Fake Fruits and Flowers
These days, people have started manufacturing plastic flowers and fruits. They look just like real flowers and fruits. But if you smell a plastic flower, it has none of the fragrance of a real flower. If you bite into a plastic fruit, it has none of the taste of a real fruit. In just the same way, absurd forms of religiosity have appeared these days. On the face of it, they appear really grandiose, but if you examine them closely, they have none of the true essence of religion – which is, fear of God and genuine concern for other human beings. In this age of plastic, perhaps religiosity has become plastic, too.
Many people may appear to be very pious, but they are unwilling to accept their mistakes. They are not willing to sacrifice their egos for the sake of God. For their personal interests, they may get together with others and sink their differences and complaints. But in this entire world, there is no one who will set aside his differences and complaints and join hands with others for the sake of God.
The true religion is this: that a person attains to the truth that there is but one God of this entire universe. This God is the Creator of all things. He will gather all human beings after their death and take account of them. And then, on the basis of their deeds, He will put them into eternal heaven or eternal hell. This is such a serious fact that if it really seeps deeply into one’s mind, his entire life is completely transformed. He becomes very careful about all things that lead people to the fires of Hell, and he becomes very eager about the things that make someone worthy of the gardens of Heaven. He begins to fear God above everything else. He begins to love God above all else. He subdues his individual existence to live in the glory of God.
This growing awareness of God and the Hereafter makes a person become more attentive to, and responsible for, other creatures. If, by chance, he thinks ill of others, it will make him feel that he is hurling himself into the pit of Hell. Just the thought of indulging in high-handed behavior with others brings to his mind the fear that his action will lead angels to drag him to well. If he deals unjustly with people he feels he will be taken to task by God in the Hereafter. In his sight, every person appears not just simply as a human, but, rather, as a being whom God, along with all His angels, is standing together with.
