Religion - Let's Rejoice, Review And Reform

September 10, 2009 Pune, India - My chauffeur, Imam asked me an unusual question last week. But before discussing that, let me make certain things clear in the first place that this post is not intended to attract any slanderous remarks over any religion or their sentiments. This is a prose that raises all those questions that have always been sitting in the corner of my head. I recollect that these queries were being interrogated by me a couple of decades ago when I was learning the world around me as a novice child.

"Why is it that there is a small rat beside the statue of Lord Ganesha?" asked Imam. Although his question was a result of an enthusiastic approach towards my religion, I welcomed his doubt given that he was a follower of Islam.

"A mouse is an official Vaahan of Ganesha!" I replied.
 

Later, I spent several minutes trying to explain him why most of the Hindu Gods had their own official carriers or the Vaahan. I named every other animal that I was able to think of including the dog, the peacock, the snake, the tiger, and the lion and so on. I felt happy to tell him that I could associate every animal to a respective Hindu God - each had their own official Vaahan. After that long explanation, it was not unnatural for me to expect a little bit of appreciation from him, to have shared a good knowledge of Hinduism with him. Unfortunately, his reaction to my explanation took me to a different world - my world of innocence and the childhood days when I often bombarded my Papa with a hell lotta novice questions.

"I wonder how such a meek creature is able to sustain the weight of such a huge body!" exclaimed Imam. I observed him as his exclamation gradually burst him out in laughter but that really did not hurt me. I was spellbound since I knew; I had no answer to that. And I was left with no choice than to anticipate and join him with his joke.

But that was not the end of the joke. It revived all those novice queries that I had as a child, as a newborn when I knew almost nothing about religion. I asked similar questions to the elders around me during the days when my mind was like a blank printer paper, waiting for an imprint to be made on it. Being born to a Hindu, they kept on imprinting my mind with the cartridge of mythological beliefs. I was taught to obey the taboos and venerate the Hindu Gods relentlessly. They made me accustom to offer rituals to these Gods and to remember the do's and don'ts of each one of them. One fine day, they made me learn that there are thirty three crore Gods I should believe in. I feel sad to not even learn their names ever. I wish I could have known at least the ones we commonly preach and organize festivals for. Alas! Neither mythology nor history has provided me a justifiable explanation to my queries.

Several years down the line, I was overloaded with too many things, so much so that I started learning to take certain things for granted. My religious beliefs were one of them. In almost every case, the religious beliefs are induced upon us. If I was born as an orphan, with no trace of my family, it is certain that I would have no compulsion on adopting a certain set of religious beliefs. As a Hindu, I have always been enjoying the popular festivals like the 'Janmastami'. Festivals, in India are something more than religious celebrations; they possess huge significance in social fronts. They are the occasions when people from various walks of life come together or rather integrate. I wholeheartedly, welcome such social causes that help us remain united and integrated. Lord Krishna, today has a profound sum of followers and is considered as a role model around the globe. As his fable goes, he was a well known troublemaker, a thief and an eve-teaser. He had his own troop of partners in crime that he leaded. If this is so, today, I suppose we have a great deal of such lords in the underworld, possibly even better than our famous Lord Krishna himself. They are ill-known as to be the criminals; they too possess some godly qualities that have still kept them untamed and free. Why is it that if gods perform the act, we term it as a ‘Leela’ (a play) whereas, if the same act is performed by a human, it is a crime? Well, jokes apart, this is not a true definition of a role model in the real sense.

Mythology fails to justify several things that includes, teleporting which was common among the Gods. Despite so many technological advances, scientists today are still trying to improvise the means of travel and transportation. True, but that’s where the irony hides. It is not unacceptable to believe that some great warriors in the past possessed exceptional skills in archery, wrestling and so on which made them famous. Lord Rama, for instance was well known for his archery skills, but his potential to use an arrow to bring down the biggest mountain on the planet seems hard to digest without a clear scientific base. Or is it a sheer outrage of a praiseworthy exaggeration?

I am proud of my country's rich and varied heritage. I am always ready to flaunt and boast about the heritage on which our culture is based upon. But it really makes me sad when I really find no answers to my queries, esp. when it has something to do with our beliefs and devotion. For ages, India has been a land of sages and saints but it is hard to learn that most of our religious values are still based on relentless superstitions. Several of our festivals, are being observed just because they were followed for ages. Hardly do we care about our natural resources that are bitterly impacted due to the activities we perform in the name of God. The toxic content being used in the statues we immerse in our rivers is ruining the sanctity of our water bodies. Liters of milk and curd are merely wasted in the name of God, when more than half of our population sleeps empty-stomached every other evening. A dozen bones and a zillion earthen pots are broken down during Janmashtami, all in the name of God. Millions of crackers are burnt in the name of God, when we, on the other hand, keep complaining about pollution issues and the global warming effect.

No religion tells us to preach the negative aspects of life. Evil and good, both are the two aspects of the same old coin. God, a virtual super power that we believe in as a human, tells us to believe in the good and condemn the bad. Now to perform killings and sacrifices in the name of god is unjustifiable. To riot and kill a fellow-human in the name of religion is not Jihad, it's a sin. I am sad to live in a world where people, who are incapable to understand the true meaning of religion, commit such sins in the name of religion itself. This makes me wish to get rid of the imprints that this world has made up on my mind and ink it with a sole religion of patience and compassion. God doesn't need loudspeakers to hear your prayers; neither does he need your rituals. He understands the language of compassion and love. This is where the true meaning of religion lies. Let us continue blowing the conches, let us keep ringing those bells, let us continue folding our hands and let us continue bending our knees. Let us dance and sing in his glory, let us praise the almighty but let us change.