What I want to share isn’t a piece on theism nor does it mock the atheist community. It is only about the belief we hold in our hearts of a form higher than us and for those who don’t it is about the power they feel within themselves.
I don’t whence the idea of worshipping or idolizing a half-man half- ape grabbed my mind. Maybe it is the one magazine I read which featured a young squash player (I was still younger)who proclaimed to be an ardent ‘Hanumaan bhakt’.
Till then I had no idea of worshipping a particular God and till today I don’t have one. But still I took fancy in the idea of calling myself a bhakt and took to worshipping devotedly. It was then that I got closer to the roots of God.
As I delve deeper, I came to know that Hanumaan was an epitome of courage, devotion and fearlessness. He was someone who desired to devour the sun, the ‘glowing yellow ball’, during his childhood. He was someone who took His lessons diligently and persevered to amass wisdom. He was blessed to be immune to any fatal blow by different Gods who presented Him their ‘shields’ for protection. At a later stage of His life He served as a devotee to Lord Rama and helped Him rescue His wife Sita from the clutches of Lankeswar Ravaan. All the virtues, indomitable power and sagas of Hanuman have been summed by Tulsidas in just “forty lines” which is known as the Chalisa which extols the magnificence of Hanumaan.
For a bhakt like me, chanting the Chalisa is naturally a path to reach Him. But what I actually realized along this journey of knowing Hanumaan is that He left a lesson for all of us to be learnt.
What I could gauge with my spiritually starved mind was that no one can be great in a day or two. It demands great perseverance and patience. People are meant to face worldly worries and ailments but they have to be courageous to remain immune. And in order to remain immune they need to learn and practice to be alone for what they feel to be right. He left us the message that to gain eternal happiness and satisfaction from something devotion is the basic criteria. In His case it was the selfless love and veneration for His Pravu Lord Ram.
In our case it can be our goals and ambitions which are likely to be so potent as to have inscribed deep inside our hearts; goals which adds meaning and purpose to our lives. When we chant the Chalisa a source of energy seems to emanate from within us. We imagine a divine guidance propelling us to our goals; shielding us from all possible resilience of attaining the other end of our dreams. He is reminding us through the Chalisa that everyone has that innate power within themselves, the power to change the things we don’t like , it’s just a self-help call away. Be it the duas, be it the hymns or prayers (for theist) or self-confidence and belief (for atheist), all of these are simply elixirs to strengthen our hearts and mind.
We see that our inclination to religion, to God, to spirituality, (to Jesus, to Allah, to Nanak) ----only brings us closer to ourselves and transposes us into the framework of someone whom we adjudge to be superior than us. If there is a world beyond ours or if there was long ago, all “They “want is that we live happily like they did; which is the need of the hour with wars going around us.
I don’t whence the idea of worshipping or idolizing a half-man half- ape grabbed my mind. Maybe it is the one magazine I read which featured a young squash player (I was still younger)who proclaimed to be an ardent ‘Hanumaan bhakt’.
Till then I had no idea of worshipping a particular God and till today I don’t have one. But still I took fancy in the idea of calling myself a bhakt and took to worshipping devotedly. It was then that I got closer to the roots of God.
As I delve deeper, I came to know that Hanumaan was an epitome of courage, devotion and fearlessness. He was someone who desired to devour the sun, the ‘glowing yellow ball’, during his childhood. He was someone who took His lessons diligently and persevered to amass wisdom. He was blessed to be immune to any fatal blow by different Gods who presented Him their ‘shields’ for protection. At a later stage of His life He served as a devotee to Lord Rama and helped Him rescue His wife Sita from the clutches of Lankeswar Ravaan. All the virtues, indomitable power and sagas of Hanuman have been summed by Tulsidas in just “forty lines” which is known as the Chalisa which extols the magnificence of Hanumaan.
For a bhakt like me, chanting the Chalisa is naturally a path to reach Him. But what I actually realized along this journey of knowing Hanumaan is that He left a lesson for all of us to be learnt.
What I could gauge with my spiritually starved mind was that no one can be great in a day or two. It demands great perseverance and patience. People are meant to face worldly worries and ailments but they have to be courageous to remain immune. And in order to remain immune they need to learn and practice to be alone for what they feel to be right. He left us the message that to gain eternal happiness and satisfaction from something devotion is the basic criteria. In His case it was the selfless love and veneration for His Pravu Lord Ram.
In our case it can be our goals and ambitions which are likely to be so potent as to have inscribed deep inside our hearts; goals which adds meaning and purpose to our lives. When we chant the Chalisa a source of energy seems to emanate from within us. We imagine a divine guidance propelling us to our goals; shielding us from all possible resilience of attaining the other end of our dreams. He is reminding us through the Chalisa that everyone has that innate power within themselves, the power to change the things we don’t like , it’s just a self-help call away. Be it the duas, be it the hymns or prayers (for theist) or self-confidence and belief (for atheist), all of these are simply elixirs to strengthen our hearts and mind.
We see that our inclination to religion, to God, to spirituality, (to Jesus, to Allah, to Nanak) ----only brings us closer to ourselves and transposes us into the framework of someone whom we adjudge to be superior than us. If there is a world beyond ours or if there was long ago, all “They “want is that we live happily like they did; which is the need of the hour with wars going around us.
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