COSMIC AGE COMING--- WITHERING OF RELIGION & NATION STATE

' THE COSMIC AGE’ –WITHERING ‘NATION STATE’ AND DIMNISHING HOLD OF RELIGION!


‘ RELIGION’ has often been wrongly equated with ‘SPIRITUALITY’ and similarly ‘NATIONALISM’ has been synonymous with ‘PATRIOTISM’. This dual synonymy has always been the real cause of human conflict and confrontation.

Religion had been basically designed to perform certain TEMPORAL RITUALS/ PRACTICES which had become utmost necessary as part of human faith and belief to live life in a particular manner. Religion ‘regulates’ daily human life. As against this, ‘SPIRITUALITY’ guides, motivates and drives human beings to rise above narrow and parochial personal motives to synthesize human soul and the Nature. It upholds man’s quest for ‘INNER PEACE’ with self and supports his inquisitive search for ‘Moralistic Answers’ to ‘Humanistic Questions’. Viewed as such, religion might seem to be part of ‘SPIRITUALITY’ but never a holistic canvas covering spirituality. It might be ‘one of the means’ and ‘not the only mean’ to seek inner peace. In a world abounding in ignorance, illiteracy and little-knowledge of not-too-distant past, religion had sought to provide answers to man’s spiritual queries. In the days bygone, knowledge of man was so limited both in extent and depth that religion sought to fill the vacuum by satisfying human curiosity. In other words, where knowledge had failed to provide answers, ‘Religion’ had stepped in with ‘symbolic’ answers.

But answers provided by religion were always stereo-typed and revolved around its ‘Singularity of only Truth’. This became belief and unshakeable faith and anyone suggesting any deviation became the cause of HATRED and CONFRONTATION. RELIGION had left no space in the human mind for alternative and better knowledge. It exploited illiteracy and unawareness of its subjects. Merely acquiring academic knowledge is not the empowerment of human mind. It is the understanding and application of this academic knowledge which enables one to break free of ‘RELIGIOUS-SINGULARITY-OF ONLY-TRUTH’. Those, who still believe in the religious singularity of only truth, are as illiterate as were the people in the medieval periods. Knowledge has many truths about itself which the bigots can hardly understand. But, today, the scene has changed many times over and the onrushing DELUGE OF KNOWLEDGE is pushing religion now into background.

Similarly, “Nationalism” was a product of Industrial revolution in the 18th Century. The coming of the machines had standardized production and enhanced human capacity to produce more consumable goods in a lesser time period. Standardized processes led to production of goods in bulk. MASS PRODUCTION became the order of the day and this unleashed a competition for more raw material and resources. More and more groups of people merged into one ‘key social mass’ to produce larger socio-geographical identities. This ‘Massification’ of people and societies led to bigger socio-politico communities. This gave birth to the concept of a ‘NATION STATE’—where geography, ethnicity, military prowess, lingual similarities and cultural affinities played greater role in defining national boundaries. This emotional sense of belonging to something supreme generated a feeling of ‘SUPERIORITY’ and greatness. It became the duty of every single man within the borders of such geographic descriptions to protect its territorial integrity at all costs—even with supreme sacrifice. This came to be called PATRIOTISM. Thus, man had acquired different national identities—each one claiming superiority and greatness. Such competitive thoughts had to spark hatred and dislike amongst humans. Industrial revolution gave rise to organized CONFLICTS and WARS between nations as ‘expansionist interests’ clashed.

Both ‘Religion’ and ‘Nation State’ had divided humanity into different ‘GHETTOES’—always hating and fighting against one another. Ignorance and ‘Lack of Awareness’ had often made man his own worst enemy. Man fought for GERMANY, ENGLAND, AMERICA, RUSSIA, ITALY, JAPAN, CHINA, INDIA, FRANCE and PAKISTAN etc. Man even fights for ISLAM, CHISTANITY, HINDUISM, BUDDHISM, SIKHISM, COMMUNISM and CAPITALISM et al. All this he resorts to because he was given these identities at the time of his birth. These “BIRTH-TAG’ identities had pushed man far away from the basic tenets of ‘HUMANISM’. But all this is now going to change as KNOWLEDGE REVOLUTION has FLATENED THE WORLD and there is no scope for emotional frailties of IGNORANCE and UNAWARENESS.

‘Man’ has been ‘individualized’. Societies and families have broken up under the pressure of ‘INDIVIDUALISATION’. Zeal for ‘Self-promotion-at-all-costs’ has sent ‘individualized man’ globe-trotting to serve personal interests better. Societies and polities are getting tailor-made for globe-trotting man. Such a ‘Globalised man’ views ‘NATIONALISM’ and ‘RELIGION’ as outmoded philosophies which put him at a utter disadvantage because they narrow down his sphere of activities and opportunities in an otherwise leveled playing field of a FLATENED WORLD. A school of thought is emerging that those who do not join the band wagon will lose out. The message is clear: either HOOK ON or be LEFT BEHIND in the IGNONIMITY of the ‘Grand Canyons of Times’, when your other contemporaries elsewhere were now moving past the KNOWLEDGE AGE and riding into the COSMIC ERA.

Thomas R Friedman has postulated three stages of GLOBALISATION in his book, “THE WORLD IS FLAT”. The first stage he says started around 1492 AD when COLUMBUS hit the coast of AMERICA. This was GLOBLISTION 1.0. It was spearheaded by countries trying to turn the LARGE world into MEDIUM. It lasted around 300 years till about 1800AD. This was the time when INDUSTRIAL revolution had galvanized EUROPE and the concept of NATION STATE was born. Industrial Revolution gave rise to MULTI NATIONAL COMPANIES or MNCs. The GLOBALISATION 2.0 was sparked by the MNCs and it turned the world from MEDIUM to SMALL. It ended around 2000 AD. The GLOBALISATION 3.0 was spearheaded by INDIVIDUAL who had been empowered by COMPUTERS, INTERNET and WEB to be his own player in a FLATENED WORLD—where everyone was having a level playing field to do what he wants to do. The world had been turned from SMALL into a TINY node in the universe.

Alvin Toffler in his trilogy of books, namely, “Future Shock”, “Third Wave” and “Power Shift” talks at length of the THREE WAVES of growth and development mankind has undergone since its inception. Each wave had a dominating philosophy. FIRST WAVE was dominated by AGRICULTURE or physical force. SECOND WAVE, which coincided with GLOBALISATION 1.0 and GLOBALISATION 2.0 of FRIEDMAN, was dominated by MONEY or mass production. THIRD WAVE, almost synonymous with GLOBALISATION 3.0, is associated with INFORMATION or the KNOWLEDGE.

Accordingly, each wave described the society as such i.e. AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY and the INFORMATION SOCIETY. The First Wave lasted around 1500 years--- up to the start of Industrial Revolution in Europe. The Second Wave began around 15th Century and it carried on for almost four hundreds and fifty years and it lasted till mid Twentieth Century. The Third Wave or the ‘Information Age’ began around the end of Second World War and it unleashed an era of ‘Total Transformation of the Society’. As the mankind entered 21st Century, the THIRD WAVE was also seemingly drawing curtains on itself. We are now entering the FOURTH WAVE ---‘THE COSMIC WAVE’.

The process of GLOBALISATION and KNOWLEDGE REVOLUTION has shrunk the world to a level where the world is heading into borderless landmass of free flowing GLOBAL CITIZENS. Man has ventured into space. He is now looking beyond the earth. There are tell-tale signs of some form of intelligent life in the outer space. We are sure heading into the COSMIC AGE where man could think of ‘GALAXY-HOPPING’ in the not-too-distant-future. We are now capable of imagining the mythical characters of VEDIC PEOPLE who could move into THREE WORLDS with the twinkling of an eye. We have been able to identify EARTH-II which lay at some 20.5 LIGHTS YEARS away from us. It could have some form of life. May be in next 50 years manned mission could be sent to this planet to find if there were any homosapiens there.

We are sitting at the edge of a revolutionary change in our ‘Ways of Life’—when ‘Religion and Nations’ would become irrelevant in our daily chores. We will THINK GLOBAL and ACT GLOBAL in everyway. THIRD WAVE and GLOBALISATION 3.0 are shaping the future of the COSMIC MAN who is looking beyond the mundane frontiers of the EARTH and thinking of enmeshing into the SPACE. In such a scheme of things, RELIGION and NATION STATE would have NO PLACE. Some of us have already leapfrogged into the FOURTH WAVE of COSMIC AGE. The transient period is of GLOBALISED MAN and he has already hit the economical fabric of the GLOBE.

Nixon Bostorm, Director of FUTURE OF HUMANITY INSTITUTE at OXFORDUniversity has postulated that the day was not far when a robotized man could actually become a reality. In other words, activities of a ‘BIO-TECH’ man could be simulated. This is heralding characters of the movie MATRIX in reality for you, when you could be doing things in a ‘Virtual World’. Bostorm even goes to the extent of saying that 20 percent chance exists when ours could be a SIMULATED WORLD. It means it could be switched off like our computer screen goes off when we log off. This view could be strengthening the “ID THEORY” of the creation of universe as against the “BIG BANG THEORY”. I leave it at this.

But the fact remains BIO-TECH BRAINS, as in the movie MATRIX, could be created who would be able to simulate a physical body and move around in a simulated world. Time and space to such VIRTUAL HUMAN BEINGS would be a matter of no significance. They would move from place ‘A’ to place ‘B’ with the twinkling of an eye. We are heading into the age of COSMIC TRAVELLERS who would go ‘GALAXY HOPPING’ as the modern man goes ‘CONTINENT HOPPING’ today. ‘Cosmic travelers’ would provide us real time information on outer space. Where would, then, be the time for EARTHLY BOUNDARIES of MIND and Physical SPACE? Religion and Nation State would have no identity in the VIRTUAL WORLD of TOMORROW.

The advent of FLATENED WORLD has already produced a class of ‘CONTINENT-HOPPING-CITIZENS’ who have hardly any strong affiliation or ties with one particular nation. They are a class of ROVING HUMAN BEINGS who are more inspired and fired by ECONOMIC zeal. In a level-playing field, they look for opportunities to find cheapest ways of wealth creation. BPOs, KPOs and IT industry have revolutionized the concept of manufacture and production at the global level. Borders have begun to disappear and the walls separating people are collapsing everywhere. The day is not far when the NATIONAL BOUNDARIES WOULD merge into one another and the concept of NATION STATE would be consigned to dustbin of human history. The world is likely to be broken into thousands of interdependent and interconnected economic nodes with no predominant political ideology as the governing philosophy. Alvin Toffler has predicted the rise of some 5000 City States with their own economic agenda. Their emergence would really not spell a death knell for the religion but it would push it into insignificance. Religion might not play as significant a role in man’s spiritual life as it does today. It would become a private affair.

The recent upsurge of the RELIGION and the NATIONALISTIC EMOTIONS are the clear-cut signs of dying philosophies. The desperation is to protect the banishing identities in a GLOBALISED WORLD. The OFFICIALDOM everywhere is trying to use FORCE to keep the ‘breaking unit’ under its wings. Nations after nations are falling prey to this. Call it insurgency, militancy, terrorism or what have you? The fact remains: NATIONS ARE UNDER ATTACK FROM WITHIN.

The GLOBE is currently transiting through a PROCESS of POLITICO-RELIGIOUS ‘Fission’ and ‘Fusion’ at the same time. While geo-politically, ‘LARGE’ is breaking into ‘SMALL’—it is leading to tension and violence in these nations. The process of FISSION is on. Slowly and slowly all big or small nations will splinter into small economic nodes. This is the call of the GLOBALISED WORLD. While on one hand process of FISSION is on, on the other hand, the process of FUSION at the GLOBAL LEVEL is also working simultaneously, where these tiny economic nodes will be sewn into one big GLOBAL UNIT. These will be interconnected, interdependent and synchronized dots on the GLOBAL CHIP. Global dynamism will ensure that none could exist in a vacuum—they will exist with each other—supplementing and supporting.

It may sound funny but it is a truism that a dying insect grows wings and flutters more. Same is true of religious fundamentalism. Its sound and fury is basically to preserve its banishing identity in the wake of on-going globalization. It is true of all religions. I reckon Twenty First Century will pull the curtains on religion once for all. The coming of the COSMIC AGE is sounding of the LAST POST for Religion and the Nation State. Witness their demise in the coming decades.