03 Jul 2020
Kum. Laxmi Thrylokya asked: Padanamaskaram Swami! After reading Your Divine Discourses, I learnt that every religion is given by the same unimaginable God to establish justice. But I feel very anxious when I see any online web series or a movie which is promoting Hinduphobia. Some popular web series show religious Gurus as misguiding, self-centred and money-minded villains. Under the veil of secularism, our national news channels are trying to humanize a terrorist saying that he was a dog-lover and good painter. On the other end, there are extremists in every religion who are promoting Islamophobia. Also, I see a lot of people who do not react at all and enjoy this content silently. Aren’t the makers of such content brainwashing us? Isn’t it a sin to hurt the religious sentiments of people? Or is it the mistake of the viewers who are consuming such entertainment content? As a spiritual seeker, what is the right way to respond to this kind of content in media? Kindly enlighten me. Thank you. -Laxmi Thrylokya
Swami replied: O Learned and Devoted Servants of God! Every religion in this world has both good and bad points, just as every human being has both good and bad qualities. The good points in every religion are the points that were introduced by the founders of the religions, who were none but Human Incarnations of the unimaginable God, who is the root source. The bad points in every religion were introduced by the bad followers in every religion. The founders are shining diamonds, whereas the bad followers are black pieces of charcoal. Both are human beings, just as both diamond and charcoal are made of the same carbon atoms. The difference in their shine is due to the different arrangements or structures of their atoms, which is called allotropy in chemistry. In the same way, the mental setups of different human beings differ, resulting in their different outlooks, which might be good or bad. In every religion, there are good followers also, who follow the footsteps of the founders. All the religions basically have the same common good points about following justice and rejecting injustice, based on the devotion to God and the fear of the inevitable punishment for sin. Based on these fundamental good points in all religions, which are theistic in nature, you should only develop a phillic attitude (attraction) and not a phobic attitude (repulsion) towards any religion. You must neglect the bad points that have been inserted by bad followers in every religion. In the bad points of all religions, you will find the same basic selfish nature of the bad followers. Similarly, you will find the nature of service and sacrifice of good followers in the good points of all religions.
This logic also applies to human beings. You should like all human beings by magnifying even their small good qualities and reducing even their big bad qualities. Bhartṛhari says that great people always magnify the good qualities in people which are as small as atoms, seeing them as if they were as big as mountains. They also see the mountain-sized bad qualities of people as if they were as small as atoms (Paraguṇa paramāṇūn parvatīkṛtya…). Such an attitude must be followed by you and it must be also be propagated by you for the peace of the world, so that you will become near and dear to God. You must also encourage harmony between all universal religions and discourage the conversions of people from one religion to another. Remember that every religion has the same fundamental merits and almost the same superficial defects.
Keywords:
| Shri Datta Swami | Religious Intolerance In Media | Paraguna paramaanuun parratiikrutya
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