I always used to feel that God is getting commertialised in places like Tirupati and Shirdi (At Tirupati they charge 100 ruppees for the highest ticket for darshans. Thats the express darshan which takes around 4 hours). I realised this on my recent visit to Tirupati that thats wrong. God is not getting commertialised, its the people who are becoming more materialistic. God probabaly Himself realises this and is sad about it.
We went to Padmavati temple (who is Lord Tirupati's wife). There also there was some rush, I feel if managed well, everyone would have finished ther darshans much earlier than it takes. I have realised that on the way to Tirupati and other temples theur are man-made bottlenexks. Anyways, thats not what I will be discussing here as everyone knows this. The incident happened on my way out of the shrine of Padmavati temple. In southIndian temples, they have thsi crown like thing called sadari which the pujaris to bless people on behalf of God.
I realised that the pujari who was standing there with sadari has one hand protruding from under the railing, people put 1-2 ruppe coins in his hand, he put the sadari on their heads and they go ahead. This all happened as programmed and within 2-3 secs the transaction used to complete.
I searched for coin and felt relief when found one, but then I realised ths is wrong... the God will bless me even if I do not pay that person, its just as respect to God that people are paying him. The money is not his, its the Lord's and God does not need my money. i decided I will not give him that 2 ruppee coin to this person and see what happens then.
My turn came, I did not hand him the money, the sadari was on my head and the his hand searching for any trace of a coin. It searched and searched for almost 5 secs, then he realised there is no coin available. he took off the sadari from my head and I moved ahead. This time the transaction took 5-6 seconds. I was a slip of 100%. I realised that money and NOT the blessings was on critical path here :-).
1 comment:
I agree with u that God has become commercialised, or rather religion has.
I saw blood diamond recently, and they said that there are more diamonds than people realise, available in the market, but certain key people are hogging them, to increase the demand, and hence the price people are willing to pay for them.
The same way, man is trying to limit the possibility of getting darshan (the supply), so that its demand does up, and so people are willing to show more and do more and pay more to get that 'chance'.
The problem is, the rich man always gets his way with money, be it diamonds or religion, and the poor man, the one actually willing to pay the price, pays a lot more than even the demander asks for.
And yes, u are absolutely right, today commerce gives blessings, not God. He would bless you and walk with you even if you stayed at home, but commerce says that if you either pay a lot of money, or walk a lot, he'll bless you more. That's not what I learnt about God... Or am I the silly, naive one?
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