The Indian Express trashes Pilgrimage- Vaishno Devi and hails Mother Teresa’s ch

arity is the path to follow for Hindus.

Or so it seems, from its post in this ‘secular’ daily nationwide that attempts t
o debunk this ancient pilgrimage as superstitious waste of time and money, and
conclude this anti-Hindu diatribe about this unsolicited visitation of his Ratio
nalist excellency upon the unsuspecting Divine Mother-Vaishnodevi, and its unm
erited publication.
In an absurdly argued piece by one Sudhansu Mohanty who by his own description o
f himself –
“Iam an agnostic. I pride in imagining myself a rationalist….
I don’t visit temples on my own but I’am not averse to visiting them when with o
thers….”
-to disparage and degrade that is, and compare it in all its aspect that so seem
s to an ‘agnostic and rationalist’, as “senseless’ ‘human-created psychology of
devotion imposed on poor senseless devotees trawling their young wards up the mo
untain path much against their wishes”-
And as sheer commercialization- “ My son Prayag and I discussed the VIP darshan
and the commercialization of Aarti priced at thousand rupees per head- so while
all devotees are equal, the privileged and the rich are more equal than the oth
ers,” he said as we raced down the winding path to Ardhkuwari”.
Like father like son, both don’t discuss the Haj or the mocking of Calvary and t
he son has no brains to ask either whether these are peculiar to the Mata of Vai
shno Devi or if the other Mata the Dad seems to quote –Teresa, not widely critic
ized for taking money from tainted sources such as drug lords and dictators of S
outh America, and all that the poor Mata has is the lot of ‘senseless devotees’
and the Sudhansu and sons- the dad who endorses ‘hands that serve’ taking money
from mafiaso-crooks and tin pot dictators.
Let us also meditate further on this line, upon this crass commercialization.
The Temples have an obligation to provide for facilities for the poor, and its u
pkeep for the faithful, and a special charge for those willing to part with an e
xtra sum is the same as the railways charging first class and cross subsidising
the cattle class as these elitist snobs have lately to come to call the less for
tunate in good humor.
They don’t have Saudi wahabi petro-dollars or the Teresa’s dictators.
The higher cost charged is also a ‘burden’ to enjoy petrol driven vehicles, to c
ross subsidise the kerosene that warms the hearth of the have-nots.
It is the same principle and it would be as absurd as this guy anointing himself
high sounding terms such as ‘admirer of Brian Weiss, a rationalist, an agnostic
’ none of which he is, except an abject slave straining under the yoke of intel
lectual inadequacy with not a trace of Reason- for he concludes
“For all the hardship and humongous loss of human hours’ that this pilgrimage al
one seems to entail on the productive forces and progress, endorsing – ‘I though
t if Mother Teresa wasn’t wasn’t spot on when she said, “hands that serve are ho
lier than lips that pray”.
If he had also read Koenrad Elst with half the servile mindset and a spirit of f
ree enquiry, he would have been asked to come to this conclusion instead-
The Pseudo-secular government of India does not subsidize Vaishno Devi temple or
for that matter Amarnath or any Hindu pilgrimage, while it seems to ignore Mata
Teresa’s above refrain and doles out thousands of crores of its citizens money
to fly far into the desert in its dead heat and get crushed in stampedes and bur
nt in Camp fires, in Mecca and the Andhra government started a similar ‘hardship
and senseless waste’ for Christians to journey Holyland of Israel.
How come then the media would not allot so much space to critique the Pilgrima
ge to Mecca and Jerusalem, and our brain freezes at such a prospect to describe
them as comparable ‘waste of hours and no less senseless’ suffering?
Read for yourself how ‘the hands that served’ were stashed with cash from where-
Wikipedia search on Mother Teresa-
She has been praised by many individuals, governments and organizations; however
, she has also faced a diverse range of criticism. These include objections by v
arious individuals and groups, including Christopher Hitchens, Michael Parenti,
Aroup Chatterjee, Vishva Hindu Parishad, against the proselytizing focus of her
work including a strong stance against contraception and abortion, a belief in t
he spiritual goodness of poverty and alleged baptisms of the dying. Medical jour
nals also criticised the standard of medical care in her hospices and concerns w
ere raised about the opaque nature in which donated money was spent.
The spending of the charity money received has been criticized by some. Christop
her Hitchens and the German magazine Stern have said Mother Teresa did not focus
donated money on alleviating poverty or improving the conditions of her hospice
s, but on opening new convents and increasing missionary work.[47]
Additionally, the sources of some donations accepted have been criticized. Mothe
r Teresa accepted donations from the autocratic and corrupt Duvalier family in H
aiti and openly praised them. She also accepted 1.4 million dollars from Charles
Keating, involved in the fraud and corruption scheme known as the Keating Five
scandal and supported him before and after his arrest. The Deputy District Attor
ney for Los Angeles, Paul Turley, wrote to Mother Teresa asking her to return th
e donated money to the people Keating had stolen from, one of whom was "a poor c
arpenter". The donated money was not accounted for, and Turley did not receive a
reply.[48]
Let us see whether this Mata doesn’t entail ‘suffering of senseless devotess’or
hardships-
Colette Livermore, a former Missionary of Charity, describes her reasons for lea
ving the order in her book Hope Endures: Leaving Mother Teresa, Losing Faith, an
d Searching for Meaning. Livermore found what she called Mother Teresa s "theolo
gy of suffering" to be flawed, despite being a good and courageous person. Thoug
h Mother Teresa instructed her followers on the importance of spreading the Gosp
el through actions rather than theological lessons, Livermore could not reconcil
e this with some of the practices of the organization. Examples she gives includ
e unnecessarily refusing to help the needy when they approached the nuns at the
wrong time according to the prescribed schedule, discouraging nuns from seeking
medical training to deal with the illnesses they encountered (with the justifica
tion that God empowers the weak and ignorant), and imposition of "unjust" punish
ments, such as being transferred away from friends. Livermore says that the Miss
ionaries of Charity "infantilized" its nuns by prohibiting the reading of secula
r books and newspapers, and emphasizing obedience over independent thinking and
problem-solving.[49]
More recently, the Indian daily The Telegraph mentioned that "Rome has been aske
d to investigate if she did anything to alleviate the condition of the poor or j
ust took care of the sick and dying and needed them to further a sentimentally-m
oral cause."[57]
Lastly we can safely conclude that in spite of all the suffering and hardship th
e average poor Hindu, undertakes these pilgrimages to Mata with something that t
he likes of Seshangu and sons can never experience or arrive at, the self eviden
t livingness of Hindu faith, that never burdened the world with crusades and jih
ads, nor needed vast budgetary missions.
That never trumpets the yeomen service of its missions, and without any hidden a
genda at conversion or publicity-such as Rama Krishna Mutt, Chinmaya or Amrita m
ission, nor it comes to these superfluous minds subservient to things western an
d hostile to the native pagan.
Instead it is better they take the lead of their own advice to us on Mata Teresa
- and arrive only at this same Nihilism-
Privately, Mother Teresa experienced doubts and struggles over her religious bel
iefs which lasted nearly fifty years until the end of her life, during which "sh
e felt no presence of God whatsoever", "neither in her heart or in the eucharist
" as put by her postulator Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk.[75] Mother Teresa expressed
grave doubts about God s existence and pain over her lack of faith:
Where is my faith? Even deep down ... there is nothing but emptiness and darknes
s ... If there be God—please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heav
en, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like shar
p knives and hurt my very soul ... How painful is this unknown pain—I have no Fa
ith. Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal, ... What do I labor for? If th
ere be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also a
re not true.[76]
by
Aron