Manifestation

For anyone visiting India, whether as a foreign tourist, a traveller from another part of the country or even a local, there is one place that is difficult to avoid—the temple.

Some go to admire the architectural work and skills of the people who built them centuries ago, others to appreciate the remarkable abilities of our ancestors, while some are drawn by religious faith. For others, it may simply be another place to visit and tick off the list.

For me, it is a little bit of all of these.

The last time I visited one such temple in southern India, I had a rather strange realisation.

But before I get to that, let me bring up something else that has become remarkably popular around the world today, particularly among coaches, motivational speakers and self-help gurus.

Manifestation

The basic idea is quite simple: what we repeatedly think about, believe in and consciously work towards can influence what eventually becomes our reality. The concept has found a huge following, with people being encouraged to define what they want, visualise it, believe that it is possible and keep their focus on the desired outcome.

Whether we call it the power of intention, positive thinking or manifestation, there is something compelling about the idea that our thoughts and beliefs can shape the way we live and, in turn, the reality we create.

And that brings me back to the temple.

Sitting there that day, watching people pray, make offerings and being part of this culture myself, I became aware that many devotees are there to ask the Lord for something they deeply want.

I could also see some coming back with their promised offerings, perhaps because their wishes had been realised and they now wanted the Lord to accept them.

No wonder some of these temples have accumulated such enormous wealth from devotees who considered their wishes to have been blessed.

And suddenly I wondered whether we had been practising something remarkably similar for centuries to what the world is catching up with now.

Could our prayers, faith and rituals be another form of manifestation?

Could it be that we got what we asked for simply because we believed we would?