DHARAM
‘Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.’
– A quote of Seneca – Roman
‘If one person is delusional, we call it insanity. If millions are, it is religion’
-A quote of Dawkins
‘Science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind.’
-A quote of Albert Einstien
‘After religious teachers accomplish the refining process indicated they will surely recognize with joy that true religion has been ennobled and made more profound by scientific knowledge.’
– A quote of Albert Einstien
– ‘Dharam’, often translated into English as Religion, of a thing cannot be more than one. It is not possible to translate this term ‘धर्म’ into any other language. To have a glimpse of the meaning of this term, we can say that the term refers to the intrinsic qualities of a thing. For example, water has qualities of going downwards, remaining cool et cetera. As such, these qualities can be termed as ‘धर्म’ of water. Similarly, man has certain qualities like liking the truth, hatred towards deceitfulness et cetera. These qualities, as a whole, can be termed as ‘धर्म’ of man. For a man, there cannot be two sets of qualities. HE CANNOT BE TERMED AS HINDU, MUSLIM, SIKH, CHRISTIAN ET CETERA FOR THE REASON THAT HIS INTRINSIC QUALITIES SHALL REMAIN THE SAME IN ALL SOCIAL CONDITIONS. If any rule of a sect acts as a hurdle for becoming a human being, that hurdle need be crossed to reach the goal.
– What cannot be proved cannot be धर्म. Here, ‘cannot be proved’ means inexplicable by reason by the highest level of intellect.
– if, we are to summarize whole of ‘धर्म’ into one word, then that word is ‘Non-violence’, that is ‘अहिंसा’. For earning virtue, everyone will like to follow the path of ‘अहिंसा’. For that, let us know or understand the meaning of this term. ‘अहिंसा’ refers to ‘not bringing pain to any other just for the pleasure of our senses, without a justifiable reason. Here, ‘मन’ is included in our senses. Ordinarily, killing a person is ‘violence’ but killing an enemy by a soldier is ‘Non-violence’. Now, let us expand this term to know its subtle meaning. The act of not knowing about God, soul and nature cannot be called ‘अहिंसा’ because this act of ours is just for the pleasure of our senses including ‘मन’. By not knowing the truth of these three entities, we are harming or bringing pain to the society we live in, although it may be unknowingly. All our actions are rewarded whether they are done knowingly or unknowingly.
Necessity of Dharam—Our forefathers have considered धर्म as an inseparable part of our body. Like, life is not possible without a heart, similarly also, life is not possible without धर्म. Since, धर्म is a part and parcel of our self, question of necessity of धर्म has not been answered directly in our scriptures. Indirectly, it has been said that protected धर्म protects man, in return and unprotected धर्म kills man. As such, man should do continuous effort to move in accordance with धर्म. When, we say that धर्म is a part and parcel of our self, then, it should be true in case of uncivilized races also. Certain works of some scholars show that there exists some of the basic elements of धर्म in these uncivilized races like, belief over an unseen power greater than humans, who is creator of this universe, who resides at a place, different from that of man, who brings clouds and lightening, who punishes the guilty, who takes life of animals for His food et cetera.
Appetite for धर्म is in the heart of man.
“It is one of the most undeniable facts of psychology that the average man can as little exist out of a religious element of some kind, as a fish out of the water”
-A quote of M.Blavatsky
As a hungry person may eat good or bad things just to kill his hunger. Similarly, sometimes, certain races and individuals, in order to kill their hunger for धर्म, take resort to certain things, which are ultimately harmful for them. Today, people hate धर्म. It has two reasons. One is unfairness, practiced in the name of धर्म and the other is fashion and blind following. When thoughtful persons see hatred in the hearts of so called religious persons towards their fellow beings up to the limit of killing the persons having different beliefs, burning of people alive, slaughtering of thousands of animals every day, destroying the peaceful atmosphere of living, and all these in the name of religion, then they tend to hate such type of धर्म. Their hatred for धर्म is like a person, who on seeing a hungry man eating sand, starts hating food and out of such hatred starts saying that man should not eat food. Rather such a person had a duty to suggest the person eating sand that food, which is good for one’s body should be eaten instead of sand. Actually, the reason behind unfairness existing in the world is not धर्म but अधर्म, which is, opposite of धर्म. अधर्म in the disguise of धर्म is doing all the unfairness. Suppose, I intend to defeat one of my foes. My colleagues or mortal friends refuse to support me for this. But, if I make them believe that to hurt my foe is their धर्म, then they will become ready to help me in my intention. History is full of such type of cases. Actually, reason of such sort of riots is not धर्म but selfishness of some people. Riots or fights do not happen only because of अधर्म but also because of dirty politics. Real or actual politics do not warrant such types of riots or fights. In the same way, real or actual धर्म does not support such unfairness.
Second reason of hatred towards धर्म is fashion and blind following of the persons of higher class by the masses. Certain persons or races think the other persons or races as higher or superior than them and imitate their thoughts on different subjects including ‘धर्म’. Though, today’s real scientists do not comment on the matters related to धर्म with the thought that these things are outside the ambit of modern science but today’s head of educational institutions and the like go on instilling in their disciples hatred towards धर्म without knowing real धर्म for the simple reason that some scientists of earlier period criticized धर्म.
धर्म and science are not two different things. Science and धर्म are embedded in each other. Actually, what is unscientific cannot be धर्म. Somehow, certain scholars treat धर्म and science as two separate things. Even, some of these scholars feel that science in itself cannot be the light-house of man’s life.
“….science, for the reason of its aim, which is to study all that exists, can afford no guidance for the life of man.”
-A quote from “What is religion?” by Count Leo Tolstoy
Here, we have not explained what धर्म is but have only given some introduction of ‘धर्म’. Everybody knows what धर्म is, though, it is like knowledge of a child regarding recognition of a cow. Base should be very strong so as to have a strong building. As such, this work is aimed at providing a strong base to the readers, who are willing to go, further, in this field.
-Most of the thoughts are of Pandit Gangaprasad Upadhayay