Sadhguru: It is painful for me
to see that the avarice and the greed of East India Company which came to this land in 1700s,
which decided to capture the temples in this nation, (Laughs) not because they were interested
in the sanctity of those places, the power and the benefit of those places; they were
interested in the wealth, the gold, diamonds, money and the land, which the temples held.
That vulgar act of taking over Indian temples, unfortunately, it's continuing till today
after seventy-four years of independence.
This is very painful because a temple is not a place of prayer, it is a soul of this community.
In Tamil Nadu most towns were built holding temple as the center and the main piece, town evolved
around the temple. It's not the other way around, that you built a town and then the need for temple
came. No, first built the temple and then the town happened. This is why they call temple towns. In
a culture like this, so steeped in devotion and spiritual process, unfortunately even till today,
these temples are in enslavement, and they are in various states of decline and dilapidation.
Well, if they had demolished the temples,
people would have built it back. But they have chosen to suffocate the temples, slowly make them
into nothing. Well, am I just exaggerating this? No, please go and look for yourself.
More than anything, in the year 2020, in the Madras High Court, Tamil Nadu government
has submitted... the HR and CE ministry has submitted that they are not able to maintain
even one puja or ritual per day in 11,999 temples, just one short of 12,000. That many temples, the
puja, one puja a day they are not able to maintain because there is no revenue. 34,000 temples have
less than 10,000 rupees income, not per month, per annum, per year they have less than 10,000. 37,000
temples, they are not able to appoint more than one person to do whatever is needed in the temple.
That means the same person does the puja, he is supposed to clean it, he is supposed to
take care of the management and everything. So you can understand the state of these temples,
please leave it to the devotees. We will manage it. If it's at the cost of our life,
we will manage it. How to do it, the complexities of it, we will look at that later. First thing
is the government should show the intent that the temple should be managed by the community,
not by the government. In my understanding of what is secular, secular nation means
a religion does not mess with the government and the government does not mess with the religion.