On Rituals, Beliefs, Religions

There is a saying in Tamil that goes like "what we have learnt is fist-size and what we don't know is the size of the world". That saying is very apt for anyone who claims to know everything and wants to be the gold standard. I merely wish to express my views and let the reader see the world like I do.

It is common belief that religions were born to organize a generally chaotic society. God is central to any religion (how about scientology?). The purpose of the belief in God is to take away ones ego and place it on something other than self. This process is self-purifying. God is also the embodiment of all good values. In the Hindu mythology, for example, Ram practiced monogamy, heeded to his father be whatever. When we pray to God, we glorify such virtues. We wish to practice such good values and ask for the strength to hold the 3Hs (humble, helpful, honest).

Now onto rituals. I see the purpose to be two-fold, one more scientific than the other. Number one, a ritual is a process to express belief in God in thousand different ways and reinforce the idea - human brain is forgetful. The second reason is that Gods like certain processes - like in Hindu mythology, Lord Ganesha likes kozhukattie. We do everything we can to please the God, to get His/Her attention and we do it the way pleases them. The specific processes to be followed to please the Gods are written in the scriptures. The particular mantras to be recited are mentioned therein as well.

Many people question the very existence of God. There are also extremists who claim their God is the only God and every non-believer will go to "hell". It is certainly true that man did not create the world. There is proof that earth was created billions of years ago and human beings are more recent creations. Who created this universe? Nobody knows. There are a huge body of people who think it is God. I am also one of them. I don't have the strength and the knowledge to prove otherwise. I am just a minute part in the whole scheme of things. For my part, I will follow the usual rituals, listen to the religious discourses and hope that God will show me the right path, the path of least resistance. From a practical point of view, it allows me to be disciplined, hold good morals, be generally nice, fine-tune my brain so I can do my job well. I stop short of being part of any clique or community since that will require rigor. This works well for me. Well, at-least, so far.

It can be better.