SUNDAY, OCTOBER 22

A Day to Reflect on Our Relationships with Our Machines

INSPIRED BY THE HINDU TRADITION OF AYUDHA PUJA

Around the 12th century, Hindu warriors were so enchanted by the power of their weapons they invented a ritual to honor them. Then farmers started honoring their plows. Musicians started honoring their instruments. Over time, these rituals coalesced into the full-fledged festival known as Ayudha Puja -- the "rite of implements" or the “worship of the machines.” 

It has evolved into a moment, "when scientists, engineers and everyday people allow science, technology and religion to overlap, to become a single practice," writes Robert Geraci, Professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College in Temples of Modernity: Nationalism, Hinduism, and Transhumanism in South Indian Science. 

Might we all benefit by doing the same?  Ayudha Puja falls on Monday, October 23rd this year. That makes Sunday, October 22, an appropriate day to take inspiration from it in hosting Sunday services themed to the veneration of our tools and machines.

"I've come to start thinking about religion, science and technology as a three-headed hydra," says Geraci. "In mythology, we see that these heads sometimes are really well-aligned and the vision is clear. Sometimes they're in argument. Religion, science, and technology are like multi-headed monsters in our culture, and I think it's valuable to be explicit about that. 

"In Ayudha Puja, people of different beliefs and different roles all can be in the same room, recognizing at least in this moment a forward-looking vision. In Ayudha Puja, it's a vision of gratitude and good fortune for the year to come. 

"In a world that does not tell us what it means and so runs the risk of looking utterly meaningless, Ayudha Puja shows us how we might take seriously all of the forms of world-building and meaning-making. We have to engage with the world to see how human life has meaning, how the the entire global ecosystem has meaning, and how our place in cosmic history has meaning. All of this helps us operate in the world. If we take seriously the truth that religion, science and technology are all part of this process, we'll probably do a bit better job aiming ourselves toward outcomes that make sense."