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A BELIEF IN RELIGION
119 Godliness is the health of the soul and without it there is no contentment.
But if religion stops at the personal contentment it makes itself liable to the charge of the Bolshevist that "Religion is an opiate which puts men to sleep."
To answer this charge and to show that instead of being merely a passive and a pacifying factor, religion has proved itself to be the greatest dynamic force in the world's history, we have only to cast a momentary glance on the positive achievements of some of the well-known religions of the world.
For example how the great religion of Buddha delivered the masses from caste oppression, and lifted the outcast pariah to sit by the side of the high caste Brahmin.
How the religion of Islam changed the savage and idolatrous Arabs into humane worshippers of the one true God, and made them the torch-bearers of civilization to mediaeval world.
How the religion of the meek and lowly Christ made the mighty Roman Empire lay down her arms before it and how in our own day it has transformed the blood-thirsty cannibals of the South Sea islands into the servants of humanity.
Time does not permit speaking of the softening and mellowing influences of Hinduism and the law of sacredness of life taught by the great Mahavira in Jainism, which have an exceeding great value in these days of wars and rumours of wars.
Thus did the Parliament of Religions, which has just closed its sessions in Calcutta, express itself :
“The greatest force in the world to-day for the establishInent of peace is religion and the only hope for security against war, lies in the mobilization of all the religious forces in the world, against that evil."
Says Bernard Shaw, 'This much I know looking at life at seventy, men without religion are moral cowards and mostly physical cowards too when they are sober. Civilization cannot survive without religion. It matters not what name we bestow upon our Divinity-Life Force, World Spirit, Elan Vital, Creative Evolution--without religion life becomes a concateShree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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