Human beings rely on habit and rituals to an extent that
they form rituals for everything in life, either big or small. Cutting a
birthday cake is a classic example. Why cake and why not a boiled egg? Why does
a bride have to be dressed in an expensive outfit and look best on her wedding?
Why can't we just get married in normal everyday casual clothes? Rituals have
taken over our minds, because we've stopped thinking who we really are and what
we really want.
If we look closely, our lives are actually ruled by
rituals and tradition since the day we're born. The family introduces us to
religious rituals from the very next day, whether its saying the “Azaan” in the
baby's ear, or pouring holy water over the baby’s head. As the child grows
older, he notices more and more rituals and subconsciously believes that’s the
only way, or the right way and everyone else's way is unacceptable. And as
adults it’s hard to let go of the channel we grown up in, and so these
traditions we learn in childhood become a part of our everyday life without
even questioning them or finding out their importance and what they mean to us. Now in particular, I don't have any problem
with rituals, but what I do have a problem with is their significance and their
importance in our lives. It's hard for me to understand that why someone would
want to spend their lifetime's saving on their daughter's wedding when they
could do a lot of other useful things with that money. Why would someone who
doesn't even like cake want to cut cake on their birthday? Why doesn't a bride
ever wear black? Why should we get buried wrapped in white cloth and not red? I
came across this story which sort of answers some of my perplexities.
As a little girl watches her mom prepare the Easter
ham, she wonders why her mother cuts off both ends of the ham before putting it
in the pot. So, she asks why, and her mom realizes that she doesn't know.
That's the way her mother prepared the Easter ham.
So they call
grandmother and pose the question about cutting off the ends of the Easter ham.
Grandmother admits to not knowing either. She just prepared the ham the way her
mom did it.
Their next call is to
great-grandmother. When they ask her about her method of preparing the Easter
ham, she laughs. Then she says, "It was the only way I could get the
Easter ham to fit the small pot I had!"
So the point being, most of us have no clue as to why
we're following a certain custom anyways! And it gets worse. We start arguing
like little tots about why “our way” of doing things is better than everyone
else. I think that we get lay way too much importance in act of performing the
ritual that we forget the deeper meaning behind it. It’s often forgotten that
it’s far more important for the couple to
be happy on a wedding , then spend fortunes on the event and costumes. The idea
is celebration, and it doesn't necessarily have to be elaborate. Even when it comes to religious rituals, often
the meaning or significance behind the ritual is lost, and the ritual itself
becomes the main importance. Comes Eid and everyone here in Pakistan are all
set to slaughter their well decorated, ornament wearing, henna tattooed , goats but if you stop and
ask them “Why?”, then most of them would give you confused , half baked ,
incomplete answers . Hardly anyone
understands the central meaning behind it which is to sacrifice from what you
have in order to give to the poor, and also distribute among family friends
and neighbors in order to spread love and peace in the society. If we notice,
all religions teach these basic values of humanity, but differ in traditions
and rituals. So beneath the symbolism, the meaning is the same. So isn't that
the same as 2+2, or 1+1+1+1 or 1+1+2?
What it all boils down to is fear. Fear of what the
society will say, fear of displeasing the gods and perhaps fear of the much
popular ‘life after death’. So for most
people the driving force behind these practices is fear. That’s why they are
bound to become slave to the rituals without searching for a deeper meaning, or
a convincing reason. But that’s humans
for you in general, show them a picture of hell, and they’ll do anything to
avoid it, no matter how stupid or ridiculously senseless it may be.
