The religion of the self?

[rug]

Apr 24, 2012, 02.32AM IST

Observing a recent religious ritual, one was struck by how much of the prayer had to do with individual desire. One didn't know what exactly the shlokas being recited by the priest meant in Sanskrit, but going by the translation offered, it seemed as if the prayer was nothing but a laundry list of petulant and very specific demands. For health, wealth, success in business ventures, opportunities to travel abroad, the demand for male children and the fervent hope that one's enemies and ill wishers meet with a variety of inauspicious and altogether unhappy accidents. In short, under the garb of holiness and piety, what was being transacted was a shoddy deal between man and God, with one's belief in the divine being bartered for some material goodies.

This seems to tie in with the beatific halo of commercialism that seems to hang over the serene countenance of religion these days. Television channels are full of products claiming to be divine yantras that offer a variety of precise interventions in our lives and come with the hallowed testimony of several has-been film and television stars. And the commercial angle does not stop at hawking products that matter-of-factly drain out the milk of human blindness. Over the last couple of years, some Hindi news channels have brought to us several exposes involving many religious gurus, the latest one being the reports on Nirmal Baba. In most of these, the picture painted of the leaders in question is deeply unspiritual, with allegations ranging from fraudulently exploiting religious sentiment for personal material gain, enabling money laundering to sexual misconduct. The themes of material exploitation, sexually predatory behaviour and narrow-minded chauvinism resulting in hate crimes of all hues, ranging from selective violence to acts of mass murder and terrorism recur across geography and different religions. Of course, this is hardly the whole picture when it comes to religion, but it is a sufficiently prominent aspect of it for us to take notice.

What has changed is the nature of religious practice rather than belief in religion for it continues to enjoy a pre-eminent position in the life of most people in the world. In India, the coming of economic reform and relative affluence has strengthened religion rather than weaken it and the evidence is all around us. Television channels devoted to building the brands of individual gurus, religious festivals have become the site of legitimized consumption and even the Jan Lokpal movement needed their support to mobilize numbers. In a more everyday sense too, religious rituals continue to be an integral part of our lives, with temples being full, particularly at exam time.

It is not as if personal prayer that seeks divine blessings for one's well- being is a product of today alone, for we have grown up on stories of various devotees who perform impossible feats of penance in order to win vardaans which they then use to wreak havoc on humankind. In a more everyday sense, prayer has been an instrument of improbable hope, as human beings try to reverse the unequal relationship they have with arbitrary circumstance with a concentration of hope and a spectacle of surrender. Prayer is simultaneously a peremptory demand and a submissive entreaty, full of narcissistic magnification as well as servile diminution. Traditionally, the two parts of prayer were kept apart, at least on the surface. One was expected to surrender unquestioningly and become part of a larger collective before the right to ask for anything in return was granted. Increasingly, now the submission is put into the background by the demand; the prayer itself is contingent on results. Prayer is now a transacted vector, pointing unambiguously in the direction of desire, undeterred by its scale and improbability.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/The-religion-of-the-self/articleshow/12844191.cms

[madrchsod]

1. interesting article and i agree

[struggle4progress]

2. The religion of the self is the religion into which we are all born, and it is the religion

which everyone most naturally follows, even if we make strenuous efforts to expand our view

[Fumesucker]

3. I agree with Twain, prayers have spoken and unspoken parts..

From The War Prayer..

"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- excpet he pause and think. "God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, and the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon your neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain on your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse on some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.