Religion and Its Utility

I’ve had a relatively religious upbringing. Although my family didn’t particularly have anything to do with how my religion views changed over time, my upbringing, I would say, was fairly religious. After my bratabandha at age 5, I regularly followed rituals. I performed “puja” every day twice, morning and evening.

The morning ritual was fairly longer taking me around 45 minutes on average. It was an elaborate process where I woke up before sunrise, went to “dharo” (we can call this tap in English but doesn’t sound right). I did my “gyatri mantra” ritual and then came back with full vessel of water that was to be used in the ritual. Some winter days, this this part of the ritual was sometimes very difficult.

There used to be days, where I would wish I didn’t have to do it, or somebody else did it for me. But the thought of not doing it at all, never even occurred to me. It was so ingrained into my habit and my thinking of how we lived, the thought of the possibility of not doing it never even crossed my mind.