Last weekend, when my parents came to Bangalore, we visited 3 temples. The temples that we went were huge. Those temples were awe-inspiring architectural marvels. Most of the Gods’ statues were decorated with Gold, diamonds and other valuable stones.
Nevertheless they didn’t give us a divine feeling. Getting tickets to see the Gods’ statues sooner and at close quarters gave me a sense of false faith. Are the poor not allowed to see the shrine at close quarters just because they don’t have money?
You lose the feeling of the divinity and tranquility associated with temples when you see various shops and eatables within the temple premises. What would a child who comes to visit the temple think? It might think that temple is yet another shopping mall.
In another temple they had kept miniature models of Gods and their avatars that move with the help of motors and microprocessors. As we had expected tickets were collected to see these things. Selling books, gold coins, lamps, etc adds to these. How much more can one commercialise things!
The money, which is gained in such a way, is purportedly used to support a charity school. In this case the temple authorities could very well spend the entire money used to build the temple for the cause of charity. The gold, diamonds and other valuable stones used for decorating the statues and gopura would be worth lakhs and they could have rather been used to serve the poor and the downtrodden.
I do donate to one charity school. I visit the school in regular intervals and have some fun with those children. What could give you more happiness than seeing a poor child getting new clothes during a festival? Give some money to the poor whenever you can and see their happy faces. That will give you more peace and satisfaction than visiting thousand such temples.
All that said I maintain that I am not an atheist. I do believe in God. According to me temple is a place where there is peace and you can meditate and pray. Temple is a place where there is no difference between rich and the poor. For me God is not a statue decorated with valuable stones. God is Love.
I would like to quote a few lines from a song in my favourite movie “Anbe Sivam”:
யார் யார் சிவம்
நீ நான் சிவம்
வாழ்வே தவம்
அன்பே சிவம்
Well, I have always believed that best thing to do on earth is to lead helping hands to the needy people. Once i realized that, i stopped believing in all these rituals. Its time people stop spending money in all this "commercial" approach and actually start "doing" things by themselves.
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