Chanting for Money, not for Devotion

We have completed the new admissions for our school already. We started on 1st April and already the next day we had enough children to fill our new smallest pre-school class as well as some new admission in the higher classes. From the day after, we had to start a waiting list and tell parents that we were already full. On the first day already, Ramona and Purnendu started visiting the new children at their homes to see how they are living and get an impression of their financial situation. Obviously they daily have a lot of interesting experiences and I would like to share some of these with you today and the next days.

None of the parents of our school children earns a lot. They are not in great jobs, often don’t have a steady income and usually struggle to earn enough for their monthly expenses. Those whom we see struggle the most are interestingly those who do religious work.

When you ask them what they do for a living, they answer that they are priests or that they do kirtan, chanting, in temples in the surrounding. Those who perform ceremonies for people in their homes or who assist priests, bringing the items they need for their poojas, never know when they will have work again. It is unstable and especially in this town, there are thousands of people doing exactly this. They do it because it is easy and you may find pilgrims and religious people who give higher donations – or even gift a TV or refrigerator, as we have seen in some homes.

Those who earn their money by chanting kirtans in temples or Ashrams are often employed on a more regular basis. They go to sing daily to the same place, for example from seven to eight in the morning. One hour of singing every day for approximately 13 US-Dollar per month.

So you see, when you come into our town – as a pilgrim or a tourist – and are amazed by the devotion of those people whom you see sitting in the temple the whole day long, singing and praising god, you now know what is behind that: not devotion but money. The need to earn a living! The real amount of love for what they do can often be heard on loudspeakers when they rattle off their kirtans in a bored tone, monotonously and without any enthusiasm.

Someone argued how nice it was that they had a job because of religion. I believe it is a waste of human resources. The people I am talking about are grown, strong men but instead of contributing to the development of this country or this society, he sits there and sings. He doesn’t even do anything for himself in this way! He is not meditating or finding inner peace through this – he just sits there because he gets that little money and this is an easy way for him to earn it!

There are many parents who work hard to earn their money, carrying bricks and cement from one place on a construction site to another. At the end of the day, they have been part of building a house. Religion makes those other parents sit and sing into a microphone, annoying the neighbourhood and fooling walkers-by into believing the singers were great devotees.

No, I am really not too fond of religion – and these thoughts don’t help changing my mind!