Swami Chinmayananda Thoughts on Religion

A mature man who has lived his experiences intelligently and has maintained an alert, critical attention upon the incidents of life that he will come to such an inner maturity that he will feel a certain unrest. He has the necessities of life, but not a complete satisfaction. He sits back and listens to muffled question from within? Where did I come from? Where will I go (as one day I must)? Is life an empty and meaningless accident? Has life a purpose?

Religion is for this man; it provides assurance and guidance in his endeavor to answer these inner questions.

It is true the villainy, cruelty, ambition, madness and even wars have repeatedly reached the arena of life clothed in the cloak of glorious religion. Even today it is regrettable fashion to go mad in the fury of war and loot, kill, plunder, rape and dishonor ourselves in the name of religion. Thus religion has come to signify a danger signal to the peace loving and the honorable. But this is not religion. What prompts these fanatics to draw out their weapons and murder the weak and the helpless is not their faith in religion, but their own base and low animalism, disguised in the pious robes or religion.

Swami Chinmayananda