God Fearing or God Loving?
Today was one of the holy days for Hindu persons and mom was supposed to visit this temple in the evening to take blessings of the divine God. So I happen to accompany her and what I saw was beyond my Holy imagination. Not to mention that the queue to the temple was bigger than any queue I have seen in my life. It was a perfect corporate event with a turn over of billions in one day. So if you stand there for your chance to get into the temple then you would end up standing for at least 5 hours. My mom god lucky that she got a place lot ahead in the queue because of someone’s generosity and I was standing there waiting for her to return from the temple.
Ok so I am all in for worshiping but I was really not feeling very holy looking at the queue, the distracted public, vendors trying to sell everything holy and a band playing band music incorporated into some holy beats. Yes, you heard it right. There was a proper band and a large audience. This was beyond my senses of holiness. So what did I do then? I went and brought myself an Ice-cream and stood there looking at these people in amusement. I surely looked like an atheist to the people as I kept receiving some weird looks. But I felt eating ice-cream while standing there made me feel more in presence of GOD than swishing under the crowd of temple queue.
I wonder what these people must be thinking when they have a huge task ahead of them and that is to stand for that many hours before they even get closer to the temple stairs. I actually remember an old incident where as a child, mom and dad took me and my sister to a famous Goddess temple during navaratri and it was 4 in the morning and we all stood bare foot in the line for our chance. But at that time people were standing quietly and you can almost feel the presence of a fear. I now think that the fear is of God noticing us getting distracted so we try and impress him/her by focusing on them rather than the heat, the pebbles, the crying children ahead in the queue or the un kept bed sheet we have left at home. I remember my mom telling us in ear, softly, that pray hard and ask God to give you ta da ta da ta da (things a child would want ..I dont remember now) and I did that until one day when I felt like I was not making any sense by asking God certain things.
As I deserve everything great in life and all I am asking God is to resolve my current issue? I realized that I have to go through this pain in order to see the bright side of the life. I think I had a complete shift in my perspective of GOD. I now no more ask God to give me certain things but I thank God for the valuable lessons he is teaching me every day and for providing me with the support and love in my life.
What is your relationship status with GOD? Lets Love God and stop fearing.