The True Meaning of Religion: A Journey Inward

Religion, if rightly understood, is not about pleasing some mighty power sitting somewhere above the clouds. It is not about flattering a distant deity, not about keeping an invisible authority satisfied, appeased, or entertained. Religion is not a performance staged before heaven.

No amount of praise sung outwardly, no ritual conducted in front of an idol, no offering of bananas or coconuts will transform your life. If anything, excessive outward worship can make you forget the very thing religion was meant to awaken — self-knowledge.

Because the direction matters.

If you keep looking outward, you miss the most urgent reality — yourself.

True religion turns your gaze inward. And when you truly look within, you may not feel pride — you may feel anguish. You may see confusion, pettiness, fear, corruption, wasted years. You may see how short life is and how much of it has already been lost in trivialities. That moment of honest seeing — that is where religion begins.

Religion is not about telling some deity, “You are great.” The divine does not become greater because you flatter it. But you may become smaller if you use religion to avoid seeing yourself.

Throughout history, religion has often been misused precisely for this purpose — to prevent people from looking within. Real religion says: “Look at your condition.” False religion says: “Look elsewhere.”

And the moment you begin looking elsewhere, exploitation begins.

In many civilizations, kings were declared representatives of God. Rulers were “divinely appointed.” Priests were rewarded by power structures, and in return they reassured the people: “This king has been sent by God.” And what happened to the people? They remained subdued.

Religion was used not to awaken consciousness, but to protect authority.

But religion was never meant to explain where a king came from. Religion was meant to help you see where you stand.

Self-knowledge — nothing else — is religion. Everything else done in its name is either entertainment or conspiracy.

There is a story from early industrial Europe. In a rapidly growing factory city, church bells would ring precisely when exhausted laborers were returning home from work. In the morning, workers were energetic, focused, strong — so they were left alone to produce. But in the evening, when they returned to poverty, sick children, hunger, injustice, and exploitation — the bells would ring. Rituals would begin. They were summoned.

Why?

So they would not look at their own condition.

So they would not question their exploitation.

So they would not reflect on their suffering.

Religion became a distraction — a carefully timed anesthesia.

Festivals, rituals, fasts, ceremonies — one after another — ensured that people remained occupied externally, never internally. A birth? Perform rituals for twenty days. A death? Rituals for forty days. Continuous engagement, no introspection.

Because death is powerful. It forces even the most distracted person to look within. It compels reflection on relationships, on wasted opportunities, on unfinished truths. And organized religion often rushes in precisely at that vulnerable moment — not to deepen reflection, but to replace it with activity.

True religion creates space for introspection. False religion fills that space with noise.

Ask yourself: if there were no divine power to rely upon, would you not take responsibility for your own life? Yet humanity waits endlessly for a savior — an incarnation, an avatar, someone descending from above to fix everything.

Real religion says: everything depends on your choices.

False religion says: you are powerless.

Across cultures, a class of religious intermediaries has often aligned with wealth and power. If economic inequality is rising — and it is — those who control wealth do not want you to notice. So you are told: sing hymns. Perform chants. Stay absorbed.

And the irony? The very scriptures that people claim to follow — the Upanishads, the Gita — repeatedly urge self-inquiry. “Know yourself.” Yet people keep chanting without ever examining their lives.

The more wealth concentrates in fewer hands, the more distractions are required for the masses. Religious agents are deployed. The public does not see that these agents serve power structures, not truth.

Real religion is rebellion — rebellion against ignorance, against unconscious living.

False religion is counterfeit surrender — surrender not to truth, but to authority.

If rulers cannot provide food or employment, they can at least provide religious spectacles. Let the people remain emotionally intoxicated.

This has happened for centuries.

Self-knowledge alone is religion. Anything else parading under its name is a trap.

Hunters roam everywhere. The hunters of the jungle carry guns. Religious hunters carry scriptures and rosaries.

Spirituality means knowing oneself more deeply. There is no spirituality beyond self-knowledge.

There is a religion that liberates — the religion of self-inquiry. And there is a religion that enslaves — the religion of blind belief.

Notice something profound: almost every genuine social reform movement in the past two centuries has been, at its core, a reform of religion. Because most social absurdities survive in the name of religion.

There are two kinds of religion: one based on knowledge, and one based on belief.

Choose the religion of knowledge.

Choose experiment over tradition, inquiry over ritual, awareness over performance.

Call rituals by any name you like. Perform them if you wish. Feed crows during ceremonial days, light lamps, chant hymns — but do not confuse these with religion.

Religion means self-knowledge.

If someone says they are “going to perform a religious act,” ask: does it deepen awareness? Does it sharpen understanding? Does it bring clarity about one’s own life?

If not, it may be culture, tradition, emotion, community — but it is not religion.

Religion is not about appeasing a higher power.

Religion is about awakening your own.

And the moment you realize that no force is greater than your conscious choice — that is the moment true religion begins.

Choose knowledge over belief.

Choose awakening over distraction.

Choose liberation over bondage.

That is the true meaning of religion.

— डॉ. मुकेश ‘असीमित’

 मेरी व्यंग्यात्मक पुस्तकें खरीदने के लिए लिंक पर क्लिक करें – “Girne Mein Kya Harz Hai” और “Roses and Thorns”
Notion Press –Roses and Thorns अंतिम दर्शन का दर्शन शास्त्र