Think about this

Just saw a clipping from Imsai Arasan 23-m Pulikesi. A very interesting dialogue. Nasser comes to meet Vadivelu. The dialogue runs something like this…

Nasser: Maatrangal pala irukkindranave (There is so much change since I was last here)

Vadivelu: Maatram ondru dhaane, mama, ulagil maaramal iruppadhu (But, Uncle, isn’t change the only quantity that doesn’t change in this world?)

Nasser: Parava illaye! Naan illaadha neraththil geethai ellaam kooda payindru irukkiraai polum? (Not bad… I see you’ve take to the Bhagavad Gita, while I had been away)

Vadivelu: Kannan-aaga vaazhbavanukku geethai edharkku? (Of what use is the Gita for one who lives like Krishna?)

Despite the fact that the dialogue is from a comedy movie, it is worth pondering over. Are practices and customs of religious worship of any use at all, if the worshipper doesn’t realize and experience God and His infinite graces?

Reminds me of a not-so-similar passage from Paulo Coelho’s By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept. Indeed one of the few relieving moments of a very forgettable book I read almost two years ago:

A Spanish missionary was visiting an island when he came across three Aztec priests.

“How do you pray?” the missionary asked.

“We have only one prayer,” answered one of the Aztecs. “We say, ‘God, you are three, we are three. Have pity on us.”

“A beautiful prayer,” said the missionary. “But it is not exactly the one that God heeds. I’m going to teach you one that’s much better.”

The padre taught them a Catholic prayer and then continued on this path of evangelism. Years later, when he was returning to Spain, his ship stopped again at the island. From the deck, the missionary saw the three priests on the shore and waved to them.

Just then, the three men began to walk across the water toward him.

“Padre! Padre!” one of them called, approaching the ship. “Teach us again that prayer that God heeds. We’ve forgotten how it goes.”

“It doesn’t matter,” responded the missionary, witnessing the miracle. And he promptly asked God’s forgiveness to recognize that He speaks all languages.

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