In an open group discussion today, the topic steered to the question of rituals, whether rituals are good or bad, and one of the senior members came up with this beautiful equation:
This post is a result of a burst of overjoy at the idea of both this equation and the clarity of this wooly concept.
As for myself, I have usually seen the word “ritual” in a negative light – something that always involves blind faith and ignorance, and as something that should be avoided and resisted whenever possible.
But today I am reconsidering this – are “rituals” really bad?
Or – let’s ask a completely different question: are all rituals bad?
Ritual – that’s a ceremony or an action that is done according to some prescribed order, following rules that are pre-made. These rituals might be social, cultural, religious, political – or even personal. Marriage is a social, cultural as well as a religious ritual. Celebration of a festival might be cultural or religious. An oath-taking ceremony – or the famous “halwa ceremony” in the Indian Parliament – are political rituals.
And then there are personal rituals. For a long time, I wrote a daily diary regularly without fail – that was a personal ritual. Waking up at a certain time in the morning is part of our daily ritual. Brushing your teeth, going to school or work, reading some pages of a book every night – all are personal rituals.
Call it a habit or a ritual – the spirit remains the same. Habits practiced by a larger group are rituals and rituals practiced by an individual are habits.
Flip the word and your perception of the idea suddenly changes: to me, ritual always carried this negative vibe, while habit sounds quite healthy!
Clearly, rituals also come in two varieties: there are healthy and unhealthy rituals.
A festival is a healthy ritual if it does more good than bad: if it strengthens the social fabric, it’s a healthy ritual; if it spreads pollution or encourages extravagance, it might be unhealthy.
And finally, there are spiritual rituals. In the recent times, a surge was seen in the idea of mindfulness, and many YouTubers and writers spoke on this. Influenced, many people added in their “daily rituals” a 10- or a 15-minute slot for mindfulness. Unmistakably, it’s a healthy ritual – for it gives us time in a fast-pacing world to pause and reflect on ourselves and our world. If practiced regularly and with “spirit”, one might be spiritually awakened!
But!
But if this 10-minute period becomes a spiritless, devoid-of-purpose “ritual” – a ritual captured in inverted commas – you will become just that – captured: it will be more of an obligation than an activity to enrich you spiritually.
There seems to be a secret behind the stability in nature: sun and seasons appear to be following a ritual of returning again and again at a particular time of the day and year. Earth’s revolution around the sun and rotation around itself are rituals, pretty much. A wheel’s rotation, a body’s in-built clock, growing up and dying – all are rituals in their own right.
Nature is in order, running according to patterns - as per its own rituals.
There’s a lot of scope for exploring this subject even more, but let’s attempt to close this discussion with this: instead of asking the wrong question “Are rituals good or bad”, let’s ask the better and more thought-out question: “How much of rituals is ok?”
That, now, is a question worth a discussion!
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