Comments on: Why do we have rituals?

By: Sonali

Sonali — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:25:26 +0000

Rituals do have scientific meanings, and sometimes they are also associated with the climatic and regional conditions.
So, the one ritual that is benficial in one region or a timeframe, may be irrelevant or harmful in some other region or timeframe.
So, we should use our wisdom to judge their relevance, and accordingly they should be accepted/rejected.
For Example , there is a ritual, that we should not eat anything, while the eclipse is happening.This may have come in the mind of our ancestors that at that point of time the sun is hidden , and hence virus/bacterias start multiplying at a higher rate, and hence we should avoid eating anything during that time.
Now, today some of us blindly follow this, but have we ever thaught that,if that is true, then we should also not eat at night as well.But actually most of us have a heavy dinner in the night, which is actually very harmfull.And also with the invention of refrigerators, we keep things in a refrigerator to keep them fresh.So we can protect the food during the Eclipse as well.
Also, in our Pujas, we use GangaJal, to purify anything and everything.In ancient times this GangaJal was really having a power to purify anything.But today, can we say the same?If someone can drink GangaJal directly? We have made it so impure, that first it needs a purification.So, we should think over it and do somthing in that direction.
My intention is to make people aware the purpose of the rituals. So actually , we should ask “Why”, we are doing something.Not just blindly following them.

By: Amit Upadhyay

Amit Upadhyay — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 15:02:05 +0000

Rituals are no different in purpose than army parades.

By: Vijayendra Mohanty

Vijayendra Mohanty — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:30:22 +0000

Hinduism is henotheistic. That means it accepts there is one God but there is plenty of freedom to worship other gods too. This is because the Vedas say defining God is impossible. The Upanishads say that there is one God and our 33 million deities are various symbolic aspects of him/her/it.

So pantheism, monotheism, atheism, polytheism, are all parts of Hinduism.

By: Sarthak Mohanty

Sarthak Mohanty — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:14:08 +0000

The underlying notion that drives most of Indians to be hetero ritualistic is perhaps the beliefs & practices our ancestors held and that the traditional beliefs are deeply attributed to God multitudinous superpowers.

I am all for monotheism but since I am a Hindu and going by our surrounding factors & traditions its difficult to promote monotheism but I always try to look for a single deity in polytheism.

So i agree to what Abhishek has said “we either blindly believe in it or deny it”

The day one tries to research and find out the truth he will seek a nirvana.

By: Vijayendra Mohanty

Vijayendra Mohanty — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 07:01:25 +0000

The greatest tragedy of religion is that most people following it have absolutely no idea about what it is.

By: Abhishek

Abhishek — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 06:56:41 +0000

To add to your thought I will like to point out that most of the rituals and not all do have a logical background to it. In our case we either blindly believe in it or vehemently deny it.
If we try to research and find out the truth, a new understanding will come.