"Faith at Stake" - Spoiling the name of god

ARTICLE BY ASHISH AGARWAL

(The article is not meant to hurt someone’s religious feelings and sentiments. Kindly take it as an article. In the article, none of the holy place is specifically targeted and no person is blamed. Any resemblance may be taken as co-incidence and author holds no responsibility. However, the article is based on the true facts)

Since ages, man and his sentiments have been somehow linked to god and the godly presence just to maintain the routine and discipline in life. Man’s faith in god makes him learn good things and thus a continuity of healthy society is maintained.

Science now proves, Indian rituals, customs and beliefs have their foundations deep into the scientific phenomenon and those were made by the spiritual leaders of the ancient times in order to make lives better. These rituals and customs were then subjected to the name of god to make common people follow them easily.

This faith and belief is continuing since thousands of years and people still make attempts to visit holy places at occasions to offer prayers to their holy gods. But the times have now changed. Faith does exist but the human intentions have now taken different shapes.

Every day, millions of worshippers visit such holy places to make their gods happy and gain their blessings. Miracles are another factor that mobilizes people to these places. But the other group of people seeks it as a potential industry. During my several trips to such holy places, I observed the picture closely. Priests, trustees and security personnel are the culprits.

At a temple in North India (name undisclosed), what I saw knocked my socks off. Priests and temple administration played a joint role in making money out of common man’s faith. Ten to fifteen shrines and one priest at every shrine were there. It was nearly inconceivable to get out of there without offering a sum of money (desirable amount: more than 10 rupees and likely to a maximum of 500 to 1000 rupees) in the name of the deity. Actually it was for the sake of priests because god never asked anyone to pay money in return of the blessings. Imagine the income of the temple administration on total, it comes to millions daily. Isn’t it better than any other business?

At another such holy place, I encountered a long waiting queue. What I found was, the queue was not getting long because huge crowd was there but it was merely a way to earn. The temple agents charged rich people a minimum of Rs.500 to enter through the back door of the temple and worship the deity ceremoniously. What about those who were waiting in the queue patiently for the last 3-4 hours and that too continuously sweating?.

Is it a cinema or a picnic spot that these agents charged the innocent worshippers hugely and that too in the name of god? It seems that the democracy and the common man’s faith in the system are being mocked. This is the picture of our proud ancient culture, the country which is known for it and worshipped for it. There are thousands of such cases. If I keep mentioning all, I think you won’t be able to read them and the blog space would fall short.