Going back to the Temple

Note: I wrote this on my earlier blog hosted as http://parallelspirals.blogspot.com. I recovered the text from the WayBack Machine. This post appeared on December 29, 2010 as per the time stamp. I’m trying to collect here again all my old writings spread on various blogs.

Between the age of 18 and 23, I didn’t go to temples off my own accord. I normally tagged along with family. It was during this period that I read Krishnamurthi and Osho. I was also a member of the skeptic gang and was trying to find a scientific way of defining God. In reference to this, at a recent lecture series, Jaydeep Mukherjee said that it was vital that science and religion be kept separate. Do not try to explain science with religion or religion with science.

The ice started breaking on my freeze on visiting temples when I read S Radhakrishnan’s book “The Hindu View of Life”. I then differentiated between visiting temple for spiritual aims and visiting temple for ritualistic aims. A look back will show you that it is this ritualistic Hinduism that spawned Buddhism and the various reform movements in the 19th century. The spiritual Hinduism is not totally devoid of problems, but it does its best under the circumstances.

It was Krishnamurthi who stressed on living from one moment to another, Osho re-emphasized it and introduced me to Zen Buddhism. My interest in Osho began when I read his critique of Krishnamurthi which was fun. It then went further when I heard the Malayalam film actor, Mohan Lal had “followed” some of his ideas. This turned out later to be not entirely true. It was around this time that my Orkut entry for religion turned from atheist to agnostic.

There are not many places where you get to go and sit alone in some place in India without getting disturbed by a long forgotten relatives (apologies to all such relatives, but you’re timing does not help sometimes). I thought the temple would act as a refuge but I have not tried it yet. I have considered the temple, though.