Sunday, May 21, 2023

Religious Conflicts and Violence

Current World Situation

Curently religious conflicts has become a major issue world wide. From middle east to south east asia and also some western developed nations are facing religious tensions and conflicts. Nowadays people have become more violent and as a result hatred and untrust between different religious communities are ever widening.Causes of Religious Conflicts
If we take a closer look, we will see that usually religious conflicts takes place within a country or in simple words within a particular province or city. Differences in religious beliefs and ideological differences plays a big role in these conflicts. This happens due to the intolerances and lack of trust between different communities. Defferent factors fuels these conflicts such as political, economic and religion based organizations. Power plays a big role in these type of conflicts. Politicians try to use population demography based on religion to gain their own objectives.

Also when people from a particular community tries to gain advantages and authotriy based on their religious power and majority these kind of religious conflicts takes place.

Economy also plays a big role in these conflicts, different socio-economic condition and unfare advantages based on religious identity triggers unrest between different faith and community.

Religious Fundamentalism 

Globally religious fundamentalism are on the rise. Specially middle east, South asia and Africa are worst affected. These religious fundamentalist groups are on a rampage. Mainly majority and minority mindset is responsible for it. It is observed that in places where one religious community are in majority, they try to cement and show their authority over minority religious groups. As a result anger and frustration increases and cause social unrest and religious tensions.


Role of Politicians and Religious Leaders

Politicians and religious leaders plays a big role in these religious conflicts. Politicians use various religious groups and organizations to gain their political advantage and votes. On the other hand radical religious preachers and leaders use controversial interpretation of religious verses to incite violence against other religious communities. These results in huge amount of loss of properties, damage of social peace and stability and even losses of life.
Radical zealots urges normal public to break law and order cause substantial damages to life and property.

Roles of Social media

In recent times social media was involved significantl in religious conflict in various parts of the world. Nowadays social medias are used to spread false informations. False and distorted news through social media were spread to ignite violence.
Also hate speech and radical preaching gets a huge platform on various kind of social media to incite violence. Religious zealots use social media like facebook to incite violence against other religious groups. They also use various social medias to mobilize and recruit like minded individuals to cause violence.
Also various extremist groups use social medias to spread divisive narratives, propaganda and hate speech. As a result people become agitated and polarized, which eventually results in religious tensions and tussle between communities.

Effects on Ordianary People

Whatever causes religious conflicts, it's the ordinary people that suffers the most. Ordinary people doesn't like violence. They simply try to live their life. But these religious conflicts force them to leave their beloved home and face uncertain future and unimaginable risk. Also they suffer emotional and psychological damages. 

Conclusion

Religious conflicts has bacome a global problem nowadays. In fact it has become so huge that it's currently not limited to a particular country or region. Its spreading like a cancer all over the world. Whenever there is a religious conflict on a particular part of the world, the effects of this conflict can be seen spreading like a chain of events on other parts of the world too.

Thursday, May 18, 2023

Spirituality & Me

 

Early Years of My Spirituality

I discovered Spirituality when I was a little boy. Currently I am around 27 years old Electrical Engineer. I always felt a deep interest and attraction towards Spirituality from my childhood.

Being born in a Hindu family, I came in contact with various Sadhus, Spiritual persons from early years of my life. Also my grandfather used to organize various religious ceremony in our home which was located on a small hill top. I used to observe people of all ages coming to these ceremonies. They were all happy an jolly fellow. Along with them, me and all my family members used to sit together in the courtyard and sang Bhajan Kirtan (Hindu religious songs). 

Our home was a beautiful home. It was surrounded by trees and flowers. I used to wake up early in the morning just to watch bees collecting honey from the flowers and all those beautiful birds used to visit our home was mesmerizing. I loved to watch them. Among the seasons Monsoon and Spring is my most favorite. Sometimes during monsoon when it rained continuously, I used to sit on our courtyard in the rain and play with rain water. Those were the best days of my life. As I look back to my childhood these golden days fill my heart with joy and nostalgia.

Entering the Vast Ocean of Spirituality

As I grew up I came across various books about spirituality mostly written in my native language Bengali. I was a bookworm from my childhood, I always had a curiosity whenever I came across a book. So during my teenage years I discovered the treasures of knowledge books have inside them. 

Slowly I began to read more and more books not just spiritual, philosophical books but books of all genres. During going down the rabbit hole of books I came across various kind of religious believes and and their spiritual ways. And I was amazed to find the beauty and love in each of them. 

I discovered spirituality of Sufism, Christian Monks, Buddhist Monks, Hindu Gurus etc. I was amazed to realize that although these various kind of spiritual orders are different from each other but the core teachings are the same, which is universal love. Love for every thing on this planet and beyond, in other words love for the whole universe. We are all interconnected with each other. As the scientist say we are all made of the same star dust which made this universe and our beloved planet. We all are part of a great community, The Human Community. 

Self realizations

As I steadily continued my journey through the ocean of Spirituality, I came to a realization that Spirituality is nothing but love. The main core of Spiritualism belongs to love, universal love. 

In my spiritual journey I was most influenced by a Sufi Saint Rumi. His spiritual poems influenced me a lot.Know more abour Rumi I love one of his quote the most 

 

"The only lasting beauty is the beauty of the heart"-- Rumi.

 

You can clearly see and understand from this line that Sufi Saint Rumi emphasized on the purity of one's heart and soul. If your inner-self is pure and free from hatred, jealousy and other sins like lust etc. you will feel a divine blessings in your heart and love for all other beings. If you closely follow the poems of Rumi, you will realize how much he valued love. 

For me when you aim to be a spiritual person you need to start with cleaning your inner-self and heart first. I used to notice faults in people's behavior and used to gossip about it. But as I started to realize the true essence of spirituality I discarded these bad habits of mine. In place of finding faults in others we should look within to find faults in ourselves and we should strive to be the best version of ourselves. No matter how small the progress is, we should at least try to be better. Before finding faults in others, we should ask ourselves is this necessary? Will this do any good to others and society? If not we should refrain ourselves from doing so.

Conclusion

Spirituality is a discipline and life long journey. Nobody knows will they ever find spiritual enlightenment or not. All we can do is to do what is in our control. We do not know what fate has in store for us, we cannot control outside events. But we have control over ourselves, we have the power of making a choice. And our choices makes us who we are. If we want to be a spiritual person, a better person we have to make the right choices with our life.

Thanks for reading.

Author: Joshada Nondan Chanda.

 


Religious Conflicts and Violence

Current World Situation Curently religious conflicts has become a major issue world wide. From middle east to south east asia and also some ...