Guyana has experienced a really Holy Week in the week which has just passed since two holy days of our two great national religions fell in close proximity to each other. The first was Phagwa or Holi and the other was Good Friday.

The message which all world religions bring is much the same, though the metaphor and terminology they use may differ. Very often, followers of various religions tend to focus, not on the deeper meaning of their faith, but rather how it is expressed.
When they do this, they conclude that the various religions do not lead to the same essential goals and Truth.
The reason why terminology and metaphor and expression of various religions differ is simply because they made their advent in the world at different millennia. Hinduism, as we know it, could be traced back to nine or ten thousand years ago while Christianity is approximately two thousand years old.
Accordingly, man, nine or ten thousand years ago, used language differently with different metaphor and expression to express the same truths thousands of years afterwards. But when we are analytic and discerning enough, it may surprise us to find the moral and ethical message of all religions is the same and even their metaphysics do resemble each other.
Last week, Holi or Phagwa was the first of the holy days followed 24 hours after by Good Friday. Phagwa, like all very ancient holy days, has many traditions meeting in it. The main tradition is that King Hiranya Kasipu had once practiced the most strenuous and rigorous religious austerities and as a result had achieved many supernatural powers.
Among the powers he achieved was that he could never be killed in either night or day, that he could never be killed on the earth and that neither man nor animal could kill him. He felt himself immortal and became an extreme tyrant. He finally declared that no God could harm him and he himself was God and compelled his subjects to worship him.
But his young son Prahalad refused to worship him as God and the knowledge of Prince Prahalad’s opposition spread to the citizens who were given a sense of morale. But Hiranya Kasipu was no ordinary tyrant and he decided to murder his son. He tried a number of stratagems but each time Prahalad miraculously escaped.
Eventually, the people’s sufferings became unbearable. God saw the terrible tragedy and decided to incarnate himself on earth, eliminate the evil and restore normality. He decided to incarnate himself as Narasingha, a being who was half man half lion.
One day, at dusk, Hiranya Kasipu decided to visit the main temple to ascertain that no one was there to worship. He arrogantly strutted about shouting that he was God and if there was another God, let that God come forward and kill him and in his demented rage.
He struck one of the columns with his sword. Immediately and unexpectedly, God incarnate as Narasingha came out of the column and attacked him.
They struggled until they tumbled to the steps of the temple. Here, Narasingha managed to catch Hranya Kasipu by the throat, lifted him off the earth and strangled him. Hiranya Kasipu therefore met his death at dusk which was neither night nor day, and he was strangled off the earth by a being who was neither Man nor animal. The people wildly celebrated and this celebration came to be known as Holi or Phagwa and was perpetuated over the thousands of years to the present.
The story of Good Friday and Easter are very well known. It is perceived by some that God reincarnated himself in human form as Lord Jesus to renew the message of peace, love, morality and compassion to mankind.
Lord Jesus’s teaching began to make an immediate impact and the purveyors of evil decided to use their power to kill him by crucifixion which they did on the first Good Friday. Jesus’ murder was a very sad event but it helped to propound God’s message in a dramatic and reverberating way for which human beings are constantly grateful. The drama became more memorable with the resurrection when God shows, even to the doubting persons like Thomas, that Jesus was indeed an incarnation of God and is still alive. Today, Sunday is Easter and commemorates the ascension which completes the message of Jesus.
Hinduism and Christianity and all world religions teach the message that all human beings are equal, that man must not oppress or exploit his fellow man, that poverty and want must be minimized, if not eradicated and that all human beings are a brotherhood and should meet as a fraternity.
Though religion stress redemption and salvation and are mainly concerned with matters of the spirit, it is also interested in the betterment of society in a more general way.
It is apposite to point out that that consumerism has no difference from the ethical, moral and social teachings of religion.
Everyone is a consumer and we think of the consumer community as being a worldwide fraternity.
All consumers are equal with equal aspirations and when consumer people meet each other in any part of the world, they do so with welcome closeness.
One of the primary concerns of consumerism is to prevent anyone from being exploited and we are committed to minimizing poverty. We are also committed to fairer distribution of Society’s wealth.
The ethical and moral teachings of religion are on all fours with consumerism. GCA’s email:patdial26@gmail.com