Blog 4

Book: A Farewell to Arms
Pages read last week: 92
Pages read since semester: 342

Weekly Style: Quotation

“ Do not forget that (love) is a religious feeling.”

Love is a religious feeling. Sounds interesting and a bit ridiculous? No, it is not ridiculous. I believe that love can be religious also, especially your love for God. I come from a religion where the devotion and love for God are profound as well as paramount. It was the love of God that gave my ancestors the courage to get themselves boiled in hot water and cut by saws. Their body parts were cut one by one. Even infants and toddlers were tossed up in air and caught on lances, and the garlands of their intestines decorated the necks of their mothers. 40 persons offered stiff resistance to a million. All this for what and why? The answer is for God, due to his love and for justice, righteousness and good of humanity.
Even the holy Sikh scriptures, our present Guru, ‘Guru Granth Sahib ji,’ contains holy hymns written by our prophets. They portray human soul as a bride who is in grief due to its separation from the ‘Supreme Soul’ (God). She is longing for her unification with Him, which she can earn only through good deeds and by remembering Him.
My motive was not to praise my faith, but to present my viewpoint through it. I believe that, “Self praise is no recommendation.” Love requires your selfless devotion for someone, and thus can be termed religious. However, love can be blind, and so does faith; but neither one justifies any wrongdoing done by anyone to attain his goal, even if he did it due to his devotion. Every faith advocates the love for God. One feels that it his duty to be true to his love, and he has the similar feeling towards his faith also. You can fight with the world for you love and your faith. People who advocate going to forests or high mountains for long prayers are terribly wrong, in my opinion. It is pretty pessimistic to give up this world for love. (I am not talking about committing suicide.) Faith can also be exercised by being part of this world. In the end, I can conclude Count Greffi was not wrong in saying the quote to Frederick Henry.