Advaitam and Science

OM, Purnamata purnamitam purnat purnamutachyate, purnasya purnamataye purnamevavasishyate – Bri.Up V.i.1

SUPERSTITION

                                                                                    SUPERSTITION

 

It is hard to find someone completely outside the belt of superstition.  The only difference is, some are right at the core of superstitious beliefs and some are at the periphery level.  When superstition is accepted universally, it is necessary to find the basic reason for this belief.  In my view, the basic reason for superstitious belief is fear and insecurity.  It the fear of losing wealth, materials, relationships, health or whatever it may be, when fear of losing grips a person, he become superstitious.

It is a common saying that, when we have faith in God, there is no need to fear or feel in secured.  Unfortunately, people who have unshakable faith in God are more superstition than the ordinary people.  They consider superstition as a qualification.  They interpret the external indication wrongly and confuse others also.  If we have unshakable faith in God, then where does the question of fear and in security arise?  Most of the superstitious people argue this point by telling that, superstitious beliefs come from the sastras.  Sastras do mention about superstitious beliefs, but it has to be applied under unique and rare situations, and superstitious indications have to be predicted correctly, else this may cause confusion in mind.  Most of the superstitious beliefs that are followed in the modern world are self made beliefs.  They do not find any authority in the sastras.  The belief of one person is blindly followed by many people.

Superstition makes our mind weak and dependent.  It causes lot of inconvenience and disruptions in our day to day activities.  We expect others also to follow our beliefs.  Without a least knowledge about how the destiny is created, we follow such beliefs blindly.  The hidden factor of our success and failure is our karmas.  Good karmas are termed as good luck and bad karmas are termed as bad luck.  Every individual has to face the consequence of their karmas.  It is the past karmas and the present mentality to face the situation takes us to the destination.  May be our superstitious beliefs can caution us about a happening, but of what use?  We can neither prevent nor delay the incident.  Every moment is a truly deserving moment according to our karma.  Faith and Self-confidence can help us face the adverse consequences in the right manner.

When a person is strong minded, any superstition or external energy of any kind can only have a meager impact on him, which is negligible.  Instead, if we give prominence for superstitious beliefs, then they will have strong impact on us, and this weakens the mind and it surely affects us adversely.  People around us may force us with their beliefs because, they themselves got tangled in it and are unable to come out of it.  A jnani or a spiritually evolved person will never follow superstition because they are mentally strong to face any kind of situation.  They have a proper understanding of life.

Anyway, the modern technological world will not allow us to follow superstitions completely.  Then, what is the necessity of having half faith?  It only confuses and weakens the mind.  Why not we emerge out of that half baked beliefs and have faith in the Self, Atman, which is superior and immortal?  It is the right time to think, decide and to act accordingly.

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