Integration of Religion in the 21st Centuryhttp://wisdomofreligion.blogspot.com/2009/12/integration-of-religion-in-21st-century.html
By Dr. B.M.Sharma, Surat, IndiaReligions have served their best purpose for the humanity till date and shall continue to do so in all the times to come.
Thanks to the age of information that multiple kinds of information and expertise on religions is now available on just thinking and asking. Religions are the systems and ways of thinking and practices for the conduct of mankind in all respects as his inner journey and his relationships with his society where he dwelt and dwells. The world is evolving and with that its constituents, people of various countries and cultures and for one or other reasons, the religions have evolved by way of their positive interpretations. Still all is not well with the interpretations of religions and any of those interpretations which threaten the basic foundation of humanity and its sustained living need to be identified and peaceful measures taken to ensure that world humanity move towards enhanced peace, trust and love.
While full freedom should be provided for the evolution and development of all religions, there is still a need for the integration of religions, writing down a new rationalized codes of conducts which become the basis of posterity and evolving society and this integrated religion should install the global human community in better evolved state.
Integration of Religions shall involve the following:
A Integrated Religions Committee need to be formed representing expertise from each religion; Setting the organizational structure of Integrated Religions Committee ( herein after called the IRS);
- Determination of the objectives and scope of integration.
- Methodology for integration.
- Documentation requirements of Integrated Religions.
- Commitment of the IRS for religions integration.
- Forming Integrated Religious Policy.
- Integrated Religions Objectives.
- Commitment of the IRS.
- Global Human Being as a Focus.
- Global Integrated Religions Document and its publication.
- Provision of resources for promotion.
- Peaceful Implementation.
- Coordination with other religions as a continuous process.
- Monitoring and measurement of Global peace, social peace and individual peace.
- Improvement in the Integration of religion as a continuous process.
Integrated religion document shall be prepared and it shall be submitted in front of the World Forum of Religions and (may be United Nations) for its review and absolutely optional recommendation for buying, reading, following and further improvement.
Integrated religion document shall have the following characteristics:
- Provide the basics of all religions.
- Provide the inclusion of only positive values which help build future societies on
- rationalized world brotherhood, love and peace.
- Ensure that it does not have any element and any scope for negativism, fanaticism and non-peace element;
- Provide encourage of global brotherhoods and a society which brings world and its people on mutual co-existence, sharing, enjoying and benefiting each other.
- To lay down the foundation of Earth as one nation, one citizenship and total freedom to settle down anywhere on earth.
Core focal elements of the integrated religion need to be spelled out. The core three elements of the integrated religion, to begin with, could be as below:
a. Science and history based account of the God. A Synthesis of the Total Global Humanity Experience on the God. as a reference standard.. so in this concept of God, the amendments can be done by the Global Human Community. Till date, the societies existed without being in relation to each other… and in each society the Human Being were endowed on the concept of the God, in their own manner as we know right now…So with respect to all religions, the final description of the God can be accounted, which is largely acceptable to the Global Humanity. Even a Historical flow on the Concept of God as it flowed in front of the human being. It has to be documented in a more authoritative manner for the future global humanity.
b. Code of conducts for the self, family and society and inter-societal relationships need to be documented and herein the best practices which promote love, freedom, peace, openness, sharing, cooperation and sacrifice for each other and absolute non-violence need to be filtered out and put in the Integrated religion for training, education and following by the future global humanity.
c. Provision and procedure for knowing the experiences of the Science and that of the individuals and others on religion and God and the social norms which evolve men further and relate with the God in more visible manner for peace, love and freedom and realization of the God, as the most absolute sacred goal of the humanity.
Integrated religion shall be a support resource for the human beings and it shall use the most peaceful methods for its adoption and shall never seek on its own delinks from the previous religion of the individual. Individual shall have full freedom to continue his own religion or blend the inputs of the integrated religion or switch over to integrated religion. Integrated religion shall provide nourishing inputs for the sustenance of the existing religion, coordination among religions and also an opportunity to live the life as per the guidelines for peace and love provided in the integrated religion.
A peaceful endeavor shall be made by the world forum that integrated religion finds its recognition from all nations for voluntary adoption in the short and long period as per the full rights and freedom of the mankind to live its life in absolute and relative love and peace with the self; his family and rest of the world.
Comments by Mike Ghouse:
Dr. Brijmohan Sharma and I interacted on face book on the issues of Kashmir. It gave me a lot of hope to see his wisdom at work in finding solutions, and respecting every one’s space and rights. Then, I read a whole lot of his comments on issues and asked him to write one on Religion and I am pleased to read a fine document that is a seminal work in taking this further. If you’d like your friends to receive the Journal of Pluralism, please have them email their e-address to:[email protected].
I share his sentiment about religious integration, however, I would like to add that integration can take the form of co-existence of different ways of living on this planet together with least conflict. We have to see the value in each one of the 250+ traditions and respecting the divinity in each. Each faith is valid and is part of the larger goodness it contributes to.
The purpose of religion if I may summarize is to bring spiritual wellbeing to an individual and facilitate a balance between the individual and what surrounds; life and environment. Most, religions contribute to the idea and hence, we can see the universality of each religion, without having one single universal religion.
As they say God created each one of us in his own image, I dare say that we have created God in our own image. Each individual is different, each thumb print is different and each leaf of a plant is different, and so should be the belief of an individual.
Religions highlight the idea of co-existence including one’s belief or non-belief in the causer of creation, we have to dig deeper and find the truth in each beautiful religion. The interpretations (not the scripture) given to us over the ages need to be refreshed, they were as human as we are today and we need to see those values sync in with our values of co-existence. In the next decade, there will not be a major City in the world, where you do not find people of different faiths, traditions, races and ethnicities working and living together.
We have to differentiate between the religion and what the self appointed guardians of religions portray it to be. Finding the truth is our own responsibility as it gives us Mukti or freedom from assumptions about others, and removing false anxieties.
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