It seems fanaticism is like a plague in South Asia. While in India, Christian-Hindu riot is burning Southern states, in Bangladesh, Government is becoming a mute spectator as well as direct supporter of religious fanatics. I am really surprised. Pakistan has barely 6 more weeks of Forex to feed its population and recently it is residing in red zone in UN hunger index, indicating more than 50% of the Pakistani population already slipped into one meal a day. Bangladesh is no better and ensuing financial crisis would curtail foreign aids to Bangladesh severely. With this background of hand-to-mouth situation faced by all south-Asian countries, instead of a conserted effort to alleviate poverty and hunger, we are plunged deeply into myriad of religious fanaticism, without spending our time and effort valuably on central planning for food production and industrialization. This is true for all major South Asian countries-Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. What a shame on mankind and our civilization! Lalan Fakir is deeply revered in Bangladesh and West Bengal. Gurudev Rabindranath once told Lalan Giti is the best philosophical gift from Bengal to the whole mankind. His philosophy and humanism is the greatest treasure of Bengali culture of which Tagore and Nazrul reaped their best harvest. What a twist of fate that we, Bengalis, never persued any jingoistic fanaticism to protect our culture and therefore, mediavel Arab culture, in the name of Islam, is determined to destroy best of what Bengal can offer to the world! Idol worshiping is no Hindu tradition as most of the Muslims like to think given their experience. There was no idol in Hinduism before 3rd century AD. It came to Hinduism through Huns who were good at making idols. Basically, worshiping demiGods through idol is anthropological tradition of tribal community which is adopted in Sanatan Dharma in late 7th century AD as a part of synthesis between Aryan and aboriginal culture. It must be noted Bhagabad Gita condemned demiGod worshiping (7:20) but unlike in Islam, it does not declare war on idols but warn the worshipers of demiGod to be careful and critical of their material greed that brought them to this (7:21). Therefore in Gita (7:21) Krishna said his follower to realize monotheism in polytheism by understanding polytheist demiGods as different expression of monotheist God without form, aboslute and beyond any realism. It is interesting to note that although both Sanatan Dharma and Islam are monotheist, Hinduism adopted a synthetic approach to accomodate polytheism as manifestation of monotheism while Islam waged war against it. Difference of approach has nothing to do with purity of God's revealation but the way Islam and Hinduism have evolved under different history. But idol worhsipping has nothing to do with sculpture. A careful reading of Gita and Koran would tell you, on theological ground, opposition to idol worshipping stemed from various reasons [1] it was fulfillment of one's material greed and not spiritual offering through action or knowledge [2] It created people with vested interest who were simply doing business of religion by fooling common people. [3] Idol & demiGod culture were promoting a material society with lust, drugs and disintegration which is despised in the path of spiritual quest. Although even monotheism and its followers are induldged in [1] & [2] despite their objection to polytheism, as regards to point [3], let ask this simple question. Is culture of Lalangiti against spiritual quest? Does a Fakir promote a society full of lust and drugs? Then why a sculpture of him, who is embodiment of best practice of humanism from Bengal, would violate any of the [1]-[3] which are given as essential reason against demiGod worshipping? This incident, again, is a glaring proof that religion is practiced by fools-otherwise why the essence of a practice will always take a backseat while fanatics would impose it by force? Let me repeat-practice of a religion is for the fools and fanatics while essence of a religion are for the seekers of truth. |
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
.
__,_._,___
