This is the essay that I plan on submitting to the University of Chicago. Please advise.
UChicago topic - Find X
Title - Faith
In India, the festival of Durga Puja is celebrated with great enthusiasm. Much of the country stops for ten days in the middle of October to worship the goddess Durga and to celebrate her victory over the demon Mahishasura. Being Indian, and hailing from Bihar, my family too celebrates this festival with great zeal and spirit.
However, the October of 2010, was a different experience for me and my family.
Traditionally, the eldest male member of the house is given charge of the festivities. Great care and attention to detail is paid to the rituals and their execution. I was never much of a believer. I took part in the celebrations as an observer and a social person. This Durga Puja however, events ensured that I was the eldest male member present in the entire family and the duty of master of ceremonies were upon me.
My first reaction was one of denial. I did not want to do it. I did not have any beliefs or faith in the religion that my family so loyally followed. I felt, as an 'unbeliever', I was betraying the tradition and spirit of the event. Religion has always been something that I have struggled to understand, and I did not feel like it would be right for me to lead the celebration. My mother, however, was having none of it.
Swallowing my insecurities and fears of inadequacy, I donned traditional attire and immersed myself in the task at hand.
After the initial apprehension, my fears were assuaged by my mother and my aunt. They handled everything and constantly made me feel like a cumbersome millstone. My duties were so few that I desired to take part in a more direct fashion. Soon, the celebrations had almost reached its conclusion. My menial tasks demanded such things as holding betel leaves in offering to the Goddess, or repeating Sanskrit sentences. Much of my duties felt like a play. I felt like a figurative leader being told what to do by more important and learned people. However, the last day of the celebrations dawned and I was called upon to finally do something on my own.
There was nothing glamorous about what I had to do, nor was there any mystic aura surrounding the job I was given. I was simply told to take a woven basket of offerings to the local temple, and have it blessed by the priest present there. Immediately, I asked my mother what gave the priest the authority to bless on behalf of some God. I even asked if there were elections held within the brotherhood of the priests, which I felt would give the position more credibility. I believed that I was doing nothing more than the equivalent of queuing up for a rock star's autograph, along with hundreds of other followers.
On reaching the temple, I felt almost overwhelmed by the passion that I felt; that of the crowd present at the temple.
I had seen crowds before, in auto shows and musical concerts, but I had never seen, nor do I think I will ever see, a crowd like I did that October afternoon. There was a certain electricity in the atmosphere that engulfed me. Despite my almost renaissance like frame of mind to question everything and to ask for proof, I couldn't deny the fact that there was something that was present, some energy transcending the perimeter of rational thought that hovered upon the crowd. Excitement coursed through me. I felt like this was going to be a moment of an epiphany of some kind, that my beliefs would change and that I would find faith in God. However, I looked at the altars and the priests that efficiently went about their jobs of giving holy water and blessed flowers to the hopefuls surrounding them, and I felt nothing. The energy that I had felt, the electricity that I felt, was not from God, or the version of God on that altar. It was from the people who were in attendance.
I took a higher standpoint, in order to get a better view of what was going on around me. What I saw was an image that will forever be embedded in my mind. There were not an amazing number of people present. Maybe three hundred or four hundred of them. But each and every person that walked into that temple complex, exuded faith. They had triumphant looks in their eyes as they arrived at the doorstep of their God. Men, who looked like indestructible machines broke down when faced with the full realization of their faith. It was that faith that created the electric atmosphere. It was that faith that made the whole situation, supernatural.
That image, of a throng of people huddled together in an effort to gain a glimpse of their beloved God, struck me as an ironic one. Here were people who were almost frantic in their efforts to touch the idols placed before them whilst if any of them had taken a step back, they would have realized that the supernatural element was not that of God, but that of these people, together with such a common and direct faith in God. My mind struggled with the most immediate question that popped up in my mind, "What prompted such faith?"
Looking around, I saw that most of the crowd did not appear to be financially insecure nor did they appear to be physically stunted in any way. The area of Bihar had not undergone any catastrophic changes in recent times. I had always believed that faith was generally achieved due to adversity. People in dire circumstances turned to religion for hope and normalcy. However, watching those people, I quickly realized that my theory was woefully inaccurate. Not only were these people financially secure, but they had etchings of joy splashed around their faces.
As a person who was staunchly rooted in the beauty of logic and reason, I was quite unsettled by the experience in front of me. All my logic, all the knowledge I had obtained thus far and all the books I had read, failed to explain why these people sought God with such devotion and passion.
A few days passed since the experience at the temple and I was still grappling with the question, stubbornly trying to find some reasonable premise to describe the questions of faith that my mind had put up. I was getting nowhere.
It then struck me, almost a week and a half after the event, that these were questions that would never be answered. This was a debate that I knew would go on and on till mankind would finally perish. Scholars and learned men have spent their entire lives trying to decipher the reasons that govern faith. The answer to man's affinity for God is an elusive one. It is this answer that I seek. The relationship between God and man is such a sacred one. Some believe that questioning it is sacrilegious. However, if one could ever understand the relationship between man and God, the other truths of the world would be clearer and perhaps easier to find. The relationship between God and man is my 'x' and it is that 'x' which I yearn to find.
