Last summer, I was at Rishikesh for a holiday and happened to stay at a place called “Parmarth Niketan.” This was a spiritual centre/commune on the banks of Ganges, which consisted of a temple and Gurukul . The Gurukul, meant for homeless orphans, provides secondary education with the students learning ancient texts along with their curriculum.
Every evening, led by the head of the centre, these young students conduct a lovely Arati , right by the river. This was a new experience and fascinated me in a strange way. Gurukul students’ singing against the gushing sound of Ganges exhilarated me. As the evening progressed, I found myself joining in the singing¬. For those few hours, individual consciousness gave way completely to the surroundings, merging in with nature. The simplicity and the feeling of spirituality separated Parmarth from the ritualistic religion I had experienced thus far.
After the evening ceremony, I looked forward to two things: dinner and an encore the following day. At Rishikesh, I began to understand religion in my own way. It also left me thinking that perhaps God was just a feeling of inner peace and relaxation. Today, whenever I visit a temple, I remember Parmarth and what I had learnt, that for me God is a self created feeling and can be achieved by anyone, anywhere. My only unanswered question was: How could such a calming influence also cause wars and riots? The answer probably lay in commercial exploitation of religion.
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