Superstitions

In Uttarakhand(India) there is a place called Amarnath in the Himalayas, where there is hole in one of the caves and when there is snow, it trickles down from the hole forming a shape that resembles a shivalinga, which is natural and obvious. Now someone at some point of time in the history of the country spread a rumour that it was Shiva's wife Parvati who actually meditated for Shiva under difficult conditions. It was snowing but she didn't move from there , the snow accumulated around her and took the shape of a Shivalinga.

Amarnath

People of ancient times believed in this and started worshipping the snow mound. In ancient times, pre railway days, people would travel on foot for months and then trek the Himalayas to reach the cave. Many people would die doing this. But the public's strong faith in the almighty made them take such huge risks. They were told that doing this would make their souls go to heaven after death.

Again some idiots spread a rumour that the river Ganga had actually descended from the heaven and that it was earlier stationed on Lord Shiva's hair. The truth is, it is a river that is generated due to the melting of a glacier in the Himalayas. It is a perennial source of water in the country, but giving a river a god like status is stupid, we would be better off at not polluting the river and keeping it clean.

There is lot of stupid stuff written in old religious books like puranas , Manusmriti etc. There are people who believe them to be true, which is really nonsense.

People are worried about there future , they want their future to be good and happy. They constantly live in some fear that any untoward incident might happen to them or their family members. They go to god to ask for protection, both physical and financial protection.

Now there are people who call themselves to be the agents of God, they claim to have some indirect or direct connection with God which can help people find solutions of their problems and make their lives better. This middlemen instill fear in the minds of people and advice various rituals to get out of their problems. This rituals require money and this middlemen who in reality are frauds make money from them.

Again in all Hindu marriages in India, most of them ,when done religiously require a priest to recite some stuff written in an ancient book, in a language not understood by majority of the people today. For this short operation they are paid handsomely. For the 20 million odd marriages happening in India each year , the total donations that the priests get in terms of money and gifts is in order of a few billion dollars. Now add to that the money they make in various poojas in thousands of temples around the country.

There are a group of people called astrologers who claim to have the knowledge of predicting the future based on the position of the stars and planets. Again these planets and stars were the one's that can only be observed through the naked eye as astrology was developed in the pre telescope era. They didn't take any pain of inculcating the newly discovered stars and planets after the discovery of telescope and the subsequent advances in astronomy into their pseudo-science.

Millions of people go to these people to get their horoscope made, the horoscopes are designed based on the person's birth time and date and the relative positions of the stars and planets(only those that were seen when astronomy was discovered). The astrologers make big sums of money making these horoscopes, if by chance one or two predictions come right , the astrologer is given the status of god.

Its sad and appalling to see that even today people of India believe in astrology. These astrologers are using media to spread their lies. Everyday in any newspaper you will find the predictions of how the day would turn out to be , made by the astrologers. There are TV channels that would show this astrologers spitting out their junk predictions every morning. People tend to remember only those predictions that turn out to be true , but they forget the hundreds that are false.

In my view the judiciary and/or the government must take strict actions against these astrologers. Either they must prove the truth of astrology or their shops must be shut.

People must become more aware and stay away from this priests, astrologers , sadhus and babas. Many of them are criminals of the highest order. Use your own wonderful powerful brains and see the truth.