God

"If you don't take bath regularly, louse will make a rope of your hair and will hang you on a tree!"

My mother's warning used to make my bones chill out and I was so much afraid to miss the bath routine. I don't think I would have developed  the same habit if she had tried explaining the benefits of sanitation! Now, I consider the same trick applied in religion. We can take several instances.

In Hindu religion, we sacrifice an uncastrated he goat or he buffalo to gods or goddesses. People are happy that the killing makes the deities happy. They never go beyond the meaning of those sacrifices. Similarly, we appear extreme devotee when we are near a temple but after crossing the place, we are ready for telling lies or even committing crimes.I remember a friend of mine who used to save his bus fare to offer the goddess at the campus gate!

Someone told me this story long ago. Once, there was an excellent piper somewhere. After his death, people kept his flute at one place and offered flowers. A person was needed to clean the place and safety to the pipe. So, the people hired a priest and also built a temple. Due to too much offerings, the bamboo flute decayed but the people continued their prayers. The piper and his flute in fact got the godly position from them.

This instance, in my view, is applicable to how people (Hindus) started  building idols and temples. I assume that long long ago most of the people were ignorant and it was really  a hard job for the learnned people (yogis) to make the people understand the abstract values and norms. So they might have taken the help of some concrete means. For example, killing our extreme sexual desire was represented as the killing of goat or buffalo. They told people to respect knowledge but the common people couldn't understand it and, therefore, goddess Saraswati was born. In the same way, four headed Brahma, four handed Bishnu, Ganges carrying Shiva, etc were introduced. These made the people understand the things easily but they couldn't travel deep down the things. And this situation will remain for ever. I want to clarify this with an example.

Two years ago, I heard about a row at the place I was working. In the row, as I was told, a man was killed and the killer was none other than the second boy at grade nine studying at the neighbouring school! Not only that but how to interpret the knowledge of the students of Master's degree burning the library this month! Our society respects the so called educated people but not the practical knowledge they've gained. In other words, we pray goddess Saraswati every year but fail to achieve the true form of learnings. In the same way, we pray goddess Laxmi for much riches and are ready to earn by hook or crook leaving behind all human values!

Yesterday, a renown politician posted in Facebook that taking bath daily, fasting, believing that the universe is the creation of the god , etc are the signs of improgressivism (since these are considered essential matters in Hinduism). He might have made a good study before posting his thought but in my opinion, he failed to see the reasons behind highlighting these factors as essential ones. With these matters, we can't attain His grace but surely makes our life beautiful. These factors might have been attached to the religion because people like that politician would not be convinced easily.

To conclude, rites and rituals in any religion are just the means to reach the essence of humanity but not the end in themselves. So, there is meaning neither in worshipping the idols nor in hating them.

(Personal views, welcome for your suggestion.)