Chapter 5 - God

God

Yes, I know what I'm signing up for here. At best, this is a controversial choice. At worst, it is suicide. Meh. The reasons I want to talk about God are simple - the sheer number of Gods we have, the absolute insanity people get away with in God's name, the dark and sad history of how people have not only viewed God, but also used God to propagate their own twisted views and lastly, how misinformed most people are about the whole concept of God. But despite the sadness of the reasons I listed, I will try to keep this chapter on a lighter side. And even though I referred to God as "Him" at the end of last chapter, I will use only God and not "Him" in this chapter. I did it to create some short lived suspense but now that it's done, I will not conform to the patriarchal ideas of God, which is another reason I want to talk about this. 

GOD - when I say this word, in the minds of Buddhists, an image of Buddha sitting with his eyes closed under a Bodhi tree shows up. For Christians, it's the image of Jesus, either on a crucifix, or in a plain white robe. And when I say this to Hindus, there are literally a million options to choose from. I kid you not when I say that every time I go to a family function, I learn about a new God or Goddess. But that is not the point of discussion here. No matter how impossible it maybe to separate God from religion and religion from God, I'll try. Solely because of the fact that no matter how pure and sacred religion maybe, it is the leading cause for the image of God being what it is, today. Literally. And I'll go into excruciating detail when I reach R for Religion and talk about the origins of what we call Dharma.

If it were up to me, I'd go into the millions of texts, scriptures, carvings and whatnot we have about the life of the Gods we worship. And I almost did, when I spent about 7 hours researching the similarity of the origins of Judaism, Islam and Christianity. But in this chapter, like a few of my friends suggested, I want to talk about my opinions, my thoughts and my beliefs. 

Well, for starters, do I think God exists? Honestly, I have absolutely no idea. Nobody does. All we do, and all we can do is believe that God exists, believe in the wisdom, intelligence, and every other virtue that God possesses and pray for all we hold near and dear to us. And this poses another question: Should we believe in God? If yes, why? Well, the answer is a simple quote by Blaise Pascal(and also from Young Sheldon)

Any and every rational person should believe that God exists, because if you're wrong, you have nothing to lose. But if you're right, you have everything to gain.

Simply put, I see no reason to not believe that God doesn't exist. Part of the reason I love atheists. They see themselves as men and women of science who think just because there is no proof, there is no existence. I see them as men and women yet to experience something beautiful and fantastical that establishes their faith. In other words, they are those lucky bastards who get to see their favorite movie or TV show again without any idea of what's going to happen.  

Secondly, and importantly, do I think God is what we have seen for the majority of our lives? Does God have eight hands, clad with weapons and jewelry? No. In my opinion, God is not even a human being, which is why the whole "God is a man/woman" debate is absolutely ludicrous. For all we know, God is a pronoun we haven't even invented yet. Humans needed a pronoun to avoid saying God every time, so they held a meeting where women weren't allowed and that is why God became a He. Simply put, God is indescribable. It is not possible for a human being to do what God has done, and to conform and compare those powers, ability and wisdom to that of a mere mortal is sheer foolishness. The reason we have portrayed God in human forms is merely because that is all the human mind could conjure. Conversely, if we agree that all of human activities and all that we as humans think are really controlled by God, then it was the conscientious effort of God to make sure that an image of God as a human being with slightly enhanced abilities was all we could conjure.

And if I go into detail about the image of God we have, it actually explains what we as humans look for when we pray to God. And that is what explains the point behind religions, assuming there is a point. The group of people who wished God to be the embodiment of knowledge, wisdom and intellect view him as a man sitting under a tree, having attained enlightenment and learnt all the secrets of life and the world. Ergo, Buddhism. Those who wished God to be a simple man, with love for all the living creatures in the world and beyond saw him as Jesus. Ergo, Christianity. And those who wished him to be the mixture of all the virtues there are and be the perfect man, aka Purshottam, became Hindus. I could go on, because we have 20 major religions and 4300 total religions in the world and all of them, while keeping the general idea of a spiritual being intact, have dispersed into their own sects and groups when it comes to the nuances of being a God. But all the religious texts, all the scriptures and manuscripts and every documentary evidence we have about the lives of God fail to answer one question - What is God? And Science, merely on the basis of insufficient evidence disapproves of God even existing. So, who am I to give an answer? All I can give is an opinion, which is nothing more than the speculation of a 18-year old with way too much free time on his hands. 

We've already dealt with the fact that God is not a mere human being. That is why the plethora of religions and their texts showing God as a human being, while believable to us mere mortals, are out of the window from the beginning. Also, the question I asked is What is God and not Who is God, for Who would demote God to a person. In my opinion, if I were to explain this in the simplest way possible, I'd say the answer is a single statement. God is whatever you want God to be. God is a friend in the loneliest of times, a beam of light in the darkest of times, every virtue out there needed to overcome the vices and all the love that is needed to overcome hate. God doesn't need to be found in every spiritual place and God doesn't need to be found even in your own self. God and Godliness need to experienced and felt. God isn't a human being. God has no form, no shape, no gender and no discernible framework. If I were to explain this in the simplest ways, God is an abstract noun. That is what God is, in my opinion. An emotion and an experience, that fuels the very vessel you call your body and operates the very organ you call your mind. 

Well, currently, that's all I can say without going so deep, that this chapter goes on for another thousand words. I'll touch this topic again when I talk about religion, which is another controversial choice. If anyone is offended by my opinions, the location is given at the end of the blog. I've dealt with one of the most quarrelsome topic and I apologise if this went too spiritual and deep, but next time we're going to go back to the land of human emotions and talk about one of the most emotionally disputed organs of our human body and the problems it causes. In other words, the human heart.

~ Udit Gor.