Eyyyy~ here it is! Part 2!
I recently visited the place where my ancestors came from. I visited Goa, a place in India~
I was really happy about going there. Because I love sea food (Goa is famous for sea food), I get to connect to my roots, my mother tongue is the regional language there and of course, nature. Goa is so beautiful. I think I'll move there when I'm older. Hehe.
The main reason why this chapter comes under 'HOW FAR DID THEY GO?' is because I learned about what much my ancestors suffered through.. in quite a bit of detail.. horrific detail..
My ancestral temple is in Goa. What is an ancestral temple? An ancestral temple (aka "kuladevasthana" in Konkani) is where the family god (or you could say, patron of the family) is worshipped.
When I visited my ancestral temple, I noticed a something. The outside of the temple looked like a church, but the inside looked like a temple. I asked my mother about it, and she told me that when the Portuguese had come to India, they had a 'convert to Christianity or get tortured and die' policy. As fate would have it, they settled predominantly for Goa. As a result, to preserve their heritage, my ancestors moved South (towards the states of Karnataka and Kerala) and settled there.
My mother told me about a story where a family of four were trying to run away. One of the family members were handicapped (he was deaf or something like that). As they were running away, the handicapped guy got caught by the Portuguese. And the Portuguese saw that he was a Hindu who had not converted to Christianity. I don't remember how, but they somehow found out. The family members didn't want to leave that boy behind, so they waited, to see if they could somehow save him, take him with them and run away. But the Portuguese were unforgiving. Instead of accepting the fact that he was handicapped, they saw him as "a spawn of the devil pretending to be innocent" and tortured him and killed him. The family heard the boy screaming. They understood he was being tortured, and could only hear the boy scream throughout the night. Can you imagine? Listening to one of your family members (preferably a brother) get tortured. Today, in my community, handicapped people are revered as those who have inherited more pain from our ancestors. It has even become compulsory to have handicapped family members (if any) take part in marital ceremonies.
This was no less of a Holocaust. The Holocaust (the Hitler one) may have lasted for about a decade, but this Portuguese Holocaust in Goa lasted for 200 years.
Then we have many other Europeans who went to Australia and America and killed the native people there as well. All this was led by blind belief. They were told to kill the 'unbelievers' otherwise they would go to hell. DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE?
Many people point out to the caste system in India, but to this day - TO THIS DAY, Native Americans (or Red Indians) and Aboriginals in America and Australia are being mistreated. The children are forcibly taken away from their parents (by putting false cases on the parents), put in foster care and are cut off from their roots. They aren't allowed to speak their own language, cook their own food and they are just made blank. This is a stupid practice and it needs to stop. It's ruining lives.
There are so many terrible things done in the name of God, in the past. I don't get why these idiotic practices continue to this day. It's disgusting as to how they ever-so slyly do this.
Haven't people gotten their common senses yet? Like, you think you'll go to heaven by doing that? I mean, if you want to go to heaven, you gotta die first! Forget about heaven! It'll come when you die, right? You're alive now! You need to focus on being alive, amirite?
Also, following a certain belief doesn't make you a great person. Just because you believe something, does not mean you know something. Like seriously, stop with the blind beliefs. Even if you're worshipping God, there is some science and psychology behind it. There is fact and knowledge behind everything.
Everyone is equal. A blade of grass is as important as the tall coconut tree, the school janitor is as important as the principal. There is no question of superiority or inferiority, when it comes to anything. Be it religion, rank, grades, etc. So.. yeah...
That's all I had to say and I really hope a lot of people read this and apply this knowledge.
P.S, many of the things I've typed above, have been spoken by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. He's awesome!
