Mystic Mantra: Religion should provide updates like Apple does

It is believed that once upon a time the good old apple was the source of religion in the lush garden of Eden. The first man and woman on earth ate it, which marked the beginning of their progeny. The whole of human civilisation was created. And look at the disasters that have happened since because of this creation. It seems either the apple was rotten or Adam and Eve were not in good shape. Anyhow, to set things right, imagine if the religions are given back to an apple — I mean the prominent hardware and software company, Apple. Would that help resolve the problems the humanity is facing at the moment?

Yes, contends Vir Das, the young and brilliant stand up comedian from Mumbai. In one of his popular shows on Conan he has hilariously laid down the blueprint for arresting terrorism. He said, “We have to update the major religions in the world. Just take the religion and give them to the company Apple. Apple is coming up with a new product every six months. So Apple can re-launch the religions of the world. Just imagine, terrorism will come down so much if you have to sign an online agreement with Apple first, get a ‘jihad id’ and then sync all your bombs in the same id! It may happen that one bomb didn’t work because of an old version of iTunes and you have to download the new version of iTunes. Your aggression will slow down automatically.”

What a fantastic idea! This could be disposed of as daydreaming but the dream can come true sometime in the future. In the digital world, we are all closely connected with each other. Internet companies can really control our movements invisibly. The havoc that is played by the old idea of religion needs a radical recycling of all the conditioning and should look upon humanity as one large family.

Remember what Krishna said in the Bhagvad Gita: “Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religiousness, and the predominant rise of irreligiousness — at that time, I manifest myself on earth.” Principles of religion are laid down in the scriptures, and any discrepancy in the matter of properly executing the rules makes one irreligious. The world cannot afford to fight and kill each other; the whole planet is on the verge of extinction.

Osho had taken upon himself the gigantic task of destroying the outdated, ugly practices of religions and rejuvenating them by infusing new values into them.

He has said, “Religion always needs to be renewed. Religion always needs new energies to be poured into it to keep it alive and flowing. Religion always needs to be born again and again according to the time and the circumstances. What was right 5,000 years ago is no longer right at all today. And what was moral in the past has become immoral today. For example, in Krishna’s time, war was a moral phenomenon because, in Krishna’s time, there were no atom bombs and hydrogen bombs. Now, war is immoral. Now war means total war, now war means universal suicide. The new religion cannot teach war, it can only teach love.”