| Even Hinduism considers image-worship as only the primary step - like using an abacus to teach arithmetic to children - and
exhorts its votaries to rise gradually to the highest level wherein they will have the direct experience of the
all-pervading Supreme Power. As for superstition, the less we talk, the better. The merciless witch-hunting carried on in Europe during the middle ages or the
considering of number thirteen as unlucky even during this twentieth century by the Western society, are just two concrete
examples which reveal who is really more superstitious.
Actually most of the Hindu practices dubbed as superstitions have
deeper philosophical and psychological truths behind them than meets the eye. Even granting that superstitions do exit, they are
all harmless. It is for better to have harmless superstitions than nurture such ones which have been responsible for the reckless
killing of old women or chamelions!
Lastly, the blind belief of the modern man in science and
technology, as if they are omnipotent, forgetting that they have miserably failed to give him peace of mind (which alone is the aim of life) is the greatest
superstition of all ! |
