Matter of faith
Life & Culture

How strong is your faith?

When a robed preacher becomes a phenomenon, he is bound to attract undue attention

Spirituality is an armchair money minting spinner in India. Turnover from religious activities in the country roughly matches those of drug peddlers and arms dealers abroad. Further, most of the money circulated in all these trades are either unaccounted for or accumulate untaxed.

Imagine the conditions in which saintly souls live in the country, think of their pains in moving around from one place to other appearing for religious discourses, and picture their stress in listening to peoples’ woes.

Amidst this when a white robed preacher becomes a phenomenon rising to the position of an observable figure, he is bound to attract undue attention of the social order and more particularly of the bourgeois.

The sensibilities of the intelligentsia are then stirred by vested interests unwilling to appreciate the dissertation interspersed with bhajan, kirtan, stories based on scriptures like Srimad Bhagvad Gita, Upanishads, Vedanta explained in simple words, tips on natural healthy living, yoga and other jewels of wisdom including instances taken from day to day life.

Multiplicity of religious practices in the country as also overflowing politics from region to region make mockery of both the preachers and their disciples. The worst sufferer is thus the faith.

Million dollar question, therefore, is how does one preserve faith? Take for instance the arrest of some of the self-styled gurus following complaints even of alleged sexual assaults.

Under such heat, India is witnessing mainly two types of religious linesmen, if it is the right way to describe them – extreme haters and ardent followers; and this land of the Buddha is clearly seen to be missing the middle path.

Matter of faith

It would therefore not be exaggeration to say that the institutions of religious gurus are under threat in India. What innumerable invasions over thousands of years could not plunder, is today being subjected to inexplicable humiliation.

Interestingly, the kind of debates demonstrated on national media by people playing tug of wars in all possible tongue-twisters is further shaking the conscience of the common man and his faith.