Religion

As soon as one reads the word religion, one thinks of a sage chanting mantras. Don't stamp my loyalities as partisan as I respect all the religions and their teachings. However, as a born Hindu, I felt connected to the  thought of a sage. One may replace it with any Sufi singing about the almighty to suit to one's liking.
However, religion is not just about chanting mantras, it contributes a lot in bringing discipline and docility in an otherwise unruly world. Given a chance, the soberest of the man will commit the heinous-est  of the crimes if there is no authority to judge and rate his acts. However, as spider-man's step father says, "With greater power, comes greater responsibility", there is a greater chance that this power is misused by the demagogues.
I would like to share a story from one of the Osho's books, There was a community of dogs which used to bark without any reason. There was a spiritual leader of that dog community who used to advise dogs to abstain from barking. His lectures were attended by a large number, however left little impact and failed to bring about any change in the habit of dogs.
On one fine day, all the dogs decided to abstain from barking and this will be their biggest gift to their leader. It was virtually impossible for dogs to control their basic instincts when the moon lit sky appealed to them to bark at their highest pitch. However, out of respect to their leader they somehow remained quiet. As the leader of the dogs observed that there is pin-drop silence and no single dog is barking, he was very surprised, though not pleasantly and he became curious to know about the reason of this eerie silence.
His curiosity grew to become worry as he felt there will be no need of any spiritual leader if all the dogs will be so well behaved. He came out of his house and found all the streets empty. He himself got carried away by the beauty of full moon and sensed an urge to bark. He realized there is no one around and even if barks, no one will come to know about it. After pondering over the thought for a while, he finally barked.
As soon as the leader barked, all the dogs thought that the someone has broken the protocol and started barking.
The leader felt so elated at hearing these loud barks that he immediately called  all the dogs and admonished them for being so loud at mid night and all the followers quietly accepted their mistake and thanked the leader for showing them the right way.
Isn't the real life similar to this anecdote?