Selling Spirituality and Religions in India

Selling spirituality is a title of the book that attempts to show how spirituality is commodified and monetised in the capitalist mode by making an appeal to individuality and the individual enlightenment. It also shares the way the eastern religions are commodified including Buddhist teachings of mindfulness.

Well, to begin with, the word spirituality is problematic. That there is something like a spirit that needs to awaken and pacified is a strange idea. As a human being, it is true that we do not understand ourselves and the world. This state of not knowing can be naturally confusing and painful, but this does not mean that we should fill up this confusion with flamboyant speculation and fantastic ideas.

The quest in Buddhism is the quest for knowledge and because it is a quest it must have an open mind as the essential quality to practice. Trungpa, a Buddhist teacher, spoke of spiritual materialism as a wrong pursuit.

Though spiritual materialism is a different concept than selling spirituality, both connote that seeking materiality is not the goal or to strive for pleasure principle is not a goal of Buddhism at least.

The concept of religion is itself confusing. It cannot be defined by one definition. The religions should be studied from the philosophical point of view, which means if religions can make us understand or at least think about the problems faced by human beings.

Philosophy of Religion as a discipline is interesting. Babasaheb Ambedkar developed what can be called method to study the philosophy of Hinduism and showed how Hinduism is against the freedom of people and how it is anti-democratic. Today, we see the god market all over India: the commercialisation of religion and faith. With commodification comes to market and with the market comes the state and politics.

To fight religious fanaticism is no more a fight for ideas, the politics and economics are now closely linked with this fight.

Religion and selling spirituality is good business India and Brahmins involved get benefitted from it the most.

Author – Mangesh Dahiwale