Prayers for rain in India officially backed by government!

The religious endowment department officially requested temples nestled on river banks and those with lakes and ponds including Kollur Sri Mookambika Temple, Kukke Sri Subrahmanya Temple, and Kateel Sri Durgaparameshwari Temple in the coastal region to hold ‘parjanya japa’, homa and special poojas and jalabhisheka poojas in other temples categorised as ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ temples on July 27 and August 2 respective. Defending this Srinivas poojary said the government expected temples to pay for it out of their own revenue. Nonetheless, it is surely a waste of money, time and energy of the superstitious Vedic kind in which the Indian government invests much, such as a series of  Indian Prime Minister’s and President’s scurrilous protection and endorsement of the major deceiver and swindler self-proclaimed God incarnate Sathya Sai Baba!

That cultural heritage is the motor which drove religion forth for most of human existence on earth. What is now known to be superstition persisted and is carried along well after it has been explained away by religion’s inertia We know that God does not bring the rain (Latin “Jupiter pluit” – i.e. Jupiter causes it to rain) or the drought. Yet many primitive religions still believe this and even educated people go to church to pray for the end of a drought… and the same with many trials and tribulations. Not least also, of course, thanksgiving to one God or another all manner of things which arise as normal effects of nature and life.

As we see below , Sathya Sai Baba was an obscurantist who insisted on the literal truth of much of the mythology of Indian scripture, including that rain could be granted by the presiding deity (Varuna). Not only that but he encouraged (and never refuted) various imaginative accounts of himself miraculously controlling the rain.

Scanned excerpt from Sathya Sai Vahini (written by Sathya Sai Baba) page 141-2 There are various accounts in the Sai Baba hagiographic literature of how he stopped the rain very locally to keep his follower dry while he was giving darshan or holding a discourse, such as in his Easwaramma Day Sandesh (discourse 06-05-2001) as follows:- “It was an old thatched hut. Nevertheless, I slept all alone inside. That night they set fire to the four sides of that hut. That whole hut turned only into big flames. Both Subbamma and Easwaramma saw it. They came running. By the time they arrived, there was no indication of rain at all anywhere. Only on that hut a heavy downpour of rain fell. (Applause) Due to the rain, there were no further flames at all. I came outside. ‘Swami! You are safe! That’s enough for us!'”

a well-known and often reproduced account by Professor Kasturi of how Sai Baba was supposed to have saved his ashram from flooding by the ‘sacred’ Chitravati River.

See ‘Exposing Cultic, Political and Other Corruptions: India Stirs’