Page 26 Home | Index | Previous | Next

Religion is Experience

This wave-like movement of proceeding and receding, of merging and emerging, has been happening since Time; it will happen till Time ends; it is eternal in its feature - this is the belief of Bharathiyas. Man is not just this gross body; in it, there is a subtle component called mind; inside it, as its prompter and spring, there is an even more subtle principle called the Jivatma (individualised Soul); this Jivatma has neither beginning nor end, it knows no death, it has no birth - This is the basis of the Bharathiya faith.

One other article of faith: This is a unique feature of Bharathiya mental equipment. Until the individualised soul gets liberated from the individualisation and merges in the Universal, thus attaining moksha or liberation, it has to encase itself in one body after another, and go through the process called living. This idea is held by no other people. This is the Samsara idea, which the ancient texts or Sastras of India reveal and propagate. Samsara means "the movement into one form after another". All the different schools and sects among the Bharathiyas accept this fact that the Atmas (apparently individualised) are eternal and incapable of being affected by change. They may differ in describing or denoting the relationship between the Atma and Iswara or God. One school of thinkers may posit that the two are ever separate; another may declare that the Jivatma is a spark in the universal flame of fire that Iswara is; a third may assert that the two are undifferentiated. But, the Truth remains that the Atma is beginningless and endless; since it is not born, it has no death. Its individualised image has to evolve through a series of bodies, until it attains fulfilment in the human. All schools are one in upholding this faith, in spite of the variety of their other interpretations.

Next