Origins of Superstition

While arranging household items, I came across many old pictures of gods and a statue of Hanuman ji which was broken at one place but glued back in home. I had to immerse (visarjan) Diwali’s Lakshmi ji Ganesh ji idols too, so I thought about immersing the above old items in the river too. I knew that it was not auspicious to keep broken idols at home, so I found courage to identify and pack such items in a cartoon.

Now a day, government does not allow people to throw puja items directly in rivers, and we have to keep such things in trash bins kept near river-banks. Although we suspect that municipal workers must be finally dumping such items in God knows what places; but what options do we have? I naturally hesitated in immersing such religious items, convincing myself that there is no harm in keeping these in some corner at home. But I remembered that these are lying idle for many years, and “how long” do I plan to keep these? Until these become fossils? So, somehow I gathered courage and collected all such items in a cartoon and kept it in a bag, and planned to go to the river bank next morning to immerse those.

But, seems God had other plans. Next morning, it was raining. I thought I would go in the evening, but it kept raining whole day. I thought I would go next day, but even it was raining next whole day! After 2 days, the rains stopped, but the roads were wet and hence I decided not to go until weather is dry again. After a few weeks, once again I gathered courage and picked up the cartoon and went to the riverbank on foot (since it is only about 2 kilometers from home). To my surprise, there were no trash bins to be found! Municipality guys were cleaning and painting the whole area and hence they would have removed the trash bins made for puja items. I noticed that no one else had dumped any puja items anywhere. Disappointed, I returned home with everything I had taken with me to submerge.

After these two failed attempts to submerge religious items, a thought lingered in my mind that may be God does not want me to submerge those items. Any of those items, pictures or idols might have a spiritual power and it does not want to “leave” my home. I even felt ashamed of trying to get rid of those items.

Therefore, I have finally made up my mind and kept the cartoon with all these items somewhere near the home temple. I know it is ‘superstition’, and while I try to be rational and not superstitious most of the time, after two failed attempts, I do not have courage to take those out to submerge again. May God forgives me for trying to do something without His consent.

- Rahul Tiwary