GREETINGS

Dear Sir, I have been receiving your messages regularly through facebook as well as this email address. I have found them very inspiring as well as thought provoking. It is at this instance that I would like to know your thoughts on an experience that I had today morning. My religious views differ from that of my family. I am not an avid worshipper and pretty sure that an entity that blesses you based on the offerings or prayer actually exists.Although I do question my mother’s beliefs and prayers, I respect them and do not make the mistake of asking her not to follow what she thinks is right. This is true in most other fronts too. Today morning, I was asked to accompany her to the neighborhood temple. Although I was known to be not a great believer, I agreed thinking that it’s amma’s wish after all. And anyway, having lost her husband a few years back, she would like someone to accompany her. But when I reached there, I realized that her temple visits were for me. I had asked her not to perform any ritual on my behalf since I have always had scant regard for such ceremonies. Yet, still she kept at it. Till this point I have no issue. Everything is understandable although I do not agree with most of it. But the next instant, apparently I had to involve myself with the proceedings too. This one I object. It’s one thing to follow your beliefs and something totally different dragging someone else who differs into it too. I felt like as if she was not respecting my beliefs after all the respect that I had shown her beliefs. Anger started raging in me and I am afraid it is still simmering in me as i type this. What is more, the priest started dishing out unsolicited advices on what to do and what not to do. Like as if he had any idea what I was going through. Another day and another circumstances I would probably have listened to him but today, when my own mother refuses to respect what I had clearly told her a hundred times before (that she ought not to drag me into beliefs that I do not share), every inch of my body wanted to scream at him to shut up. Ironically the pooja that I had to take part in was to “help in my studies and remove hurdles”. This morning I had planned to do some preparation for an exam that I would have to write next month. This pooja came in its way. I do not know what to do. I feel I have been wronged. I know I have been. But how do I present this? She will not listen. She is just as stubborn as I am. But I do not like being forced to do things I do not believe in. Hoping for a reply, Regards, Hari