Belief or Superstition?

Disclaimer: Some people might be religiously offended by reading this blog. My intention is not to hurt anybody’s religious sentiments. Pls. read by choice.

The Navratris are back. They are back as usual. Something unusual this time is the intensity of the question knocking the door of my brain is as to why we observe some days as ‘pious’ where we abstain from eating non-veg, drinking, etc. Of course there are people who go one or two steps further and don’t eat onions, keep fast, some on select days and a few on all the ‘pious’ days. It’s not that this question has bothered me for the first time; it’s just that its intensity is much higher this time. It has made me think really hard whether it’s more driven by Belief or Superstition.

I’ve been born in a family where my mother doesn’t take egg and non-veg. During the early years of my growing-up my father used to enjoy eating non-veg but would abstain from it and drinking on each Tuesday. Also, we would not get our hair-cut done on Tuesdays (anyway those days it was almost impossible to find a barber shop – it didn’t use to be called a saloon in those days – operating on a Tuesday). We used to visit temple without fail, get darshan of Hanuman ji and enjoy ‘boondi ka prashad’. For me and my younger brother it used to be more of an outing than a religious affair. As I grew, gradually I started taking these things more seriously and started maintaining these ‘religious’ observances quite ‘religiously’. I followed them without ever questioning them. There came a time when any departure to this by me or anyone known to me would be quite intriguing.

Time flew fast. One day I was baffled with a question from my son as to why I abstain on Tuesdays. I didn’t know what to answer, especially because I had never asked this question to anyone. I somehow tried to explain it by linking-up Tuesdays with Hanuman ji but I miserably failed when he asked me how it could be so, since in Gujarat & Maharashtra, Hanuman ji day is celebrated on Saturdays. That was the first time it hit me how unclear I was about what I was following ‘religiously’.

Time has flown fast since then too. I have questioned myself many times as to whether it’s out of Belief or Superstition that I abstain on some days. While I have continued to do so on Tuesdays (barring a very few of those when I’ve travelled out of India) and during Navratris, this question has been pricking my mind ever since my son questioned me on this. I have friends who follow this more ‘religiously’ than I do and then there are those, especially living abroad, who simply find it quite funny. For them, in this aspect, every day is just the same.

I have reached some sort of conclusion that in such cases, there is no right or wrong. It’s only how you take it, how it suits you. Finally what matters is that if you do it, do it out of Belief and not Superstition.