God Arises
Review
~ 50 ~
derived from something “out there” in the sky. Seek
it and you will find much more than you expect.
5
”
We cannot, therefore, study religion in the same
fashion as we take stock of our household goods,
modes of conveyance, clothing, housing, etc. This is
because religion is an entity in itself, which is either
accepted, rejected or accepted in a partial or
distorted form by society of its own free will. As a
result, religion remains the same in its essence while
assuming a diversity of forms which evolve
according to the practices of particular societies. It is
wrong, therefore, to classify all the different forms
of religion prevalent in different societies under the
common heading of “religion”. We shall illustrate
this with reference of democracy.
Democracy is a system of government by the
people, directly or by representation, and a country
may be said to be truly democratic only when its
political organization abides by this criterion. Now
if an approach to the understanding of democracy is
made by examining all those countries who call
their governments democratic, and then trying by a
process of induction to form a clear picture of it on
