Faith Lost - I : God and Godman
I know I might be ‘hurting religious feelings of a particular community’ as they say in the print media. But I have to write it down before I myself change my ideas and opinions as I know that I myself am a part and parcel of the community and honestly hypocrite. The current world is clearly dominated and divided with the idea of religion. People feel that hunger, thirst and basic livelihood are secondary necessities and having a faith in the god will suffice all the problems we face.
The Chief Minister of Maharashtra routinely plights the god on the day of ‘Ashadhi Ekadashi’ to provide enough food and water to the people of the state. The President of the USA always states “In god we trust”. Is this the pure faith shown by the so called most powerful man on Earth or pure modesty or simple scapegoat for non performance? Whatever it is, but the basic question still prevails. Does God exist? I say to myself “ don’t be naive and hypocrite” you may think you are a pure atheist, but deep in the heart you always feel that there is this almighty saviour who will get you out in real tight situations and corners. Do we have faith that God does exist and there will be definite victory of good Vs evil? Please ask these questions and you won’t get an answer.
The God is represented in the form of holy symbolism and there are different ways to establish these symbols in different Religions and Faiths. Let them be Idols of different mythological Gods and Goddesses placed in the temples, a simple wall showing the direction to Mecca, a Crucified Christ in a Church or a large statue of Buddha in a Monastery. These forms are generally to identify common man’s identity in terms of faith and religion.
The real problem starts here. When it comes to a physical form of the faith, it needs maintenance. For maintenance, there needs to be certain rules and regulations and people to write down these rules. To implement these rules you need certain amount of physical aid in the form of money, manpower and offerings. To maintain the men you need a system and organisation like any other corporate one. These men are the root to all the problems. They are the middlemen between God and a commoner. The pure atheist breed of humans who definitely know that the almighty doesn’t exists. They know for sure that the god will not eat the Prasad and offerings maid by the devotee. Just imagine the condition of these middlemen if the Ganapati actually drank the milk! Will they offer the Prasad then?
To maintain the symbols and the guarding men, organisations are made. The basic purposes of the organisations are to always keep the common man frightened but dazzled in the glory of the almighty. They don’t stop there. They create a hierarchy between the gods and differentiate even between ‘powers’ of different Ganapatis. Can you tell the difference between the Dagadusheth halawai Ganapati and a small society Ganapati? Are they different or the organisation around them different? One must start asking questions to self before having a blind faith.
Recently there was news stating stolen jewellery at Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam. The details were not much revealed as usual as the connections would have revealed many sacred names. But the overall details were that the gems and jewels costing thousands of crores and worth like nothing on this Earth in terms antique and social value were systematically replaced with fakes and imitation jewels. Many of the stolen gems were devoted by then Prosperous Vijaynagar kingdom and now seem to be a lost treasure and heritage. Aren’t these thieves/middlemen dressed in the cloths of priests and sadhus afraid of the God? Aren’t they afraid of the consequences they will have to face in the hell due to their sins? Sorry I forgot, they are the ones who define the rules and regulations for Paap and Punya and the ways to ensure safe passage to the heaven. Probably they know the back doors of the heaven and are hiding them from common people. Let me just stop talking this sarcastic nonsense. What matters most is the still persisting queue of people outside Tirupati donating anything from cash to diamonds in the offering box. Still there is segregation of darshan queues in terms of value of offering, obviously poorer standing in the longest. Now there is a new swanky airport coming up at Tirupati and is inaugurated by the Prime Minister.
Western society is that way more critical and open minded while looking at the concept of religion and God. In The Godfather III, the involvement of money and power to control the Vatican is bravely shown. The money is shown so powerful that it can decide the life and death of the Pope. The holy war between Christian America against the Muslim Iraq is still raging but mainly it is over the Petroleum rights. Israel is still fighting the Arab world for their Jewish homeland. All the terrorism is funded by Petro and Opium dollars from the Arab world. New swanky marble clad Mosques are mushrooming in the Konkan region; don’t forget that the RDX used in Mumbai blasts was smuggled from the same region. The ruthless, dangerous and politically ambitious Bhindranwale and the Khalistan movement took shelter of the symbolic Golden temple and ran the operations of killing common innocent people in front of the ‘Guru di Gaddi’. If we look in the history we will find that the Somnath Temple was repeatedly looted by the Mahmud of Ghazani, but still people and rulers restored the wealth of the temple, to be looted again. What was this? A bribe to the God? Or a faith, that the God will protect the people if kept happy and rich.
The cases of ‘Godmen’ are slightly difficult. The Godman takes higher risks in the profession but then the rewards are also very high. The Godman pretends to be the shadow of the God himself. A holy spirit sent by the god to show the right way to the common people. Most of the times, they start off as small time preachers and develop great oratory skills. As the fan following increases so does the power to negotiate, bend and break the laws of the society. Many of such Godmen are actually a way to hide and or regularise bad deeds of the supporters. They also provide vote-banks to the election politics, as in the case of various ‘Deras” in Punjab. Once they become over powering or over ambitious, political strings are pulled and we all know the consequences. These Godmen also commit various crimes themselves from adultery to murder. There are so many ‘Shankaracharyas’ now and they command specific vote bank for a party. There are so many spiritual speakers preaching Christianity on national TV that they create an image of being next to the Christ themselves. They are massively funded by the churches to spread the faith and as a result of increasing revenue to the institution. People create Godman even after they are no more. For example Gautam Buddha was a lesser powerful driving force, a political class so they created Babasaheb Ambedkar. There must be nothing more powerful like converting water in to wine, extracting gold rings from thin air as prasad, ensuring pleasures of virgin girls in the heaven if died as a Jihadi. But what really drives them is the power and money that comes by fooling people in to believing in God and having Faith.
All the religious institution, let it be a well known temple trusts, Waquf boards, Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee or Vatican Church, they all hold significant amounts of wealth and power which is generated by creating an aura of Fear and Faith around the unknown power called God. These institutes always seem fighting for more power and wealth. What gives them strength is the common man who believes that something good will happen by pleasing, bribing gods. All the rituals and the Sanskrit Mantras are created to ensure constant livelihood to the particular cast and group of people. The common man was deprived of general knowledge. I have witnessed marriage ceremonies of that way illiterate people where these Gurujees recite anything from Atharvasheersha to Raamraksha in between the Mangalashtakas. Who is getting fooled here? Faith that the marriage will be successful and the first child will be a masculine child only by the blessings of such people? Or the commonsense that if the thing has to get wrong it will get wrong if not handled properly.
Small small gestures like stealing neighbour’s flower garden to decorate your devghar and explaining that it’s just for the sake of God if caught, shows the general concept of faith inside the minds of the commoners and so called God fearing people.
Don’t you lose your appetite after watching an elderly beggar carrying a small or infant grandchild eating out of the dust bin of the same restaurant you just had nice expensive dinner? Probably you have wasted a plate full of delicacies because you didn’t like the taste. Think honestly how many times you have ignored this poverty and thought of having an ice cream or nice maghai paan later.
What faith such poor people must be carrying? Which God they have faith in will help them in the situation?
Doesn’t a commoner see all this? Is the average level of common sense so low that one just doesn’t understand the hidden agenda? The whole system of faith is best explained when one deposits lot of money to claim a Nigerian lottery mail. The whole business of Gods, Godman and their Middlemen runs like.. Forward this picture of Lord Ganesha to 100 people and you will hear good news in 24 hours, otherwise....
The Chief Minister of Maharashtra routinely plights the god on the day of ‘Ashadhi Ekadashi’ to provide enough food and water to the people of the state. The President of the USA always states “In god we trust”. Is this the pure faith shown by the so called most powerful man on Earth or pure modesty or simple scapegoat for non performance? Whatever it is, but the basic question still prevails. Does God exist? I say to myself “ don’t be naive and hypocrite” you may think you are a pure atheist, but deep in the heart you always feel that there is this almighty saviour who will get you out in real tight situations and corners. Do we have faith that God does exist and there will be definite victory of good Vs evil? Please ask these questions and you won’t get an answer.
The God is represented in the form of holy symbolism and there are different ways to establish these symbols in different Religions and Faiths. Let them be Idols of different mythological Gods and Goddesses placed in the temples, a simple wall showing the direction to Mecca, a Crucified Christ in a Church or a large statue of Buddha in a Monastery. These forms are generally to identify common man’s identity in terms of faith and religion.
The real problem starts here. When it comes to a physical form of the faith, it needs maintenance. For maintenance, there needs to be certain rules and regulations and people to write down these rules. To implement these rules you need certain amount of physical aid in the form of money, manpower and offerings. To maintain the men you need a system and organisation like any other corporate one. These men are the root to all the problems. They are the middlemen between God and a commoner. The pure atheist breed of humans who definitely know that the almighty doesn’t exists. They know for sure that the god will not eat the Prasad and offerings maid by the devotee. Just imagine the condition of these middlemen if the Ganapati actually drank the milk! Will they offer the Prasad then?
To maintain the symbols and the guarding men, organisations are made. The basic purposes of the organisations are to always keep the common man frightened but dazzled in the glory of the almighty. They don’t stop there. They create a hierarchy between the gods and differentiate even between ‘powers’ of different Ganapatis. Can you tell the difference between the Dagadusheth halawai Ganapati and a small society Ganapati? Are they different or the organisation around them different? One must start asking questions to self before having a blind faith.
Recently there was news stating stolen jewellery at Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam. The details were not much revealed as usual as the connections would have revealed many sacred names. But the overall details were that the gems and jewels costing thousands of crores and worth like nothing on this Earth in terms antique and social value were systematically replaced with fakes and imitation jewels. Many of the stolen gems were devoted by then Prosperous Vijaynagar kingdom and now seem to be a lost treasure and heritage. Aren’t these thieves/middlemen dressed in the cloths of priests and sadhus afraid of the God? Aren’t they afraid of the consequences they will have to face in the hell due to their sins? Sorry I forgot, they are the ones who define the rules and regulations for Paap and Punya and the ways to ensure safe passage to the heaven. Probably they know the back doors of the heaven and are hiding them from common people. Let me just stop talking this sarcastic nonsense. What matters most is the still persisting queue of people outside Tirupati donating anything from cash to diamonds in the offering box. Still there is segregation of darshan queues in terms of value of offering, obviously poorer standing in the longest. Now there is a new swanky airport coming up at Tirupati and is inaugurated by the Prime Minister.
Western society is that way more critical and open minded while looking at the concept of religion and God. In The Godfather III, the involvement of money and power to control the Vatican is bravely shown. The money is shown so powerful that it can decide the life and death of the Pope. The holy war between Christian America against the Muslim Iraq is still raging but mainly it is over the Petroleum rights. Israel is still fighting the Arab world for their Jewish homeland. All the terrorism is funded by Petro and Opium dollars from the Arab world. New swanky marble clad Mosques are mushrooming in the Konkan region; don’t forget that the RDX used in Mumbai blasts was smuggled from the same region. The ruthless, dangerous and politically ambitious Bhindranwale and the Khalistan movement took shelter of the symbolic Golden temple and ran the operations of killing common innocent people in front of the ‘Guru di Gaddi’. If we look in the history we will find that the Somnath Temple was repeatedly looted by the Mahmud of Ghazani, but still people and rulers restored the wealth of the temple, to be looted again. What was this? A bribe to the God? Or a faith, that the God will protect the people if kept happy and rich.
The cases of ‘Godmen’ are slightly difficult. The Godman takes higher risks in the profession but then the rewards are also very high. The Godman pretends to be the shadow of the God himself. A holy spirit sent by the god to show the right way to the common people. Most of the times, they start off as small time preachers and develop great oratory skills. As the fan following increases so does the power to negotiate, bend and break the laws of the society. Many of such Godmen are actually a way to hide and or regularise bad deeds of the supporters. They also provide vote-banks to the election politics, as in the case of various ‘Deras” in Punjab. Once they become over powering or over ambitious, political strings are pulled and we all know the consequences. These Godmen also commit various crimes themselves from adultery to murder. There are so many ‘Shankaracharyas’ now and they command specific vote bank for a party. There are so many spiritual speakers preaching Christianity on national TV that they create an image of being next to the Christ themselves. They are massively funded by the churches to spread the faith and as a result of increasing revenue to the institution. People create Godman even after they are no more. For example Gautam Buddha was a lesser powerful driving force, a political class so they created Babasaheb Ambedkar. There must be nothing more powerful like converting water in to wine, extracting gold rings from thin air as prasad, ensuring pleasures of virgin girls in the heaven if died as a Jihadi. But what really drives them is the power and money that comes by fooling people in to believing in God and having Faith.
All the religious institution, let it be a well known temple trusts, Waquf boards, Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee or Vatican Church, they all hold significant amounts of wealth and power which is generated by creating an aura of Fear and Faith around the unknown power called God. These institutes always seem fighting for more power and wealth. What gives them strength is the common man who believes that something good will happen by pleasing, bribing gods. All the rituals and the Sanskrit Mantras are created to ensure constant livelihood to the particular cast and group of people. The common man was deprived of general knowledge. I have witnessed marriage ceremonies of that way illiterate people where these Gurujees recite anything from Atharvasheersha to Raamraksha in between the Mangalashtakas. Who is getting fooled here? Faith that the marriage will be successful and the first child will be a masculine child only by the blessings of such people? Or the commonsense that if the thing has to get wrong it will get wrong if not handled properly.
Small small gestures like stealing neighbour’s flower garden to decorate your devghar and explaining that it’s just for the sake of God if caught, shows the general concept of faith inside the minds of the commoners and so called God fearing people.
Don’t you lose your appetite after watching an elderly beggar carrying a small or infant grandchild eating out of the dust bin of the same restaurant you just had nice expensive dinner? Probably you have wasted a plate full of delicacies because you didn’t like the taste. Think honestly how many times you have ignored this poverty and thought of having an ice cream or nice maghai paan later.
What faith such poor people must be carrying? Which God they have faith in will help them in the situation?
Doesn’t a commoner see all this? Is the average level of common sense so low that one just doesn’t understand the hidden agenda? The whole system of faith is best explained when one deposits lot of money to claim a Nigerian lottery mail. The whole business of Gods, Godman and their Middlemen runs like.. Forward this picture of Lord Ganesha to 100 people and you will hear good news in 24 hours, otherwise....
posted by शिरीष गानू at 6:30 PM
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