Saturday, July 7, 2007

Godmen business

Hmm... I try to keep myself away from this issue, the God stuff, but then Sri has drawn me to it. Godmen - ungodly business, a blog post from Ankur is followed by discussion in its comment section, which is marching in the direction of whether all tomatoes (godmen) are rotten or whether some good juicy tomato exist (again godmen only... please don't pickup your vegetable bag, to shop!). I am not sure of whether those who commented are atheist or theist or agnostic, assuming its a mixture of all three, let me express my thoughts on it over here.

Only a small minority are either atheist or agnostic, while the vast majority are theist, who believe in god in one form or other via a religion passed on from their parents. To my knowledge religion is used practically and predominantly on two occasions, one is to celebrate happy occasions, and second, to live through the undesirable moments in life, and one can come up with 'n' number of other reasons for the need of a God and let it be. Of course the happy occasions can still be celebrated even without a religion or god with it. But to handle and live through the struggling part of the life, majority of people in the world are still in need of that belief in so called almighty who is considered to monitor and take care of their well being. And everyone is not equally strong enough to holding onto that belief on their own to face their life positively and here comes the role of godmen, who can layout guidelines and strengthen your belief so that one may cope up with the life situations.

Now the question is whether these people (so called godmen) who are playing the above mentioned role in the society are performing their chosen (either self or by a group) duty genuinely or are they manipulating and cheating those followers, who put their faith on their leading godmen. Here I talk only about the new age gurus (and not on religious heads like popes and sankracharya, but still it holds true for them as well) and I don't wish to point fingers, but I would like to talk on two sets of godmen. One set of godmen start with the wrong foot, right from the beginning, with cheating and manipulation and eventually at some point of time they were revealed, while some others could sustain and run the business by covering up with some good social activities and political power. A second set of godmen start with the genuine aim to assist people, but overtime get corrupted with the accumulation of wealth and power. By then it becomes like running a business serving the consumers with franchises. One can identify any godmen in one of this two sets in various stages of their career(!!)

I see the role played by a godmen is similar to the service rendered by a counselor/psychiatrist/psychologist/psychotherapist. These experts can help people by dealing individually, but can't create a cult in the society. But whereas godmen do start with a cult and end up in where they are right now...... as you can see for yourself!

Just wish to end up with one thirukkural in tamil.

Epporul Yar Yar Vai Ketpinum Apporul
Meiporul Kanpathu Arivu

translation:

Whatever said, whomsoever says, pursue the ultimate truth in it (or pursuit of truth is intelligence).
(this is my translation and so it may have some variation from others!)

8 comments:

Sowmya said...

Excellent post. Really enjoyed the way you portrayed things

Go(o)d man :P

Sree's Views said...

Hey Thiru,
Thanks for ur prompt response.
So e u say the same thing too...rarely do we find good tomatoes.
I strongly feel these godmen and their cult is nothing but an organised fraud played on the people cashing in on their vulnerablity.
thanks , Thiru :)

unfuel the planet said...

i still wonder how can even the educated be so gullible, don't they know that there is nothing like magic.

Thiru said...

hey sangu

ya the days of person like vallalar(vadalur) has long gone...

Thiru said...

ANKUR

ya thats ironical!

I feel many have used education more for making a better living (for better professional purpose) and less for their spiritual growth.

also there is a proposition that our brain can hold on to two contradicting knowledge together without recognizing their conflicts (such as belief in god and its associated mystical and magical stuff with the conflicting scientific knowledge)

Sree's Views said...

Hello Thiru...

(such as belief in god and its associated mystical and magical stuff with the conflicting scientific knowledge) //
Actually I was discussing this with a doctor yesterday...and he was saying , if u believe in God then dont accept Darwin's theory of evolution . He is not able to decide bet the two :)
So what u say makes perfect sense..we can hold contradictory beliefs in our mind.


ya the days of person like vallalar(vadalur) has long gone... //
yes..Arutperum jothi !
His teachings were great..
but again Vadalur is infested with Saamiyars.

btw..I have put another comment for u in my latest post. Its abt the Kural :)

see yaa :)

The Visitor said...

Good post Thiru.
One doesn't need to label all 'godmen' as rotten tomatoes. As you have observed:
I see the role played by a godmen is similar to the service rendered by a counselor/ psychiatrist/ psychologist/ psychotherapist.
As in any profession there could be cheats in this profession too. (Those who promise and dont deliver.)

I personally opine that whether one has a cult or not is not the issue. Because treating individually or in large numbers is a question of scale - a cult has mass using which a larger population can be addressed. Given that some of these persons do give comfort, it would be unfair to label all of them as bad.

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