A Perspective on Prayer and Recovery (in Hinduism)

This is about My friend's son. He is just 6 years old. Let me introduce myself first, my name Rikesh. I live in a small town in India.

My friend's name is Mithun. He is married to his wife for 8 years now. After their marriage they first (had a) son in the year 2004.They kept his name Krishna, which is the name of Hindu God. He is so loving, cute n sweet. I use to visit them quite often.

Everything was going just fine (but) then one day Krishna fall sick all of sudden. Fever kept coming continuously for three days. Every one was worried they took him to doctor but it did not help. When I landed up to their place to see them, I was shocked to see his condition. I referred them a doctor who is my friend, Dr. Sudhir. He is child specialist .We went to see him same day then he advised us to admit Krishna in the hospital.  On hearing that, my friend's wife started crying. We consoled her everything will be fine.

By god grace he started recovering. He was discharge from the hospital after 3 days.

Again he started playing, Going to school. Everything seemed to ok.I was very happy for them. Then again after a month I got a call from my friend that his son is not keeping well. This time it was more serious. We took him to a bigger hospital in a big city called Kolkata. We had to take early morning flight. He was kept in ICU.  Everyone was crying.

We all started praying. Almost for a month he was hospitalized. Then one day we went to a Temple of Goddess Kali to offer puja. Then he started recovering. When he was discharged from the hospital we took him to the same temple. Now he is absolutely fine.

Comments

[Anonymous]

I loved the initial articles in Collectively Wise and appreciate your attempt to bring in new stories in their individual voices and writing style! However today's article unfortunately disappointed me - It's great to hear that ...the family had faith in a power beyond themselves in their darkest moment - doesn't everyone want their friends and family to pray for them in their difficult times - along with the best medication available? But I couldn't understand what else this particular article was trying to say? - what the source is? - And more importantly why Collectively Wise chose to publish it?

I feel it lacks the standard of Content that previous Collectively-Wise articles had - And when the article is called "Faith and Recovery in Hinduism" and all it does is give a family's individual story with no real message/special coping strategy - it seems to sadly perpetuate stereotypes! If you want to source from Indian blogs I'm sure there are more articulate/ interesting ones out there!

[Kirsten]

Thanks for the comment-

My objective with including posts like this, is to show the variety of points of view that are out there in the world.

I personally do not agree with that view (his view), as I am very scientific in my approach. But, it is a fact that many, many people trust faith over medicine. To some extent, they have to, because they don't have access to medicine.

I thought that this post represented that point of view. That's why I published it.

It's very interesting that it was offensive, though. Sorry about that.

One of the tricks of trying to publish content that is not mine and that is not my point of view is that I have to trust that for that author, it is their truth.

Thanks for reading it! Comments are very appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Yes it's the title that bothers - Perhaps ... Power of Prayers or something generic like that...

Actually Kolkata is a big city in India and most medicines are available - although expensive... so the understanding that "But, it is a fact that many, many people trust faith over medicine. To some extent, they have to, because they don't have access to medicine. I thought that this post represented that point of view." doesn't seem to be substantiated through this particular article...

From my reading they tried giving the best available medical attention to the child and prayed (as back up :)) ... pretty common practice I'd say!

Thanks for appreciating my point of view!

[Kirsten]

I changed it to, "One Man's Perspective on Faith and Recovery (in Hinduism)" Thanks for pointing me to it.