Acharya Prashant narrates a story about a mystic who lived in a village. For a hundred years, he would unfailingly appear for prayers whenever the call was made. One day, when the call for prayer was made, he did not show up. The villagers, knowing his unwavering routine for a century, concluded that he must have died. Grieving, they went to his hut, expecting to find him dead. Instead, they found him sitting and eating sweets. The villagers questioned him, saying, "Old man, you have wasted the merit you earned your entire life at the very end. You are on the verge of death, with one foot in the grave. Why didn't you come for the prayer?" The mystic replied, "It is done. The one whose call used to come, I have accepted his invitation and met him. Now this call is not for me; it is for you. Those who are distant are the ones who need to be called five times a day. What would I do by staying away now? I am a hundred years old; this is my only chance to meet. I have bowed my head, I have been annihilated, I am gone, I have met him. Consider me dead. I am no more. So don't be upset with me. Does anyone get upset with the dead?" Acharya Prashant explains that on the journey of religion, a point comes when religion itself is transcended. When you transcend religion, you enter Sanatan Dharma (the eternal religion). In that religion, there is only a flow, no names, no boundaries, no worship or rituals. There is nothing; it just is. This is the difference and the relationship between organized religion and Sanatan Dharma. At the center is that which you call Truth, God, or the Supreme Being. The field immediately surrounding it, its aura, is called Sanatan Dharma. Far from that, the various shells of religion are the organized religions. They arise from Sanatan Dharma itself, but they exist in time, so they perish. They have their use, it's not that they are useless. From time to time, Sanatan Dharma incarnates in the form of an organized religion. But every incarnation, if it takes birth, also has a death. Similarly, an organized religion must also die. It should have a birth and it should also have a death. The problem with today's world is that it is carrying the corpses of religions that died long ago. Most of the organized religions today are dead religions. They incarnated at some point, but they should have departed long ago. The trouble is when those who should leave refuse to go.
