This simple word ‘Yes’ contains all the religions of the world. It contains trust, love, positivity, surrender, etc. It epitomises all the prayers. If you can say ‘Yes’ with the innermost voice of your being, you have said all that can be said. To say ‘Yes’ to existence is to be religious and show respect to all religions.

An atheist is not one who denies God and a theist is not one who believes in God. We have known Buddha, Mahavira, Adinatha and we have known the enlightened ones who never talked about God.

But they had the courage to say ‘Yes’ and preach its magnanimity. ‘Yes’ is the very spirit of God. Yes! can exist without God but God cannot exist without ‘Yes’. If God be body, Yes is the soul. There are people who believe in God but they are not theists because they don’t have the courage to accept Yes! as a part of God.

People have only been so structured to believe in the existence of God, because they can’t deny its existence, either. They have also been told that if they have faith in God, the faith will in turn give rewards.

On the other hand, if they don’t believe in God a great punishment awaits them in hell. Also, when fear and greed has gripped our society, it is indeed difficult for people to muster the courage to say Yes!.

But having faith in one religion, or another form of God has no meaning unless one begins to accept ‘Yes’ as the first step towards approaching God.Learning to say Yes! is learning the the art of living — Jaagaran Abhiyan