Tenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

This paper is written with an aim to creating awareness that pilgrimage is incapable of bringing about permanent transformation in human beings, although it can be one of the stimulants to inspire humans to adopt righteousness in their lives. But, in most instances, pilgrims experience transient engendering of these benevolent feelings which can be considered to be equivalent to the concepts of “liminality” and “communitas” propounded by Victor Turner in his theory. This research undertakes to prove this by resolving the ambiguity between the concepts of spirituality and religion, citing mainly the thoughts of Mirra Alfassa, known to her followers as “The Mother,” Aurobindo Ghosh, Karl Marx, and Victor Turner, and employing them as a bases to demonstrate that the “Kumbh Mela,” one of the places of pilgrimage, is mere manifestation of religion, and therefore insignificant in bringing about any perpetual transformation in human beings, a view which was vehemently buttressed by Rene Gothoni in his paper entitled, “Pilgrimage=Transformation Journey.” This paper may enlighten some people to become spiritual and not religious because the latter has increasingly deviated from its role of emancipation of humankind.