Adding to the previous mentioned views of mine, I want to give an example. Adi sankaracharya, who is considered one of the greatest person in promoting Hindu religion, has travelled all over India sub-continent only by walk and used to have debates against eminent scholars regarding their believes. In those days, there used to be rules like whoever loses the debate should be binding to the believes of the winner. So, for this reason each person used to try their best in winning the debate. Sankaracharya won all the debates and been known as (or considered as) Adi guru. From this what I want to reveal is that the people who preaches or tries to propagate religion is not being done as if it is some miracle or magic from God. Depending on the people's conditions and societies rules for the long run betterment of people there are certain principles/beliefs present in the religion.
One more famous example I want to mention here is about Panchantantra stories written by Vishnu Sharma. It is a collection of animal fables. The author used to depict specific nature in different animal characters. Purpose of these stories is to inculcate the presence of mind and how to behave within the society. But if we are trying to question whether different types of animals can speak to each other or something like that, then the whole purpose of these stories are lost. In the same way if we trying to fight among ourselves regarding which belief is great or which is the correct procedure for doing the rituals, then the actuals purpose of the religion is lost. Every religion is trying to tell to be good with ourself, with others both in thought and behaviour.
In my life I can remember many incidents where some beliefs has caused so much happiness to me. For example, in our home we used to celebrate many festivals like Diwali, Dasara, Ganesh chavithi, Sankranti and so on. When a festival is coming means, all our family members used to think that day to be an auspicious day. So, in our home my mother used to make very delicious food items for all of us, occasionally we used to buy new clothes, we used to go and hang out with our friends, mainly all our family members used to spent good time being together. So, on those days in the name of God all our family members used to feel very happy which even after 20 years or so my parents still cherishes those moments and not only them I also always recollect those wonderful moments.
People say that even without celebrating anything also family members can spend good time together on any day whichever they like. That is absolutely true. But fixing a specific day will always be advantageous than randomly picking a day. Why because, if for example my father might thought of going to a family trip on a specific weekend, but at that same I might have another appointment. Like these reasons might postpone the date. Now considering a specific festival date celebrations, every members generally knows on which day the festival is there and even the other persons will not try to disturb us unknowingly on those days, considering we are busy in our celebrations.
Nice post. The point of happiness in festivals is nice. Same feeling for festivals for me too. In some occasions like Sankranti and Dasara not only family but whole village will come together and celebrate. Sometimes people may say some practices are rituals but that will give some happiness. For example blowing the candles in a birthday celebration is a ritual.
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