In relation to solving the previous puzzle for myself, I was wondering about the purpose of believing in God and the whole concept of an Almighty present in our life to guide us. This was followed by questions like: Why do some people visit temples every week? Why do they travel miles to visit famous temples? And most importantly, how do most of their wishes almost always come true? Mind you, I am not an atheist. I have just grown to not believe in the concept of religion anymore.
These questions had been eating me up for a really long time, which is why one fine day I decided to give in to them and visit temples. I have visited many of them in the past with my family, but I did so only as a family obligation. I would just enter, place my hands at the foot of the statue, join my palms at the center of my chest, and do small talk with the concrete form of God because I really did not know what else I should be doing. Everyone around me would stand the same way, but I couldn’t read their minds to know what praying really was.
I am a very twisted person, and I wanted to really challenge this challenge I was facing regarding my belief in God. That is why I decided to visit a dargah (a temple for Muslims) even though I am a Hindu and, according to my religion, I am supposed to visit only our Gods’ temples (Ganesha, Shiva, Hanuman, etc.). This dargah is known to be a really powerful place where everyone’s wishes come true, irrespective of them being followers of Islam or not.
After getting out of the car, I had to walk for almost a kilometer through a narrow, crowded street filled presumably with worshippers, animals such as dogs, cows, and cats, and shopkeepers yelling out to us from the side to come buy offerings from them. Amidst so much chaos, there were also amputated men crawling on the floor begging for money and food. It was a scene that could only be experienced, otherwise impossible to imagine. I went inside the dargah, and to get to the main worship area, we had to stand in a long queue. This was something I had expected, but for the first time in a place where I had come to seek answers from God (who was in the main worship area), I got them from the people around me.
I came across a man sitting right outside the door who led us inside by tapping our heads with a bunch of peacock feathers tied together. It was believed that the touch offered blessings, while he also expected a small offering in the form of money from us. It was not compulsory for us to give money, but he did expect something in return. How bad could this (believed to be) selfless job be, right? But the kind of life I imagined him living scared me for a second. What about those days when he would not get any money at all? How would he buy his food then? Does he even have a roof over his head to go back to?
Lost in thought, wondering about his life, my attention returned to the queue I was standing in, and I noticed something. Something about the others in the queue with me caught my attention. They seemingly looked sad and broken from inside. It was as if they were here to look for something, but they had no idea what they should be looking for. No purpose and no meaning in life, combined with uncertainty, were probably the reasons that led them here. If I wake up one day with no purpose in life, would I want to live? That was a question that immediately sprung to my mind. Do these people really have a life of their own to even ask for something for themselves? Are these people here to seek help or just to pray for their daughters and sons to get married? Whatever the reason, I was immediately ignited with this power of knowing the right thing to do – Be Grateful.
Being grateful for whatever little I have was God’s or some Almighty-driven superpower’s answer to my question for ‘myself.’ Amidst all the chaos, I understood why it is important to visit these so-called ‘powerful places.’ They make you witness scenarios you do not experience sitting in your huge apartment, crying over not being able to pay the internet bill, or complaining about your miserably annoying drive to a decent restaurant because of all the traffic.
I am not trying to feel grateful out of other people’s misery. I am just feeling grateful to have experienced and learned the most important teachings of life. I am feeling grateful to have discovered the purpose of my life. I am feeling grateful to be able to eat three meals a day, have clothes to wear, live in a house, and sleep on a comfortable bed. The amputees on the street, the peacock feather man at the door, and others from the queue most likely are not fortunate to have all these luxuries. Yes, these people’s miserable faces helped me a little to start the self-reflection process, but I hope that I was also able to emit a positive vibe of self-realization for them too. They experience some joys of life that I might never get to experience. There are always these give-and-take-based transactional events that happen among humans unknowingly. I believe that this is how we humans co-exist. This is also what humanity looks like. Why is there a need for religion then?
I know why temples exist and maybe even the concept of God, but ‘religion’ is still something I am building my thought process around.
fortuitouspurpose 