Yesterday was one of the few occassions when I had to accompany my mother to the temple to get the blessins of the "Maharaj Ji", a middle aged lady who established the temple many years ago. I went along more with the intent of not hurting my mothers' sentiments than getting blessed by the supposedly heavenly soul. One may think why I am being so disrespectful to a seemingly harmless and respectful person.
The problem is two-fold. The first being that I don't like the idea of putting a mortal being in the place of God. And second is, that I don't think that the person in question is worthy of the status and influence that she has. I say this accepting that yours truly is no messiah. But I think everyone is entitled to his own opinion.
Before I get to the latest incident, let me brief you about my first meeting with the "Maharaj Ji". It was the evening before I had to leave for my bike trip to Leh. My mom, fearing for my safety, asked me to get blessings from Maharaj Ji so that my trip goes on without much trouble. I was not at all surprised by her reaction on hearing about the trip. She asked: "Koi pran liya tha kya? Ya koi bipda pad gayi? Kya zarurat hai shareer todne ki? Jaana hi hai to bus mein ya plane mein jao." When I narrated the incident to my ride partner, he just asked me one question: "If shes really an enlightened soul, shouldn't she understand the urge to do what one wants to do?"
It is now more than a year since that incident, and here I was sitting in front of her once again. For a divine person, I saw her loose her temper at least thrice on trivial issues, and that further strenthened my opinion of her. So I just wanted to leave and be on my merry way. I was about to get up when she received a call. And the things that I heard her say made me question not only her divine status, but also her intelligence. Its quite obvious that I could only hear whatever she was saying, but that was enough fo rme to grab a hold on the whole thing.
The call was from someone whose relative had some brain problem and was admitted to hospital and probably needed brain surgery. I was aghast at what the "Maharaj Ji" said to the guy. She said: "come what may.. don't go for an operation. I have never seen any brain operation go successful" Though I agree that success rate for brain surgeries is not exactly through the roof, but her comment was a little exaggerated for me. But the real surprise was yet to come. After she narrated the caller a story about another devotee, who suffered a brain hemorrhage whom she had "saved" by calling up the doctor and telling him to do whatever he wanted but never to keep the surgery option available, she expressed her disappointment because the caller hadn't heeded her advice. As per the learned one, the caller should have brought the patient back home much earlier. And the biggest surprise came when she said that the oxygen support should have been removed long ago if the patient's well being is required.
I am all for having faith in the all mighty, but don't you think its going a bit too far with this! And this is not the first time I have come across incidents like this.
Why is it that we give so much power to a human being just because he or she can read the spiritual and mythological books better than us? Why do we go to see the doctors, who give up their life to master their science, but then fail to realise that the best guide is not somone who doesn't know anything about medicine? Why do we appreciate people so much that we end up making Gods out of them? Why??
