Why do most people think that religion is for making us do good and for teaching us to love God?

From: Bhabajeet Kalita

Whenever I go out, people say that every religion teaches us to love and serve everyone, be morality, be good, do good to all, but no one says that any religion teaches us to love and serve god. Is there any quote or shloka that supports this? Is this true or a misconception? If yes, then how to refute it?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you.
A question from Babajit Kalita Prabhu. Whenever I go out, people say that every religion teaches us to love and serve everyone. Be moral, be good, do good to all.
But no one says that any religion teaches us to love and serve God. Is there any quote or shloka that supports this? Is this true or misconception? If yes, then how to refute it? Answer. There are various levels of religion and among those various levels, being moral, being good and doing good to others is an important level.
And that is talked about in all religions. In the Christian religion, they said that love thy neighbor, love others. In the Vedic culture, what to speak of a neighbor, even a guest, that even the guest should be treated just like God and should be offered all respect and hospitality.
At the same time, these are not the highest teachings of religion. Even Christianity, when Jesus was asked, which is the most important commandment of the Ten Commandments, which Moses had given earlier, then he said, love thy God with all thy heart, all thy might and all thy soul. So love God.
He was very unambiguous about that. Similarly, in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna clearly tells, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śujaḥ So he describes, give up all varieties of religion and just surrender unto me. And if in giving up any other religion there is any sin, I will take those sins.
I will protect you from that. Do not fear. So it is interesting and significant that Krishna is telling us not to give up sins.
He’s telling us to give up dharma. In this verse, sarva-dharmān parityajya. It is not sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mokṣayiṣyāmi.
So why is that? Krishna is telling that the highest religion is the religion of pure devotion to him. And to adopt that religion, whatever other religions may come in the way must be given up. At the same time, just becoming devoted to God doesn’t mean that we become apathetic towards others.
we see them as members of our own family because we are all members of Krishna’s family and we actually care for them at a more enlightened and spiritual level. So loving and serving others can be done in ignorance, relative ignorance, where we just care for them because they belong to my caste, my race, my state, my nation, my species, my planet. It’s all eye centered or it can be more enlightened where we see that we are all connected.
So morality and virtue and a benevolent disposition are not the goal of religion. The goal of religion is to develop love for God and once that love for God is developed then these are by-products that result. Krishna describes that in the 12th chapter 13th verse he says that his pure devotees are He says they are non-envious and they’re friendly towards all living beings and friendly in a very kind-hearted and compassionate way.
So these are the characteristics of devotees who are truly devoted to God and they naturally result when we increase our devotion to God. Now the reason why the idea of religion being meant for moral and humanitarian purposes has become widespread is because the transcendental aspect of religion has not been explained and so has been downplayed. The two religions that are major in the world today, Christianity and Islam, they don’t have much description of the transcendental world.
They are primarily on the level of fear and desire where people are told if you don’t obey God you will be punished and if you obey him then you will be rewarded but the rewards are also largely described in material terms. One will go to heaven and enjoy with virgins. So the point is that the transcendental aspect of religion, the beauty, the personality of God, the beauty of his kingdom, all these are not described at all.
That’s why the transcendental world as described in these religions doesn’t appear to be at all attractive to people who are just new to that religion or people who are outside to that religion. So now if the transcendental aspect is not adequately described and especially many of the claims of religion over the centuries since the scientific revolution that happened in the 1879 centuries were critiqued as being unscientific. So on one side there was no attractive transcendental description.
On another side many of the practices and beliefs of religion were criticized as being unscientific. So therefore these religions in order to sustain their appeal to their masses to some extent focused on their ethical and humanitarian contributions or because of the because of the church so many people are being fed because of this so much good is happening. So now these are definitely desirable and they are laudable also whenever there is an ethical humanitarian contribution but that is not the essential purpose of any religion that is to actually love God.
And this appeal of religion based on ethical humanism maybe kept some followers of religion but often the religion became divested of much of its transcendental essence and when the Britishers conquered India and then the Protestants from England came to India the Anglicans to convert Indians from initially from Serampore in Bengal and then all over India. So they strongly criticized the existing Vedic religion as being again unscientific and as being primitive and on top of that especially they said that actually in India there is so much poverty and what is this religion doing for poor people as compared to that we are doing so much and they use the ethical humanitarian appeal to try to win converters converts to their religion or at least to win public appreciation and support for them. So as a response to that many Hindu organizations started launching many extensive humanitarian programs and started talking about started banding forward the ethical and humanitarian aspects of Vedic culture.
They are also there there are examples like Rantidev and Shibi and so many other kings who were ready to sacrifice so much for the well-being of others but again in the process of competing with other religions at the ethical humanitarian level the transcendental aspect which actually is the unique revelation of the Vedic literature was downplayed, was neglected, was treated as mythological or explained away as metaphorical and this way actually the transcendental revelations of the spiritual world which are the unique contribution of Vedic theology to world theology of Vedic literature to world theology they were actually neglected. But when people understand Srila Prabhupada and before him Thakur in the modern times presented this in a bold as well as intelligible and appealing way and millions of people from all over the world became attracted to love God not and to practice religion not just because of its humanitarian or ethical value but for the sake of actually attaining a higher happiness and transcending the world ultimately while at the same time doing good to others in the world so because of the widespread propagation of religion as being ethically and humanitarianly utilitarian useful the transcendental aspect often is derided but Srila Prabhupada was very unambiguous in presenting the transcendental aspect as it is and that is a unique charm of consciousness so the scriptures are very clear that we should be good to others we should be moral but that is a preliminary introductory religious principle that is upadharma or aparadharma. Paradharma is to develop love for God the Srimad Bhagavatam starts by describing that any form of religion that doesn’t teach us to love God and therefore it keeps us under the cycle of birth and death it keeps us bereaved of the fulfillment of our heart’s greatest longing that religion is actually kaitava dharma it is cheating religion and Srimad Bhagavatam says dharma projita kaitavatra paramo nirmatsaranaam sitam that all such substandard religious principles are kicked out and the single focus is on the paradharma so that is what Srila Prabhupada has given us and that is what we Srila Prabhupada’s representatives need to understand and present to the world so that people don’t just think that this world is everything and religion is also valuable only because it makes this world better but actually religion is valuable because it offers us entry into a higher world that is infinitely more attractive than this miserable material world and it also enables us to become contributors to of peace and well-being in this world