Recently was in discussion with one of my friend. She was telling "Even Techies are superstitious", when asked why, she told that a techie was arrested while he was doing Pooja , thinking that it was his mother-in-law's curse which is making him to suffer in this recession time, and thereby causing big nuisance in that area. I just asked, 'how do you call an act as a 'superstitious' one?'. Her reply was, of-course this one (pointing at that techie incident). "Then what will you call 'praying' in front of GOD as?", was my question. ".......", was the reply which i got. So, thought of looking deep into this.
superstition is defined as 'An irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome'. But we don't call someone as
superstitious person, when he thinks about God, prays, goes to temple. But we do call him, when he thinks about God ALWAYS, prays ALL-THE-TIME or goes to temple DAILY. So for everything, we have a threshold level. The level beyond which you're treated or considered differently, just because the majority lies within the threshold level, and its those majority, who decides what that threshold level is. And even that level varies on the cause, situation and place. The same act of praying, when he does for his country to win a war, even if its daily, wont be considered as superstitious. In that scenario, the majority lies above the threshold level, where-in, those who does not do that, is considered to be a hard-hearted or whatever called by the majority.
Oops. let me not deviate, no more about this majority thing. So, Is this all had to do with praying or doing poojas? i would say , a definite, NO. This also includes fear of devil, etc. i would even include saying "best of luck" into this category, just because you tend to think that, Some power, mostly God, is/will-be in your side and hence uttering that word. All these things ultimately boils down to, "
The belief in God".
Just was thinking how does that belief come to existence? Otherwise, how did it manage to exist these many centuries? I'm neither a historian, nor 5ve-100ed years old. All i can do is,
imagine , imagine how the past would have been, based on my existence in these 20ty-4our years. I would define God's existence/continue to exist caz of three reasons.
1. Inspiration / Hope2. Fear3. EscapeInspiration/Hope: I will rate this as first and foremost, because, its this thin line of hope, which gives you inner strength to scale greater heights. Many get inspired by believing that, there is someone looking at you, taking care of you all the time, no matter what you do, where you are or how you are. Many always feels stronger when they believe that "
God is there with me", when there is none with them. Just imagining how that belief would have come. just one scenario. For some moments, forget about God Creating Adam, Eva, Serpent, Apple, etc etc. Just imagine that we got evolved over time, which is the reality but. Those very early years of Human Being's existence in this planet. People live in small groups, occasionally migrating across vast lands, which are dense forests, where they are more prone to be attacked by wild animals, where being together has always given them strength to defend them for their survival, also to hunt other animals for their food. Here comes the chance of them getting separated from the group or the necessity for people to travel alone in those unknown territories. When traveling alone, keeping their role-model in mind, or determined to see their loved-ones, gives them more strength. Also keeps them away from the deadliest disease called
loneliness. This is then followed by generations after generations, believing that, keeping , once an ancestor, now Him, in mind gives that extra strength and inspiration. Always remember that, initially it was Sun, Moon, Stars and the tools which they use, were considered/worshiped as God, even now in most places. You can watch one such scenario of inspiration/hope well explained in the movie "Cast Away" - Wilson.
Fear: What does this "Fear" factor has to do with God? i would consider this as the second most possible reason, for God to continue existing, all through these centuries (as we saw how God came to existence in the previous para). This Belief of God makes us think twice (if not stopping us), before doing any wrong things, that God is watching us and we'll get return of what we did, though this same belief is the reason for doing good things (we'll discuss more on this in next para). Now comes another Avatar of God, the Evil God (oops.. me not saying God as Evil), i mean Devils. It makes more impact on people, when we say
"Devil is watching you and if you do anything wrong, it'll catch you", than we saying
"God will punish us". That strike of Fear in everyone's mind, when thinking of Devils, was used by all those people in power, in our early years, too keep the people from doing harm / wrong-things to other people, where wrong-act is bad to their community as well as not a good sign for more development in their society. And i'm no-way going to discuss the topic of how
"wrong-things" are defined, because mostly they are from pure morality and few are made by those in power, based on circumstances.
Escape: Escape!!!!!! from what??? By "Escape" here i mean Escaping from wrong-doing/shame. Though the concept of Devil strikes fear in everyone's mind to restrict us from doing wrong-things, there are plenty of situations that, that fear is not enough to stop us doing so or doing wrong-act accidently. In those scenarios, what to do to cancel those sins? The solution is simple, surrender to The same Hope, God. There is beautiful word in Tamil "parikaaram", act of doing something to get out of the sin or nullify wrong-things, which is used often these days. And when you do parikaaram, all your sins are washed away, and it depends on to what extent, that wrong-act, affects them and society. Most of the times, this parikaaram, due to the fear that
Devil will catch us if not done, becomes more useful to lot more people, which is a good thing to cancel the wrong-act.
I would end this little journey to the past, in search of God, with a disclaimer that, all the above sentences are NOT against God, NOT to affect anyones belief and NOT to make them change. Just few thoughts of mine, put into words. Its upto the each one to take whatever you feel good about it and leave the rest here.
So, Is God True or Illusion? Whether to belive or not? Is this belief Good or Bad? will leave those questions to you and you can answer it for yourself.
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