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The Religion Portal

P religion world.svg
Religion is the adherence to codified beliefs and rituals that generally involve a faith in a spiritual nature and a study of inherited ancestral traditions, knowledge and wisdom related to understanding human life. The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to faith as well as to the larger shared systems of belief.

In the larger sense, religion is a communal system for the coherence of belief—typically focused on a system of thought, unseen being, person, or object, that is considered to be supernatural, sacred, divine, or of the highest truth. Moral codes, practices, values, institutions, traditions, and rituals are often traditionally associated with the core belief, and these may have some overlap with concepts in secular philosophy. Religion can also be described as a way of life.

The development of religion has taken many forms in various cultures. "Organized religion" generally refers to an organization of people supporting the exercise of some religion with a prescribed set of beliefs, often taking the form of a legal entity (see religion-supporting organization). Other religions believe in personal revelation and responsibility. "Religion" is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith" or "belief system," but is more socially defined than that of personal convictions.

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Statue of Shiva performing Yogic meditation.
Yoga (Devanagari: योग) is one of the six schools of Hindu philosophy, focusing on meditation. In India, Yoga is seen as a means to both physiological and spiritual mastery. Outside India, Yoga has become primarily associated with the practice of asanas (postures) of Hatha Yoga.

Yoga as a means of spiritual attainment is central to Hinduism (including Vedanta), Buddhism and Jainism and has influenced other religious and spiritual practices throughout the world. Hindu texts establishing the basis for yoga include the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and many others.

The four main paths of Yoga are Karma yoga, Jnana yoga, Bhakti yoga and Raja yoga. In all branches of yoga, the ultimate goal is the attainment of liberation from worldly suffering and the cycle of birth and death (Samsara). Yoga entails mastery over the body, mind, and emotional self, and transcendence of desire. According to the followers, the yogi (masculine) or yogini (feminine) eventually reaches the enlightened state (Moksha) where there is a cessation of thought and an experience of blissful union. This union may be of the individual soul (Atman) with the supreme Reality (Brahman), as in Advaita Vedanta, or with a specific god or goddess, as in Dvaita or dualistic forms of Hinduism and some forms of Buddhism.

  

Selected picture

[[Image:|center|300px|A detail from a miniature painting in the Rajastani style, made by the artist LaLa in Udipur. Painted in September 2004. shows the Goddess Gayatri.]]

Credit: LaLa in Udipur

Gayatri is a poetic form used in the sacred texts of Hinduism. It also is one mantra in particular, attributed to Vishwamitra, and a goddess as its personification, a representation of the Parabrahman.

  

Selected religious figure

Laozi, from Myths and Legends of China (1922) by E.T.C. Werner
Laozi (Chinese: 老子, Pinyin: Lǎozǐ; also transliterated as Lao Tzŭ, Lao Tse, Laotze, and in other ways) was an ancient Chinese philosopher. According to Chinese tradition, Laozi lived in the 6th century BC, however many historians contend that Laozi actually lived in the 4th century BC, which was the period of Hundred Schools of Thought and Warring States Period. Laozi was credited with writing the seminal Taoist work, the Tao Te Ching (also known simply as the Laozi).

Laozi's work, the Tao Te Ching, is one of the most significant treatises in Chinese philosophy. It is his magnum opus, covering large areas of philosophy from individual spirituality and inter-personal dynamics to political techniques. The Tao Te Ching is said to contain 'hidden' instructions for Taoist adepts (often in the form of metaphors) relating to Taoist meditation and breathing.

  

Did you know...

  • ...that the phrase "God helps those who help themselves" is not found in the Bible? It originated from Discourses Concerning Government written by Algernon Sydney?
  • ...that estimates of Muslim population today range between 1.2 billion and 1.5 billion people and just 18% of them live in Arab countries?
  • ...that Wicca was previously an Old English word (pronounced: 'witcha'), meaning a male witch or wizard and 'wicce' was a female witch?
  

On this day...

March 16:
  

Selected quote

Gutenberg Bible
Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:
— Bible, Proverbs 3:3
  

Selected scripture

Title page of the original edition of Aradia
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a 1899 book by Charles Godfrey Leland. The book is an attempt to portray the beliefs and rituals of an underground religious witchcraft tradition in Tuscany that had survived for centuries until Leland's claimed discovery of its existence in the 1890s. Scholars have disputed the veracity of this claim. Still, the book has become one of the foundational texts of Wicca and Neo-paganism.

The text is a composite. Some of it is Leland's translation into English of an original Italian manuscript, the Vangelo (gospel). Leland reported receiving the manuscript from his primary informant on Italian witchcraft beliefs, a woman Leland called "Maddalena". The rest of the material comes from Leland's research on Italian folklore and traditions, including other related material from Maddalena. Leland had been informed of the Vangelo's existence in 1886, but it took Maddalena eleven years to provide him with a copy. After translating and editing the material, it took another two years for the book to be published. Its fifteen chapters portray the origins, beliefs, rituals and spells of an Italian pagan witchcraft tradition. The central figure of that religion is the goddess Aradia who came to Earth to teach the practice of witchcraft to oppressed peasants in order for them to oppose their feudal oppressors and the Christian church.

  

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