I was discussing the power of belief with a colleague. You don’t need a religion to have a belief. You might have a strong belief in doing something irrespective of whether you are an atheist, agnostic or religious.

Then she asked which one are you?

I said I don’t fall in any category.

Why one needs to define which category he or she belongs to. Being an atheist won’t solve things. The moment you define you are an atheist your mind forces you to stick to it for the sake of it. It is equivalent to defining oneself as a Catholic or Hindu. These definitions are created by us humans after all. Once you define yourself, you cage yourself and defend your position as an agnostic, atheist or religious. Note that all good energy goes into “defending” your position.

Once you define yourself as an ardent tea person among your colleagues, you erase the possibility of having that good cup of coffee in front of your friends when your host has nothing to offer but coffee. At that point, it is more about proving your integrity as a tea person rather than your strong inclination to drink tea and not coffee.

People keep on defining themselves as Right or Left or non-conformist, communist, atheist and so on but inadvertently they cut-off themselves from the possibilities. You may always believe in different ideologies and study their relevance discretely in different situations. No one is stopping you from doing that. The relentless pursuit to define oneself might forever alienate us from the greater meaning of life.