what does the word religion mean?

Question

want to know also about the different beliefs of religion

Answer 1

Belief in a god of some sort and the trappings that go along with that belief.

As for the different beliefs of religion, there are so many that it would take hours to explain. You need to do your own research. Google it.

Answer 2

Best way to describe religion is to talk about the 4 Cs.

Code - Ethics
Cultus - Rituals. Why one worships
Community - Group with same beliefs
Creed - Ideas. Myths (seen as truths)

Religion can be anything. I can make a religion around this Vault bottle sitting in front of me. Or a cellphone, or this BIC pen I'm using. It doesn't have to deal with death, or supernatural happenings, or even a supreme being.

All that extra stuff is just for the comfort of the believer. It has no other purpose.

Answer 3

Faith and belief in the unseen spiritual things that go on around us. It is the act of following a particular 'faith' or 'creed'.

Religious beliefs can range from actions a person participates in to how the person speaks. It can involve different rituals or ceremonies.

Here are some examples:

Missionary Baptists: Can't play with at deck of ordinary playing cards - because the joker is the devil. Eventhough the Bible says nothing about this subject - it is taught to children as 'God's law'.

Catholics: must go to confessional to confess their sins to a priest, even though the Bible clearly says; that a person can confess their sins directly to God.

Answer 4

It means an institution that embodies a framework of theological doctrines and practices or alternatively any system of philosophy or theological belief.

Answer 5

Religion derives from the word religare - to rejoin with source, which is called as Yoga in India.

That which unites us to our source (which is called God in religious terms) is only religion. And all those who teach towards the same are religious preachers worthy to be followed.

All great religions and religious leaders still takes us towards Godhood only. They do not see differences but unites them all. We have many examples of living masters from India like Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Swami Chinmayananda, Mata Amritanandamayi, Sri Sri Ravishankar and so on.

Similarly were Zen / Sufi masters, Jesus, Prophet, AdiSankara, Buddha and many others.

The regular activities however successful leads to a hollow in terms of completeness and satisfaction.

The remedy of course is with spirituality (and also religion, for it gives or rather is supposed to give the spiritual practices).

Stress is an agitation in the mind, a hush of thoughts uncontrollable and not conducive to the natural state of the individual which sometimes is also of the nature of blank or a dull state of mind.

To avoid stress immediately (and temporarily) breathing techniques like pranayama would help. This would work out because the source of thoughts and breath is the same.

But a permanent solution to stress and vacuum in life can be achieved only when we expand to get identified with our true source.

In Hinduism, our saint Adi Sankara says that man throughout runs towards gaining happiness (Sukha Prapti) and removal of sorrow (Dukha Nivritti). But he rarely understands that his basic nature is Happiness (Ananda) only and all troubles, doubts, unhappiness is created by his thoughts.

We are happy when asleep. We say I slept happily. Now after waking up from sleep, we say I am sorrowful, stressed. So what is the reason for stress. We cannot say that I was not conscious when asleep. If so how do you feel that you slept happily. Modern science and western psychology may call it subconsciousness or through other terms. In our culture we say that it was our natural state, but we most of the times colour ourselves with thoughts and assume that thoughts are us.

Anyway the problems are because our identification with the thoughts. So the solution to the problems are always because of I and mine. The solution can be by understanding who is that I which is referred, whether it is our thoughts or whether it is our real nature. Thoughts cannot be us, because it keeps changing and flowing in front of us. Anything which could witness is apart from ourselves.

This is meditation in Indian terms, finding out "WHO AM I" also called as Gnyana Yoga, the path of knowledge. In this way we find that we are our true nature and sorrow is only because of identification with useless temporary thoughts chain parading before us.

Devotion is complete surrender as everything is yours (including me). Even in that case there is no stress because we see everything as a gift of the primordial cause (GOD), so there is nothing for me separately, there even I am His. This also leads to the same goal.

If all this sounds too much or irrelevant, simple tips could be
1. Breathing exercise (Pranayama or others) to calm the mind
2. Karma Bhava (Performance of Duty to work towards our cherished goal) alongwith Prasadha Bhava (Acceptance of the results of action without reserve or prejudice).
3. Accomodate and grow by identifying with everyone we love, every one in the family, everyone in the groups that we work with, every human being, every living being and then with every being around. This way we love everyone and what is more fulfilling than love.
4. Welcoming every situation as a honorouble guest coming to us and returning the best that we could do to that situation, treating it as a service to that guest.
5. Consistent study of holy scriptures and association with saints and sages (whom we consider holy).
6. Dedication towards a Higher Goal (as envisioned by us).

List can go on but in my perception this has enough choices to start with.

(One point: even if you go to an island, you cannot leave your mind. The problem is in our mind and not in the beings. It is in our perception. So let us expand our perception and live contended in the midst of the challenging surroundings. How to do this is the entire teaching of our Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita, where a demoralised man of action is raised by the wisdom words of the Lord). There is a download the installation version of this book with English translation and commentary. If this can help you, you can have it.

http://www.chinmayauk.org/resources/downloads.htm

This is only my perception. I believe that everyone should take up their ancestral religious study alongwith other study that they feel could assist them in order to grow spiritually. The Kingdom of Heaven is within us is the experience of all saints. May we all reach that natural state of ours with our own efforts.