Golf takes a break!

Disclaimer:

I think it is time to make a disclaimer after Kavya at Harvard faced an embarrassment of being accused of plagiarism. While I admit to thinking myself as an ‘original’ I am sure I have internalized many books, columns, jokes during my extensive web searches and specially the funny comments made by my fellow players!

I also discovered that I am not the first to think golf as a pilgrimage.

God's Handicap: Golf as Spiritual Ordeal [This essay, written by Ian Johnston, is in the public domain and may be used, in whole or in part, for any purpose, without permission and without charge, provided the source is acknowledged; released August 2005]

“It came to me in the same way divine illumination came to John Bunyan, in a dream, for, as I looked, lo, I gazed and saw that golf is the secular embodiment of the most basic living metaphor of radical Protestantism....It is, in other words, the recreational equivalent of the Pilgrim's Progress. ”

Raghu with whom I have many dialogues while visiting Bangalore surfaced with this comment:
“Also following your blog. Interesting to see the transition from the philosophical side to the technical.” Raghu.

I seem to be swinging between the two. I often wonder why we go on a pilgrimage.

While in Jordan we were close to the place where Moses was shown the Promised Land by God and saw the place where Jesus was baptized. A sight seeing trip was also a pilgrimage. I wondered about God only speaking to Moses, and of the wise men who recognized Jesus as the son of God. Also of the firm belief held by Islam that Prophet Mohamed was the final one and his way was the only way for salvation. As we all agree Religion is matter of faith and if half of humanity have accepted these beliefs, it is very clear that it is a human need. It is also very intriguing that these religions have much common and interlinking history. You can only wonder about the rest of the world population holding many more different views and adapting different practices. It seems we all want to hold an exclusive right to God and his words and actions. While it is very sad that people take a recourse to killing in the name of religion, I can only concur with many who hold that religion has been hijacked or is it that killing is inherent in human nature, spread if not equally, amongst all of us.

While we can argue about it, humans have not done badly by adapting to religion. Human race has grown significantly in numbers in the last 3000 years or so and at an alarming rate in the recent past. This is in spite of all the wars that have been waged for many reasons including religion.