Hi guys!
I recently completed an India yatra, a 3 week long road trip through 6-7 states and back. This was primarily a temple tour with family, and the only thing I was kicked about was being on a long trip away from home!
We visited lots and lots of temples across the country. Temples with historical, divine or some other cultural significance. And some other temples that happened to come on the way , which by the way, was our tour manager's way of giving us a "bonus"! :-P Now, if there is one thing that I would expect from a trip like this is authenticity and peace within me and in the space around me. What I did experience, however, was anything but that.
I experienced chaos and urgency everytime we visited a holy place. Chaos, when there were too many people vying for the best spot in front of the deity, and urgency, when people, in their quest to not miss anything focussed more on getting the “best picture” to share with folks back home, before moving on to the next photo-op spot. So much for a journey of faith!
Talking about faith, everywhere I went, no matter which temple it was, I saw varied manifestations of the "faith" that people sometimes get so touchy about. Before I get into more details, I’d like to ask… can faith in the divine be measured? Well, if it were tangible, then maybe we could measure it by the number of shlokas one knew, or by a tika on one’s forehead, or even by the colour of your clothes and the accessories you adorn.
Well, coming back to the question, I believe that faith in the divine is a very private relationship you share with the power above. Just like any other close relationship, it could have symbolic external manifestations, but what happens in the relationship should be respected and kept private by the people involved.
Well, from the looks of it, not many people seem to subscribe to my view. Which is fine by me. However, from my experiences in this trip, I got a sense that the popular belief is that one’s faith in the divine is something to be exhibited and flaunted about. In a way, faith was used as a commodity to buy social reverence and respect! Sounds too far fetched? Well, I derived this view from the many recurring instances listed down below:
From people who started putting on their most pious behavior and displaying their knowledge of mantras and other "essentials" when they came within a radius of 2 km from the temple, and who seemed to give a damn about the intended message otherwise
From people who saw value in donating huge sums of money to temple trusts, but not having 1/10th of that amount to feed a hungry beggar on the road. While I am not advocating begging, I did find this very hypocritic!
From people who would unquestioningly support the effort to "cleanse" a place of a particular group of people, because a "priest" told them that those people had no right to the place! (I really have to resist the urge to write the name of the place here!)
From people who always wanted to get the "best deal" for themselves even when it came to religious rituals, so what if their fellow groupies got the shorter end of the stick! Like making a hefty donation to get into the “express worship” queue to skip the long line of devotees!
From people who would unflinchingly drink water from a holy river, even if it had visible algae and other "undrinkable" stuff floating on it... and even bottling up this "moksha" giving water to carry back home. And then refusing to share their drinking water with other fellow travellers!
And the same people, who wanted to "cleanse their sins and attain moksha" everytime they came to a holy river! (Almost like doubting the promise of the river to cleanse them in one go! Or wait, maybe they were ensuring an "advance cleansing" for the sins to follow! :-P
Well, this trip was an eye – opener in more ways than one. For starters, it really made me wonder about the purpose of this trip, and the penance in the form of long and difficult days of travelling across the country in the sweltering Indian summer, to visit some of the best temples of the country. Secondly, this new thing called temple tourism. I mean, it’s such a scam man! And lastly, faith should not be restricted to any particular place or situation. It’s like the Lycra ad, you either have it, or you don’t!
Had similar thoughts when going to Tirupati, the atmosphere there is everything other than divine and peaceful, people are ready to quarrel, use foul language just to be first to see the god, and hardly care if they had to bribe the traffic policeman to reach there first, or lie just to get ahead in line, or whatever. Nothing matters when it is question of visiting temple. Just feel that the entire meaning is lost.
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