Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Superstitions - Myth and Reality

India is a beautiful country.  Its culture to too good.  The Westerners admire our culture. But there are also certain superstitions in our society that shadows our superior culture.  We are coming out of them slowly.  I am trying to share a short story that was narrated to me by my father when I was a little girl.

There was a Gurukula, which followed Guru Shishya Parampara of learning.  There were many students in the Ashram who were following religiously the Guru Shishya Parampara as it was the practice in olden days.  The Guru was a very knowledgeable person.  The students adored him.  The Ashram had a few cows with them.  Every night a cat came and drank away all the milk from the ashrams kitchen.  Guru and his shishyas were worried and disturbed about this.  They made a trap and caught hold of the cat.  Guru did not want to punish the cat.  He believed in Jeeva Karunyam.  They tied the cat to a post and kept him as their pet and fed them. 
Days after days and years passed.  Older shishyas left the ashram and new shishyas came to ashram.  The Guru became old.  Then one day the Guru became sick.  He Left his worldly body and travelled away.  The ashram performed his last rights.  The ashram took to their usual procedure and selected their next Guru and the tradition carried on.  The cat was still there tied to the post and was fed and taken care as usual. 

One day the cat died.  The whole ashram felt sad. 

The next day the new Guru ordered his disciples to find and catch hold of another cat to be tied in the post.  The new Guru did not know why the cat was tied to the post in the first place.  As far as he was concern he had to follow his Guru.  In his Guru's period there was a cat tied to the post which used to watch the shishyas learn.  So he wanted to keep up the tradition of tying a cat to the post next to the class room area.
This was a superstition that new Guru followed.

In the same way, our forefathers had some reasons following certain rituals.  It was suitable for their time of life.  We follow them without even thinking.  If we dare to ask questions we are branded as traitors and slashed by the elders in the family and society. 
So Youngistan please think, reason and then follow the superstitions.

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