The difficulty of being GOOD.

The Difficulty of Being Good is the title of a book by Gurcharan Das. It is a philosophical book that discusses various moral issues humans face with reference to the characters from Mahabharat. I read this book a few years back and found it very engaging. The topic of the difficulty of being good, came to my mind while chatting with one of my friends on the issue of gender discrimination which is present in every religion. I was trying to convey the point that, we all have our own biases and prejudices, many times we don't even realize that, but we all need to introspect and analyze our own thinking to get rid of these things, and it is a very difficult process. It is not that easy to be good at all times. We all speak passionately about the issues or problems that we care about. We all speak in favor of some political figure or celebrity who we love, and against some who we don't like. However, many of us change our stance instantly if we come across the views from the other side. We are normally not that welcoming of the criticism directed toward people we love and we are not that welcoming of the alternate views about the issues about which we care. I am not saying that we need to agree with all those things that opponents say, but many of us get mad to see that people can even think like that. One ideal example is when Hilary supporters can't understand how anyone can support Mr. Trump and Trump supporters can't tolerate the fact that people are supporting Mrs. Clinton.  This is one simple example to demonstrate the point that I am trying to make, the difficulty of understanding the other side's point of view.

By "good" I don't mean nice or not mean or tolerant. I am using this term for being impartial or reasonable or someone who can recognize the differences and still try to look for commonality. I mean someone who can agree to disagree, someone who can see and appreciate that every issue can have two sides and sometimes there is no right or wrong. Someone who can appreciate the ambiguity and uncertainty of life. Someone who can understand the point of view of an atheist as well as a theist. I understand that I am asking for an ideal behavior, but we don't want to give this title of "good person" for doing trivial things, right? There should be some challenges associated with reaching the point where we can call ourselves "a good person."

It is not that easy to be an unbiased person and criticize or praise everything objectively. It's not easy not to belong to any group. If we don't belong to any group, we don't get protection from any camp. When we don't belong to any herd where there are people who think like us and agree with us without any arguments and disagreements, this is not a very comfortable situation to be in. To avoid this discomfort and insecurity, we choose our sides, we either love or hate some political leader, or we get associated with a certain political party. We try to show that our religion or country is the best in the world and others are not that good. The drawbacks of our own religion are trivial, but other religions have terrible shortcomings. We expect others not to offend us, but we should be allowed to say whatever we want. When in a majority, we think that the minority should respect the majority's views and behave accordingly (a beef ban in India is an ideal example of this), but the same if group when in a minority, expects that their ideas and values should be protected and respected by the majority. I observed this last behavior among many Indians living in the USA. Many Indian Americans supported overwhelmingly Mr. Modi and his call for nationalism and majoritarianism during the last general elections of India but got very apprehensive about Mr. Trump when he said very similar things. These people feared that because of their minority status in the US, they might come under attack or suffer some angry reactions from the majority, but the same group was totally dismissive of similar fears expressed by the minorities of India. I am not trying to say that after Mr. Modi's victory in India minority is in a very perilous state or they are suffering at the hands of the majority, but his tone during the election campaign was not that different than Mr. Trump's tone, and I can see the different response by the same group of people, just because of their different strength in that society.

The desire to be good is very common and natural, but the willingness to make conscious efforts to become good is not that common. We all want to be good without making efforts to become good, and that is why it is very difficult to be good. It is tough, but we all can try to achieve it. I hope readers of this blog will try their best to be a "good person." We need more good people in this world, I don't think anyone will disagree with this statement. Let's first recognize the difficulty of being good and then try to overcome those very sincerely. I am trying my best, are you?

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

We need to understand, analyze and evaluate all traditions and rituals

I was born and brought up in a conservative Hindu family. There were many rituals and traditions that were followed in our family for generations, and as a child, I used to participate in them or observe them with a lot of curiosity and interest. One thing that always surprised me was that no one around me actually knew the real reason or logic behind why we follow certain traditions or perform certain rituals. They just did it because it was a practice followed by their ancestors. If anyone raised any question, then the standard answer was, "This is what our ancestors did, there must be some reason behind it and therefore we need to continue doing this." While this answer was enough to snub a curious child, it is not a rational and logical explanation to quench the thirst of an inquisitive mind. There were many questions that remained unanswered for a long time, A few of them were: why fast only on a particular day? Why not eat meat during some religious festivals? If meat is that bad, then why do people eat it at all? How come it's good to eat it on a particular day but not good on any of those so-called auspicious occasions? Why women are not allowed to worship during their menstrual cycle? Why feed rice only to crows among all birds to pacify souls of dead people? There were many questions like this and I tried to find answers to many of them on my own. Actually, it is not that difficult to search for answers to many of these questions, mostly it is a matter of applying some common sense. But, the first necessary step is to ask a question, if your faith stops you from asking these questions, then you may never be able to find any answers related to any of your doubts.

Many of these traditions were the result of some sort of social needs of that era. Sometimes it was a combination of medical, hygiene, and economic reasons. It makes lots of sense if we analyze these things with respect to that time, but things don't look that rational and logical when we do the same things today without even evaluating if we need to practice these things today or not. Without the availability of personal hygiene products, menstruation can be a difficult thing to handle, maybe at that time it made sense to quarantine menstruating women and force them to rest. Occasional fasting can be good for our health, so it made sense to fast a few days of the year. Rice was an easy and cheap agricultural product and a crow was one of the abundant bird species that never attained the status of being a pet bird, so maybe it was a great idea to have some ritual where everyone could feed this ignored bird so that they also survive. Meat is a very tasty food, people eating meat might get addicted to its taste and consume it to threaten the existence of those animals, that's why they might have restricted consumption of meat on some particular days. Understanding and analyzing these things is very necessary and we all should do it. We can go on like this, finding some kind of explanation or reasoning for each ritual and tradition, but this is not at all the reason to practice these things blindly in today's world.

It doesn't make sense to restrict women from worshiping during menstruation when proper means are available to deal with personal hygiene. A healthy diet is important, with so much medical advice available, what and how much food one should eat should be a personal choice. Like this, we can rebut most of these outdated practices to which people tend to cling just because it is part of their culture. Cultural heritage is undoubtedly something we should study and preserve for the reference of our future generations, but we should not get trapped in it and stop moving forward. So, please try to understand and analyze each and every tradition or ritual, try to find logic and reasoning behind it, if they are outdated then don't hesitate to discard them, if they need any change then change them, but please don't get stuck in the web of cultural dogma. This heritage and knowledge should act as a launching pad for future discoveries and progress not a stinking trap to get stuck in the past.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Problems associated with "blind faith"

"Faith" has been always a very interesting subject for me. Mostly, "faith" in a general sense is used to describe religious beleifs of a person or group. People can have faith in anything without verifying the truthfulness of that thing. Faith is an emotion and like other emotions and can manifest in various forms and it can play a major role in developing the personality of many of us. For many people, their 'faith' is an integral part of the day to day life. It helps them in many ways and for many it has become a necessary thing for their survival, it offers them the reasons for their existence. Like many other emotions faith also is being heavily commercialized emotion and there are various products in the market of faith to fulfill various needs of people who are interested in faith and its related aspects. Religion is one of the oldest and the most popular product which is ruling the market of faith for the longest time. Faith helps people to get over many difficult situations and offers some answers to many of their questions. Whether these answers are true or false, logical or illogical is not a matter of concern for all those who put all their faith in those answers. So it seems that this phenomenon called 'faith' can do wonders in some cases. We can see many people doing admirable social work or philanthropic work inspired by their faith. This is all good and desirable side of faith, but at the same time we can also see people killing innocents in the name of their faith. This is another extreme where people are so blinded by their faith that they don't hesitate to engage in heinous and gruesome acts.

Why do people react so differently while following the same faith? Why some are extremely kind and some extremely violent, but they both claim to have faith in the same ideology? What makes some perform extreme noble acts and some take the path of gruesome violence while claiming to follow the same faith? One can only say that maybe the problem lies in the inherent blindness associated with faith. Any product used without knowing about all its effects and side effects is bound to produce undesirable side effects. Some of its side effects can be bad or even fatal and this is the main reason why blind faith in holy books or religions produces such an extreme response exposing the good as well as bad side of the human behavior. Someone might argue that faith is always blind, as whenever people put their faith in something they generally don't question it. Maybe this was true in the past but in today's world we are trained to question everything, and we should question as many things as possible, including our faith. Questioning is the only way to move forward, inquiry is the first step in the direction of solving any puzzle or problem, no matter how complicated it is. If any faith or discipline forbids questioning beyond a certain point, then it means that it doesn't have answers to those questions, and the worst part is, it doesn't even want to seek answers to those questions. This attitude is the main reason for the inherent blindness associated with faith. Any discipline or religion that can allow questioning can cultivate what I call a 'rational or logical faith,' which is exactly the opposite of 'blind faith.' The difference between 'rational faith' and 'blind faith' is that in one case people believe in something by recognizing the fact that their beliefs can be questioned, and challenged and there can be some problems associated with that which they should try to resolve. This system is much less dangerous than the system which commands 'blind faith' in anything.

I don't have to go into more detail to describe the problems we are facing today because of blind faith in today's world, issue of terrorism is just one of them. Many of these problems can be resolved or at least their impact can be minimized if people from the same 'faith system' take the initiative to reform their faith to stop such a blatant misuse of their faith. Emotions like faith are here to stay, as humans we cannot get rid of these things as they play the role of support system for many, but we all can definitely work to make these things better and I think the time has come where we all need to challenge the system of 'blind faith,' no matter which discipline or which religion. We need to challenge it as misuse of this system has the potential to harm entire humanity.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Mother Teresa's miraculous path to sainthood

When I read the news that Mother Teresa is on her way to becoming a catholic saint, I couldn't decide whether to feel happy or sad. I am a great admirer of her humanitarian work which she did in India, and her work speaks for itself about her greatness, so I wonder why she needed these random incidents under the name of miracles to get the title of "saint." Wasn't her social work enough to call her a saint? But it seems a minimum of two miracles are required to be declared as a catholic saint, I don't know on what basis they came up with the number 2, but that seems to be the criteria. So, even after all that great work that she did most of her life, it was not good enough to qualify her to become a saint, and now finally she got that dearly required second miracle recently which cleared her path to become a catholic saint. Seriously? Mr. Pope, do you need such trivial miracles which are just random incidents that happen every day somewhere in the world to declare someone like her a saint? I am really stunned to know that church authorities need some sort of nonreproducible random incidents (so-called miracles) to declare someone like Mother Teresa a saint. Can they please explain why her exemplary work is not enough for that? I feel astonished by all this because I come from the part of India which has produced many sants (equivalent of saint in Marathi) like, Dyaneshwar, Tukaram, Eknath, Namdev and many others. Actually, to be fair to Vatican people there are some miracles attributed to some of these people which according to me are clearly works of fiction. Miracles are attributed just to emphasize their greatness to some people who may not be able to understand the real importance of their work. That is why according to me all of them are not saints because they did some miracles, but for their scholarly work in the field of devotional literature, for carrying out social reforms, or for their humanitarian work. Miracles don't exist and no one can perform them. Maybe many centuries back people needed some fictional stories about different miracles to understand the greatness of someone, but in today's world why do we need such things which we know are some random incidents. Today how believable is the news that someone with multiple brain tumors prayed for her and got cured? Now for a moment let's assume that this is really true, then is it recommended for all those who are undergoing medical treatments for similar diseases to stop those treatments and start praying to her or someone else to get cured. If not, why not? Actually, people do pray whenever they are in deep trouble or when they see no other option, but they do this for their mental satisfaction there is not much logic behind this as there is no data to prove that prayers are as effective as medicines. But people do have the habit of praying and many also feel that their prayers produce desired results, but there is no proof for these things. Such a psychological boost can work in some cases, in medical science, there is a phenomenon called the "placebo effect" which is a similar scenario, but it is not a miracle, there is a rationale and logical explanation behind it.

I wrote one blog post about her many months back, even though I am an admirer of her work, her intentions and motives behind her work are questioned by some people. These questions or objections might sound unreasonable to her admirers like me, but they are there and one needs to acknowledge their existence. But my main objection to this miracle thing is what is the real purpose behind attributing such lame miracles to anyone? Don't they know that such things spread superstition among people? Especially those who are very vulnerable to believe in such things, for such people anything coming from their religious authority is absolute truth and this is dangerous. Superstition is already a huge problem in many societies and if powerful religious institutions like the catholic church are instrumental in spreading these things so blatantly, then I wonder how a society can dream of getting rid of these social evils? I absolutely have no problem with declaring Mother Teresa a saint or God or angel or whatever they want, but I have a strong objection to the so-called miracles attributed to her. This is a very clear case of superstition, just because something happened randomly doesn't mean it is a miracle. Many years back things like lunar eclipses or even rainbows were considered as miracles done by some God, but not anymore. I think it is the responsibility of any responsible and powerful institution not to propagate the culture of falsehood and superstition. This drama of miracle is really not necessary for giving sainthood to a great lady like Mother Teresa, people like her or Baba Amte are great human beings. We can call them saints, gods, or angels just because of their amazing work, they don't need any crutches of miracles to prove their greatness. I hope people understand this and give well-deserved respect to these individuals which they totally deserve because of their superb work, and not based on some stupid miracles.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Links:

1. Mother Teresa to become a saint after Pope Francis recognizes 2nd miracle

How logical is the concept of hell?

Almost in every book associated with any religion one can find a description of Hell. In some scriptures this imaginary place is described in very graphic details, many people literally believe these descriptions and really think that hell exists somewhere. They also describe what may or may not happen if someone lands in hell. I call it imaginary because there is no direct or indirect evidence of the existence of this place. Every religion and its scriptures describe it somewhat differently but they all agree on one thing it is a really bad place to be there and no one should land there even by mistake. Some religions or scriptures go beyond just describing the place, they also list several punishments one might get if one lands there. Actually, as per their logic, no one just accidentally lands there, they are forced to go there as a punishment after death for their bad deeds during their life on earth. This punishment which sounds so inhuman and cruel is awarded after judgment by the highest authority (God) of that particular religion. At least this is what the scriptures say. Some of the punishments described are very cruel and inhuman, like frying in oil or burning in fire. This is all without any due process and just for not following some rules written in those scriptures, and that too these rules are so different from one scripture to another, whatever is considered sacred in one can be totally blasphemous in another. I think if any government or any authority tries to award some of these punishments they can be tried in court for human rights violations, only some radical extremist organizations like Al-Queda can justify such barbaric acts, and for this, they get criticized by all quarters of the world, but no one seems to mind when these things are mentioned in scriptures. People's attitude suddenly changes when there is involvement of their religion or god in these types of issues.

I often wonder if people at all think how logical is all this description of hell and those punishments described in any book? The descriptions of these things are so cruel and inhuman that no one with normal sense and logic can agree to such punishments delivered to hardcore criminals and forget about common people. I agree that these books are really really old but I feel that today's authors do a somewhat better job in writing fiction stories. I must also say that today's authors also have the advantage of time and better technique. Still, believers don't feel that their scriptures are fiction books, they fear this imaginary hell, and they all have a strong desire to go into a similarly imaginary place called heaven that promises a bunch of rewards. Many who care about going to hell or heaven don't care about their cowardice acts like terrorism or heinous crimes like rape or murder or many other mistakes in their day-to-day lives like corruption, domestic violence, sexual abuse, etc. So, clearly, these threats about hell and lures about heaven are not working in the way they were supposed to work, rather, they create an illusion in people's minds that no matter what they do in their personal lives if they ask for forgiveness with their God everything will be fine and they will be pardoned and rewarded. This very generous offer is advertised heavily by almost all religions and sects. This fear and attraction to the illusionary world of heaven and hell have created a unique mindset in people's minds. Many care and worry about these imaginary things rather than their own conduct in day-to-day life. Many times they don't even care about the law of the land but care whether they will land in heaven or hell. Many religions and sects make use of these fears to attract followers, they make tall claims that are difficult to prove or disprove and lure people into their trap, and people fall for this trick.

Do we really need the promise of heaven to do good deeds or fear of hell to deter us from doing bad things in our lives? Why our own conscious mind can not guide us to follow the righteous path in our lives? Why fear of the law of the land is not enough to deter people from committing crimes? We need to ask these questions and try to find honest answers. Maybe this will help us to introspect and realign our beliefs. Maybe this will help us to follow a righteous path without worrying whether it will land us in some imaginary place like heaven or hell. Kindness, love, compassion, and truthfulness are all wonderful qualities to have, and everyone should aspire to have them, I don't think anyone should require the lure of heaven or fear of hell to lead a life full of love and kindness. Let's focus on all the good work we all can do without worrying about these imaginary threats or rewards.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

A tale of two Mundans in my family

The incidents about which I am writing actually happened a long time ago, almost nine to ten years ago in my life. It is the story of mundan of my both kids. Mundan ceremony is very common and is known by different names in different parts of India. Note that it's not only common in India, but also performed in various other cultures and societies under various names. It seems the first haircut has some unique significance in every culture. According to the tradition followed in my family a boy or a girl should get their mundan (first haircut) done either before their 1st birthday if not then in 3rd year. I don't understand the logic behind these age assignments but this is what they believe, no one explained to me why? Because of this belief, many parents don't give haircuts to their kids for the first 9-10 months and then one fine fine day whole family goes to some temple, and the child's head is shaved or the first haircut is offered along with some rituals and prayers Normally, this haircut costs way more than a normal haircut, many times the family has to travel to distant temples or to some rich and famous venue (like Tirupati Balaji which is very famous for this ritual). So, there are many other things involved in this elaborate affair, it's not just a simple haircut.

The reason I remembered all these incidents after so many years was the discussion about mundan of my friend's son on Facebook. He was debating whether to go for it or not. Back then, I didn't face any dilemma about this issue as I was totally against it. According to me, to perform such an elaborate ceremony at a temple or to travel miles to some temple just to give a haircut to a child is really a wasteful idea. I don't understand the logic behind it, maybe there was some good reason to do this thing this way 100s of years ago but I don't see any reason to do this now. Why spend so much money and effort on a thing that can be performed with professional help at any saloon?

So for both kids before their first birthday, this issue came up for discussion. My daughter had very thick and beautiful hair at that time, she looked adorable. I registered my protest against shaving her head because I thought it was totally unnecessary. People give all kinds of reasons to perform mundan, starting from the original hair (womb hair) is not good in quality, they are thin, and if you need to shave the head to get nice and thick new hair, there is no scientific backing to any of these reasons but may be in some cases it works. There are some other reasons like womb hair is associated with undesirable traits from past lives, etc. But the major question was, why go to some temple just for a simple haircut and waste so much time and money? Why can't we do it in some saloon? But the hold of some traditions or rituals on people's minds is so strong that they are scared even to think about an alternative or more logical way. But the problem was that my wife wanted to do mundan for her, and as a parent, she has an equal say in what decisions we make about our kids. I can express my opinion, register my protest in the strongest possible way, argue over it, and stand my ground but I cannot force my views on my wife or on anyone. If I start forcing my opinion on others then there won't be any difference between me and many others who force these so-called traditions and rituals in the name of culture, religion, or God. There was a debate and heated discussion about this issue and everyone came to know my opposition to this ritual. I don't think it was a surprise to anyone in my family but I guess they were thinking that it's easy to talk about reform and change, many people do that but when it comes to their own kid or own family people compromise because of so many reasons the major one is to avoid unpleasant scenes or not to hurt anyone in their own family. I find this reason really strange because people don't hesitate to use the strongest possible words to criticize or question many things when others do them, like excessive spending on marriage, following some superstitions like this one, or the role of women in the family, but when their own family does these things then somehow they find some reason to defend or justify these actions. My family was somewhat surprised that I was putting on such a resistance to spoil such an important ceremony for my own daughter. To cut a long story short, even after all this mundan happened, I lost to the majority who wanted the mundan to happen. I didn't attend the ceremony. I don't regret at all missing the ceremony but I do regret somewhat that I failed to convince my own family not to perform this stupid ritual, but failures like these are part of the struggle to bring reforms.

The second time similar thing happened in my son's case, but this time I was not in India, everyone knew my opposition to this ritual, but it was easy for everyone this time to ignore me as I was not physically present there. In my son's case, it was done twice within a month (again without any logic and reason), one in Mumbai and one at Balaji - the famous Tirupati temple where every day thousands of people go to shave their head and offer their hair to God. I don't know why God needs so much hair from so many people but I know many people who go there every year and shave their heads. My kids asked the question why this thing was done to them to all who were involved in this ritual but they didn't get any satisfactory answers to date. The only answer they got is that as this is part of our tradition and everyone does it so we also did, it was even done to your father, but this explanation is far from satisfactory. So, this was the story of two mundans in my family.

According to me, this ritual is one of many traditions and rituals that people follow blindly (just like a superstition). They don't even think whether there is any reason or logic behind this, just follow it blindly. I can't do this, ignorance might be bliss for many but for me, it's not an option. I don't believe in forcing my opinion but that doesn't mean I don't express them. I express my disagreement whenever I face these issues in my family or somewhere else, and try not to attend these ceremonies. Many people (even those who can't afford them) spend a lot of time and money on these things but the same people don't have time or money for community service or charity. This is particularly sad in a country like India where there is a strong feeling for following culture and traditions but not that much for doing charity and community service. The mundans still happen but I hope this tradition will end soon, this will also save a lot of time and money for many. I hope more and more people will choose to follow a more sensible path rather than the usual path.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Links:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_haircut