Today, I was talking to my best friend on the phone, and he mentioned something really interesting (and perplexing) — his family had conducted a puja in their house today, and while doing these seemingly meaningless rituals, he realized that his mom seems to follow these traditions without ever questioning why she does them. At one point, he said: “It seems almost like my mom fears God instead of loving God, it seems almost like blind faith.”
To give this comment some context, my friend and I both attended a Vedanta-based weekend religious school where we were always taught to question things. We were raised in an environment where Swami Vivekananda’s heavy emphasis on really believing and testing before just accepting ideas played a large role in shaping our spiritual education. In fact, this quote from Karma Yoga stands out as perhaps on of the main ideas in my (and my best friend’s) attitude towards religion — towards the end of Karma Yoga, Swamiji exalts Buddha as the ideal karma yogi, and in his explanation of why he so admired Buddha, Swami Vivekananda says:
“He is the greatest reformer the world has seen. He was the first who dared to say: ‘Believe not because some old manuscripts are quoted; believe not because it is your national belief, because you have been made to believe it from your childhood; but reason it all out, and after your have analysed it and found out that it will do good to one and all, then believe it, live up to it, and help others to live up to it.”‘
So, coming from a background where we were taught to really test everything before deciding that we want to completely follow it, it was frustrating to see older generations relying on, what seems to us like blind faith.
However, after thinking through this and talking for a while, we came to the following conclusion: our parents grew up in very different settings than we are growing up in; life in India is really different, and in the time they were growing up in, and in their households while growing up, perhaps rituals were a large part of their worship. And maybe, this God-fearing relationship is their way of connecting to God — just because it is different for us doesn’t make one right and one wrong! While we were exposed to the ideas of questioning and experimentation so essential in the Western world, our parents grew up in a world where traditions and customs were valued; and so maybe for them, it is more important to connect to God by following what they grew up learning, while we may feel a strong connection by testing first and believing later.
In any case, my friend and I got to talking, and my friend presented the following question: if we question, and in some cases reject, the rituals our parents hold so dear, what are we as a generation going to pass on to our own children? A perplexing question, no doubt. Here was our conclusion: In every generation, children take those ideas which are most relevant to them, which they cherish most, and incorporate those ideas into their daily lives. I don’t think my parents subscribe to the exact same rituals and superstitions that seem common in my grandparents generation — I definitely think that, in a process similar to what my friend and I are currently going through, they too had to decide which ideas they cherished and which they thought were not as important. And now, we are doing the same — and perhaps this is just self-justification, but I don’t think we are necessarily diluting the actual bhakti (devotion, for lack of a better word) by emphasizing what is important to us. Just because I may not choose to pass on a large number of rituals to my children doesn’t mean that my form of religion is inferior to my parents’ form of religion; and in fact, perhaps in a few decades, my hypothetical children will question my own religious practices, calling them blind faith as well!
I sincerely believe that religion should be that which suits us best — and I know that for me, as a person so grounded in philosophy and Vedanta instead of ritual, reading inspiring texts, doing japa, singing bhajans, and sincerely trying to establish myself as a person with a good character are the qualities that I’d like to pass on to future generations; those are what have helped me so far. For our parents, who grew up in a very different background, other aspects of Hinduism may have helped them. And for the generation before, still other Hindu concepts may have helped point them in the right direction. That is the beauty of Hinduism — there is something in it that can appeal to any person, regardless of where they are coming from, what their experience is, and what type of personality they have. If one decides to search, they will be able to find something to ground them and help them in life.
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4 Comments
Sonali- what you said makes sense: that our parents most likely pass down to us what they find to be most important.
And if that’s the case, then perhaps we are misconstruing their actions to be due to blind faith. Perhaps it’s up to our generation to find out what our parents’ generation holds most dear, rather than assuming it is blind faith just because we (people of our generation) find no meaning it.
A question came to mind after reading this article. You say that each person has his or her own way of connecting to god. So then is it possible for us to compare our spirituality with that of others despite the fact that everyone has his or her own unique method of worship due to their family traditions and/or other traditions learned through life experiences?
@Anish
@ Saketh:
At least within the realm of the yogas, isn’t the idea not to rank them, but to think of them all as different paths to reach the same goal?
In general, I personally don’t think there is any yardstick to measure which method is “best,” so to speak, since every approach to religion (whether through the different religions, or even within different approaches to one religion) is based on something slightly different. I do, however, strongly believe that true religion should lead to the same goal of being as good as person as one can be, and seeing that goodness as a way to connect to God.
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