The Concept of Life

The concept of life can be variable for various people and cultures. I knew this before moving to the West to an extent but witnessing it myself blew me away somewhat. One wonders how communities of same species living on same planet separated by some distance, have reached to such a different perception of life. The funny thing is that all the parties think their perception of life is the 'right one'.

Life in the East is more conventional and old fashioned, if you want to call it. With my roots in the East, it is pretty much male dominant society. Man will be the leader of the house with his wife and children, his dependents. Businesses, politics, sports, offices all dominated by men. Women though recently have been trying to sneak into the society, influenced by the West, however are far from reaching anyway near the domination of men. All of the life style is woven around religion. A religion, which if practised truly, can bring a positive radical change in the individuals and the society, but unfortunately, mostly a self derived, self served or self modified religion exists. I will practice my religion upto a certain point. What I am practicing, I will expect others to practice too and will criticise them if they don't. What I am not practising, its OK for me to not practice that. If someone highlights this to me, I will develop some kind of friction or enmity with that person and will call him a 'radical' or even out of my religion. This, at its peak, will lead to conflicts between religious sects. This 'hybrid' or 'customised' religion is not only spoiling the societies but also putting off Western people with this belief that religion is obsolete. For some it may be extremely important to pray but perfectly acceptable to be dishonest. The personal relation to God will be kept different from social values. Moving on, despite all this, there is someplace of religion in the Eastern life style. The laws or rules of religion may be twisted for personal gains but still, atleast on the face of it, people will keep religion close to their heart. Those well off, may concentrate more on gaining more wealth, the poorer will have no option but to be content on 'a better afterlife'.

The life in the West is completely different. The principle is YOLO (you only live once). Do what you want to do. Children have extreme liberty once grown up. Teenagers can do whatever they want. The boundaries or restrictions from majority of parents do not exist or the threshhold for any rules of the family will be unimaginably lax for the Eastern counterpart. In the recent years, atheism is the fastest growing 'religion'. Science and money is the new God. Women are free but still not free. They want more freedom. They are a symbol of modernisation. If your women are free, you are a free society. Those with religious views are considered old fashioned and will have an 'evolved' or 'modernised' religion moulded to the norms of society. If you ever end up saying something about religion or afterlife in public, you may have to face the biggest embarrassment of your life with the public reaction. You may risk losing your job if you hold a prestigious one. Phrases like 'as wrong as religion' or 'as bad as the concept of creation' can be heard in professional talks. The benefits from this concept are at least two folds . 1) They try and live life to maximum but may not necessarily be successful in that. 2) When this is the only life, then they make every effort to make it better. They are polite, they will forgot adversities quicker, they move on in life after terrible incidents quicker as they don't want to waste their remaining life. While an Eastern counterpart, despite their belief in God, may linger on with the adversities of life for rest of their lives. You can see every invention which can make life luxurious, comes from the West. They have tried their best to make this world their heaven and they claim they are successful in that, although I believe they are not. Why and how they are not successful, will be in my future blogs.

The two current lifestyles are completely different but full of flaws. The 'customised' religion not practised in true sense is more dangerous than no religion. No religion or YOLO life style eventually leads to despair and life in mess (eventually). The principles of life are an open secret in the divine revelations which are unfortunately considered old fashioned.