The 'age of temples' is over

Image editing: Santanu Banerjee

As per Hindu religion believe temples are the most sacred place on the earth, from ancient time people visits a temple for the most significant devotion, to praise the supreme spiritual power, we call him God, in order to progress towards divinity. Temples are the place where one can submit himself towards God in an atmosphere of divine bliss. The certain rituals are meant to initiate the process, but to gain the optimum level concentration needs to be done from inner peace.

For devotion the most important thing is peace and concentration, the stability of mind which can be obtained by meditating in a peaceful place over time. Devotion of soul is the prime thing than the material offerings like flowers and sweets or animals. And in a chaotic situation mindful deliberation is almost impossible absent serenity and this is the present state of the most popular temples across India, especially during the festive seasons, which are directed as spiritual high time in our ancient scriptures.

In the most temples of the northern, central and eastern region, for example: Puri, Kashi, Kamakhya, Tarapith etc, there you will always find a mess, people tends to overtake each other in order to submit their material offerings to God at the prime fashion and then perform the ritual in any manner. The different types of prayer makes the place extremely noisy and the race for reaching God or receiving his grace makes the pilgrims so blind that they may become the cause for injury even death of the person beside them. As now a days the number of people dying, stampeded in the process of visiting temples are much higher than earlier, weak people can't hold the pressure of the unperceptive crowd and crushed by them, isn't it the most brutal death to meet for someone pursuing the spiritual activities of the same faith. And the joke is; their friends and family satisfy themselves by assuming the dead reached heaven by the Gods will for some greater good, as they died in the pursuit of God.

Also the businesses and shops based on temples are very ill fated, thus they asks almost every pilgrims passes by them to purchase their product, often they try to compete each others to oversell their products, which is meant to be the material offerings to the God. Even the priests (Panda or Purohit) of the temples follow the same process, which contaminates the culture of the Temple.

While the South-Indian temples are much disciplined in this manner, one can always find an eternal peace in there, but can't embrace it because of the time limit and the systematic queue, while for devotion it requires certain time, can't be done at a glance. In this process one can visit temples but can't pursue the process of veneration. Hence the ultimate objective remains unattended.

Also the concept 'money answers every thing' is utterly applied in terms of the temples now a day. So this isn't a comfortable place for poor’s, while for them nowhere is such, but temple is the house of God where everyone is equal, are expected to close this barrier. While rich people are reaching towards God in remarkably low time, by availing some VIP token, available for money from the temple official and the poor are suffering the long queue. This contradicts our Vedic religion believe of evaluating someone by his wisdom not his wealth.

Ticket to visit Sree Jagannath at Puri temple,
(mandatory for all the visitors from any class).
The guards disposes these tickets in the time
of entrance. Some higher valued tickets are
also available for the rich VIPs. This system
is followed by most of the popular temples.

In this fashion temples centered the entire knowledge of devotion in the value of offerings and the blessings in material realization. Such activities like sacrifice, offerings of money gold and other wealthy materials in order to gain something desired, is a common as well as certified practice performed based on temples. Even some notorious activities like hypnotism, black magic etc. are performed by the priests of some temples.

The sense of competition and money has rotten the divine objectives. From the present system it seems one is to purchase the blessings of God, who knows where he is but the directions from our ancient scriptures, which has been molded over time as per beneficiary of the administrators or so called messengers of God, whom you can find acting as a sales person of divine materials, sometimes tending to oversell.

While for authentic devotion none of this is actually required. The atmosphere of temples helps someone to feel like spiritually enthusiastic, as per the culture of the specific temples practice. But if someone realizes him/herself as a true devotee of God then God is available for him/her anytime, anywhere. This is basic concept of our religion, also in our holy book Gita it is clearly mentioned no exhibition is required to worship, the purity of heart and inner peace are subjected to be the most essential.

A very peaceful place with blossoming nature is a perfect place for devotion, as it's an act of soul, so it can't be performed by the material rituals only. The level of concentration thus the prime thing for devotion, which can be obtained at solitary, where one can feel the material vacuum and connect to his/her soul, in order to gain the spiritual bliss. As now a day the temples are neither calm nor spiritual, even biased at material wealth, sometimes corrupted and encouraging superstition, so why we continue to support such in the cause of our spiritual perfection?

Thanks & regards,

Milan Chatterjee

PS: My topic is related to the popular temples, till one can find Godly atmosphere in rural and not so popular temples, where people visits less.

© Milan Chatterjee