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.
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.