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hence they do not provide the causal base for behavioural or institutional frictions. Even within a single religious system, there are many differing schools of thought which coexist peacefully and seldom precipitate tension situations. Institutions of higher learning will do well rather to encourage
inspire different and diverse streams of thought, for, diversity and variety reflect the richness and creative elan of the human spirit. Adventures of ideas will always weave different strands of thought into one colourful cultural tapestry. It is the rituals, the external forms, which convert religion into religiosity, the elevating struggle of the individual spirit into degrading strife of group egotism. It is true that no religion can have a popular base without ritualistic formalities, but it is even more true that when essential truths of religion are lost sight of, religion decays and dies and all externalities turn into dead encrustation. Religion becomes a buoyant force, a powerful vehicle of peace and happiness only when people partake of its spiritual substance and not when they cling tenaciously to the observance of its inert and inertial customs and practices. It is, therefore, supremely important that university academia while teaching religion as a departmental discipline, lay greater emphasis on its ethico-spiritual contents than its outer paraphernalia. The department must emit light and fragrance to fill the whole environs and not foul odours that may vitiate its cultural ambience. C. Religon as an ethico-spiritual force
Modern world inspite of its scientific and technological marvels and super affluence suffers from manifold affliction and it is enmeshed in a formidable predicament, its own unintended creation, out of which it is helpless to wriggle out. It is a confused and confounding world wherein man is overwhelmed by an acute feeling of meaninglessness and powerlessness. Its lebensraum has become a Bermuda Triangle constituted by three ineluctable forces of alienation, ennui and anomie. The ontological reductionism of materialistic science has deprived man of its spiritual centre and rooted him to the soil of carnal passions. Man has a body but he is not a corporeal being; he has material needs but he is not circumscribed by these needs. He is conditioned by his temporal and historical situation but he has the capacity to transcend all limitations. He is a denizen of the earth but he is endowed with extra-terrestrial powers. He is a being, which is not closed but ever dynamic and evolving. It is his aspirations and not his tissue needs that constitute his essence. His life is a ceaseless adventure to seek and realise the supreme values of truth, goodness and beauty. It is these values which give meaning to man's life. Without them life would become a rudderless boat drifting along the current of becoming without any aim or destination. Religion confers meaning upon life and gives it a direction by providing an explanatory framework for all existential questions
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