Religion is not ritual. It is not something that you do. It is something that you become. False religion is when the inner transformation has been substituted by outer ritual. Then you go on doing things and those things will become a deep-rooted habit with you, but nothing is achieved. People go to the church and the temple, and they repeat the same prayers again and again. Nothing is happening to them. Somewhere on the way they have missed; somewhere on the way they have lost the real coin -- and they have substituted it by a false coin.
Remember this, that the real, authentic religion is concerned with the being, not with the doing. It has nothing to do with your outer way of life. It has something to do with your center. Religion is an inner consciousness, an inner awakening. Many things on the surface will change, but the change must occur within you first.
A certain morality is needed, a certain regulation, rule, a system, is needed to live with the others That's okay. But that is not religion.
Morality is how to live with others, and religion is how to live with oneself. Morality is how not to go wrong with others, and religion is the method of how not to go wrong with yourself. Religion is that which you do in your total loneliness, in your innermost shrine.
The word `religion' is very beautiful.It comes from a root which means `religere'. Religere means to rejoin, to reunite. With whom? With yourself, with the source of your being. And why reunite? Because with the source you are already united -- it is a reunion. It is not that you are reaching to the source for the first time; otherwise, from where will you come? You have come from the source. Deep down you are still in the source. Just on the periphery, as if the branches have forgotten about the roots... not that they are broken from the roots, because then they cannot live. They have simply forgotten. In their ego, in their height in the sky, with the moon, in their romance, they have completely forgotten that they have roots underground -- which nourish them, which sustain them, without which they cannot exist for a single moment. And all this greenery, and all these flowers, and all these fruits, will simply disappear like dreams once they are cut from the root. That's how it happens to man. You move in the branches, farther away from the roots. You come to many flowers. You are enchanted. The world is beautiful all around you. You completely forget about the roots. But it is not that you are uprooted. Forgetfulness is just forgetfulness.
That is the meaning of religion: to reunite, to remember again. This word `remember' is also beautiful. It means to become the member again, re-member -- to become part of the source again, to go to the source and become the member again of it.
Religion is reuniting with your own source. Religion is remembering, becoming again a part of the organic unity that you are. It is nothing to do with the others. The ego is always concerned with the others, this way or that. When you become totally concerned with yourself, ego simply drops. There is no point for it to exist.
Alone you have no ego. Try it! When you are sitting, totally alone, not even thinking of others, is there any ego left? There is no possibility. The ego needs two to exist. Just like a bridge cannot exist if there are not two banks to the river; the bridge needs two to be supported. The ego exists as a bridge between you and the other. So, in fact, the ego is not in you -- it is just between you and the other. So when you go deep inside, there is no ego. In your total loneliness, ego simply drops. That's why ego goes on playing tricks. Even if you start searching and seeking for truth, the ego says, `Help others'; the ego says, `Transform others.' And religion is again missed. It becomes a mission.
Religion is not a mission. Missionaries are again on the wrong track. They have again become concerned with the other -- now, in the name of religion, in the name of service -- but whenever you are concerned with the other, you have left the source. A religious man also helps others, but he is not concerned. It is natural; it is not a mission. It is not something on the mind. He is not seeking and searching to help somebody. It is just by the way. Out of his inner treasures, he simply shares. And he is not to change anybody! He is not after you to mould you in a certain pattern. Because that is the subtlest violence possible in the world -- to try to change the other, to mould the other. That means you are cutting and being aggressive. And you don't accept the other as God has created him. You have better proposals and you have better ideas than the Divine himself. You want to improve on the Whole. You are simply stupid.
This is how ego comes in.
.. and religon was cause of every war ever