Prayers,
like breathing, are an integral part of human life. They are considered more
sacred than hard work. Bereft of a scientific sentiment and a rationalist
mind-set, people believe that prayers to the gods of their choices will bring
to their doorsteps all comforts of life: health, wealth and a powerful status
in society.
May
be these are puritan prayers. But, amazingly, sinful souls also resort to
prayers with a view to getting them pardoned from the misdeeds they commit in
life. Prayer is thus considered Aladdin’s Lamp, the possession of which is
frantically sought by every human soul.
Pathetically,
prayers are always purpose-oriented, having specific demand-tags attached to
them. Again, they are not a one-time affair and the god in question is
continuously solicited by men either for getting more of what they already have
or for retaining it.
Fear
of losing comforts that are presumed to have been achieved through prayers
always haunts men. Swami Adiswarananda aptly describes men’s predicament thus:
“The healthy have the fear of disease, the wealthy of thieves and the robbers,
the beautiful of the old age, the socially prominent of dishonor, the learned
of rivals and the virtuous of scandal.”
Advent
of money, coupled with the advancement of science and technology, makes the
world a global village that offers droves of comforts to men. These are sought
to be owned by the human tribe not through hard work but through prayers.
Prayers
have now become gimmicks with the evolution of innumerable gods. Each caste or
sub-caste has its own god. Families too have their own deities. Abodes of gods
don’t stop with cities and villages. Every pavement or platform is now littered
with a variety of small, petty and makeshift temples.
Gods
in such temples are worshipped in many unique ways. Along with mass prayers,
the rural gods are offered padayals
[special food] which normally contain a sackful of goat meat and a bottle of
arrack. People who feed their gods in this way promise more sacks and bottles
if their prayers are heard and answered.
Conventional
prayers of the above kind are always visible. Conversely, most of ‘have-all’ do
not have faith in explicit prayers; theirs are implicit and silent. You cannot
trace and decipher the gods to whom they pray. But everything – their requests
and the god’s response-comes to light the moment these prayerists offer some
gifts or presents to the gods of their choice, who had heard their prayers and
responded favorably. The gift of a Tusker to the Guruvayoor Temple by one of
the TamilNadu Chief Ministers is a case in point.
Today,
in the name of religion, terrorism is unleashed but some disgruntled elements
who, following the dictates of their leaders stage destructive activities in
alien lands, causing the loss of thousands of human precious lives.
The
terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon without any
compassion for the human lives involved in their operation, underscore the
extent of the havoc one could cause if one’s senses are allowed to be
controlled by fanatics. The world is thus exposed to violence and
counter-violence.
Nothing
goes wrong when a person offers prayers for his/her own development and
family’s well-being. It is one of the natural traits of man, which compels him
to place his self above all other things. But, dangers peep in when prayers are
offered by the religious with an ulterior motive of getting political clout and
command.
Today,
mass prayers are resorted to for the purpose of showing the strength of a
particular religion to the powers-that-be. Even now there are places in India
where people belonging to a particular caste are not allowed to offer prayers
in temples by the upper, high-class religious fanatics.
“I
pray for nectar. If I cannot get the nectar, I shall not fall back upon ditch
waters,” said Swami Vivekananda.
Here,
in our country, bigots pray both for nectar and ditch water—nectar for them and
ditch water for their rivals. Secularism can be said to have grown only when
people begin praying for the whole humanity not for their own self-aggrandizement.
*
[I
got an insignia from the Delhi-based ‘Alive’ mag to enter into the world of
writing when they chose to publish this post in their June, 2002 issue. Thus
‘Alive’ had initiated me into the realm of writing a decade ago and made me go
the whole hog with my tryst with words, publishing, off and on, a host of my
writes. Though this post had the privilege of having been set in fine-print, it
now looks mediocre not reflecting the metamorphism my current writings are
sporting. But, back then, I was nascent in the realm of writing, catching up
with its ropes.]
Image
courtesy: Alive mag
