1. Have an Interesting Snippet to Share : Click Here
    Dismiss Notice

Holy Dip And Confession

Discussion in 'Snippets of Life (Non-Fiction)' started by HariLakhera, Aug 20, 2023.

  1. HariLakhera

    HariLakhera Finest Post Winner

    Messages:
    2,543
    Likes Received:
    2,989
    Trophy Points:
    308
    Gender:
    Male
    HOLY DIP AND CONFESSION

    Confession, a Christian way and Holy Dip in the sacred river Ganges a Hindu way of seeking forgiveness for all the sins committed knowingly or unknowingly, seems to justify the sins.

    If sins cannot be undone, how come the sinner can be forgiven? It's favoring a criminal over a righteous.

    The rules, sooner or later will punish the criminals depending upon the witnesses produced but what about the crimes committed for which no witnesses are found? What about the victim of such sins?

    A Hindu has to pay for his sins in the next birth, holy dips or not. Really?
     
    Viswamitra and gamma50g like this.
    Loading...

  2. gamma50g

    gamma50g Gold IL'ite

    Messages:
    565
    Likes Received:
    815
    Trophy Points:
    188
    Gender:
    Female
    River Ganges is so extremely polluted at Varanasi that individuals who believe that their sins will be washed away by taking one dip in the Holy Ganges will shudder at the thought of it if they see it in person.

    In the Ghats of Varanasi, barely a few feet away from you (intending to take a dip), someone will be washing their buffaloes, someone else their clothes. Some animals will be defecating close to you and you can literally see half burnt dead bodies being thrown in the same river where you intend to take a dip.

    We consider Ganges holy. But instead of holding her sacred and respecting her we defile her in every way possible.

    When I went with my parents to Ganges, we witnessed all this. My mom couldn't find the courage to take a dip so she took some water in her palms and drank it. This was on our first day at Kashi. My dad and I only sprinkled water on us.

    Needless to say that my mom got sick to such an extent that she got admitted to the ICU later that night. We spent the next few days making rounds of a strange city trying to find food suitable for sick before flying back to our city where she was treated at a better hospital. The memory of this trip haunts me even to this day.

    Ablution of sin at what cost?

    For folks that do that dip or confession, I wonder if the forgiveness of sin depends on what kind of sin we are talking about...

    For really henious sins that have no witnesses, human conscience is the only witness. However with all the corruption in today's world, man's conscience is in deep slumber. At times he may even justify his actions. At that point, the universe will take care of them. Karma in Kaliyuga does not even need another birth. He will bear the consequences of his actions in his lifetime.
     
    Viswamitra, Rihana and iyerviji like this.
  3. HariLakhera

    HariLakhera Finest Post Winner

    Messages:
    2,543
    Likes Received:
    2,989
    Trophy Points:
    308
    Gender:
    Male
    Well said. We are responsible for making Ganga dirty. By the time it reaches Varanasi, it has already faced a lot of Bhaktas making it dirty. Faithful will say, Ganga can never be dirtied. It is divine. There were times when Ganga water was considered pure at or before Hari ki Paudi at Haridwar, but no more.
    You might have heard about the havoc created by rains and landslides in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
    Here is an article from Indian Express, please read.

    [​IMG]
    Dear Express Reader,

    Astyuttarasy?? di?i devat?tm? him?layo n?ma nag?dhir?ja?/p?rv?parau toyanidh? vig?hya sthita? p?thivy? iva m?nada??a?

    (On the northern frontier of this country that forms the heartland of gods, intercalating himself into eastern and western oceans like a measuring stick of earth, there stands the sovereign of snowy mountains renowned as Mt Himalaya)

    - Kumarasambhava, Kalidasa

    Listen carefully, and you can hear the rumble in the northern frontier. The land of the gods, himself deemed a god, the maha meru Himavan, is angry, it seems. Mountain folklore as well as Puranas and kavyas perceive the Himalaya as a deity, not a mere physical landform. In Hindu mythology, he is the father of Goddess Parvati. The tall peaks and the deep valleys are imagined to be the playground of the gods. Pilgrimages undertaken to the mountains reinforce the divine persona of the peaks — the Nanda Devi jat, for instance. This landscape is dotted with shrines; its sacred geography imagined and described in puranic lore and language. Char Dham yatra - visiting Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri — was considered a sacred journey that tested the physical and spiritual resolve of the yatri. The dhams were not meant to be leisure destinations, or selfie points. Any violation of the spiritual code, it was believed, would be punished by the divine elements. There are so many stories that speak about disrespectful intruders facing the wrath of the mountains. These were tales of caution, lessons in ecological wisdom, conveyed in a vocabulary of myths and legends. In our urge for speed, for leisure, for spectacle, we have started to see the mountain too as real estate, a playground for leisure seekers from the plains. The mountain today is a bruised body, wrecked by unscientific constructions - from dams and highways to thoughtlessly built concrete buildings that seek to cater to tourists. The impact has been devastating. Landslips, landslides, land subsidence, flash floods have been wreaking havoc in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. In Himachal Pradesh, landslides and massive floods have killed a large number of people since June. There have been over a 100 landslides this monsoon season and the destruction has been estimated at Rs 10,000 crore. State Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Such has said it will take a year to rebuild. The situation in Himachal is comparable to the devastation that Uttarakhand saw during the monsoon season in 2013, or the Kerala floods in 2018. Ironically, as rainfall pounds Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, southern India is reeling under very poor rains. Rivers are running shallow in August, usually the month of flood in Kerala.

    Educationist Krishna Kumar (Turning a deaf ear to the Himalayas, August 19) says "all major tourist destinations in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are facing intermittent distress and closure". The article is a scathing indictment of our tourism policy, how they care little about the ecology of the region, the callous attitude towards the destruction of forests, the treatment of rivers - lifelines of the northern Indian plains - into drains. The recurring disasters do not seem to force a course correction. Krishna Kumar writes: "If nature is determined to send a message, policymakers lack the literacy to read that message. Policy is governed by the perception that the tourism industry is the key to prosperity. An important element of this perception is the underestimation of the cost of unbridled tourism for the fragile Himalayan ecology." Tourism industry, leisure or spiritual, has to learn to respect the environment. Or it will die, perhaps, after taking many lives and destroying habitats. Governments need to be humble when they approach the Himalayas, when they plan to "exploit" the hydropower potential of the mountain streams or seek to upgrade hill roads into expressways.

    This was also the message of the Indian Express editorial (A Slippery Slope, August 16). The editorial said: "Ecologically-insensitive development has compromised Himachal's capacity to withstand inclement weather. In the past 10 years, the state has gone on a road-widening spree. Sixty-nine national highway projects have been approved, of which five are four-lane highways. Roads and highways are important to the region's economic development. But such projects must be mindful of the area's ecological vulnerabilities. For instance, road expansion drives rarely factor in slope stability. There is very little planning on what to do with construction debris. Last year, the Himachal Pradesh High Court expressed serious concerns on the 'unplanned excavation' of the hills and 'poorly executed construction' of roads in the state." The Supreme Court had advised caution in infrastructure building in Uttarakhand. Is anyone listening?

    Meanwhile, the nation celebrated the 77th Independence Day. In his speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort, the Prime Minister claimed that the nation was passing through Amrit Kaal, which was also "Kartavya Kaal", a time to lay the foundations for the next 1000 years as a national duty. The Express editorial (The long view-finder, August 16) said: "The PM also missed a valuable opportunity on the ground. To use the I-Day occasion to look the nation in the eye, with greater compassion, and more fully. Or to use his podium to send out the much needed acknowledgement and message, from Manipur to Nuh, that the "rashtriya charitra (national character)" is not something perfectly formed. It is, still, a work in progress, a challenge for the nation as it marks 77 years of Independence." Hilal Ahmed's essay (Political Time Called Future, August 17) argued that the prime minister in his I-Day speech was offering a new imagination of the future to citizens.

    On Independence Day, the Express Opinion invited five women to tell stories tied to the idea of freedom. Politicians Nayana Motamma and Shazia Ilmi, academic Preeti Aghalayam, sportsperson Bhavina Patel and bureaucrat Smriti Mishra graced our pages on August 15.

    Jurist Fali Nariman, Justice Madan Lokur and Advocate Sriram Panchu asked sharp questions to the collegium on its decision against elevating Justice Muralidhar to the apex court (A Question for Supreme Court, August 19). The Indian Express editorial (Thank you, Mr Pathak, August 17) marked the passing of a pioneer, the patron of the Sulabh Movement, which built public toilets in many states. Meeran Chadha Borwankar (Investigating Manipur, August 16) warned us about the tough task that awaits the police and the CBI as they begin to investigate the hundreds of FIRs registered in strife-torn Manipur.

    That's all for this week,

    Thank You. Bye.

    Amrith

    Amrith Lal is Deputy Editor with the Opinion team
     
  4. satchitananda

    satchitananda IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    17,978
    Likes Received:
    26,104
    Trophy Points:
    590
    Gender:
    Female
    Hate the crime, not the criminal. Doing a crime and "atoning" for it does not mean the person will not be punished. Every action has a reaction or outcome and the outcome of the criminal act is punishment. Does that mean the person should not be forgiven? Forgiveness and punishing need not necessarily be mutually exclusive.

    For ex. a child steals sweets from the cupboard when mom is asleep and eats one too many. The mom knows it and forgives the child. Does that mean the child's stomach will not react? The pain the child goes through is the punishment. Is the mom going to whack the kid? Maybe. Maybe not. Will she forgive the child? Am sure any normal mom will.

    Definitely. The effect will be in proportion to the misdeed (won't say 'crime'). The affected person may end up asking 'why' not knowing what led to the consequences. We are all born in different circumstances, with various abilities and disabilities. Why? Without the theory of 'karma', we would be in no position to answer this question rationally.
     
    HariLakhera likes this.
  5. Viswamitra

    Viswamitra IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    13,762
    Likes Received:
    24,715
    Trophy Points:
    538
    Gender:
    Male
    Dear Hari Sir,

    The consequences of the actions will have to be experienced whether one dips in the holy river or confesses it. In Mahabharatha, King Pandu while hunting for a deer, accidentally kills a Rishi and his wife as they were in the form of deers. The Rishi curses the King Pandu that he would never be able to have a family life and if he does, he would die immediately. That is why with the help of Kunti, he has five children through Devas. He still enjoys raising the children but when he attempts to be with his second wife, he dies prematurely.

    While Dhirdarashtra was hunting in one of his previous births, he escapes the fire without helping a bird and its 100 hatchlings from the fire and as a result, the bird and hatchlings die in the fire. Because of this, Dhirdarashtra was born a blind and becomes a king who doesn't practice righteousness (as he was blind to the needs of the bird) and had 100 children who were all get killed due to lack of practising rightousness. He had to undergo the death of all 100 children before his death.

    Both these brothers ruled Hasthinapura adjacent to river Ganges but still faced consequences of their actions. I honestly believe even not performing the rites for the forefathers is considered a sin and that is why diping in the Ganges and performing it once in Varanasi gives one forgiveness from not performing the rites. Our intellect is the one that leads us to the right path through discrimination, if we let the body and mind to wander to the unchartered territory without heeding to the discrimination of the intellect, then, we are destined to face the consequences. It is the choice we make that determines the consequences. Surrendering to the Lord will reduce the effect of our sins if we deserve His grace.
     
    HariLakhera likes this.
  6. HariLakhera

    HariLakhera Finest Post Winner

    Messages:
    2,543
    Likes Received:
    2,989
    Trophy Points:
    308
    Gender:
    Male

    There can be no logical/rational answer to a question of faith. As someone said, those who believe ask no questions, and those who do not believe, need no answer.
    The question, therefore arises, why millions of people go to Hari ki Paudi in Haridwar for a dip in the Holy waters of the Ganga. Most of them may be because they should, some of them because they might have committed some sins, knowingly or unknowingly and some of them have committed sins and honestly want forgiveness.
     
    satchitananda likes this.
  7. HariLakhera

    HariLakhera Finest Post Winner

    Messages:
    2,543
    Likes Received:
    2,989
    Trophy Points:
    308
    Gender:
    Male

    Dear Shri Viswa,
    Mahabharat is full of stories intertwined. There is a story behind every other story. All of them seem to be convincing to the faithful.
    The question an ordinary human wants to understand is why, apparently, good people are in trouble and bad people are enjoying all the goods of the materialistic life. No one wants to live and die in harness.
     
    Mistt and Viswamitra like this.
  8. Viswamitra

    Viswamitra IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    13,762
    Likes Received:
    24,715
    Trophy Points:
    538
    Gender:
    Male
    Dear Hari Sir,

    There is a joke in one of the Tamil movies. Actor Vadivelu goes to the place where the villain and his team exercise everyday. Vadivelu challenges the villain, "Try to put your hands on me" for which the villain responds, "Only last month, I gave many blows to you". Then, Vadivelu responds, "That was last month. But I am talking about this month".

    This joke comes to my mind when we come to the conclusion that good people are in trouble and bad people are enjoying all the goods of the materialistic life. Our worldly consciousness allows us to only see what is happening in the limited period of one life, like how Vadivelu is looking at only one month at a time.

    The consequences of our actions are carried for many lives until all of the consequences are encountered by our lives. Unless, we move beyond worldly consciousness, we will not be able to see the mountain of consequences. We have to get over the idea that we are this body, mind, and intellect in order see why this birth happened. This is my humble view.

    In a way, the Christianity and Sanatana Dharma are saying the same thing. When Christianity says we are all sinners and hence need the grace of Jesus (looking from the angle of body, mind, and intellect) to purify the soul, Sanatana Dharma says we are divine beings (looking from the angle of the soul) and hence all encryption needs to be erased through divine grace and by surrendering to the divine consciousness.
     
    HariLakhera and Mistt like this.
  9. HariLakhera

    HariLakhera Finest Post Winner

    Messages:
    2,543
    Likes Received:
    2,989
    Trophy Points:
    308
    Gender:
    Male
    Reminds me of what I read some time back. Religion is called Faith because we believe in it without evidence. If there was a piece of evidence, it will be called Evidence. Having said that, we somehow try to convince ourselves one way or the other. I am sure as long as humans are on this or any other planet, they will live with Faith.
     
  10. mangaii

    mangaii Platinum IL'ite

    Messages:
    1,597
    Likes Received:
    2,122
    Trophy Points:
    283
    Gender:
    Female
    I personally feel these practices helps us to come out of sins mentally and turn into better human being . Assuming knowingly or unknowingly someone sinned and they realize that what they did was wrong then their mind dwells on that one thing . Instead by following these practices they kind of get closure and move on with their life . Many practices of Hinduism helps us to get a second chance in our life . I don’t see anything wrong in it . If someone consciously sins and then use these dipping as excuse to get over it, then that is wrong . I don’t see purpose of scrutinizing each and every thing in life . It is not a harmful act. How karma is going yo act out is something that gets worked out based on many other factors which are in play . I would any day take a dip in Ganges to just get the feel It has purified me and start new phase of life . I personally all festivals gives us a chance to redeem our bad characters and become better human beings . It is ok to follow any practice as long as it is not harming people around you . Keeping Ganges clean is totally different topic .
     
    HariLakhera likes this.

Share This Page