Religion, if followed out of fear, will not take you anywhere; it will not pave the way for a transformation to happen in you. You might progress materially by the faith that you have in your asking, but you will remain where you are at the being level. The purpose or real fulfillment of life can never happen on the material path; it can happen only at the being level.

Religion has to be followed out of deep love and gratitude for the divine or Existence. Although society teaches you to worship God in the name of fear, never do it. Always pray with love and gratitude towards the divine.

Here is a small story:

A Sufi Master, Junnaid, use to pay his gratitude to God five times a day. One time, he and his followers were wandering throught some villages where Sufism was not accepted as a religion.

In the first village, people accused them or begging, and threw meager alms at them. The next day, the people refused to give them any alms. On the third day, the village they passed through was so hostile that the villages drove them out with sticks and stones. That night as usual, Junnaid knelt down and offered his gratitude to God. His disciples were watching him. It was too much for them. They could not understand why Junnaid was thanking God. They were furious.

They cried out, ‘Master! For three days we have gone without food! Today we were even driven out of that village like dogs! Is this what you are offering your gratitude for?’

Junnaid looked at them and said, ‘You talk about three days of hunger! Have you thanked God for the food you have received for thirty years? And know one thing: my gratitude is not for receiving or not receiving anything. It is simply an expression of the deep joy and love in my being; it is a choice-less and prayerful expression, that’s all.’ When youlive with overwhelming gratitude in you, you have found a space wherein nothing else is needed.

It means that you have fallen into meditation. We all simply miss the beauty of Existence when we don’t know how to resonate with it! We are always looking for reasons to enjoy, reasons to celebrate, questioning what we enjoy, and what not! Wh have lost our connetion with Existence altogether because of this.

Instead of feeling gratitude towards everything around us, we are asking and questioning all the time. We need to get back this connection with Existence again. Gratitude can help bring back this lost connection. It can help you find your roots once again. It can help you commune with nature, with Existence.

Wat Rong Khun

Wat Rong Khun is a contemporary unconventional buddhist temple in Chiang Rai, Thailand. Wat Rong Khun is different from any other temple in Thailand, as its ubosot (Pali: uposatha; consecrated assembly hall) is designed in white color with some use of white glass. The white color stands for Lord Buddha’s purity; the white glass stands for Lord Buddha’s wisdom that “shines brightly all over the Earth and the Universe.”

Prambanan

Prambanan is the largest Hindu temple compound in Central Java in Indonesia. It is characterised by its tall and pointed architecture, typical of Hindu temple architecture, and by the 47m high central building inside a large complex of individual temples.

Shwedagon Pagoda

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Temple of Heaven

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Chion-in

Chion’in Temple in Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto, Japan is the headquarters of the Jodo Shu. The vast compounds of Chion-in include the site where Honen settled to disseminate his teachings and the site where he died.

Harmandir Sahib

Sri Harmandir Sahib or Darbar Sahib, informally referred to as The Golden Temple or Temple of God. It is located in the city of Amritsar, which was established by Guru Ram Das, the fourth guru of the Sikhs and the city that it was built in, is also due to the shrine, known as “Guru Di Nagri” meaning city of the Sikh Guru.

Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple

The temple occupies an area of 156 acres (6,31,000 m²) with a perimeter of 1,116m (10,710 feet) making it the largest temple in India and one of the largest religious complexes in the world. In fact, Srirangam temple can be easily termed as the largest functioning Hindu temple in the world.

Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat (or Angkor Vat), is a temple complex at Angkor, Cambodia. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation—first Hindu, dedicated to Vishnu, then Buddhist.