Classic Blasphemy!

How often you have felt the grudge for being unorthodox? Being on an entirely different lane of road requires a lot of justification, and frequent too. But somehow I have garnered the courage to stand apart from herd and speak up the language of logic. And since this concerns God, I request a bit of patience and tolerance on your part before I develop my angle of plot.

What are places of worship meant for? Or what does an elaborate procedure of prayer aims to attain? I assume it would be to establish a connection between man and the almighty, through which we can thank and request for assistance of God in our actions. Clearly, it is a daunting task which may require high levels of concentration and self assessment on our part. Thus temples should be a quiet place, with peace in air.

On the contrary, what we observe is a hectic rush towards the idols, desire to touch it, and be near it for most of the time. Its like trying to impress the king by expressing extra devotion to his idol! People tend to forget that God IS omnipotent, and scrutinizes our actions all the time, not just for the period we are in a temple or during some holy festivals.(Try explaining this to the mad rush in temples during नवरात्र/ महाशिवरात्रि etc).

And idols are supposedly humanoid depiction of a formless entity, meant to simplify our conception of almighty and assist us to relate with him. But masses in general tend to pin their devotion on these mud/marble idols, and end up doing strange ‘mudras’ to indicate their level of devotion- the concept of one who follows the teachings being true devotee taking a backseat.

Worse still is the state of hymns and chants. These are mugged up and ranted without any awareness/consideration of true meaning. Ideally, they should be changed to a dialect that can be grasped by general masses easily. Further the content of these hymns itself raises a few doubts: they are filled with praises of Gods with references of their actions from ancient texts. I would like to ask, are Gods supposed to become happy after hearing his/her praises and grant our wishes? And if this is the case, one can scarcely ignore the similarity of God to a foolish king. Also, one can not pose to draw inspirations from these acts, as most of these are beyond human capability.

A classic example in this regard would be Satyanarayan katha, which is a frequent event in my house. It is composed of various stories where devotees promises to conduct the katha in his house-forgets; or unintentionally forgets to take prashad after listening to katha and hell breaks lose on them. Most interestingly, the entire event is strikingly devoid of actual verses from the much hyped katha. I wonder what this aims to convey- don’t question the greatness of this katha or your consequence will end up being a part of this ‘series of sorry tales’!!

Such blunders in our rich tradition clearly indicate some illogical modification in or failure to interpret our ancient texts. Rather we have a tendency to refer all moral acts as divine, thus much beyond our realm. This explains why “मर्यादा पुरुषोत्तम श्री राम” (as referred in Valmiki Ramayan - best among honourable males-पुरुषों में उत्तम, Sri Ram), was depicted as “प्रभु श्री राम” (in Tulsidas’ Ramcharitmanas-God Sri Ram).This excuses us from following in his footsteps, for we are no gods!!

Also I would like to question the concept of daily, long prayers as a good habit. It can be justified only if you are doing this for sake of moral support. But any expectation of you being a favoured one due to this should be questioned- God never asked to worship him, his sole request was to follow his teachings. On the same lines, the concept of doing ‘vrata’ is strange in itself- you are torturing the body, a gift by God, to please him ?

Modern religion establishment is in itself a wary state after all legal battles going on over captivity of temple properties among priests. It has knelt in front of money power- If you have committed a sin, however grave it may be, it offers a solution. In any grand temple, you can find a list of various poojas to ‘wash off’ your sins and seek blessings of almighty, against a price tag. This, if effective, would be a mockery of Gods’ justice and indicate growing presence of darkness(along with delay) in his court.

As per my opinion, temples should serve as nerve centres of distributing alms from rich to those who are less privileged; rather than vulgar display of devotion with unruly crowd, barking mantras. Despite of my scarce knowledge of religion and ancient teachings, I have little doubt that this is NOT how God would have liked to be worshipped. We are completely letting ourselves be directed by the brokers of religion, standing behind curtains of tradition. And however much we justify of our pure intentions for worship, we are not helping much by being part of this frenzied crowd.

Disclaimer: The content, style of description in this article is highly offensive. My sole aim here was to tear apart the artificial fabric of modern religious practices. If it is not evident in article, I would like to ascertain that I was in no way trying to defame God or challenge his authority.(Even if I wished, I couldn’t!!)
Also, I believe that good as well as bad features exist in all religions. I am absolutely certain that drawbacks corresponding to above mentioned defects could be found in any of other religions. I centred around Hinduism for references as I have understanding of this religion only(however little). I am extremely fortunate to be a Hindu with liberal eye to consider offensive arguments with a rationale mind.