How Religious Faith Develops

After my last attempt to write something, I am trying again, knowing fully well that I am not good at writing in English, nor I am familiar with computer. But the desire to put my thoughts in black and white is very strong and so I am trying again.

I was thinking how my spiritual thoughts developed over the years from early child hood. My earliest memories go to the time when as a child I was asked to chant names of Gods and Goddesses every evenings when my mother lit lamp in the small puja room [place kept in the house for prayers and worship]. My father was very strict that unless we [I, my brothers and sisters] completed our chanting, we should not be given our dinner. So we chanted the names of Krishna, Siva, and Durga. Kali without knowing the meanings, without knowing what benefit it will bring except that we will be given whatever we wanted by our mother and father. We were also told that if we get fearful dreams we should chant the name of Hanuman [particularly Alathur Hanuman] before going to bed so that Hanuman will remove all those evil beings that create bad dreams.

In the mornings we are to go the nearby Siva temple, where having taken bath in the temple tank and purified ourselves we should go to the temple. Pray to Lord Siva for health and longevity and Sadbuddhi [good mind] and obtain the thirtham [sanctified water used for worship] and chandanam [sandal paste for applying on the forehead] from the pujari [priest]. We have then go to the temples of Durga Kali and Krishna, go around the peepul tree and also worship Garuda [a bird supposed to be dear to Vishnu [Krishna]. We will be given breakfast only if we complete all these rituals. Though we were not knowing what for all these things were to be done every day, and though I was lazy to get up early in the mornings, we were doing it out of fear of father's scolding those days Apart from these daily routines, once a month we were to go to a village called A where our ancestral house is situated and where our families have two temples, one for Durga and the other for Kali. The village is situated about 3kms away and we had to start early in the morning, Since there were no buses in those days we had to walk all the way, which as children we found very tiring. However the thought of getting prasadam at the temple and meeting the children of my mother's sisters made us to take the journey with great joy.

We had to take bath in the temple tank before entering the temple. In those days the water in the temple tank used to be crystal clear and it used to be very refreshing to take bath after a long journey [In course of time, as the temple's income from land became nil due to taking away of the land from the temple and giving away to the farmers by the first communist government in Kerala, the maintenance of the tank was stopped, water became muddy and scant which pained me, the dilapidated temple and the temple tank]. After the bath we will go to the temple, pray to Ganesha, Goddess Durga and Ayyappa Swamy and get lots of prasadam from the temple priest. The prasadam used to be sugar candy, plantain fruit [kadali plant] and payasam made of rice and jaggery.

Then we used to go to the other temple which is about 1km away and dedicated to Goddess Kali, the awesome one. We always used to call her Amma [mother] and seek her to protect us from all evil beings and bhooths and shower her blessings on us. The priest used to give us thirtham, manjal prasadam and plantain fruits in a plantain leaf. We are asked to prostrate before Amma before we leave the temple after worshipping Lord Siva. a small temple nearbyThen mother used to take us to Guruvayoor temple once every three months when our financial position was good, as it is necessary to have money to pay for the bus fare and cost of food at Guruvayoor.

At Guruvayoor, it used to be a joyous experience to have a bath in the temple tank. After the bath, we go to Devi temple first, and then go to Ayyappa swamy temple and then after the circumbulation, we enter the main temple of Krishna, the lord of Guruvayoor. In those days there was no rush of pilgrims like these days and we can remain near the main door of the sanctum sanctorum as long as we wished. Mother used to weep when she prayed and as she used to weep, I also used to weep without knowing what for I am weeping. After worshipping Ganapati and prostrating for Krishna behind the wall we circumbulate the temple three times. On the last circumbulation we pray to Hanuman and then come out. In those days we were given food after the noon Pooja [I think]. Then we used to hear bhagavatham readings (stories of Krishna during his various incarnations). These stories were very interesting, particularly the pranks of Krishna as a boy. After the readings are over we used to go to the place where the bhagavatham reader namboothiri lived and pay our respects. He used to give us some prasadam and kalabham, a scented chandanam.

Then we used to go to the temples of Trichur particularly during navarathri days [nine auspicious days for Durga] and on Sivarathri Day. During Navarathri days there used to be chakiar koothu in the auditorium of the temple, Chakiar will narrate stories from Ramayana and Mahabharata. I used to like it as the chakiar narrated the stories adding his own observations of the daily life of the people. I could know stories of Mahabharata and Ramayana through these chakiar kooth00s before I developed the habit of reading books while in the 8th class. After the koothu is over we will have the darshan of Vadakkunnathan, Parvathi, Ganapathi, Sankaranarayanan and Sreeraman inside the main temple and Krishna, Ayyappa Swamy and Sankaracharya outside the temple but inside the big compound wall. After the darshan of all deities of Vadakumnathan temple we used to go to Paramekkavu temple for darshan of Paramekkavil Amma, Goddess Kali. Neither in Vadakkumnathan temple nor in Paramekkavu temple did we get prasadam, except chandanam / manjal [haldi] and flowers used for worship. But in thiruvambadiKrishna temple we used to get prasadam which we liked very much.

These rituals were continued till my upanayanam was performed. On conclusion of the upanayanam [the ceremony for wearing thread and obtaining Gayatri mantra] the guru told that henceforth I should do sandhya vandanam daily both mornings and evenings after taking bath and that is enough. So from that times onwards the evening chanting of names of gods and goddesses stopped but going to the temple in the mornings and evenings continued.

Those were the days when the influence of communism was spreading among the upper castes. Communist government came to power in Kerala for the first time and people got attracted to the ideology, particularly its anti-religious and anti-superstitious ideologies, though most of the upper caste people including our family became paupers overnight due to taking over of our lands and fields by communist government without giving reasonable compensation.I started reading the communist literatures, the Soviet Land published by USSR and other books written by communist leaders.

Though my father was a Gandhian and a strong supporter of congress, I continued reading all books suggested by my friends who were all communists. I stopped going to the temple, broke my poonool [thinking that my friends will make fun of me] and also stopped doing the sandhya vandanam. Father told me that since I have become an adult, he would not advise me, and I was free to do as I liked. So I completely became an atheist and earnestly desired that India, our country, should be as prosperous as Russia as shown in Soviet Land. My friend's efforts to join me in communist party did not succeed as I was very shy and retiring type and did not like to be noticed by anybody. Moreover there was fear that I will lose my independence and will not be able to come to the path of religion, in case I wanted it in future.