Sundar is right. This is a question of belief. My grandfather who would have been 107 yrs. old had he been alive has seen the Jyothi too. I have also read in a Tamil magazine (do not remember which) that the Jyothi is lit on Ponnambala medu with the photograph of the said medu. It is not NDTV that has given this news first. Another inexplicable divine happening is the sweating of the panchalo ha idol of' 'Lord Singaravela' in Sikkil on the day he receives the Sakthi Vel before Soora Samharam. The archakas keep wiping the sweat with a silk cloth.
I am not trying to offend anyones belief nor can i expect to get answers to everything in science.
However, it leads us to a bigger question - do you need miracles to believe the existence of GOD.....every culture, every civilisation has its share of GOD men, miracles etc etc - i guess at somepoint - like a good speaker uses jokes to keep his audience entralled, similarly these are used to get the attention of the user and to focus his wandering mind.
But for me, in todays age of scientific reason, some of these do shake the very pillar of you belief, giving ammunition to the non believers who ridicule such thereby mocking our beliefs......be it a linga being spit out, holy ash appearing out of a portrait, ganesha drinking milk etc etc ...why are we being led by these, why should we try and put up a spectacle to attract attention to us, when there is actually enough real depth in our scriptures...
Spirutuality, that too the depth defined by Hinduism is not an easy joke which any tom dick and harry can understand. Sanathana dharmam defines various stages by which a atma can merge with the param..
atma travels a lot till it attains the param. for mortals who dont even understand the simple meaning of words like ahimsa, not hurting anyone by thought words or deeds, how can you expect them to understand the depths of scriptures. you basically start with belief, may be offer prayers, elevate to bhajans, chant mantras and over a period of time understands the ultimate truth that god is nowhere but we are god. but it takes an eon to attain that perfection.
so to make the common mortals belive in an ultimate power above us, not to deviate them from the path of spirituality and get into unwanted activities, miracles are a must. miracle need not be a kan kattu vithai alone, every moment we experience miracles, but we seldom realise that those are miracles. but somethings which are obivous as these, like a garuda circling the aparanam of ayyapan etc makes us more curious. a flower blossoming, the food we take digesting, a baby born and growing in an adult,e verything is a miracle....
but such routine things never make us curious but a sudden spurt of action, which we call miracles surely will make everyone notice and realise that there is some super power above us.
'Angels and demons' revolves around only this simple concept of creating a miracle so that the world comes back to the path of spirituality.
i dont think we can call them miracles just because we are not able to explain certain incidents. All these happenings like the Sabarimalai jyoti, garuda circling the aparanam of ayyapan, all have proper scientific explanations. It is just that we as a group tend to lean more towards miracles and religion than towards science and its explanations. Explanation for the Sabarimalai Jyoti can be had if only a decent level of effort is mounted and this effort is taken in the right spirit. It is a case of whether we really want to have an explanation to these occurrences or are we comfortable in believing these occurrences as miracles. I think we lean towards the latter on more instances. Just because a person gives these "miracles a scientific explanation it doesn't mean he/she is a non-believer and is defaming that particular religion. We tend to make a habit of this and this becomes politicized too. Religion is a concept devised my our ancestors to live a particular way of life. God is central to that concept as the all controlling power. Like every living thing in this planet, religion has also evolved over centuries. It has developed concepts within itself which if followed tends to improve the standard of living. Believing in God is a discipline which improves concentration, memory, physical and mental strength. For example the words "Om Nama Sivaya, Sivaya Nama Om" if recited with correct pronunciation daily tends to exercise the vocal chords and certain muscles. This gives us a certain resistance power towards some common illness. This discipline when followed rigorously tends to improve ones way of life. All these occurrences have explanations which we need to accept in the right spirit and embrace the concept of God for what it really is, a discipline. The question is has our society evolved enough to ask these questions? The answer is no.
Nice one rahul....todays religion makes you ask the question - are we god's creation or is god our creation...
was the concept of a super power - all seeing entity created - to keep people on the `right path' - so that when no one is around ( no law enforcer is around) - people fear retribution from GOD and hence do not stray from the `right path'. is GOD humanitys moral policeman...
Our organised propaganda machines are old fashioned and dont stand up to the new age reasoning - so much that today hardly a handfull of people know about vedic scriptures - they think ramayana and mahabratha /gita are the only books of hindusim - to be used only during marriage ( ok upanayayam as marriage as well) and death....mouth sync a few hymns recited by a kudumi and dhoti clad pot bellied man sporting different signs on his forehead.
Going to temples has been reduced to such an ignomity due to our films - that our youngsters go there to look at auntys and tamil kalacharam ulla pengal ( incl thalaivar in shivaji).
Students go around pillayar temples to pray for him to write their exams, ladies go around arasa maram to get blessed with kids....go to select temples to get married or even have a normal delivery!!! sanyasis and swamiji's incl prestigious madathipathis have become objects of ridicule.
most popular abodes are the abodes of the nine planets - to rid one of the evil effects - while the masters temples are left to rot.
defintely our religion is more than this - the right /wrong paths are subjective - rights are no longer rights and the wrongs are no longer wrongs. hindusim is deeper than this, but we have kept the deeper inner preachings under wraps for so long - already there are only a handful of places - our bastions in mylapore, west mambalam etc where there are pockets of communities holding on to these .... but is this enough - honestly do you think you can attract kids of these days by these stories / kan kattu vitthai...
the proof is in hard numbers - ( i am not quoting these numbers to be little any of the others - but just to show what is happening)
Christianity 2.1 billion Islam 1.3 billion Non-Adherent (Secular/Atheist/Irreligious/Agnostic/Nontheist) 1.1 billion Hinduism 900 million
Even in the above, how many would you call a true hindu ( not just born into a hindu family) - who truely knows what hindusim is - ok who has atleast heard a few hymns even once --- am not saying we should meet every sunday, or pray 5 times a day , collect funds to expand our numbers - but atleast let us not cover our inherent glory with these falses.
like a child who is faced with a demon covering himself with a blanket, we hope the crisis will pass away by itself...
You know how to use computers, you travel around the world, knows to read and write, spend alot of time in reading and understanding thing,s you know science, you can understand what is good and what is bad - basically you have the real 'pagutharivu' to understand and appreciate things. so people like you can view religion with a more balanced view and take te good points out of it.
a kuppan or subban, who dont know wheter he will get his next time meal, how do you expect him to dwelve into scriptures and understand the true meaning of religion or god? if he prays, he will obviously pray, 'kaduvule enakku adutha vela soru kudu'..he wont even thing of asking give me food for tommorrow..
all are mortals who dont have the capability of understanding things in better perview. as i said, hinduism is stage based and an atma has to travel a lot moving across stages. and the beggining stage is only for asking the basic needs, i should have good job, i should get good spouse, good kids , good health....etc etc.
basics of hindusism - if you have your basics satisfied automatically you can start concentrating on the spirit. all the hymes which you talk about - the outward meaning of almost everything is asking for material needs. once you start chanting and attain all the basics, automatically you wil get into the inner meaning.
i might be wrong, but surely for a common man, devine miracle is much more than what it is for people like you.
Thanks for all the compliments, however - some arguments against yours:
1. todays half of the crowd that throngs these miracle men are the affluent, well read. It is said that life hits you when you are at the peak ( and it usually hits you below the belt). Its up to the individual to stand up and hit back - how and what he uses to reinforce his self belief takes many forms. Most commonly its religion, however instead of guiding them in the right path of self realisation, they are often misled.
2. The other half are the poorest of the poor, they used to work, sleep, procreate and go on with life. for them god was their land, their implements, a corner stone. these are simple people. It pains to see them being led astray and robbed of their little savings.
3. Hindusim is very deep, cannot be understood by mere mortals, its only for saints and siddars....how many truely enlightened souls can you count in the last century.... sorry my friend, its exactly this that is stopping/hindering more to embrace and realise the greatness of these works. its like the difference between an BE ( ok, 10 years ago) and CA - BE entry was tough but once in exit is easy, whereas CA entry was easy but exit was practically impossible...why are you copper plating the platinum virtues of hinduism with these cheap tricks,when they can reign supreme in their own right
4. you are talking of the high scriptures being highly intense compositions - agree, they were spontaneous outbursts of transcendtal emotions - sheer bliss on realising the omni potent - by spiritual greats - but the reason why they left behind these immense works is for us to experience these, you cannot ask people to go and re invent the wheel before driving a vehicle. we need to build on top of these and for this we cannot recreate the wheel... you dont need to have a dozen alphabets behind your name to experience these works...if thought and brought to the masses in a pure, simple and undiluted manner ...its a feeling - and even the uninititated, uneducated will, should and must be atleast allowed to experience it ...then we leave it to them and god to do the rest ...ours ofcourse is aadhi andam...