The annual pilgrimage

One thing about Indians in Penang, mainly of Tamil stock, is that they have a solid attachment to Thaipusam celebrations. I remember growing up in Penang around low, middle-class Tamil families; Thaipusam was an important event. For Penangites, Thaipusam meant three trips of prayers. Anything else would mean incomplete worship of Lord Thendayathapani. On the eve of Thaipusam, it was customary to follow the day-long chariot procession that traversed almost the whole town.

The main event on Thaipusam was a giant fiesta. It was the go-to place to meet up with old friends and long-lost relatives who refused to keep in touch. Climbing the Waterfall hill to pray at the small temple atop is necessary. Watching wave after wave of colourful kavadis. Kavadis came in various sizes with degrees of intricacies, architectures and varying displays of theatrics by the kavadi bearers and their entourage. Music was compulsory. Those days, there was not so much restriction to the songs played over the P.A. system of the numerous refreshment sheds (thaneer panthal). So, it was left to the creativity of shed owners to whip up catchy songs that drew a crowd. Upbeat Tamil movie songs with sultry lines ruled the day.

To accommodate the hot season that used to hit Penang in January and February (now the weather pattern has taken a toss), kavadis mainly came in two shifts - early morning and late evening. 

If one thought that was all for Thaipusam, they were wrong. After recovering from the two days' merrymaking, the chariot had to return to its original resting place. It was a night-long affair, with the chariot starting in the late evening and moving slowly through town to reach its destination the following morning, making it the fourth day of festivity. 

Now, there was a local urban legend in Penang about Thaipusam. When someone misses a year's celebration, somehow, the curse of not attending would continue for another two years.

Now that my mother, a true blue Penangite and an octogenarian, is incapacitated and essentially homebound, she became restless as Thaipusam approached. She reminisced about the good old times when she could just partake in the celebrations back in Penang at the drop of a coin, at her will. 

She smiled the moment she laid eyes on the Batu Caves temple steps, filled with saffron-attired worshippers with hypnotising drums. For her, Thaipusam was done. Of course, she viewed all these from afar in the comfort of a car perched on a flyover overlooking Batu Caves and the iconic Murugan Statue. 

P.S. At the end of the day, the question that begs to be answered is whether Thaipusam, a religious obligation, has slowly evolved into a cultural revelry and ethnic entitlement.

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Living on a prayer?

There was an anaesthetic medical officer with whom I had misfortunate to work with always had the, at least I thought so, annoying habit of encouraging the patient that he was going to anaesthetise to engage in a little prayer. He would do so as he was just going to induce sleep. The puzzling thing is that even when a regional anaesthetic failed to induce desired actions, he would ask the patient to brace and say a little prayer!

To a staunch believer, what the good doctor does seem to appear just right; that we are mere mortals, that we should not be too cocky, that everything is indeed not under our control and that we are not infallible. In the other words, we dress the wound, He heals it!

To most people, rationalists and atheists, a call for prayer may sound like a desperate measure and the one that most people resort to when all other humanly endeavours have failed! In other words, a mayday message saying, "only a miracle can save you now!"

In the modern world, in a so-called civilised culture, the name of God is rarely invoked in the day to day conversation. Everybody is expected to perform the job they are entrusted with and to do pass the buck to anybody else, especially God.

At certain times in Japan, spirituality was infused with nationalistic spirit. Failure to uphold patriotic calls would mean immediate self-murder (seppuku).


What transpired in the recent kerfuffle over the pilot's announcement PA system asking the passengers to pray when the plane went into engine problems, is probably a clash of cultures. On the pilot side, it was probably acceptable to mention God's name under his every breath whether it meant it or not. It could be a sort of figure of speech. On the recipient's side, they likely must be telling under their murmurs (and prayers), "No, you jolly well take responsibility of your whatever you have done and don't ask God to bail you out!"

Say a little prayer...

You cannot fault me for thinking that when I am air bound, I am just a particle in the sky away the scrutiny of eyes of people who were supposed to be on a lookout for my welfare. From a person whose knowledge of projectile does not go beyond the problems I have solved in Mechanical Mathematics and understanding projectile vomiting, I cannot be faulted to think that if anything were to go wrong in stratosphere, I would be literally on a free fall. Nobody would know where I am and where to look for me.
It is not paranoia or some kind of phobia of flying that drove me to think so.
10  months ago, our plane went missing and till date no one has a clue where it went, where to look for it and what came out the billions spent looking for it.
And more recently, another one went missing. They had all the communication records and flight path at their disposal and yet 2 weeks into its disappearance, they are unable to put a closure to the mishap.
So, when you are up there, you are really on your own. Nobody has a clue where you are and what to do in case something goes wrong. Time spent listening to flight safety instructions can be better spent praying. That is, if anyone out there is even listening... What else can you do but hope?

Preys pray?

Zeus

I have a friend who was devastated when his only son was afflicted with a scary form of cancer. He was aggressive in offering whatever humanly possible to nip the disease to the root of things. He has thus far successfully dodged his son's disease. At time of the initial denial phase, my friend made a vow at the spur of the moment that he who stop doing his divine duties indefinitely if his son did not escape the grab of the dreaded crab. So far, 2 years on, the Gods have not lost a devotee!
Then back to the present time, a plane goes missing. What are we told to do? To pray and invoke intervention of the unknown as the experts do not know what else to do!
How is prayers going to change the fate of things that had been predetermined through the synchronised chaos of the butterfly effects? Whatever has happened to the ill-fated vessel had already happened. Our interventions or coaxing of the Forces is not going to undo what had already happened.
What prayers could invoke is that we, the mortals, the comfort that we are actually trying to do something when all other earthly avenues are exhausted. It shifts the blame from a human side towards the unknown. In the end, everyone would just accept whatever the outcome is and take things as it is and reassure themselves that everything happens for the best.
What matters to us most in 10 hours may not mean too much at 10-days interval and possibly laughable 10 year later.
When caught in a corner and the situation is hopeless, a miracle may not happen but people will accept and move on.
If an outcome of the situation we are praying for is not a desirous one, does that mean that we have not prayed hard enough or it is that we had invoked the wrath of the Gods or do we it just accept that  everything happens for the best?  Is our prayer going to alter the path of the universe or adjust the orbits of the stars? Probably not. Then it would create another mammoth catastrophe which is bigger than life itself. There would not be anyone there to pray anymore or to pray for, would they?

Just a thought!

When our offspring wrong on us, we forgive them. We tell them it is alright, to make mistakes is part of growing up and maturing. When they look into our eyes and lie through their teeth, we say we understand them. When the young ones show disrespect by uttering hurtful words, we swallow our pride and tell ourselves that growing up these days is hard unlike in the good old days. We do all these because we are considered all knowing and have seen it all compared to the young souls that we brought to this world. Their shortcomings, in a way, are our shortcomings. They are in our mould, and we provided the nurturing!

Tony Soprano with yes men!

We do not expect them to sing praises of us or to mention gratitudes of us in every little word that they utter or under every breath. It may suffice to remember who is the boss around here. The steady state, tranquillity, sanity and equilibrium that had taken aeons to reach need to be valued, savoured, appreciated and maintained.

This goes through my devilish mind whenever I am in the company of pious (or holier than thou) people who invoke the Divine in everything they say or do. There must be something wrong in the way we pay our dues (respect) to the Almighty. I do not claim to have all the answers, and neither do I want to ridicule those who find joy and solace in what they are doing.

If we are not behaving like Tony Soprano or Don Corleone, demanding to be surrounded by acts that accentuate of your grandiosity and be surrounded by yeoman who would bend over backwards to please you, I do not think our Maker would want to be treated as such! He would not want to be 'apple polished', put in high heavens, to be sung praises all the time. Too much praising as always is a turn-off and can be nauseating. A spoon of sugar with your coffee is excellent. Put two, it is tolerable, put ten and expect to push it all out of your system!

Are you cajoling the Powers-that-be to somehow alter the course of the universe to suit our self-interest without taking to consideration that every bit of our action and reaction has an equal and opposite reaction? Is it not being selfish? The rainy season is welcomed by the umbrella maker but not by the farmer who intends to harvest his crop. Or are we just following the example set by our leaders and their assistants who find absolute joy in showing allegiance to and hanging around the tails of their superiors with the hope of having a bone thrown at them?

https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

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Lotus feet of the Lord?

The latest catch phrase or latest hip lingo to use in speeches seem to be to include 'leave all your troubles  worries at the lotus feet of Lord and surrender yourselves'. Hey, they remind me of a camping song we used to sing in school - Pack all your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile...
Unfortunately, the song 'pack all your troubles' was a propaganda song of World War 1 to motivate the youngsters to sign the life away to the cause of the war all in the name of nationalism and world peace. Is it not ironic that man has to go to war to maintain peace!
I suppose in the same way, leaving all your troubles at the divine lotus feet is akin to sweeping the proverbial trash under the carpet. It just gives us confidence to clear our mind to gather resources to strategize our next moves to rid the trash that form our source of worry.
It may just be a soliloquy or monologue similar to a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on, just is there for visits. You can come and go as you please... They say that about pubs too - you should come and go! You spend too much time and you go wayward!

Above us only sky?

Osho Meditations

PRAYER

THERE is nobody to hear your prayers. Your prayer is simply a monologue; you are praying to the empty sky. Nobody is going to reward you for your prayers – remember it. If you really know what prayer is, prayer itself is its own reward. There is nobody else to reward you; the reward is not there in the future, not in the afterlife.
But praying itself is such a beautiful phenomenon that who cares about the future and who bothers about the reward? That is greed, the idea of reward. Prayer in itself is such a celebration, it brings such great joy and ecstasy, that one prays for the prayer’s sake. One does not pray out of fear and one does not pray out of greed. One prays because one enjoys it. One does not even bother whether there is a God or not.
If you enjoy dance you don’t ask whether there is a God or not. If you enjoy dance, you simply dance; whether anybody is seeing the dance from the sky or not is not your concern. Whether stars and the sun and the moon are going to reward you for your dance, you don’t care. The dance is enough of a reward unto itself. If you love singing you sing; whether anybody listens or not is not the point.

 So is prayer. It is a dance, it is a song; it is music, it is love. You enjoy it and there it is finished. Prayer is the means and prayer is the end. The end and the means are not separate – then only you know what prayer is.
When I say prayer, I mean an openness towards God. Not that you have to say something, not that you have to ask something, but just an openness, so that if He wants to give something, you are available. A
deep expectation, but with no desire – that’s what you need. Urgent expectancy – as if something is going to happen any moment. You are thrilled by the possibility of the unknown but you don’t have any desire. You don’t say that this should happen or that should not happen. Once you ask, prayer is corrupted.
When you don’t ask, when you simply remain in silence but open, ready to go anywhere, ready even to die, when you are simply in a receptivity, a passive, welcoming spirit, then prayer happens. Prayer is not something that one can do – it has nothing to do with doing. It is not an action or an activity – it is a state of mind.
If you want to talk, talk, but remember, your talk is not going to affect the existence. It will affect you, and that may be good, but prayer is not going to change God's mind. It may change you, but if it is not changing you then it is a trick. You can go on praying for years, but if it doesn’t change you, drop it, throw it, it is rubbish; don’t carry it any more.
Prayer is not going to change God. You always think that if you pray, God’s mind will change, He will be more favourable, He will be tipped a little towards your side. There is nobody who is listening to you. This vast sky cannot listen. This vast sky can be with you if you are with it – there is no other way to pray.
I also suggest to pray, but praying should be just an energy phenomenon; not a devotee-and-God phenomenon, but an energy phenomenon.

OSHO