Come December, in fact end November itself and there is a flurry of devotees ready to go to Sabarimalai.
With my very limited understanding, this is an austere commitment to stay off "vices", even tame things such as certain foods. The idea being to cleanse your system and show true and single mined devotion to a Bachelor Lord.
However to my chagrin, I have seen auto guys in the black veshti and beads, fleece customers and to top it all also pass lewd looks and comments at women. Being off non veg is another requirement which also gets flouted. Wearing black/saffron consistently or being bare foot is often not practical.
Do I subscribe to the whole thing- No. And this particular pilgrimage is very sexist anyway as per me. Here is a very interesting article on this.
Do beleivers need to adhere to the rules rigourously. No.
But the deviation cannot go against the spirit and sanctity of God. If God had a voice that was audible, he would have sounded hoarse with protest.
9 comments:
with all due respect... austerity and belief has to be imbibed rather than followed. albeit there are different ways of doing it. there r people who pray everyday and there are people who r god fearing in nature and there are some who r righteou. i would keep them all in the same category
Only wish these ppl strictly adhere & abide by the vrtham rules. V used to tease few ppl calling them "poli sami" as they never seem so true!
BTW, did u get my mail?
completely agree itchy- each to their own but point is not to basic decent attitude shld come before show-shaah
the shabarimala gangs are the coolest. i don't know how far they are true, but here are some that i heard:
- some of these dudes do have non-veg. but they would take a bath after having non-veg.
- some of them drink. but, they have special areas in bars alloted for them, where the other drinkers are not allowed. that area has a divine set up with 'oodubathi' and 'sambrani'. they also get clean glasses.
by the way, god is considered a public property. the individual or group who own or manage the temple make the rules on who can visit the temple and when they can do it. tradition and beliefs are considered to be the reasons for such actions.
if i am banned to enter a private area, i repeat - private area , i would rather forget about that place than fighting to gain an entrance there. temples are considered private areas.
to each his own art. like my grandma says - you have to go to your grave and answer for yourself - no one else is coming with you - there. Whether you follow rituals or yu 'ammend' them to suit your conveniences - you have to answer to your maker.
Very true!! I have seen many people smoking, drinking, eating non veg etc when they are in their fast. I feel god is everywhere... so no rules :)
shoba de's at work
The pilgrimage part is fun climbing the hill with all the devotees - but the temple atmosphere did not give me any indication of divine presence. Looks more like a fair - very commercialised "God's blessings are for sale" type place. Guruvayoor was the same thing.
I like the really small temples in Kerala where you feel that there is something spiritual about the place.
This kind of behaviour - lewd comments etc.- is unacceptable even without the vrat. Incidentally whhat do these guys hope to achieve by going to the temple anyways when their heart is so impure?
On the interesting article you had cited, I have no desire to enter a temple where the God doesnt want to see me but if someone lays a rule excluding me, I want to break it by doing it. I can understand when shabana said about the veil " i dont want to wear the veil but if someone makes a rule against the veil i want to wear 10 of them"
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