Religion for me

I grew up in a family which observed reverence to GOD. I remember the early days when my mom and dad used to take me to holy shrines and asked me to pray, they infact used to prompt me to ask for blessings!! My normal prayer was 'God, give me good conscience, help me with my studies, I will behave myself'. I am not going to spell out the religious order which my family belongs for it defies the purpose of this blog. When I grew up, I used to see people who never had any consideration to the ideals promoted by my family, I also saw people who went throught the strict regimen. As a kid, I once bychance went into a neighbour's house, they belonged to a different religious order, I saw the people over there uttering their prayers and I followed them with my own words - quoted above. I could see the lady of the house smiling in agreement.

One another time, I happened to step into the prayer room of a different neighbours. I used to enjoy the stories told by the elders and asked them if I could have the book of stories. They told me I couldn't and I wouldn't' understand the writing as well. I asked why? They told me it was the holy book and even they wouldn't touch it normally. I didn't feel bad as I remember my mom warning me with the books in our house. (Technically speaking, those were scriptures, but for a 11 year old they are all books!). The best part of all the religions was the festivals we used to have. We could jump of school and enjoy the sweets. My mother never objected! I even used to help our neighbours with the preperations. The same was the case in our school. I used to observe that some of our teachers/students used to take a special eatery. Once I joined the line just to try that. Later my friends asked me when we converted! I said no!! I just wanted to eat what you guys are having.

For me all the stories had the same moral, all my friends and their parents taught the same. Later when I found what others saw as reigion, I was in for a shock. Will continue rest in my next posting...