All religions treat this visit on earth as a temporary passage enroute to promised potential happiness in the next.
Based on our birth, the social group to which we are blessed, has imposed certain norms, with the understanding, if these are followed, the rewards of afterlife will follow.
No religion, to the best of my knowledge, encourages its followers to live it up here on earth for the next world is going to be worse than this.
When traditions are created, they are time stamped to reflect mores and values of a certain period.
By their very elaborate exclusivity, these set up the practitioners of those rites, to succeed in their quest for celestial virgins of the next life.
By gradually abandoning those mores, perhaps we do not believe in the promises offered to us of eternal bliss?
But few of us discard all our tradtions like dirty underwear. We strip layer by layer, perhaps consoling ourselves, that the lapse of this minute nature, will not be noticed (by God or other humans) and will not siginificantly alter our chances of entry to nirvana.
And so the dilution process begins.. like a trickle of water when a dyke is breached. To prevent the leak turning to a gusher, maybe the plug should be applied very early, ie an uncompromising attitude towards rituals. Not one iota of a movement or utterance will be altered in tempo and form.
Even the most sincere adherents of our tradition, have found our traditions, painfully long and difficult to practice in the context of demands of modern day living.
In short, we have all been set up for failure. There is no way anyone can follow the letter of the law re performance of our rituals, and maintain an ordinary grihastha life that we all aspire.
Perhaps the rituals can be simplified. Maybe short standard prayers uttered three times a day, wherever we happen to be, could be suffice.
Maybe mandatory charity (minimum 1% of our net income?) ? 1% may sound small, but I think, in the context of our community, that is a start and progress from zero.
Maybe 8 hours social work at the local community centre or in lieu spending time with our youth for education.. all these are modern day rituals, which are meaningful to the self and give us a sense of fulfilment.
Otherwise we end up degenerating to such levels as denigrating our priests, who theoretically, are the upholders of such traditions and whose duty is to impart them to the public.
To sum up, I think, we do not value our traditions worthwhile to practice.. this as a community at large.. though some individuals may do so differently
I wish there is some way, where we can reform our rites and set it up, so that it can be practised regularly, with ease, and as a result more fervently and devoutly. This I wish, not just for Brahmins, but all Hindus.
Thank You.
