Let's get this clear-Idol worship is not mandatory in our epics. But I didn't know that as a 9 year old kid when I was determined to prove to the world through some Frankenstein experimentations that instead of sitting in a temple with the idols, without having an insight, or an understanding of sacred books, one should try to have their own interpretation of these scriptures and apply it in their own lives.
And mind you I was a religious person! Deeply religious person. Many of my close friends will find it the hardest thing to believe today, but I, yes, I used to go to the temple every Friday, used to go fold my hands in front of idols and have those super secretive conversations with God that- let us all admit- were more like wishes and demands than 'prayers'.
But then to my 9-year-old self, devotion didn't simply imply spending hours reading scriptures, and singing and chanting in the temples, but it means to selflessly and ardently believe in the principles laid down for us to interpret and follow.
Many people ponder on the meaning of a ritual- especially the youth for they will not so easily accept ancient traditions as they are presented: why do young people touch feet of elders, why do Indians stand up during national anthem, why do Hindus hang leaves and flowers on the threshold of the house during festivals, why do Muslims fast during the month of Ramzan? I used to ponder on that too back in my childhood days. (Mom, if you are reading don't try to say 'as if you are too grown-up now, because the other day you said I was not a child anymore and that I should behave. :3) And as I started to kick into my first decade, often I noticed they were given explanations that comforted them, which is assumed to be the ‘right’ explanation.
I had turned into a resolute atheist at 12, unable to find my answers wit 'so-called' priests and a 'fake' institution made to only control people. I read the Bhagvad Gita, simply to try see if I could find answers. Because despite being verbally and mentally convinced that there was no such thing as God, my soul was trying to communicate something else to me.
However, as I leafed through the book, the constant 'ego' of (I today know firmly, the biggest conversationalist I may have come across, and believe you me I love him a lot.) Lord Krishna.
And then cycle of time turned in ways. And some things happened. They fell in place.
It all started when I was barely 13.5 year old and read Alyson Noel’s Immortal series where I was introduced to the word ‘Transcendental Meditation’. I was beyond exhilaration at that point in time; it was a mixed feeling of great contentment and sadness. Contentment because it soothed me that I was not the only one who thought of life’s mechanisms in that way and that there are so many adherents out there who would understand me, as compared to my immediate surrounding. Sadness because, I always used to think I was a mini-genius to be able to think otherwise and that I would grow up revealing the ‘truth’ to the world. Of course, I was infantile and gamine then.
I do not associate myself with any group or what may be known as sect, but since my 15 birthday, I was convinced that believing makes crystalizes reality. I tend to think of it in terms of metaphysics, positive thinking, the law of attraction, healing, life force, creative visualization, and personal power. Infinite Intelligence, or God, is everywhere, spirit is the totality of real things, true human selfhood is divine, divine thought is a force for good, sickness originates in the mind, and "right thinking" has a healing effect.
It was Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsh that hit my thinking ship straight to the dock, yet challenges me to fetch for more, or more appropriately, create more. This book's greatest recommendation is that we each must take responsibility for our lives, and that by changing our basic judgments and perceptions. The only one reason to do anything: as a statement to the universe of Who You Are. The world around us is a spiritual machine, an expression of God's creative thought inspired by our collective consciousness. It taught me the beauty of religion, not indoctrination as most people live by. It taught me, indirectly, to attribute rituals with the correct value as well as how much space religion and atheism should have in one's life.
Not that there is a required percentage of either, unless there probably is. But that is far well 'too much' for me to write about right now.
. . .
Today even, at 19, while I am nearing my second decade, if I tell them rituals are essentially meaningless, they will reject my answer, for such an answer makes no sense to them. Thus, those who ask questions often control answers they receive. They hear only what they want to hear!
Rituals have no intrinsic meaning. But that does not mean they are not valuable. This is what many sociologists and anthropologists have been trying to explain, but few have accepted this answer.
One day, last year's last year, yeah you got it (:3), I fell on the following lines:
"Look at the singing of the national anthem: its value lies in performing it and not in understanding it. Whether the song makes sense or not, whether you feel like standing or not, whether you feel it communicates respect or not, you are obliged to do it unconditionally. You have no right to edit it, re-imagine it, or reinterpret it. Even the courts are clear. It has to be performed in the way laid out by the founders of the country. No questions asked.
By performing it collectively, regularly and over long periods of time, the feeling of patriotism is evoked. This is the ‘behavioral’ model of rituals, that educates us through the body while bypassing the mind. It is perhaps based on how children learn, through mimicry. That is why many ritualists will say, just do ‘puja’ and slowly ‘bhakti’ will emerge in your heart."
When people seek meaning of particular rituals (like my 12-year-old atheist self used to) they want the answer to fit a particular template that they have in their mind. For example, they expect all ancient stuff to be ‘scientific’.
Try explaining more complex non-literal meanings using psychology or sociology, and they will turn away saying, “That’s too intellectual,” or “That is not correct, I feel.”
I was in my General Paper Class in 2014, and a conversation arose when we were discussing the topic ''Science v/s Religion".
And everyone of course, as any normal 21st-century kid living out of the US (because US commoners do not take science as their almighty) was championing science; saying that the transition from religion to science was divine, and how we should really grow out of superstitions. I did not disagree with them. I do not disagree with them still today.
But at times, I used to wonder as a child, and definitely I'm convinced of today, that aren't we replacing religion by science? As humans, we are merely trying to build our concept of this almighty amazing new paradigm of belief that comforts us and the world that makes us, us.
And the question that I asked to my classmates that day was: What if tomorrow something were to replace science as well? (Secretly I know that it would be something like 'enlightenment'.)
To that, a friend, said that it would be impossible and that nothing can replace technology. In my heart, I imagined some old peasant in the medieval times screaming: "Impossible! Nothing can replace religion."
I don't mean to say that religion, science or beliefs are wrong and that psychology and anthropology are right. They all makes us who we are. And we need a little bit of all of them to understand rituals and our journey here, ''on Earth''.
The class ended that day with me saying out loud: "The technological era might very well be over. What if we were entering the Consciousness Era?"
. . .
I read the Bhagvad Gita again at 16. And My God, was I blown away? I could not hold myself from laughing at my ignorant 12-year-old self. I had confused the ''I, Me and Myself"s of my dear friend Krishna with the 'ego' when what he actually meant that "''I, Me and Myself" is all of us, the universe. Because he is no different and separate from me, and vice versa, because we are all one, when he speaks in his personal name, he speaks in the name of all the Gods within each of ourselves. We are all one after all.
From that experience, I learnt that, what is important in this journey is not the knowledge, is not the wisdom, is not the environment,is not the religion, or the atheism, or the society. What is important is deep open-mindedness and pre requisitely an awakened soul. Self-awareness is really the key to this 'mystery'.
And in Neale's words, the answers are really right in front of us. They truly are.
Sure thing, this is something that I barely explicitly wrote about during my entire stay here: my earnest drive to constantly observe my growth as an individual: not only in the intellectual or physical world but also at a very soulful level. I am a firm believer of the Law of Attraction and for the past 4 years I have taken up personal spirituality very seriously.
As a ‘Bringer of Light’, at times I feel like a magnet- a regional tour that many try to connect to in their moments of depression, blues, confusions and anxiety. I do feel as though they come to me for the healing process. To the spiritually ignorant, it may come off as a boast but this has been the reality of my entire life. I am extremely empathetic and tend to receive peoples various emotions and vibrations very easily. For the past 3 years ever since I publicly accepted my role as a Bringer of Light the exchanges have been more concrete, more frequent and definitely more complex.
Thus, my ultimate aim in life is to not let the light within me to ever grow dimmer and believe that love makes life live.
Until next time,
Be Light,
Much love,
. . .
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