Blackmailing SMS / Mails in the name of Gods - First Published : 18 Feb 2009 10:11:00 AM ISTExpress News Service Last Updated : 18 Feb 2009 12:14:28 PM IST‘
Jai Sri Shirdi Saibaba Ki. Send this message to at least 18 people to get luck. If you fail to do so, you will experience bad luck within 24 hours.’ c users are being subjected to `emotional atyachaar’ in the name of God _ Shirdi Saibaba, Tirupati Venkateswara Swamy or Madurai Meenakshi. Even before the cellphone users can complete the task mentioned in one SMS, they receive another SMS in their phone mail box demanding not to break the message chain which would cause something bad to their loved ones.
“These SMS messages are nothing but emotional blackmailing. Though atheists would ignore them, people like me can neither ignore nor forward such messages as they are sent in the name of some God or the other,’’ says P Supraja, a God-fearing student of St Ann’s College. She says that even if something bad happens accidentally after ignoring such SMS, she holds herself responsible for not forwarding the messages.
For people who are willing to forward these SMS messages, it always costs a bomb. ``Just imagine if you receive a message every week asking you to forward it to about 20-30 people. Unlike junk mail, we cannot even restrict these SMSes as we receive them from our own friends and relatives,’’ points out Rajasekhar, an event manager. He says that the chain SMS messages and chain emails are nothing but modern versions of postcard and leaflet campaigns for religious promotion made earlier.
However, people like Neeraj Pohankar use such SMS messages as a weapon to take revenge on their rivals.
Whenever Neeraj, a science graduate of Aurora College, gets angry with her friends or relatives, she sends them such SMS in the name of God, asking them to forward the message to about 50 people.
Fear of God or just a funny instrument to take revenge on your rival, the chain messages are definitely a boon to cellphone service providers who are making profits with scores of SMS messages doing rounds on cellphones.
http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Blackmailing++SMSes+in+the+name+of+Gods&artid=WciWumsr%7CkY=&SectionID=xAV59odivTs=&MainSectionID=wIcBMLGbUJI=&SectionName=BUzPVSKuYv7MFxnS0yZ7ng==&SEO=What should we do when we get link letters or chain e-mails? Divine incarnations such as Sri Saibaba do not need to resort to blackmail to spread his name by promises of wealth and warnings of punishment. As Sri Upasani Baba said the nature of Sri Saibaba is, “Ahambhava heenam prasannaatma bhavam (one without ego and one who is ever kind)” Baba himself has stated that, the purpose of his incarnation is to bless the devotees with his grace, “My mission is to give blessings”. He also said that he would never be angry with any one. The grace of Baba is ever falling on us as a waterfall, but it is our ignorance which acting as an umbrella obstructs us from receiving it in the full measure. If we surrender to Baba with the felling of exclusive love for him only and single-minded devotion, the obstruction is removed and we receive his grace in full measure. To think that one will get Baba’s grace by passing on the letter to 10 or 20 people, and to do that with a feeling of fear is foolish. It is an insult to the divine Baba that he would be angry if we do not do that and will, like devil harm us. It is those who do not even know the basics of spiritual sadhana or the teachings of Sri Saibaba who initiate these letters. Some seek to justify this by saying,” What they are asking us to do is to write the holy name of Sri Saibaba.
What harm is in that? What do we lose by doing so?” It is sheer delusion to believe that to pass along such anonymous letters, like a coward, would constitute service to Baba. It seeks to degrade us to the level of the ignorant persons so lacking in self respect that we would stoop to the level of sending anonymous letters like cowards. Any encouragement given by us to this foolish practice would be a transgression against the tradition of devotion to Sri Saibaba. Our only advice to those who receive these letters is- tear them up and consign them to the waste paper basket or delete them.
(Source: Sai Bhakti Sadhana Rahasyam, Chapter – Link Letters)
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Topic: Blackmailing SMS / Mails in the name of Gods. (Read 4006 times)