Sunday, August 27, 2006

Being Religious..

Let me admit, I am not much into religion and god.

But I want to understand Hinduism. What is it that defines us other than the fact that we have 33 crore gods? (There's a cool story associated with that, but more on that later...)

But when I ask questions - why can't I eat onion and garlic on a religious day, but OK to eat carrot? (assuming it's to do with this stuff growing underground, so does carrot!) - what do the aartis mean? - all I get is condemnation and ridicule - stop asking questions, don't be a firang, don't try and be a rebel, we have been doing this for years, so don't try and belittle it.

I think it's sad. Sad because religious books and practices were meant to teach us so much, not just to be followed blindly! And we, even the educated elite, do not seem to understand or care. I want to be religious, but I am stopped from learning the tenets of my own religion.

No wonder there's so much strife and pain and violence in the name of religion. Because when we, the educated elite fail to understand religion, how can we expect those illiterate, poor masses to "follow the right path"?

Coming back to the story of the 33 crore gods - we have always been told that Hindus have "33 koti dev" - koti meaning crore. And yet, I met one bhatji last year who told me, koti meant category - class - meaning, there were 33 main "categories/groups/varieties" of gods.

So much for our religion...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not eating onion, garlic or anything that grows underground in the four months of chaturmasa, not cooking anything and eating only fruits on some day and some of more such TODOs and NOT TODOs probably made sense in those days when very little was known about science and how things really work.

With due respect to religion and the thinkers and preachers who laid out these rules, I think we need to redefine some tenets, really see how many of them hold true in today's world and do away with the ones that don't.

One clear example I see out here in my own city is the proliferation of Ganesh mandals. Lokmanya Tilak started the practice of a public Ganesh festival to bring people from all castes and creeds together, to unite them. Well - that point pretty much holds good today too, but I don't think we need two mandals in every square to prove that we are united! The questions are:

How much is enough?
Where to draw a line?

Unknown said...

Couldn't agree with you more on this.