Where do Indian's waste most of their money..?
It is not uncommon to see people in India spending extravagantly in the name of God.
They don't mind spending even lacs of money on building temples or organising special religious practices with the belief that God will be pleased by their efforts and will fulfill all their wishes.
In this post I am not trying to hurt anyone's sentiments and just sharing my honest opinions and thinking and would love to hear others opinions as well if they contradict with mine.
In my childhood I learnt that "Service to mankind is service to God" .i.e.God will be happy if we try to help the people around us . Following that, would it not be wise that instead of building that new temple made of white marbles and precious metals and stones, we spent those crores of money on building a school or hospital for poor people. Won't God be more happy and won't you be getting that feeling of satisfaction when you will see a poor man fighting of some disease, who is sole bread winner of his family and for whom it is almost impossible to be treated in the private hospitals, getting well after receiving treatment in that hospital. Or on a similar note seeing few poor kids who would have spent their day loafing around gathering trash on roads, now smiling their way to the school gate.
The numbers say it all
Sponsor education for such Kids
I am honestly no way against any religion or their practices. I respect each and every God and religion but what I found frustrating is the way some people in the name of God inculcates fear in the innocent people's mind who have no choice then to spend their hard earned money on various superstitions prevailing throughout the country. I have been always taught that God is our father then I want to know which father would want his child to suffer in order to please him.
You need to accept that whatever suffering you have been facing till date is due to your past Karma's and don't consider God to be so small that you can bribe them by gifting them even diamonds. On the other hand by feeding few poor children you can improve your good Karma's that will nullify your bad Karma's and will make your journey ahead better than at present.
From next time instead of offering food to God..offer it to poor..It will reach the God automatically..
In India where almost 22% population of people are below the poverty line, where 836 million people survive on less than Rs. 20 (less than half-a-dollar) a day, where millions of kids sleep empty stomach, if these money that we spend on these religious activities is spent to feed these poor, then no child will sleep empty stomach.
I would again say that through this post I dont want to hurt anyone's sentiments and if so far I have hurt anyone I am really sorry for the same. All I wanted was to make you all realise where you might be going wrong . I know it's difficult to make our old generations realise this but you can convince them how they can contribute half their money to poor and half in building temples if they wish to.
Make them realise that God is our friend and how we should be God Loving and Not God Fearing.