
A congregation of people in mass quantities may herald the beginning of a new dawn. Be it a revolution of sorts of minds, of ideology or mass deception. The streets of Moscow reverberated with emotion with echoes of change hailing the teachings of Marx and Engels led by Lenin's secret meetings. The cry for bread of starving mouths orchestrated the march to storm Bastille. Gandhi organised motivational meetings in the guise of prayer meetings to change the mindset of an average Indian while instilling self-dignity, inculcate cleanliness, pride to race, self-confidence and eventually Swaraj (self-rule).
On the other hand, we have seen people succumb to persuasions and commit philosophical if not physical suicide. Like the one in Jonestown and Waco, Texas. The unthinking mob mindset of Man is evident. The idea of scores or more voluntarily ending their lives under the spell of the leader is unthinkable but true.
I had the privilege of attending one such congregation of people. People of different faiths and strata joining forces with one goal in focus - to achieve world peace through theological means. They decide to have a marathon session of devotional songs all through 24 hours in invoke the Gods to cajole them to coax mankind to give peace a chance. The omnipotent, omniscient Divine forces must be aware of the goings-on on Earth as his omnipresence is supposed to be felt all around. Only all the greatness are His and the follies, our doing.
At least, what this session plans to achieve is probably to increase our generation's ever-shortening attention span. Imagine sitting through hours after hours of devotional songs. The other fringe benefits would include the training of events' management, avoidance of self-depreciating activities on a Saturday night and endurance.
If one can do a marathon session of binge watching of 'Games of Thrones' and ' Breaking Bad' box sets, why not penance for worthy earth saving endeavour? So, they like to think. The problem is that the people who cause this mayhem see it differently. They want to have a bigger war to end all wars!
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