For several centuries, various superstitions have dominated the Indian way of living, but how exactly they came into existence, ever thought about that. Nobody ever thinks about it deeply though everyday thousands of people somehow follow them either consciously or unconsciously. There are many superstitions which are deeply rooted in Indian society and even many of the educated people follow them out of some unknown fear. So let’s discuss why superstitions are still a thing.
How they got started?
Some superstitions are totally ridiculous, which have no base whatsoever, and some superstitions are the rules once made by a society which are no longer useful now. Surprised, well search about it and you can find that long ago, people used to make rules and regulation of doing some particular things based on logical reasoning, but as time progressed, slowly the reasons faded away and only the rules remained in existence which became a superstition. Like for example, there is one very common superstition that a menstruating woman should not wash her hair for the first two days, now a long time ago, when women’s used to bath in rivers, this rule made sense, that the bleeding can cause a problem for the women herself. But following this rule now is just idiotic and stupid. Like this, there are several baseless rules which are still going on and making us miserable.
How youth take Superstitions today?
Well the good news is most of the youth out there is breaking these superstitions and are taking initiatives to make people aware about their uselessness. But there is still a large group of people out there who doesn’t understand the simple facts as the practices are deeply rooted in their behavior through the family teachings that they find it hard to let go. It has always been human nature to connect the unknown things with the supernatural powers, which is simply wrong, even educated people fall prey to it where you can see reciting them Gaayatri Mantra when a black cat crosses their path, like she cares what is happening in your miserable life. While reciting mantra is itself good, reciting it for some ridiculous cause is simply insulting to its power.
Confusing the ancient science with superstition.
You cannot see the air, but you can feel its existence when it touches you when it flows. There are many secrets of nature which we have yet to explore and solve, 95% of the ocean is still unknown to us, there are some forests where even light cannot penetrate, and there are some supernatural phenomenon too for which we simply don’t have proper scientific explanations. But there is definitely a proper science behind everything, now some sciences are methodical while some sciences are deeper and touches the boundaries of spirituality. India is a land of conflicts; we once had people so profoundly knowledgeable in astrological science that they used to tell the exact date of starting and ending of seasons. It is all a science, a deeper science which once we knew, but never cared enough to learn and that is how we lost the base of everything and the ancient knowledge became superstitions as the knowledge fell into lesser hands.
How to deal with the superstition?
With a very simple method of reasoning, don’t ever deny anything outright, no, give it a chance by searching the root cause behind that particular superstition. Search all the way through to confirm how ridiculous it is , because then, you will know the exact cause of not following them, because one or the other day, someone is going to come to you that why you are not following a particular superstition and you should have a better answer than ‘ Because it is ridiculous.’ or ‘ Because I don’t believe in such things.’ NO, you should have a proper reason, a strong base, because then you will also be helping several other people to come out from the same. Your duty doesn’t get over by just changing yourself. Bring the change in people around you by making them aware about the reality, the truth.
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In the name of the religion and tradition, certain practices are carried forward from ages in this country. This baseless followership without any legit explanation accounts for the superstition. If we compare the previous century with today, a good news is that the level of superstition has seen a declining trend amongst the youth. It is in our own benefit that apply certain logics and seek explanation to any practice we come across.