International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences Vol-6, Issue-1; Jan-Feb, 2021 Journal Home Page Available: https://ijeab.com/ Journal DOI: 10.22161/ijels Deconstructing the Spurious Belief System behind Pilgrimage: Enlightening Youth towards Spirituality Dr. Anupriya Singh1, Dr. Shipra Malik2, Prof. Krishna Dayal Sharma3 1,3Swami Keshvanand Institute of Technology, Jaipur, Rajasthan 2 Arts and Science College, Baljurashi, Albaha, Saudi Arabia Received: 05 Nov 2020; Received in revised form: 11 Jan 2021; Accepted: 21 Jan 2021; Available online: 31 Jan 2021 ©2021 The Author(s). Published by Infogain Publication. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Abstract— This paper is written with an aim to create awareness that pilgrimage is incapable of bringing about permanent transformation in human beings, though sometimes it can be one of the stimulants to inspire humans to adopt righteousness in their lives. But, in most instances, pilgrims experience transient engendering of these benevolent feelings which can be considered to be equivalent to the concepts of “liminality” and “communitas” propounded by Victor Turner in his theory. This research undertakes to prove it by resolving the ambiguity between the concepts of spirituality and religion citing mainly the thoughts of Mirra Alfassa known to her followers as “The Mother”, Aurobindo Ghosh, Karl Marx & Victor Turner and employing them as bases to demonstrate that the “Kumbh Mela” and Hajj, the places of pilgrimage, are mere manifestations of religion, and therefore insignificant in bringing about any perpetual transformation in human beings, a view which was vehemently buttressed by Rene Gothoni in his paper entitled “Pilgrimage=Transformation Journey”. The main purpose of this paper is to enlighten the youth to become spiritual and not religious because the latter has increasingly deviated from its role of emancipation of mankind. Keywords— Liminality, Communitas, Structure, Anti-structure, Spirituality, Religion. I. INTRODUCTION notion of evolutionary psychology fail to differentiate Spirituality and religiosity are often taken as alternative between “spiritual awareness as an inherent phenomenon [i.e., terms by scholars. John Fisher, in his article “The Four innate] and religion as a belief system”, which is enculturated Domains Model: Connecting Spirituality, Health and Well- through family, education and community (Fisher 2011, 19). Being” puts forth several viewpoints regarding religion and There is no denying the fact that religion does serve as spirituality but the one propounded by Horsburgh sounds most a source of inspiration to embark on the path of spirituality but apt to me. He maintains that religion focuses on ideology and now it has been largely reduced to a commodity by the state rules (of faith and belief systems), whereas spirituality focuses and capitalist economy. They have divested it of the ethereal on experience and relationships which go beyond religion. experiences it afforded and have turned it into an almost Abraham Maslow, presumed by many to be the father of political organization. The ignorance about the distinction humanistic psychology, and John Dewey, founder of the between the two phenomena, religion and spirituality, has led philosophical school of Pragmatism, consider spirituality to to the rejection of Turner’s theoretical model of pilgrimage by be part of a person’s being, therefore, existing earlier to and most scholars, thereby ignorantly elevating pilgrimage to the different from religiosity. However, many advocates of the echelon of spirituality. Perhaps, this ignorance about the ISSN: 2456-7620 https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.61.17 139 Anupriya Singh et al. International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences, 6(1)-2021 difference between religion and spirituality drove Rene most commonly used in an ironic manner for Muslims who Gothoni to entitle his paper “Pilgrimage=Transformation”. In have not performed Hajj, and has now expanded to a general my deconstructive study of pilgrimage, I have attempted to derogatory term for any Iraqi, Arab, or other person of Middle invalidate the belief that pilgrimage brings about everlasting Eastern or South Asian descent. The use of such terminology transmutation which as a natural corollary, will uphold the delimits the boundary between “my world” and “the world”- universal validity of Turner’s theory. The paper first expounds one of the bases of the division of mankind. According to the differences between religion and spirituality and then goes Pattanaik, “the world” is objective, logical, universal, on to prove pilgrimage as a religious affair and not a spiritual scientific and factual, while “my world” is emotional, one by citing two case studies related to Hindu and Muslim subjective and personal- it is the belief system that we carry, pilgrimages. The paper is concluded with several propositions the myth that we live in. (Pattanaik 2009). based on the findings elucidated in this paper. Religious followers consider their tenets to be the one absolute truth and they try to impose them on others. They fail II. RELIGION to rise above contradictions and scorn at those who do not accept their truth as the ultimate truth. The desire for a Religion can be defined as reminiscing the past- a yearning uniform structure and authority has given rise to the curse of for structure & certainty and respect for authority. It is not religious fundamentalism. Islamic fundamentalism is an related to the emancipation of soul, but is rather a construct apparent example of it. Religious metanarratives such as ‘The equipped with government, policies and laws, with its rules Gita’, ‘The Ramayana’, ‘The Quran’, ‘The Bible’ etc., further and regulations binding upon its votaries, all absolute and aggravate the problem. I don’t say that they are not sacred but unchallengeable (“Difference between Religion and what is deplorable is that these pious books have been used as Spirituality”, n.d.). According to Sri Aurobindo, the spiritual instruments to fulfill the selfish or sectarian motives of people life (adhyatma-jivana), the religious life (dharma-jivana) and which undoubtedly bring disgrace to any religion. People try the ordinary human life, of which morality is a part, are quite to establish the supremacy of their religions by constant different from each other. The ordinary life is that of the telling and retelling of their respective holy books and by typical human consciousness separated from its own true self showcasing their specific rituals through processions, and from the Divine and led by the mundane conduct of the organization of various congregations and broadcasting them mind, life and body which are the manifestations of the laws on television. There are a number of religious organizations of the Ignorance. The religious life may be a movement of an which hold ‘Bhagwad Katha’, ‘Ramayana’ etc. on a large equivalent ignorant human consciousness, turning or trying to scale for the alleged emancipation of human beings. Karl show far away from the world towards the Divine, but so far Marx conceived religion as the product of economic system. without knowledge and led by the dogmatic tenets and rules According to him, it may be a superstructure, a reflection of of some sect or creed which promises to have found the economic base or a part of the base on which the economic solution to get freedom from the bonds of the earth- structure of the society is built. The telling and retelling of consciousness into some beatific Beyond. The religious life metanarratives can also be comprehended as a part of the base could also be the primary approach to the spiritual, but fairly on which the economic structure of the society is built. It is a often it’s only a turning about during a round of rites, good source of income for various organizations. It has ceremonies and practices or set ideas and forms. The spiritual always been a dilemma to me, if this literal reading and telling life, on the contrary, begins by affecting a change from the of sacred books cause permanent transformation in human mundane consciousness, ignorant and separated from its true beings. This is known as the curse of literalism aptly indicated self and from God, to a greater consciousness- the level in the verse from the Bible (Corinthians 3:6): “Who also hath wherein one finds one's true being and comes first into direct made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, and living contact and then achieve union with the but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life”. Divine. (Letters on Yoga, 137). It means that God has given human beings the potential to Religion is increasingly becoming an exclusionary activity. follow the new covenant which is concerned with realization Instead of embracing people of the world irrespective of their of the ultimate truth by the soul and not related to just physical otherness, it seeks to exclude them. The National Public Radio reading of teachings delineated in sacred books and of United States (2013) states that during the Iraq War in metanarratives (“Difference between religion and 2003, US troops frequently used the term “hajji”. The term is spirituality”, n.d.). ISSN: 2456-7620 https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.61.X 140 Anupriya Singh et al. International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences, 6(1)-2021 Hyperreality of religion is another characteristic feature which It was built by the Bhojpuri actor Manoj Tiwari. It is quite explicit in postmodern times. Contemporary religions contains a life size marble statue of Indian cricketer are based on fictional texts such as films, novels, manga etc.; Sachin Tendulkar. or include fictional texts in their canon of scriptures or 7. MGR, Tamil Nadu inspirational phenomena. Scholarly investigation of present- An admirer built the temple in 2011 for the chief minister day religions formally commenced during early 2000s, but it and former actor of the state, M.G.