(MOREPIC1) Nevada (Face2News)
Upset Hindus are urging “Big Dick Energy Coaching”; whose website domain reportedly had a registered address of Surrey (British Columbia, Canada); to apologize and withdraw the image of Lord Ganesha from its logo; calling it highly inappropriate.
Distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that inappropriate usage of sacred Hindu deities or concepts or symbols or icons for commercial or other agenda was not okay as it hurt the devotees.
Zed, who is president of Universal Society of Hinduism, indicated that Lord Ganesh was highly revered in Hinduism and he was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to be associated with such an impolite/offensive/ pejorative/vulgar slang/term.
Using a deity to identify/promote/recognize/represent such a brand name was highly disrespectful; Rajan Zed noted.
Coaching companies should not be in the business of religious appropriation, sacrilege, and ridiculing entire communities. It was deeply trivializing of immensely venerated Hindu deity Lord Ganesh to be portrayed in this manner, Zed emphasized.(SUBHEAD)
Rajan Zed further said that Hinduism was the oldest and third largest religion of the world with about 1.2 billion adherents and a rich philosophical thought and it should not be taken frivolously. Symbols of any faith, larger or smaller, should not be mishandled.
Hindus were for free artistic expression and speech as much as anybody else if not more. But faith was something sacred and attempts at trivializing it could be painful for the followers, Zed stated.
In Hinduism, Lord Ganesha is worshipped as God of wisdom and remover of obstacles and is invoked before the beginning of any major undertaking.
The India Cultural Association of Vancouver has launched a petition on this issue at change.org, which seems to have been signed by over 3,800 people.
Services of “Big Dick Energy Coaching” include “Relationship & Passion Management”, and its “Relationship & Passion Management” coaching package with four sessions is priced at $1500.