Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Reformers, prophets or saints - does it matter what we call them ?

It is intriguing to see the people we consider religious leaders today were actually reformers in their time. Jesus, Mohammad, Zarathrushtra, Nanak, Basavaveshwara, Ramanujam, Buddha all spoke for the changes required in their society in their respective era and society.

Their achievements were stupendous, mainly because it started from a space of wanting to bring about a positive change, no matter who or what opposed them.

Surely then, being religious does mean being connected with the world and still remaining true to eternal spiritual principles. This may even be tested severely, but they are our role models precisely because they had the courage to persevere.

"Listen to your heart to see what is right", is something they all believed and lived by.

Surely, they would like us to do the same.

2 comments:

  1. though i agree with what you say i do think they were leaders who had their own stature and nothing could shake them from their belief that goodness was all that is needed for mankind to attain peace, serenity and nirvana.

    today these leaders who simply followed their heart and believed in goodness of the soul, have been made out to be a part of religion. i am sure budha never intended to be a god, and nanak brought in sikhism as a faith to protect the people from constant marauders. but sikhism is a religion today and so is budhism.

    those days they believed that god was supreme and your religion was personal. today religion is supreme and in the race, god comes in a poor second!

    things will change only when we give religion its place and god his!

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  2. Totally true. We have to learn to pick out the core of all religious teachings, which is what true spirituality is. Then we ourselves will be able to see the common thread in all of them

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