Baba
Phallus worship / Shiva liuṋga puja & starvation - 2
Namaskar,
Prehistoric humans were aware that children can be created by male and female genitalia. They thought that was the origin so they started worshipping those two organs and asking for more children. So they started doing puja, and the purpose of liuṋga puja was to procreate more and more and increase the number of people in the home, society, etc. If one sees shiva linga carefully, then there is a male genital, and another female genital. The male genital is on top of the female genital.
Contradictory Practices: Family planning and shiva linga puja
In the past due to ignorance people were doing shiva liuṋga puja (phallus worship) to have more & more children. Compared to past, we see less children in household these days, across the world, because raising a child is very expensive and people are more conscious. Educated people do not want to have more children. On one hand people are doing family planning, and would not want to give birth to many children; on the other hand shiva linga puja (phallus worship) is being done to increase the number of children. These two are contradictory to each other. Also people have associated liuṋga puja with Lord Shiva. Which is complete dogma. This is the situation of today’s Indian society.
Wastage of milk in shiva liuṋga puja (phallus worship) and Starvation
The attached video clip below shows how so called brahmins are pouring milk on a shiva linga. As we can see hundreds of gallons of milk are being wasted by such practices. This is example of one temple; similarly such practices are followed all over the world by Hindus. We can imagine the amount of milk being wasted on a daily basis. At the same time, we see many children do not get sufficient food.
Figure 1: Pouring milk on a shiva linga, phallus of shiva: Wastage of edibles
Pouring milk, ghee and other edible ingredients is wastage of food. In one side, children are dying because of starvation (some children get food from empty canisters lying in the street, or remaining food from garbage bins), on the other hand people are wasting gallons of milk in liuṋga puja. That very milk should instead be distributed to poor people who are not getting food. Figure 2 shows an illustration of a child with malnutrition. There are so many children who have not gotten even much milk to drink, and their bodily development has not been proper because of insufficient nutrition, and other people are wasting milk in linga puja. This is very shameful.
Figure 2: Hungry and malnourished child
In one of His discourses Baba has discussed about this shiva liuṋga puja (phallus worship). A section of that discourse is presented below.
Many ancient civilizations practiced phallus worship
Ananda Marga philosophy states, “Ancient people had to increase their numbers, because constant clashes between the different groups caused many deaths. Fights were as numerous as sticks and stones...women were revered for their child producing capacity. Consequently, the social order at that time was matriarchal and matrilineal.”
“Later people started phallus worship. In that undeveloped stage of society, people gave great importance to the phallus because they thought that phallus worship would increase their numbers. Many ancient civilizations, including the Mayan civilization, practiced phallus worship. Phallus worship continued after the advent of Shiva about seven thousand years ago, and even today people still worship Shiva in the symbolic form of a phallus.” (1)
Misuse of food in the name of religion
Ananda Marga ideology states, “अपने को बनाने का प्रयास नहीं है; और आग में घी डालकर घी को बरबाद करना | जहाँ देश में हज़ारों ग़रीब आदमी हैं, जिन्हें पौष्टिक खाना भी नहीं मिलता है, उस देश में आग में जलाकर घी को बरबाद करना, युक्तिपूर्ण है ? कभी नहीं है | घी, चावल, क्या-न-क्या जलाया जाता है | अरे, तुम्हारे पास अगर अधिक घी हो, अधिक चावल हो---ग़रीबों में बाँट दो, तू ख़ुद खा ले | अगर कंजूस हो, (कुछ लोग कंजूस होते हैं) तो ख़ुद खा ले | [हँसी] | हाँ, तो पेट में भी तो आग जल रही है | आँऽ ? उसी आग में स्वाहा कर दे | [हँसी] | क्या जी | आँऽ ? तो, सो नहीं करेगा | कंजूस है तो, सो नहीं करेगा | किन्तु, वही यज्ञ करेगा | और क्या करेगा ? और, जितना घर में सड़ा हुआ घी था, उसी में डाल देगा | [हँसी] | हाँ | तो, यह सब ढोङ्ग है | तो, भगवान बुद्ध इसका विरोध किए | विरोध करने में काफ़ी हिम्मत की ज़रूरत होती है | उनमें वह हिम्मत थी |"[बुद्ध और अष्टाङ्ग मार्ग, Buddha aor Astáuṋga Márga, V15-10-(H), MGD 16 October 1979 Nagpur]
Hungry children collecting garbage
In India why we see a lot of kids working as servants in houses. Rather they should go to school. But instead of going to school some children work as maids in homes, some collect plastics from garbage bins, and others search for food on the streets. Figure 3 shows an illustration of two young boys collecting plastics. So proper food is still not available in requisite quantity to the common masses. The Indian government has arranged some staple foods including basic raw ingredients. But sattvika food is not available to all children. Many are downtrodden. This is not about children who are maids in high rise apartments of Mumbai or Kolkata, but rather about those who live in slums-- these children do not get much food even today. India is such a country where the gap between rich and poor is largest in the world. The poor do not have anything, and the rich have everything in the magnitudes of multiple millions. Huge disparity exists in India. Ananda Marga does not want social equality; that is a communist term. PROUT says “वैचित्रं प्रकटधर्मं समानं न भविष्यति” (world will not become socially equal). Based on everyone’s qualification, there will be some difference, but not this wide gap. Everybody should have basic necessities fulfilled so that they can concentrate on progress in physical, psychic, and spiritual spheres. There should be diversity but not disparity.
Figure 3: Hungry children collecting garbage
Few decades back in the name of Dharma, human babies were killed in the name of sacrifice, referred as “Narabali”. Over time people understood, as well as laws became strict, and such practices are not found these days. Likewise, pouring milk on shiva ling is misuse of physical resources; it involves tremendous dogma. It is the duty of all of us to propagate the truth about this dogma so it can be eradicated from Indian society.
Conclusion
First point is shiva liuṋga puja (phallus worship) is a dogmatic offering of flowers, water etc. The second point is, pouring milk on a statue is misuse of food. Third, millions of children are not getting food to eat. Fourth, Ananda Marga ideology provided by Baba, has shown us the path. It has been so many years now we have Ananda marga ideology, since 1955, and even today such types of dogmatic practices are going on. We have a duty to engage in comprehensive pracar and spread the word throughout all towns and villages. If we had taught the masses of children throughout the country from their very childhood, then such dogmatic practices would have been eradicated. But such practices still exist, so it is our duty to do pracar. So we should highlight this in our lives. At least margis should know what is the reason behind such dogmatic practices, and when they will know, then they will spread the word in social media or by other means.
It should be remembered that no dogma can be forcibly removed. If we can teach students in schools and colleges, then they can logically understand and such practices will not be adopted in future. Slowly the older generation will pass on, and the new generation will not adopt these practices.
In Him
Nirakar
Auxiliary point
How Ganesha/elephant god worship started
- Once a dogma begins, then people don’t want to leave it, but rather go on defining it in newer and newer ways to justify it. For example, ganesh puja. In the past, it was a social celebration. And ganesha means “group leader”-- gana + iisha. You see, the image of Ganesha consists of a big fat human body having an elephant’s head, and seated on a mouse. Prehistoric human beings made this statue because of the following reasons: (a) The group leader must be a strong fellow. And as the general society was commonly thin or emaciated, so they designed Ganesha with a big belly; (b) The elephant is the biggest and strongest animal, so they gave Ganesha an elephant face; (c) A mouse has massive capacity for procreation, and the public wanted maximum children. So this huge procreation is represented by a mouse. In this way, the Ganesh statue represented all three of their needs. As such, in the past it had nothing to do with God. But when times changed, then the same leader worship became attached with Lord Shiva’s son Ganesh. This fictitious Ganesh was attached with Lord Shiva as his son. The same Ganesha was in the past a group leader; and when later on this became useless, Ganesha was given a new definition as the son of Lord Shiva. And in this way the worship of Ganesha continued. In a similar way to how the social event of leader worship metamorphosed into God worship, what was originally in ancient time a social event of phallus worship, became attached to Lord Shiva. In this way we see that people don’t like to give up their dogmatic traditions and so adapt them to the needs of the current time.
- Similarly, Lord Buddha’s chariot festival of Puri, after the elimination of Buddhism from India, metamorphosed into a Hindu festival. In place of Lord Buddha’s idol, now one wooden deity Jagannatha is sitting there. In this way the festival changed to fit the needs of the next age, and in this way become continued.
- For thousands of years people had been using intoxicants. And later on, they associated this usage of intoxicants with Lord Shiva in order to justify the continuation of these negative practices.
Related Points
- In rural India there was and is still a tradition to bless mothers with more and more children. This is the reason why in the hoary past they were performing phallus worship-- to increase the number of children. Up until the very recent past, extra children were always needed. Reduction of children is a very recent phenomenon.
- Though Ananda Marga philosophy states those able to provide their families with all the basic necessities (food, shelter, clothes, health care, and education), they can have more children. But it does not mean that educated people will do shiva linga puja (phallus worship).
Note: Here below is attached one video clip related with this issue: worship performed by pouring milk on Lord Shiva’s phallus. If due to any reason you are having difficulty viewing it, please let us know.
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