Whenever we speak of the defects and abnormalities of the contemporary life and world, we do charge on the lack of spirituality, but I am not sure whether our spirituality is in the right path? God, the creator is the father of the entire creation and as we know, a father on earth does not expect his kids to praise him every day for his mercy. Instead he wants us to be merciful towards our siblings. Similarly God urges us to love our neighbors as we do. He demands mercy from us instead of rituals. If we could love, respect and be merciful to our fellow beings that make the God happier than performing rituals.
Today, people spend billions of currencies to perform several rituals and they expect to get mercy from God in return. Now people are competing each other to sponsor gold idols and other expensive gifts to temples, churches and mosques. The extravaganzas of festivals, ceremonies and other religious events are crossing limits most of the times when there are poor people are suffering without food, cloth, shelter and proper treatment. Those who do not hear their weeping sound when spent for these ritual extravaganzas; can we term it as spirituality?
I do remember the story of a Buddhist monk who has been killed for saving the lives of a group of tourists. The monk was staying in a beautiful mountain that is often visited by tourists during day time. They were reluctant to spend nights in the mountain as the place was frozen. One night, a group of tourists had to spend night in the mountain and they were not having any precautions against winter. Ladies and children were there in the group and they were shivering because of the chilled climate. The monk didn’t have anything to help them. He even didn’t have logs for fire and to save the tourists he decided to use the wooden idol of Buddha. The next day, when people found that the Buddha idol is absent, they killed the monk for putting their god into fire.
This is not just a story, it is a symbol of the mindset of our own society, and today we can see and hear similar stories from around. Bible clearly questions such people by asking how a person can love the invisible God, when they are not able to love their visible fellow beings. Today worship centers are becoming centers of hatred when the actual intention of these centers to spread love. I am not against any religious rituals. As human beings all have the right to perfom rituals and thank God, but it should not be done by forgetting the tears of our fellow beings. If you have failed to understand the pain of these poor people it is time for you to rethink about the relevance of your spirituality.