008 What is the use of Rahul Gandhi's visiting Shirdi?

Topics for discussion: 008, Cause and Effect Relationships, Worships and Successes, Rahul Gandhi.

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Mr. Rahul Gandhi, the Vice President of Indian National Congress 2014, visited Shirdi Sai Temple, along with Maharashtra C.M. Mr. Prithviraj Singh Chauhan, on 15th April 2014. They made special worship. Mr. Gandhi held lighted lamps in his hands (aarti) while paying obiescence.

Comments of ybrao a donkey

What is the outcome of this prayer and worship? His party was reduced to a zero in 14 States.

007 Temples devoring large tracts of land

007 Temples devoring large tracts of land
Topics for discussion: 007, Craze for land, Murky money

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If the 1st Century A.D. invention of the second millennium is the miracles around Jesus Christ, the last Century invention of the same millennium is Shirdi Saibaba. Both were humans. While the colonising and invading Euro-Americans imposed Jesus and Yehova on the whole world with missionary zeal, the craze for Shirdi Sai Baba is spreading in India, for no valid reason, except for a blind belief that Sai Baba protects his devotees and fulfils their desires whether asked or not.

Just as love is blind, faith can also be blind.

We should not have any problems as long as faith and love do not devour resources of a Nation, which is starved of lands for raising even small thatched huts for poor, on pieces of 50 sq.yds. There will be no problem, as long as prayerhouses do not cost millions of Rupees, bricks, cement, iron, marbles, granite.

Choked highways and rail-tracks

India is a country with scarce fuel for transportations. There is a scarcity of railway tracks for transportation of food grains. When more and pilgrim Centres start attracting millions of people, arranging road-rail-air transport for them becomes a great problem. India will be forced to import more and more crude oil and aviation fuel, for running Volvos, airconditioned trains and flights. This will aggravate the Balance of Payment Position of India. Highways and rail-tracks will be choked. Airports will be crowded.

Now see this Shirdi Sai Baba temple at Ghorabandha, Near Telco, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand. It is built on two acres. Why does a prayer house need two acres to house a just 5.5 ft marble idol?

Do grand prayer houses generate employment through tourism?

Towns and cities with great prayer houses may become tourist centres and generate some employment. But the employment they generate, in this ybrao-a-donkey's view, is an employment of very low quality.

Tourist Centers create lot of garbage in the form of plastic covers, abandoned plastic water bottles, tea cups. Some Tourist Centres, though ostensibly have a religious fervor, have indeed become centers for booze, and prostitution. Whether pious or not, many Tourist Centers in India have become wanton locations for amoral behaviors, may be owing to non-availability of separate locations for honey-mooning.

Prayer houses of most religions thrive on donations made by black-marketers, bootleggers, corrupt bureaucrats, money-launderers, smugglers, tax-evaders etc. I feel that prayer houses and religious institutions throughout the world should develop a policy and custom of not-accepting donations from unscrupulous donors, howsoever large the amount may be. They seem to believe that money does not get tainted when it passes through the turbid hands of wealthy.

006 Chappal worship

006 Worshipping footwear of dead persons, does it really help?
Topics for discussion: 006, TTD, Footwear-worship

Excess idol worship, itself, is some sort of obsession, which may ultimately lead to lead semi-madness.


If foot-wear worship accompanies idol-worship, percentage of madness will reach its zenith.


Mr. Bapiraju, Chairman of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, has every right to be a foot-wear worshipper of Shirdi Sai Baba. But, it appears that he wanted to take the foot-wear worship of Baba into the Venkateswara Temple, and used his "power" as the Chairman to accomplish his cherished desire.

Everybody in the TTD seemed eager to oblige him, with the exception of a few obstinate stickers to the rules.

Added on 29th May 2014

What is the use of worshipping the footwear of a dead person?

Mr. Kanumuri Bapiraju forfeited his deposit in his recent attempt to get elected to Lok Sabha 2014 from Narsapur Constituency, West Godavari Dt., Residual Andhra Pradesh. He could not get at least 30000 votes.

BJP	Gokaraju Ganga Raju	540306
YSR Congress	Vanka Ravindranath	454955
INC	Kanumuri Bapiraju	27083

Doesn't this sufficiently prove that God does not exist and that there is no use of worshipping anybody?

#005 MADNESS SPREADING SUPERFAST

It is not clear from history, how many centuries the Europeans and West Asians have taken to accept Jesus as Savior and Son of God.

We must say that Indians were madly super-fast in converting Shirdi Saibaba into God. He was worshipped during his life-time itself as a living God, around 1910. Shirdi Saibaba didn't apparently take active interest in deifying himself, but he acquiesced when hangers-on around him engaged themselves calling him God.

The living Puttaparthi Sai Baba started calling himself God at an early age, pretending to be an incarnation (Avatar) of Shirdi Saibaba.

The exact personal characteristics and traits of Shirdi Sai Baba are not known. The documentation available on his life are essentially hagiographies, published by his worshippers, who felt that they were benefited by his purported miraculous curative powers of incurable diseases .

Shirdi Sai Baba died in 1918.

The madness of worshipping Shirdi Sai Baba, has since then , spread like wild fire in India.

India has 28 states and all the States seem to have Shirdi Sai Temples in abundance. There may not be a good hospital or a good school in a small Indian town, but the town will have Shirdi Sai Temple. Highways, both National and Provincial, have Shirdi Sai Temples all along from Kashmir to Kanya Kumari and Kandla to Aizwal.

Some people have started considering that worshipping Shirdi Sai Baba, is an integral culture of India. The word 'culture' has lost its meaning , in the process .

Rich countries can have habits befitting the rich. Poor countries must have habits befitting their poor citizens. The poor countries cannot fritter away their meagre resources on building marble temples to instal idols of dead persons.

This craze of worshipping Sai Baba is fast encroaching into every country of the world. Temples are being built world-wide spending millions of dollars, to worship the cult-figure .

Important cities of the world , with Temples
Hongkong , London, New YOrk, Singapore , Sydney, Toronto, Vancouver.

Countries which have Shirdi Sai Temples
Bermuda, Fiji, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Malasia, Mauritius, Netherlands , New Zealand, Norway, Kuwait, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain , Sri Lanka, Tanzania, U.K., West Indies, Zambia.

Most temples are managed by private hands, in the guise of Trusts. It is very difficult to say whether private hands manage better or the Government Officials manage better. We get some semblance of public accountability and transparency.

#004 WHAT IS THIS "THREE DAYS RESURRECTION"?

Shirdi Sai Baba, was said to have instructed Mahalsapati to protect his body for three days and left it, on the full moon day of the lunar month of Margasira of 1886. The Baba, was said to have re-entered his body on the third day as promised.

COMMENTS
*This episode seems to be a creation of Mahalsapati.

*Difficult to prove or disprove the claim, as the information is second hand.

*The Baba might have gone into a sort of coma.

*This incident is similar to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

003 SHIRDI SAI BABA AND GOLD THRONE

FACTS
A Hyderabad builder is gifting a gold throne weighing 90 kg. to Shirdi Sai Baba Sansthan. It said to cost Rs. 220 million (22 crore). The gift is said to be following fulfilment of his wish, of getting a valuable contract.

It is also said that Baba went into his dreams sitting on the throne.

COMMENTS
If Rs. 220 million is given as a gift to a human-turned-God what will be the value of gifts which might have been given to politicians and bureaucrats, who do not work free. May be another 110 million each. Another 110 million to low level officials. If 550 million is the total pay out, what will be the profit from actual contract left out to the Entrepreneur? Say another 550 million. If total 1100 million is the profits for all, what will be the amount spent on the actual construction? How much is paid to the manual laborers i.e. coolies and mastries? Why should they be semi-killed with the subsistence? They may not know that they should approach the same Sai?

This clearly shows that idols cannot see anything.

*What would be the quality of the apartments built by this realtor?
*Should the inhabitants of the flats pray Baba for their survival?

002 SHOULD PRESIDENT OF INDIA VISIT SHIRDI ON HER SPECIAL PLANE?

The President of India, Ms. Pratibha Patil, visited Shirdi on NOv. 27 2007, and inaugurated the Prasadalaya at the shrine. This is reported to have been built at a cost of Rs. 270 million.

BLOGGER'S VIEW
1. No need to say, that the President visited the shrine with all fanfare using official planes etc., treating it as an official function.

2. She may be believing that Baba might have catapulted her from being an obscure Congress member in Maharashtra to the Governor of Rajasthan and then to the President of India.

3. Shirdi Sai Baba and Ms. Sonia Gandhi, did they jointly catapult her to the sky? We must also add CPM.

GLOSSARY
Prasadalaya (pr: Prasaadaalaya) : Building where the food intended for offering to the God is cooked and distributed to devotees after placing before the God.

001 SHIRDI SAI AND REBIRTH

Shri Shirdi Sai Baba, apparently believed in rebirths, like most Babas in India. Like other Babas he preached Viveka (discrimination).

OBSERVATION
So far there is no scientific proof of rebirth.