I find it somewhat baffling that many Indonesians are fine watching the series, especially knowing that most of Indonesians are much attached to their religious views. Specifically speaking, the hard-liners of Muslims and Christians usually voice out that their Semitic belief are the only righteous one, hence they reckon other teachings as occultism; this time, however, they don't.
When we talk about theism and religiosity, most of time it always refers to the Abrahamic religious teachings. Rarely we look at other sources and references to explain spirituality and life phenomenon, such as Buddhism and Hinduism. Most of us may have underestimated them before we even have a gaze upon, while in fact they may be offering more answers than what we have in our belief.
If we watch them carefully, it turns out that righteousness doesn't only belong to majority's religions. Mahabharata teaches us how respecting and fulfilling an oath is very important because the entire universe listens to our every single speech, and thus we must be careful for everything spoken out from our mouth. It also teaches us about how women must be highly valued in society through Drupadi story, about loyalty of friendship that Karna showed towards Duryodhana, and most of all about how righteousness must be upheld against evildoing and how in the end every evildoing must receive their own result of loss & punishment by nature.
Nonetheless, if we have a look at Krishna and his wisdom throughout the story, and mainly when He deciphered knowledge about truth as documented in Bhagavad Gita, we will be astounded about how divine the Gnosis can be enriching our soul there. Moreover, Shiva in the series of Mahadeva also showed many kinds of wisdom that if we contemplate we may feel ashamed of our ways of living.
Not only we can learn about living, but also religiosity despite our personal religious view. In those Vedic-based series, we are taught about how surrender and devotion to The Almighty one must be done through routine solemn prayer, and sincerity should be the base of our reason performing the prayer instead of personal advantage just like how it was performed by Sri Ganesha in Mahadeva series.
When it comes to individual traits, we can imitate Sri Rama for his gentle selflessness and his indefinite love towards his family members. He also tried to understand everyone's situation and therefore could tolerate their mistakes. Instead of cornering others for their wrongness, he pointed out the good deeds of every individual. The altruism shown by Sri Rama is really something we can rarely find in our modern world today.
The illaqueation of the stories may leave few questions about how we further see universality in our conceptualized dogma. Can that be true that only our religious teachings that guide us towards virtue? Can that be true that the non-Abrahamic religions will not be able to bring salvation upon people despite their undeniable values of righteousness? Are God's blessings and Heaven something very exclusive?
We can't stop there. We must also inquire whether the teachings of our beliefs have really shaped us into good individuals that are good enough for other beings around, whether our very existences have brought good impacts towards our people and planet. We must open ourselves to the possibilities of different teachings from other religions that may cause better developments for us.
My dad said:
"We need to socialize with fellow believers from same religion we believe in. We need them to also pray for us. We can make sure that their prayers would be heard by God, while those from different religions are not certain. That's what our religion teaches."
I replied:
"Just because we believe in certain religion, doesn't mean that religion must be right. Just because we don't believe in other different religions, doesn't mean they must be wrong."
My dad countered:
"If that's so, it means we are not sure about our faith. We can't do that. We must firmly believe no matter what."
I didn't further argue him, because I knew it would be either futile or causing catastrophic quarrel between my father and me. However, I had words in my mind:
"Shall father think that prayer should only be performed with the motions taught by the religion we have our faith in, and other motions taught by different faiths are wrong, tell me how should ones without hands pray? Have they lost their right to perform prayer? Are the hopes and wishes of theirs unworthy to be heeded by The Almighty?
Shall father think that prayer should only be chanted in language and wording taught by our religion we believe in, and other languages of different religions are wrong, tell me how should ones mute and deaf since born invoke their prayers? Is their unspoken stillness a sin because they don’t vocalize the name of The Creator?
Is prayer dancing? Is it singing? Doesn’t God dwell within heart and mind of every creature? Is God trapped in the illusion of beauty and discriminative nations?"
I believe the universality of Godliness itself is what the phenomenon of Indian Vedic-based TV series shows to us. Despite our fanatic faith, our pure consciousness cannot defy the instinct of humanity that may distinguish us from other creatures: seeking for sincere virtue. And although it is served in various labels and packages, we cannot prevent ourselves from devouring it.
In the end, the answer is never about the religion, or the packaging. It always lies on how we perceive the goals of our very humanity. Where we can find the answer is another matter, whether in religion or not. Anyhow, as Chuck Palahniuk said: "Religions exist because people would rather have a wrong answer than no answer at all"
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