Yesterday, my fiance invited me to celebrate Christmas-Eve-Eve with his friends at a small church gathering. It was simple and heart-warming. They said the following prayer that really touched me (paraphrased here):

God, make me a channel of your peace;

that where there is hatred, I may bring love;

that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;

that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;

that where there is error, I may bring truth;

that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;

that where there is despair, I may bring hope;

that where there are shadows, I may bring light;

that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

God, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;

to understand, than to be understood;

to love, than to be loved.

For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.

It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.

It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.

I agree with it all strongly in theory, though I do none of this in practice. ;-)

Though I am not very 'religious', I'm finding that I really enjoy religion. I feel that there is a bit in every religion that I find very appealing, and a bit that I find unappealing. I guess my outlook on religion is Indian through-and-through. I feel that Sikhism is my identity rather than my belief. Though I can go freely to churches, temples, mosques, mandirs, and gurudwaras, and enjoy the philosophies and practices of any religion, I will still always be Sikh. There are many things in Sikhism that I love and many that I reject and strongly disagree with. I love Nanak's quote and philosophy that "there is no greater spirituality than love of mankind." I love how he rejected the caste system, rejected austerity and the concept of escaping from wordly things to find inner peace - and instead emphasized that one can enjoy inner peace while immersed in all that is wordly. I don't like that Sikhism places so much emphasis on martyrdom and to some extent, militancy. Though I understand the history behind it, I feel that it dilutes the true spiritual aspects of Nanak's message. I also don't like how orhodox Sikhism is becoming, with all the five K's and what-not, and that Sikhism has re-introduced its own weird form of the caste system in some cases, and the ritualism in general. I have nothing against rituals, but don't like that they are enforced and expected with such religious fervor. I don't know, I am rambling... I hope no one is offended by the post, it is very opinionated. I would love to hear your views on religion, on philosophy, etc.