Wednesday, July 31, 2013

I have always had my doubts regarding religion and the way we practice it. Then there is the question of difference between spiritualism and religion. In recent times I tried to make peace with my conscience which was always at war with my compulsion to go to temples to attain peace. I tried to reason with myself  about the need to be religious (following my religion which is Hinduism in my case). Sometimes some visuals shake you out of your shell where you tend to hide and act as if nothings wrong with this way of life.  I have been going to Tirupati almost every year and everytime  I pose the same question to myself…Why two lines…Why the step-motherly behaviour towards the pilgrims in Sarvadarshanam Queue. Why do VIPs get a straight entry into the sanctum sanctorum, which lesser mortals like us aren’t even capable of dreaming about (unless if u donate a 100KG gold throne, in which case you may even get a chance to hug the IDOL)??. With the ‘chalta hai’ attitude which common people learn to live their lives, I would brush aside all this scepticism and go about attending the duties my religion commands me to perform. 
Every single day, I am torn between my conscience and my faith which tell me that the Photo Frames of the human forms sitting on flowers, with four hands, each holding a weapon or a device to give boons are the Gods. Even calling it faith is technically wrong since I know that this is not right. But the way religion has been taught to me, its pretty hard to mend the ways now. I personally like to think there is some power beyond us, which controls all of this. I don’t like to give it a shape or identity. It is the unknown. This mystery adds to its all powerful image. Then again I question myself that if each of our actions are supposed to have a consequence, then whats the point of seeking forgiveness. It all boils down to us keeping our actions clean. So that should be the only thing a religion should teach us. Rest of it is all human-made addendums and amendments. There is one more personal theory of mine about our need to have a God. It lets us think that there is someone looking over us, who will take care of everything, who will make sure that everything ends up well. This helps us to concentrate on our task and let God take care of consequence. Sometimes we feel too small with the whole world surrounding us. Human beings tend to not believe in random. This leads to the inference that someone up there must be making sure that this whole system runs smoothly. We should give a chance to randomness. In every event we either search for the cause or try to predict the consequence. What if there is no such relation for our daily happenings. What if every event in your life is just a new node rather than a part of a thread of events.