Arriving To and Spreading Peace
By: Mohammed Junaid Khan
Tags: Islam, Christianity, Spirituality, Hinduism, Religion

Arriving To and Spreading Peace

Five things every theist can do

One thing we can all agree on is that we don’t get to choose our religion. The majority of us just follow the religion of our parents and there is nothing wrong in it. Religion is the best and the worst invention in the history of human beings. Why it is the worst? Because of the casualty, it has caused since time immemorial, until now when we have advanced in all walks of life be it science, technology, space, etc. But when it comes to religion, people tend to behave like they’re still in stone ages. Every religion wants to prove itself better than the other and to prove itself right, they follow all the wrong ways. Hatred is the biggest by-product of every religion and it is spreading every day.

Now, the best thing about religion, if it is really understood well then it seriously provides mental peace, it gives hope and above that a supernatural being on whom we can rely, when everything and everyone whom we know have shown their true colors.

As I have already pointed, that we follow the religion of the family in which we were born. I was born in a family which followed Islam, so I am a Muslim. If I was born to Christian parents, I would definitely be a Christian. And if someone is born to a Christian mother and a Muslim father or vice versa, so she or he may either follow both their religions, or one of the two or may not follow any religion at all. So one thing is clear that we all are produced in the same factory, it is not that Muslims are produced in Muslim God’s factory, Christians in Christian God’s factory, Hindus in Hindu God’s factory, etc. And atheists are result of some chemical reactions which resulted millions of years ago. This simple thing proves that we all are one, though divided by religion, race, color, language, etc. We all are produced in the same factory and when we die we are consumed by the same earth.

Being born a Muslim, we are told to follow the five pillars of Islam. And they are

Shahadah (Declaration of Faith)

Salat (Five daily prayers)

Sadqa and Zakat ( Charity)

Sawm (Fasting in the holy month of Ramadan)

Hajj (Pilgrimage to the Holy city of Makkah and Madinah once in a life time, if one can financially afford it).

These are the five pillars of Islam. And as I studied about all the different religions, they all have these five pillars as well. It's just that they are called by some other names.

If religion has been the cause of hatred than I am pretty confident that religion can help to solve this ever-growing problem. So the five things which can give mental peace to all of us and thereby promote world peace are as follows:

BELIEVE IN GOD: You are born a Christian, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Muslim, etc., just believe and worship the God, your religion preaches. Have an extremely strong belief that your God is the one God who is the creator of everything but with humility, your belief should be in your heart. If you think that your God is the ultimate creator of everything, then you will be able to see people of other religion as a creation of your own God and you will also get a sense of belonging to one another. PRAYERS: Muslims have to offer their prayers five times a day plus a congregational prayer on Friday just like our Christian brothers have a Sunday mass. So does every religion has their special days in a week, where people meet and pray together. Praying in solitude is my favourite thing, it gives me inner peace. Not only that, it makes you humble. A heart that prays regularly can never do wrong and it becomes empathetic towards everyone. It doesn’t matters to what religion you belong, just pray regularly and you’ll soon find yourself turn into a better human being. But pray with all your heart and do remember the entire humanity. CHARITY: John Holmes rightly quoted, “There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up”. This is what charity does and all the religions in the world promote charity. It is mandatory for every muslim to give 2.5% of whatever profit he earns in a year. All of us have had this joy of giving food to a hungry child, providing clothes to any homeless or even donating money to orphanage or such places. When giving charity, we should do so in a way that our left hand doesn’t know what our right hand has spent, then only we can find true peace of heart. If charity is done to please others then one can never find true peace. FASTING: During the season of Lent, Christians, specifically, Catholics, give up a certain food or practice fasting. For Muslims, it is obligatory to fast for the entire month of Ramadan. Judaism, which developed many dietary laws and customs, observes several annual fast days, primarily on days of penitence (such as Yom Kippur the Day of Atonement) or mourning. Hinduism has many upavasa or vrata, which have different parameters for fasting. Almost all religion prescribes or promotes fasting. But what actually can we learn from fasting? When we fast, the first thing that we learn is to control our desires, our hunger. Staying away from food makes us humble towards people who aren’t as fortunate as we are. There are millions of people in the world, who don’t get even a single meal through out the day. Fasting in Islam, is not only abstaining from food, but from falsehood, wrong thoughts, sexual desires and every religion promotes the same. VISITING THE HOLY PLACES: It is compulsory for every muslim who is financially capable to visit the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah once in their life time. Likewise, our Hindu brothers have pilgrimages of the char dhams to attain salvation. The Buddhist travel to Lumbini, Bodhgaya, Sarnath and Kushinagar to feel all the important places where Buddha was present. Christian and Jews visit Jerusalem. What exactly do one gets visiting these holy places? These are the places where the foundation of their religion is. One can feel closer to her or his belief when one visits these holy sites. Every propagator of religion, whom we believe has struggled to show the humanity the right path whether it was Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Buddha or any other Hindu Deity.

One thing which I understood and we will all agree that not a single religion preaches hatred. It is us, the theist who wants to degrade each other’s religion, rather than binding each other. We believe in God is the one thing that is common in all of us and that should be our reason to love and respect each other.

We aren’t respecting our Gods if we aren’t respecting each other’s religions and beliefs. Let us be a true believer of our Gods and be better humans and bring peace in the world, which is needed the most.