty of Man, Woman and Child. Section 3 Bloom p.195
11 Listed in Bloomsbury Dictionary of Quotations. p.149.
12 Letter to Fanny Browne. 13 October 1819. Bloomsbury Dictionary of Quotations. p.213.
13 Thomas Paine (1737-1809) The Rights of Man Oxford p.346
14 Literature and Dogma. Listed in Collins Gem of Quotations. p.333
they can only be illustrative. The importance of such examples lies in the fact that they can help us, by
providing a contrast, to understand and appreciate the way Sri Sri Thakur wants us to understand
religion.15
The four key concepts in Sri Sri Thakur’s view of religion are being, becoming, ideal and
environment. The word being as used by him is a synonym or a near-synonym of the word existence. It
underscores the fact that we exist and that our existence is not an illusion but a reality. It emphasizes that
our existence is not a metaphysical fiction but a pragmatic fact. Becoming is the act of going upward and
forward in life. The urge for becoming, for going ahead in life is “the cry of existence”16; it is the very
essence of being. To quote Sri Sri Thakur, ‘the principal hankerings of being are animation, extension
and augmentation’17 Religion is what fulfils these hankerings of our being. It upholds our being and
saves it from its possible dissipation. It keeps our being firm and compact and makes it move steadily
towards becoming. It needs to be clearly understood here that religion as explained and elaborated by Sri
Sri Thakur has a two-fold function. It nourishes and nurtures our being and thereby stops it from a
downward movement and it also energizes and activates the urge for becoming, for a constant onward and
upward journey. It would be relevant here to quote what the Gita has to say about movement or otherwise
in life.
Sattvikas move onward and upward, rajasi people stay where they are and
the tamasik people move backward and downward.
What the Gita seems to emphasize here is the fact that staying where we are is not enough. We have to go
ahead and elevate ourselves. The Brihdaranyak Upanishad says the following:
vlrksek ln~xxe;
relksek T;ksfrxZe;
e`R;ksekZ ve`rexe;
asatoma sadgamaya
tamasoma jyotirgamaya
mrityorma amritam gamaya (Brihadranyaka Upanishad )
15 Broadly speaking, the word religion and the word dharma have more or less the same meaning and in religious discourses
the two words have, therefore, been freely used as synonyms, and in translations of religious texts the two words have been
freely used as semantic equivalents. But as any modern linguist would tell us, no two synonymous words or phrases in any
language have exactly the same meaning: each synonym has its own specific connotations, its own special shade of meaning.
What applies to synonyms in general applies to the two synonymous words religion and dharma as well, particularly as Sri Sri
Thakur would like us to understand these two terms. As the etymology of the word suggests, religion, as explained by Sri Sri
Thakur, is “nothing but to be ligared with the Master” (Mess. 2.51), “to bind one self unrepellingly with the Love-
Lord, the seer of life and growth”(Mess. 2.44), “to instal life and becoming of existence”(II.49). It is in other words,
“the union of the soul, the existence, with the Lord or the Ideal” (Mess. 2.46). Dharma, on the other hand, is “to
uphold the life and growth of self as of others”(Mess.2.44), to uphold “our being with a run towards
becoming”(Mess.II.17). One can say, therefore, that these two words, religion and dharma, refer to the two closely
inter-related aspects of basically the same twin concepts of being and becoming, life and growth. For the sake of
simplicity, the word religion will in this book be used, therefore, as a broad-based term to include the idea of dharma as well.
16 Message, 2.25.
17 Message, 1.214.
Lead us from falsehood to truth, from darkness to light and from death to
immortality.
The journey from falsehood to truth and to a still higher truth, and, similarly, the journey from the
darkness of ignorance to an ever-increasing level of knowledge and wisdom is the journey of our being
towards becoming. This upward and onward journey is not always very easy. It is easy to fall. You have
only to allow yourself to go down. To stay where one is, is not always that easy. One has to be active and
alert to ensure that one stays where one is and does not slide backward and downward. But it requires a
great deal of will power, effort and attention to go speedily and steadily from being to becoming. Our
fixities, obsessions, and complexes, our negative and destructive actions and emotions inhibit and weaken
our instinctual urge for becoming. Commenting on this journey from being to becoming, the Upanishad
says the following:
mfÙr"ër Tkkx³z³r
çkI; Okjku fucks/r
{kqjL; /kjk fufLkrk nqjR;;k
nqxZeiFk% rr~ dOk;ks OknfUr
uttisthata jagrata
prapya varan nibodhata
kshurasya dhara nisita duratyaya
durgam pathah tat kavayo vadanti (Kathopanishad I.iii.14)
Arise, awake. Approach the venerable teachers and get to know the truth.
The wise say that it is as difficult to go on the upward journey of life as it is
to tread on the sharp edge of a razor.
It seems that in the long spiritual tradition of India, monks, hermits and seers tried all kinds of devices to
ensure a smooth and speedy journey of being to becoming and then they realized that the best, the easiest,
the surest and the safest way of having a speedy journey on the road to becoming was to get actively
attached to a living Ideal. In Sri Sri Thakur’s utterances, we find a very forceful exposition of that ancient
wisdom. He said:
Surrender to thy Ideal,
Continue to move on,
Smashing and managing
the sufferings
that come forth as obstacles,-
and be crowned
with success!
Message, 1.31.
The augmentation and exaltation of being and becoming is maximally facilitated and enhanced
when an individual is actively attached to a living Ideal. Sri Sri Thakur said that the “lucidity of
and ridiculous and said:
Many people think they have religion when they are troubled with
dyspepsia.10
C.F. Forbes (1817-1911), a British writer, belittled religion by saying that it is incapable of creating and
sustaining a feeling of inward tranquility, even that superficial shade of tranquility which a day-today
event like being well-dressed can produce:
The sense of being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which
religion is powerless to bestow.11
Virtues like kindness, compassion, charity and doing good to others are some of the characteristic features
of a truly religious person. But religion can never be equated with any one of these virtues. This, however,
is the mistake that many leading intellectuals have in the past made when conceptualizing religion; they
have defined it in terms of one or more of its (peripheral) concomitants or offshoots. For example, John
Keats, one of the well-known Romantic poets, equated religion with love, which for him was presumably
physical love. He said:
Love is my religion – I could die for that.12
Thomas Paine held a similar view:
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.13
Matthew Arnold described religion as morality touched by emotion:
The true meaning of religion is thus not simply morality, but morality
touched by emotion.14
The number of thinkers who have condemned religion or have equated religion with one of its
characteristic qualities is practically endless. Examples like the ones listed here can never be exhaustive;
10 Robert Green Ingersoll Liberty of Man, Woman and Child. Section 3 Bloom p.195
11 Listed in Bloomsbury Dictionary of Quotations. p.149.
12 Letter to Fanny Browne. 13 October 1819. Bloomsbury Dictionary of Quotations. p.213.
13 Thomas Paine (1737-1809) The Rights of Man Oxford p.346
14 Literature and Dogma. Listed in Collins Gem of Quotations. p.333
they can only be illustrative. The importance of such examples lies in the fact that they can help us, by
providing a contrast, to understand and appreciate the way Sri Sri Thakur wants us to understand
religion.15
The four key concepts in Sri Sri Thakur’s view of religion are being, becoming, ideal and
environment. The word being as used by him is a synonym or a near-synonym of the word existence. It
underscores the fact that we exist and that our existence is not an illusion but a reality. It emphasizes that
our existence is not a metaphysical fiction but a pragmatic fact. Becoming is the act of going upward and
forward in life. The urge for becoming, for going ahead in life is “the cry of existence”16; it is the very
essence of being. To quote Sri Sri Thakur, ‘the principal hankerings of being are animation, extension
and augmentation’17 Religion is what fulfils these hankerings of our being. It upholds our being and
saves it from its possible dissipation. It keeps our being firm and compact and makes it move steadily
towards becoming. It needs to be clearly understood here that religion as explained and elaborated by Sri
Sri Thakur has a two-fold function. It nourishes and nurtures our being and thereby stops it from a
downward movement and it also energizes and activates the urge for becoming, for a constant onward and
upward journey. It would be relevant here to quote what the Gita has to say about movement or otherwise
in life.
Sattvikas move onward and upward, rajasi people stay where they are and
the tamasik people move backward and downward.
What the Gita seems to emphasize here is the fact that staying where we are is not enough. We have to go
ahead and elevate ourselves. The Brihdaranyak Upanishad says the following:
vlrksek ln~xxe;
relksek T;ksfrxZe;
e`R;ksekZ ve`rexe;
asatoma sadgamaya
tamasoma jyotirgamaya
mrityorma amritam gamaya (Brihadranyaka Upanishad )
15 Broadly speaking, the word religion and the word dharma have more or less the same meaning and in religious discourses
the two words have, therefore, been freely used as synonyms, and in translations of religious texts the two words have been
freely used as semantic equivalents. But as any modern linguist would tell us, no two synonymous words or phrases in any
language have exactly the same meaning: each synonym has its own specific connotations, its own special shade of meaning.
What applies to synonyms in general applies to the two synonymous words religion and dharma as well, particularly as Sri Sri
Thakur would like us to understand these two terms. As the etymology of the word suggests, religion, as explained by Sri Sri
Thakur, is “nothing but to be ligared with the Master” (Mess. 2.51), “to bind one self unrepellingly with the Love-
Lord, the seer of life and growth”(Mess. 2.44), “to instal life and becoming of existence”(II.49). It is in other words,
“the union of the soul, the existence, with the Lord or the Ideal” (Mess. 2.46). Dharma, on the other hand, is “to
uphold the life and growth of self as of others”(Mess.2.44), to uphold “our being with a run towards
becoming”(Mess.II.17). One can say, therefore, that these two words, religion and dharma, refer to the two closely
inter-related aspects of basically the same twin concepts of being and becoming, life and growth. For the sake of
simplicity, the word religion will in this book be used, therefore, as a broad-based term to include the idea of dharma as well.
16 Message, 2.25.
17 Message, 1.214.
Lead us from falsehood to truth, from darkness to light and from death to
immortality.
The journey from falsehood to truth and to a still higher truth, and, similarly, the journey from the
darkness of ignorance to an ever-increasing level of knowledge and wisdom is the journey of our being
towards becoming. This upward and onward journey is not always very easy. It is easy to fall. You have
only to allow yourself to go down. To stay where one is, is not always that easy. One has to be active and
alert to ensure that one stays where one is and does not slide backward and downward. But it requires a
great deal of will power, effort and attention to go speedily and steadily from being to becoming. Our
fixities, obsessions, and complexes, our negative and destructive actions and emotions inhibit and weaken
our instinctual urge for becoming. Commenting on this journey from being to becoming, the Upanishad
says the following:
mfÙr"ër Tkkx³z³r
çkI; Okjku fucks/r
{kqjL; /kjk fufLkrk nqjR;;k
nqxZeiFk% rr~ dOk;ks OknfUr
uttisthata jagrata
prapya varan nibodhata
kshurasya dhara nisita duratyaya
durgam pathah tat kavayo vadanti (Kathopanishad I.iii.14)
Arise, awake. Approach the venerable teachers and get to know the truth.
The wise say that it is as difficult to go on the upward journey of life as it is
to tread on the sharp edge of a razor.
It seems that in the long spiritual tradition of India, monks, hermits and seers tried all kinds of devices to
ensure a smooth and speedy journey of being to becoming and then they realized that the best, the easiest,
the surest and the safest way of having a speedy journey on the road to becoming was to get actively
attached to a living Ideal. In Sri Sri Thakur’s utterances, we find a very forceful exposition of that ancient
wisdom. He said:
Surrender to thy Ideal,
Continue to move on,
Smashing and managing
the sufferings
that come forth as obstacles,-
and be crowned
with success!
Message, 1.31.
The augmentation and exaltation of being and becoming is maximally facilitated and enhanced
when an individual is actively attached to a living Ideal. Sri Sri Thakur said that the “lucidity of
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