prayer meeting

Prayer Meeting

It was Tuesday, 6.30 pm, several cars, motor-cycles and scooters were parked along the road in front of the house No. 552 of HMT colony of RT Nagar in Bangalore.  The owner of the house, Vijaya Kumar is a retired employee of Hindustan Machine Tools factory and his wife Padmavati, a home maker. Their only son is mentally retarded. The couple is quite pietistic and dedicated rest of their life for social and religious activity. They regularly host weekly prayer meeting on Tuesday in their house on behalf of Vishwa Veerashaiva Association.

On the right side of their house, there is 15 feet wide open courtyard along the entire length of the house. At the inner end of the courtyard, there is a car garage.  By opening the gates, the garage can be fully opened to the courtyard. The walls of the garage are nicely color-distempered. The floor of the garage is lined with marble stones. The floor of the entire courtyard is lined with mosaic tiles. On a small podium in the garage, photos of Basavanna and Akka Mahadevi are arranged which are adorned with flickering light series. The floor in front of the podium is covered with carpet. About 200 plastic armed-chairs are arranged in rows in the courtyard till the front gate.

Gate was opened.  Just inside the compound, there is a water tap. In-coming members remove their footwear and wash hands and face. A big Vibhuti Ghatti (block of sacred cow-dung ash) is placed on a stool. After washing the face, members apply bhasma on their forehead and proceed inside to occupy their seat. Ladies sit on the carpet in front of podium. Jasmine garlands on the photos were emitting fragrance.  Burning sandal sticks were throwing smoke of sweet smell. Three parallel stripes of Bhasma on the faces of the ladies added grace to them; they were looking like Akka Mahadevi sitting in Anubhava Mantapa of 12^th century. Their appearance was creating sisterly feeling and devotion to the lookers

Time was nearing 7.00 pm. Ninety percent seats ware full. A lady distributed prayer book to the members. Vijaya Kumar lifted speaker and welcomed all and requested to start the prayer. Prayer started and two ladies were singing the devotional songs selected from the prayer book. All the members were singing following them. The prayer started with the Basava Vachana, ‘Vacanadalli nimma namamruta tumbi (my words Thy ambrosial name be sprung) and ended with Lingastaka, ‘Brahma murari surarchita lingam’. For about one hour, all were absorbed in devotion forgetting sweet-sour memories of hectic daily life. Two minute silence was observed, Mahamangala was sung. Aarati was brought to each to feel the warmth. Members put Rs ten, five, two or one as per their will to Aarat plate and sat down.

Vijaya Kumar announced the start of question-answer session.

    Question-Answer session was started. It is a platform for exchange of ideas among the members. They evince much interest to participate in the session. A member put a question before all;

    ‘All of us taking part in the prayer-meeting regularly are senior citizens. Why our youths and school children do not take part the meeting?’

   ‘We are all retired people having no specific job to do. We come here to spend time. Our youth have several problems in their professional life, they feel shortage of time. They have no time for prayer, or they may not be interested in prayer, religion etc. They may not believe in God’ reply from another member.

    ‘It appears, this problem exists only for our religion. You see our Muslim brethren; they have their own religious book ‘KURAN’, own religious week-day, Friday, and they have only one religious Guru, Mohamed Paigamber. Their religion is disciplined. Seniors, youths and children run to Masjid for prayer wherever they are. They never miss prayer on Friday. They reserve a portion of their income for charity. HAJ Pilgrimage, at least once in their life, is their religious aim’ a member gave explanation.

   ‘Our religion is unhealthy mixture of several castes and sub-castes. There are three-four Gods for each caste, eight-ten temples of different Gods in each place. One who follows one God dislikes other Gods and never visits temple of other God. The society is polluted. Mutual distrust, jealousy, hatredneess are rampant. Basava teachings which are the base of our religion have receded and stupid rituals, blind beliefs have proliferated.  Such dirty atmosphere made our younger generation to loose faith in religion and God. They do not participate prayer meetings.’ A middle-aged member opined.

   ‘You see, our religion is old and religious rituals suit to those olden days. Now, population has increased, life has become very fast, social and professional life and food habits have altogether changed. We should also change with time, our religion should also change. We should accept with open mind, the good practices of other religion’ the discussion continued.

   ‘Our religion is hundreds of years old, religious traditions suit to only those days. Can you see any body wearing the dresses of those days like dhoti, bagalucoat (wing coat) etc now? Pant, shirt, suit, tie, safari suit, T-shirt etc are the common dresses of the boys, now. Thick cotton and silk sarees of ladies have disappeared.  Transferent nylon sarees for ladies and jeans pant, T-shirt, Salwar-kameej, short skirt of girls are manuli (very common) now. Grinding-stone, Varalu, Vanake etc have gone and paddy huller, floor-mill, mixy, hot-oven, refrigerator, washing machine etc are in use. How can we expect that our old religion should remain unchanged?’

   ‘We should make changes in our religion also to attract our younger generation. Do they like to travel by bullock-cart and horse-tanga leaving aside motor-cycle, scooter, car, train, aero plane etc? Our school going children also demand scooter and motor-cycle to go to school. Present jamana is of T.V, mobile, broad-band etc. We all know that all these changes are for our facility and we enjoy them. We seniors should adjust to the changes.’

   ‘Yes, I agree with my friend; as we have adjusted to all modern facilities, we should implement reforms  in our religion. By opposing the reforms in our religion, we are deceiving ourselves. We should learn to swim along with the current and should not get desperate by trying to swim opposite the current and get tired. Our religion should be like flowing water and should not be like stagnant water which stinks.’ The discussions continued.

   ‘Our religion should be reorganized. Our all mutts (monasteries) should be brought under one central controlling authority like SGPC (Sikh Gurudwara Prabhandaka Committee). The Authority may be christened as FLM (Federation of Lingayat Mutts). This authority should decide clauses of reform. Its decision should be final and binding.’

  ‘Our religion should have an accepted ‘Dharma Grantha’ (Religious Book). All the 1400 Vachanas of Basava should be properly edited and compiled to form our Religious book which will be similar to ‘Koran’ of Muslims or ‘Bible’ of Christians or Grantha Sahib of Sikhs.’ 

   ‘Sunday is the weekly religious day for Christians and so is Friday for Muslims. Our community also should have our own weekly religious day. We should accept Monday as our week day. This day should be the day of weekly prayer. All our social, religious and domestic functions should be held on Monday without bothering for Rahu kala, Guli kalala, thithi or nakshatra’

   ‘Christians go to churches, Muslims to Masjids and Sikhs to Gurudwaras for prayer. Our community should construct Basava Mandir in each village, two or three or more depending upon the size of the place.’

   ‘Haj’ pilgrimage, at least once in life is the ardent desire of every Muslim. Why should we not have such a desire to undertake a pilgrimage to Kudala Sangama at least once in life?

     ‘We should reserve 5% of our income for religious purpose and charity.’

     ‘Basava Jayanti should be our religious festival’

   “These are only a few suggestions to modernize our religion. There are several other aspects for consideration of FLM.’

   ‘Strength if we are united and Shame if we are divided’ should be our motto. We unite if we forget our internal divisions. This is only possible if inter-sub castes marriages take place.’

     A senior citizen member expressed his anguish, “My grandson asked me, ‘ Tata, who is Basavanna? Is he your brother or a relative?’ What should I answer? I simply laughed and kept quiet.”

   ‘There is a solution to your problem. We should bring our school-going children to the prayer meeting. We should sow our ‘Sharana Principles’ in younger minds. Our children of today are the citizens of our community in future. We seniors should absorb these principles thoroughly and follow them truly up to our conscience before we preach to others to follow. Your grandson will find the answer to his question by himself.’

   ‘Sharana Principles’ in concise-form are written of the board on the wall there. English translation of the principles is also written on the adjacent board, please read.’

   Sharana Principles

·           Work is worship.

·           Kindness is the base of all religions.

·           Names many, God is but ONE.

·           Talking truth leads to heaven,

Talking lies leads to hell.

·           He who wishes well-being of all human beings belongs to sacred caste.

·           Woman or Wealth or Property is not Maya. Greed of your mind for them is Maya.

·           Consort your utterances with your mind and your tongue with your acts.

·           Befriend with righteous, friendship with the wicked is deadly poisonous.

·           Keep off those who are mad of their richness.

·           Counter not anger with anger, for what merit?

The fire in your house brings ruin on yours before it enflames your neighbour.

·           When woes betide, world forsakes you. Thou ever is the friend of the friendless,

                                Oh, Lord Kudala Sangama!

                

  ‘Hard copy of ‘Sharana Principles’ is available with Vijaya Kumar. We may frame and hang the same in our house so that the contents are brought to our sight every day. Every Lingayat family should display ‘Sharana Principles’ in a prominent place in their house.

   During discussion, one of the members felt, “Our Basavanna did a mistake. Instead of surrendering the post of Prime Minister-Ship and accepting the order of deportation, he should have revolted against king Bijjala and challenged him. He had the support of the public and of army. Certainly, Bijjala would have been tamed down forcing him to snub a few hypocrites asking them to mend their behavior. By this Basavanna could complete his mission to reform the society to eradicate the evil of castism totally. This is similar to a doctor undertaking surgery mercilessly on a patient to cure him from ailment of disease.”

   Time was nearing 8.45 pm and Vijaya Kumar announced the end of the session. Prasad was distributed. He bid goodbye to all saying ‘Good Night’

                                                  **********

                           Somanath S.Salimath, B.E., D.F.E. (Germany)

                          

                           Mobile: 94483 88678.

                                       E-mail: somanathsalimath @ gmail.com