PS: This is an old story, resharing here. 

Now, I’m in Shanti Niketan, and we all know the importance of Rabindranath Tagore in our history. Visiting Shanti Niketan, it’s like visiting peace, very peaceful place. 

I had a guided tour in the morning, he showed me various places, the huge campus. 

And I learned something as a storyteller, whenever I learn something, it becomes my responsibility to share with you. 

No Places of Worship In Shanti Niketan

He was sharing with me that there are no Temples, no, Gurdwara, no Mosques, no Churches in the entire huge campus and there are students from various religions, castes here. 

So I said, then where they pray? 

He said, there’s only one common prayer room here and there is meditation. 

Why Do We Pray?

Why we pray? We pray only for peace and meditation is the best way to gain peace in life.

We discussed more about this and then he said something very interesting. 

He said, Praveen, who are we to give shape to God? Who are we to give size to God? Who are we to give color to God? 

There’s a difference between praying and listing down your expectation in front of a statue. 

These were the words of that guide? 

For a moment I just stood and I was trying to absorb this. 

There’s a difference between praying for peace and listing down your expectations in front of a statue. 

When I heard these words from him, I thought there’s something to think about this, but the debate is not whether you believe in God or whether you don’t believe in God, whether I believe in God or not, that’s not a debate. 

New World

But the point he was making was, imagine a world where people come in this kind of common center and when they come, they are beyond their religions, they are beyond their caste. 

They are beyond their invisible boundaries and they come and sit together, pray, meditate only for one thing, peace in life. 

This is Praveen Wadalkar signing out until we meet again with a new story.