About the world being better off without religion . . . I think so. It would be less beautiful perhaps, because some religions have created really beautiful architecture, incredible music, some of the most moving dances stem from religion — this idea or acknowledgement of something that stems from something larger than yourself. But I have a feeling that the world would have found a way of substituting it, or creating the same thing from a different source of inspiration.
About exile and writing . . . I don’t believe that it changed my style, no, but it certainly changed my rhythm. I had to extract time whenever possible. I worked everywhere and anywhere in cafes, in restaurants, on the plane. I developed a habit of shutting out the world completely. In terms of what I actually wrote, I don’t believe it changed. I actually wrote those memoirs on the move.
The complete interview is in The Hindu magazine.
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Jul 4th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
I don’t think the notion of humanity without religion is a meaningful question- it’s not like wondering would we be better off wihtout an historical event like the French Revolution. It seems that from within every culture have arisen religious philosophies to the point where this expression is an integral aspect of consciousness, and that rather than being ways of making sense of life, it is a reflection of profound states of being. How the religious feeling or religions may become fixed dogmatic entities is a different matter but an interesting point is how St Francis came pretty close to losing his life earlier than he did due to his notion that the self-realisation of Christainity would be the dissolution of the Church as the religion should be a means to an end, the end being enlightenment, as opposed to an end in itself.