Traditions, rituals and superstitions…

Societies keep changing in time. They pick up new found knowledge about things as days go by and become wiser. (Not always for the good!). ‘Tradition’ I guess is an easy way of passing on this wisdom to the coming generations. To remove the need for explaining the accumulated wisdom, time and again, ‘rituals’ were concocted. After some generations, no one knows, why some things are done in a certain way, but we just do it as it is a tradition, in form of a ritual.

Still, there will be many who will question the tradition. So another tight layer was added on top, in the name of ‘religion’, so that the rituals are followed, with a fear of God. I feel, wherever there is a gap between a tradition and the ritual enforcing the tradition, the filler is usually some form of ‘superstition’.

Traditions make a lot of sense especially when you put the fundamental reasons in perspective. It is an extremely cost effective and least time consuming way of passing on information/facts across the society (I remember reading this some where and it made a lot of sense.)

In time, some traditions might and will lose their relevance. New traditions will emerge in tune with the changes. However, the superstitions of the past and the rituals tend to remain. Coupled with religion, these are powerful influences in our daily life.

Non-conformists or someone who is more logical than normal would start questioning these influences. A conflict arises in the mind of individuals and also some times among the collective societal psyche as well. These conflicts will always exist and are necessary to bring forth positive changes.

I was reading this post by S and that triggered this thought process. Yes, the issues that S has put in her post are very much prevalent in our society. While I think some of the ritualistic behaviors are getting altered for the better but a lot are pretty much the de facto situation still.

This is turning out to be a kind of heavy post. It is the result of idling in office on a saturday during a quarter end, as that is a 'tradition', you know.

;-)!