Do we really need a God? Yes that was the question I asked myself when I recently happened to visit some very famous and holy Hindu shrines.
I mean, mankind has technologically advanced to a point where God as a being ( if One really does exist ) is considered to be a defeatist Concept. The educated, cultured and level headed youth of this generation regards worship to A Higher Being as a figment of one's imagination, a relic of an outdated mindset, a last resort of one's excuse to take refuge in a delusion.
But in the famous temples that I was just talking about, people in tens of thousands were thronging to get a second's glimpse, of a rock, a decorated rock at that, or an old rusted metal idol. What is this paradox? Why aren't these people paying heed to what learned men of Science telling us that we should dump this God thing once and for all and embrace Rationalism.
There are several ways we have heard God being justified- that He is omnipotent,omnipresent, ever Benevolent and so on. That to question and contradict the age old concept is an Absolute No No and we would be committing untold sins if we ever go against the writtten and tested Truth. That God wreaks vengeance and teaches the Non believer a lesson in life by subjecting him to untold miseries.
Is God so vengeful, so conceited, so selfish, so egoistic!!! I was troubled by all this and more. It is considered very fashionable and wise,very down to earth and rational, when parents hear their children asking questions about the veracity of puranaas, the probability that the improbable is probable and the Impossible is, well just impossible. That what we don't see doesn't exist and history should have documented proofs of the existence and continuance of this God and material evidence of His Miracles.
Well, well, well. I can go on and on like this but before that, i just happened to see a small tea shop guy in front of this huge temple dress up his tiny daughter and send her to school. I just finished my tea he gave me and asked him how much i should pay. He told me it would be five rupees. I gave him a five rupee coin and he placed it reverently before the small idol of God in his shop. I couldn't resist asking him why he did that. Afterall he was the one who brewed the tea and not the idol! He simply replied that He is The Ultimate Provider of Everything.
As I walked away finishing my tea, i just wandered around the place. Here was a school, an Hospital a reserve forest, a godown of human hair, vedic pathasala, water purifying plant and such others, all maintained by the Trust formed to collect and utilise the income of this God. Income of God? How ludicrous! The Giver of All, the All Pervading, The Eternal '- having an income and having to pay taxes like us puny humans, his supposed creation!
But who was generating this income to this temple that has emabled it to start and maintain the varied ventures and mushrooming small shops, eateries and other small businesses providing shelter and livelihood to scores of people. Why, it is the devotees, the very same devotees who were patiently waiting in serpentine queues to have darshan and were dropping their offerings, grateful offerings to The Ultimate Provider who bestowed all their needs and desires! So in a sense it was the people who were feeding and sustaining more people in a circle which had this Faith in God as its epicenter. So in many ways it was like an industry, just as we speak of software industry, movie industry etc where people provide for people and it becomes self sustaining.
I just did some googling and calculation and the figures were astounding.
The Indian software industry is worth about 177 billion dollars or about 17700 crores and employs about 4.1 million employees. Well.commendable figures.
In comparison, this temple industry which revolves and depends not on sophisticated software or astronomically expensive state of the art hardware but on simple unalloyed untried and rustic Faith in God makes, in a very rough calculation nearly 60,000 crores of Rupees a year ( a very conservative estimate based on the assumption that there are nearly three million temples in India each making roughly 2 lakh Rupees a year)
It is worth noting that there are several temples which make much much more than that and it is just a crude average i used. I may be very wrong but i want to err on the wrong side.
But is it just the money. Many temples or abodes of God (for the devotees) are shrouded in greenery or densely wooded forests. There are great rain forests elsewhere in the world like for example The Amazon, the lungs of the Earth. But recently we have heard of devastating fires consuming and destroying these beautiful ecosystems. Many of these are man made. Why doesn't something similar ever happen in our forests surrounding these temples? Because of this very same Faith. That these are the province of God and touching them or harming them is sin. So we are conserving very healthy ecosystems and saving wildlife and provisioning rainfall and.climate control.
But who devised all this system of conservation, self propagation and generation of employment for millions.
Whoever they were they must be great scientists, ecological experts and management geniuses all rolled into one. Our ancient sages was the answer that was looking at me. These were the men who envisaged the changes that would sweep the Earth in the coming years, the burgeoning population needing food, food and more food. No food would grow without conducive climate and so they needed to think of ways of preserving forests. To prevent deforestation they made sure that tropical forests and ecosystems were centred around temples that were run on Faith. To generate Faith they created ultimate works of poetic magnificence The Vedas and Sruthis, the puranas and Upanishads and smritis. These were undoubtedly were and still are the greatest literary works ever created and surpass everything and anything that came after them.
The priest was created to learn and propagate these works of tradition the continuation of which would form the cornerstone for sustaining the Faith in God. Because everything depended on that Faith. So in a way this Very same Faith is still nurturing, sustaining and propagating mankind. Call it God or by whatever name you like.
Just a few of my thoughts i felt like sharing. No offence meant to anyone. Feel free to differ.
I mean, mankind has technologically advanced to a point where God as a being ( if One really does exist ) is considered to be a defeatist Concept. The educated, cultured and level headed youth of this generation regards worship to A Higher Being as a figment of one's imagination, a relic of an outdated mindset, a last resort of one's excuse to take refuge in a delusion.
But in the famous temples that I was just talking about, people in tens of thousands were thronging to get a second's glimpse, of a rock, a decorated rock at that, or an old rusted metal idol. What is this paradox? Why aren't these people paying heed to what learned men of Science telling us that we should dump this God thing once and for all and embrace Rationalism.
There are several ways we have heard God being justified- that He is omnipotent,omnipresent, ever Benevolent and so on. That to question and contradict the age old concept is an Absolute No No and we would be committing untold sins if we ever go against the writtten and tested Truth. That God wreaks vengeance and teaches the Non believer a lesson in life by subjecting him to untold miseries.
Is God so vengeful, so conceited, so selfish, so egoistic!!! I was troubled by all this and more. It is considered very fashionable and wise,very down to earth and rational, when parents hear their children asking questions about the veracity of puranaas, the probability that the improbable is probable and the Impossible is, well just impossible. That what we don't see doesn't exist and history should have documented proofs of the existence and continuance of this God and material evidence of His Miracles.
Well, well, well. I can go on and on like this but before that, i just happened to see a small tea shop guy in front of this huge temple dress up his tiny daughter and send her to school. I just finished my tea he gave me and asked him how much i should pay. He told me it would be five rupees. I gave him a five rupee coin and he placed it reverently before the small idol of God in his shop. I couldn't resist asking him why he did that. Afterall he was the one who brewed the tea and not the idol! He simply replied that He is The Ultimate Provider of Everything.
As I walked away finishing my tea, i just wandered around the place. Here was a school, an Hospital a reserve forest, a godown of human hair, vedic pathasala, water purifying plant and such others, all maintained by the Trust formed to collect and utilise the income of this God. Income of God? How ludicrous! The Giver of All, the All Pervading, The Eternal '- having an income and having to pay taxes like us puny humans, his supposed creation!
But who was generating this income to this temple that has emabled it to start and maintain the varied ventures and mushrooming small shops, eateries and other small businesses providing shelter and livelihood to scores of people. Why, it is the devotees, the very same devotees who were patiently waiting in serpentine queues to have darshan and were dropping their offerings, grateful offerings to The Ultimate Provider who bestowed all their needs and desires! So in a sense it was the people who were feeding and sustaining more people in a circle which had this Faith in God as its epicenter. So in many ways it was like an industry, just as we speak of software industry, movie industry etc where people provide for people and it becomes self sustaining.
I just did some googling and calculation and the figures were astounding.
The Indian software industry is worth about 177 billion dollars or about 17700 crores and employs about 4.1 million employees. Well.commendable figures.
In comparison, this temple industry which revolves and depends not on sophisticated software or astronomically expensive state of the art hardware but on simple unalloyed untried and rustic Faith in God makes, in a very rough calculation nearly 60,000 crores of Rupees a year ( a very conservative estimate based on the assumption that there are nearly three million temples in India each making roughly 2 lakh Rupees a year)
It is worth noting that there are several temples which make much much more than that and it is just a crude average i used. I may be very wrong but i want to err on the wrong side.
But is it just the money. Many temples or abodes of God (for the devotees) are shrouded in greenery or densely wooded forests. There are great rain forests elsewhere in the world like for example The Amazon, the lungs of the Earth. But recently we have heard of devastating fires consuming and destroying these beautiful ecosystems. Many of these are man made. Why doesn't something similar ever happen in our forests surrounding these temples? Because of this very same Faith. That these are the province of God and touching them or harming them is sin. So we are conserving very healthy ecosystems and saving wildlife and provisioning rainfall and.climate control.
But who devised all this system of conservation, self propagation and generation of employment for millions.
Whoever they were they must be great scientists, ecological experts and management geniuses all rolled into one. Our ancient sages was the answer that was looking at me. These were the men who envisaged the changes that would sweep the Earth in the coming years, the burgeoning population needing food, food and more food. No food would grow without conducive climate and so they needed to think of ways of preserving forests. To prevent deforestation they made sure that tropical forests and ecosystems were centred around temples that were run on Faith. To generate Faith they created ultimate works of poetic magnificence The Vedas and Sruthis, the puranas and Upanishads and smritis. These were undoubtedly were and still are the greatest literary works ever created and surpass everything and anything that came after them.
The priest was created to learn and propagate these works of tradition the continuation of which would form the cornerstone for sustaining the Faith in God. Because everything depended on that Faith. So in a way this Very same Faith is still nurturing, sustaining and propagating mankind. Call it God or by whatever name you like.
Just a few of my thoughts i felt like sharing. No offence meant to anyone. Feel free to differ.
