About a couple of years ago I got a chance to visit one of the most sacred place near Ramgarh called Neemsar. Ramgarh is a village near Lucknow in the hinterlands of UP. People here have a lot of faith in the temples of Neemsar. Excuse my thoughts if I’m hurting anyone’s sentiments and my due apologies to them but the feeling that I got after visiting the place was not very pleasant. The temple was very dirty. The sweets being sold for Prasad were full of flies and not to mention the crowd. Inside the temple there were donation boxes everywhere and the pujaris inside also didn’t fail to remind you of the donation that should be made to make you a god lover. And yes I forgot to mention the most important thing, the darshan of the diety for which we had gone. Once inside the temple I didn’t even get to see the diety because of the crowd and the pushing and shoving.
Isn’t the visit to a temple or a shrine supposed to bring peace and calmness instead of arousing the thoughts that I’m having. And this has been my experience with almost all the shrines and temples that I’ve been to. What’s the point of going all the way to a temple when you can’t even see the deity at peace, without being pushed and shoveled?
I will not get into the debate of whether god exists or not and whether we should believe in him or not. I believe in God. For me God is someone I can look up to. Someone out there watching us. For me God is Hope. So I’d rather believe in him sitting at home rather than going to temples in search of him.
sometimes making such comments can be dicey my dear friend.... well that is reality which is why i could possibly not go there despite being in vicinity for close to 2 years or so....
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