Psychology of religious worship —

Worship or to go through the religious rituals has ever been performed with a spiritual consciousness in the history of mankind. A religious worship is always performed by a person to the ” divine entity”  having a faith in that. This divine entity may be in the form of a god or goddess. The basic query is, ” what is that element in shape of conscious, that impels a man to pay homage to this divine entity? Astonishingly, the image of this divine entity is always “imaginary,” though it has been inscribed in the mind of the devotee like a real existence. The instant and plain answer to this query may be, ” the spiritual consciousness of a man impels him for this religious worship.

But this concept of “spiritual conscious” is an outcome of the present circumstances. Today, we live in a civilized society and born in a family that already following some religion. This makes us to follow the religion of the family compulsorily. In simple words, “the religion of the family suo moto becomes the religion of the coming generation.” In this way, religion becomes an inseparable part and parcel of a family’s legacy.” In most of the cases, we begin to follow the same religious rituals as that of being performed by our parents or consanguinary kin. Some of these rituals we learn through imitation, other complicated rituals often taught to us by them. Parents and consanguineal kin simply kindle a curiosity about religious rituals into our mind. By teaching us all the rituals, they directly or indirectly impel us to become a religious person.

This process of inspiring to follow the religion keep on going whole though the life of a man. Almost, in every known religion of the world, often so many festivals have got direct links with the religion. In Hindu culture, there is long list of such festivals related to the religious mythology. The Hindu culture in general nominated as the “religious culture of festivals” only. In other prominent religions of the world, the same traditions and conventions we observe. The the first Lunar month or Losar in Buddhist, Christmas in Christianity and Ramadan and Id in Muslims are celebrated with exuberance and rejoice.

But the basic query is, “why and how come a man follow a religious worship?” The original psyche behind ? The answer has got both social and religious aspects, though these answers are hypothetical. The social aspect is, “every religion in its form propounds some ethics essential to run a social system and its structure.” This propounds, what should be the structure of a specific community and the “life style’ in consonance to the ethics of that religion. It is an undisputed fact that religion has ever played a significant role to unite a “community at large” and to make it live a life in coordination. This we observe from a sociological point of view.

But how the religious conscious props itself as such? This question is deeply related to most of  religions. We can not ignore that this “Prop” has been helpful to establish specifically a religion at the initial stage of human beings. In fact, this prop is the concept of “existence of god.” The god, whom no body has witnessed physically, ( though a few claim to encounter him.) In the description of some religions, it has got an embodiment as a human being; in others, it is incorporeal or formless but like an effulgence of light. To the incorporeal one, this effulgence is enlightening the entire world. The religions with embodiment believe in incarnation and perform idol worship. To the religious communities with faith in embodiment, god has been propounded with a bodily appearance and from time immemorial, generations after generations, this god been worshiped as such.

In every religion, some “sacred books” had ever been present to help kindle and propagate the religious faith. These “sacred books” always have been source of “divine power and enlightenment” for devotees. But once again, the same query nags us, ” what is that specific element that forces us to knee down before the existence of the god?” The spiritual answer to this is, ” the mysterious existence of the Almighty god!” In the known history of the mankind, this “mysterious existence” has never been unraveled. When an entity contains in itself the element of “ultimate mystery,” it inspires an awesome respect in the mind of others. By being assailed by the “mysterious existence of unknown power,” man knees down before that.

The man, from the date of inception of the evolution has been forced to encounter the unknown and unbound power of the Mother Nature. At that earliest stage, he had had a conviction in the mind that the Nature is being governed by some almighty and mysterious force. He comprehended it down to his every atom that this unbounded and infinite force could not be controlled by mankind. This “fear” inclined him to worship the Mother Nature at the initial stage. Perhaps, this Pagan culture was the first most religious Prop of the mankind. Amazingly, by going through the stages of millions years of evolution and thereafter becoming civilized for past some thousand years, still the mysterious existence of the god is an “unsolved riddle” for mankind.

Despite the fact, man has become so advanced scientifically and sagacious as well, this riddle is at the same “initial stage,” as it had been million years ago. Man has ever been assailed by the fear of this “mysterious existence” of the god who exemplify himself from time to time in shape of Natural calamities and pandemic. Man has got no answer, how these miracles keep on occurring. At the end riddle remains as unsolved one and every mysterious riddle brings faith with it, firstly as fear then in shape of horror. Hence a supposition is there, man began to worship the god under the impression of the fear.  In the process of millions of years of evolution, this fear of horror has been transformed into an awesome religious devotion.

It is also obvious that in every religion, elders and religious preacher warn the disciples to be aware of the wrath of the god. Even in families, parents warn the children to be fearful of the existence of the god.  Doesn’t it sound, mere the conscious of fear or wrath of the  Supreme Father impels us to become faithful to him. No doubt, he too has been depicted as a merciful to his children if they follow the right path in the life. This forces us, if we are not to live our life in accord with the ethics propounded, we may fall prey to his wrath. At the end, we shouldn’t forget the fact, every “sacred book” has been declared to be created by the god itself and every follower accepts this without raising any objection. The answer to the query surfaces up that we can’t dare make our god angry. Meant, the mysterious existence and fear generated by the supernatural and Almighty power impels us to follow the spiritual or religious worship. Penned by —  Vinay Pharasi —–