Blindness ...

I am not an atheist but I do want to know why certain practices are followed without even knowing why we are doing that ? It is not that I got this bulb glowing on top of my head after doing my rig-upakarma, but I just thought of questioning myself on the fact that will I be a good senior Brahmin who has the credibility to educate or guide my next generation or will I too be sucked into this modernized world and just be an "arm-chair cribber" and keep finding faults on everyone and everything and keep boasting of my young age where I claim to have done so many things which I have not done or seen ? I fear that some of our good old cultures and traditions are seriously fading away in this electronic world, I am not against any inventions which would improve our lifestyle, but, all I am saying is, we should never forget our roots ...

I was chanting a 6 page mantras given by my dad and I felt so bad that I could not pronounce many of the words properly even though I claim to have learnt Sanskrit, we can ask "What's the big deal", but I don’t want to do anything for the sake of doing, I want to give my 100% in whatever I do and so I tried my level best to pronounce few words to perfection, I may not have understood the meaning of many words, but I made sure that I pronounce it properly. My dad does not know the reason for doing certain rituals and saying certain mantras, may be his dad would have been a bit more knowledgeable than him, but comparatively if we have to put a trending analysis chart on the understanding quotient of the rituals we do, I would say the graph is declining to a great extent. I cannot educate my kids of why we are doing certain things, I don’t know if my kids would be interested in doing all these, but history says that every generation is still following most of the rituals and hence we don’t need to fear a complete eradication of those rituals for at least another 200 years.

There is something called "Sooriya Namaskaaram" where you need to flex you fingers in a particular way where you would form a hole and via that hole you have to see the SUN, till date I don't know why we have to flex our fingers and do that, as usually curiosity kills the cat, so I searched on the internet to see if someone has given any good reasoning for that. I got a website which tells the meanings and purpose of every ritual and there was some info about "Sooriya Namaskaaram". What they say is, that "Sooriya Namaskaaram" should be done as early as 4 in the morning by sitting on a sea shore or a river bank, and the reason we bend our fingers in such a way is, when we are up from a good 8 hours sleep, all our nerves and bones would have gone tender and hence they would not be fit enough to do their job which they are expected to do and another interesting thing is, all the nerve points in our body has some connection to our fingers, so when we do flexing of our fingers in that posture, our entire body rejuvenates and it gives freshness to the soul and the reason why we are seeing the SUN is, your eyes would have been in the dark while you were sleeping, so the retina would have softened and bulged, if you immediately get up and expose your retina to a bright light, it will take a lot of time for it to get adjusted and show the actual vision, but by doing "Sooriya Namaskaaram" at 4:00 AM in the morning, the light will be mind and dull and when you focus that light, your retina gets time to adjust itself and hence it does not need to react so fast to be exposed to a brighter light. So, all these rituals are done based on some scientific platform. How many of us know this ?? I came to know this very recently :-)

There are loads of such beliefs which we are still following and don’t know why we have to follow and I am seriously planning to find the reason behind the following things - Why are ladies not allowed into cremation grounds?, Why should we not say a "good bye" when we come from a death house?, Why should we not eat onion on a no moon day?, Why are pregnant women not allowed to venture out on an eclipse day?, Why should we not clip nails after dark?, Why should not a baby be shown a mirror till 1 year?, Why should we not play with lemons?, Why husband and wife be separate during the month of Aadi?, Why we should wash our back foot when we come from outside?, Why do we say "God Bless You" when someone sneezes?, Why does a dead person's toe thumb fingers are tied ?, Why we should not eat anything before an eclipse? And the list of questions just continues and I am flooded with such curious questions without an answer.

Comments

  1. The post is repeated twice. Anyway, good thoughts. It would be nice if u find and post the answers for the questions too:))))

    ReplyDelete
  2. I can answer few of dos 4 u...
    Why should we not say a "good bye" when we come from a death house? - It'd would be more approprite not to say "poitu varom" (will go n come back) as it looks like we'd come back for another death.

    Why husband and wife be separate during the month of Aadi? -- Because if they have relationship during AADI the girl conceives then 10th month wud be chithirai - peak summer and baby would suffer.

    Why does a dead person's toe thumb fingers are tied ? -- It's because as time progresses the muscles in the dead body gets rigid and if its not tied together it would be tough to carry the body for funeral with legs wide apart

    Why we should not eat anything before an eclipse? and
    Why are pregnant women not allowed to venture out on an eclipse day? -- This has something with sun's harmful radiation i guess....

    Good one mate!

    ReplyDelete
  3. One more...

    Why should we not clip nails after dark?
    In olden day ppl did not have the lighting systems in place, so to avoid cut/bruises in fingers, they dont cut nails after sunset. same reason for not going into the garden. We cant c the insects in the dark.

    Most of these things are pretty simple and every thing has a valid reason. Just that a few things are misinterpreted.

    ReplyDelete
  4. hey .. waiting for the answers!
    thanks! :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Here is another one !

    Why do we say "God Bless You" when someone sneezes?

    This is because earlier people believed that when you sneeze your heart stops for a second (i don't think it does and don't think there's enough proof for that as well) and so it means God Bless you did not die.

    ReplyDelete
  6. And my answers :D
    "Why are ladies not allowed into cremation grounds?"
    Ladies give birth, they should never be brought to surrounding where un satiated spirits might be there.. and on a more scientific front, ladies are supposed to be not capable enough to handle the scenes at a cremation ground and might get too overcome by emotion - same reason why ladies are not allowed inside dargahs, because dargahs are mausoleums of prophets, and a lady should not be there where a dead person is buried

    "Why should not a baby be shown a mirror till 1 year?" - A custom prevelant in TN, have not seen it in my home state - maybe because the kid is too small to understan concepts of reflection and might get scared of a mirror image :D

    "Why husband and wife be separate during the month of Aadi?" a funny one i heard around here only and i agree with the reasoning given in one of the comments :)
    there nothing like this again in northern parts of india.

    So there you go Satish, nearly everything has some reason. for some search the net for the other go figure.. else post it.. we will rake our brains together to get to the answers :D

    ReplyDelete
  7. Why are ladies not allowed into cremation grounds? - i second amrita..

    Why should we not say a "good bye" when we come from a death house?- seriously thats an social ettiqute.. u dont want to return for another death ceremony rite?

    Why should we not eat onion on a no moon day?- something to do with the gravity pull of Moon and digestive disorder.. not so sure.. Grandma explained but not so clearly

    Why are pregnant women not allowed to venture out on an eclipse day?- Radiation

    Why should we not clip nails after dark- in d dark u tend to cut your skin more often, also if u leave the cut nails here and there ppl may step on it.. Nails are considered poisonous.

    Why should not a baby be shown a mirror till 1 year?- try showing your face in close up to a baby.. obviously it will shriek out in terror.. same reason..

    Why should we not play with lemons? - Ugh.. i never knew this

    Why husband and wife be separate during the month of Aadi?- if the lady conceives, the baby gets delivered 9 months after that, which will be peak summer.. thats bad for the baby,as Chan said

    Why we should wash our back foot when we come from outside? -Obvious.. u cud have stepped on some turd on the way back :D

    Why do we say "God Bless You" when someone sneezes?- yes its scientifically proven that ur heart stops for a second when u sneeze... hence so.. ever tried suppressing a sneeze, u ll probably rupture a blood vessel going to brain.. ever tried sneezing so hard and loud, u ll block an artery to heart... and ever tried sneezing with ur eyes open, they will pop out of ur socket.. :P

    Why does a dead person's toe thumb fingers are tied ? - Rigor Mortis

    Why we should not eat anything before an eclipse? - Radiation during eclipse seriously upsets ur body. thats y :-)

    ReplyDelete

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