Ramblings of a non relegious mind...

I seem to be having a lot of things to discuss but... I'm still struggling to come out... Let's forget the whining part. I'll tell you one thing that has been bothering me since a long time now - God.

Aha! The much debated topic right? But what I want is not to prove whether there truly is a God or not. In fact, that is something very much irrelevant to me. I do not care for the existence of all the Jesus' and Krishnas of the world. To me, someone who feeds me when I'm hungry is God enough.

I had this little conversation with a Christian friend of me over this subject and she tried her best to convince me that there is only one true religion (Christianity) and only one God that is Jesus. Her arguments were clever but nothing new. I've heard it too many times from my other Christian friends to realise that they are all nothing original but Church taught. Lessons (venoms, I'd rather say) fed in Sunday schools. For eg. when I said I can see Krishna in Jesus and Jesus in Krishna she retorted like this - "What if you walk into a diners and find your wife sitting with another man and she tells you she was seeing me in him?". I had to struggle a lot not to laugh at this and I didn't laugh 'coz I didn't want to hurt her. After all, it's her presence that's making my day for a while now!

Are... My wife has to tell such a funny answer only if I roll my eyes at her 'coz I found her sitting with another man! Here, the trouble is with the husband and not with the wife. She might have been sitting with a friend of hers and only when I want to stop her from having male friends that she becomes forced to say such funny things. Else, I can as well, join them at their table and she can introduce me to her friend. And if there's anything more between her and that man, that'd eventually come to light. Why do I have to screw up my happiness by suspecting her? And (hypothetically) what if she truly sees me in him and that she do not have any trouble with that? I may not be able to accept it. Then again, the trouble is with me and not her. The problem here is that I basically do not trust my wife and I've no faith in her. Am I right? So, here comes the question - what's true faith? And my answer is "Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation". And believe me, it's not as easy as it sounds. I, me-self do not have any true faith 'coz I still suspect things, I'm still very speculative about many things but God. I strongly believe that there is a God. But my God is not Jesus or Krishna or Buddha or Allah... To me, he who is capable of true love is God. It could be my friend, my dad, my mom, even my dog...

Let me explain this. Kindness, nobility, courage, moral strength, compassion, caring, nurturing etc. etc. etc. are the things that we attribute to God, am I right? Jesus had all this and he was in human form, for all that we know for sure. And we are ready to call him God. That's fine. I too'd call him God. But I never knew him personally nor did any of you. But if you look around, look close there'd be a person in your life too who has all these qualities but in varying degrees. And you might not have even realised his/her worth in your life when you're busy going to the churches and temples. In my case, it was my dad. He was very caring, supportive, a pillar of strength, courageous, noble and a morally correct person. Why can't he be God, as well? The argument my friend had was that unlike my dad, Jesus was born without any sexual intercourse between Joseph and Mary! And how true can that be? It is said so in Bible, all right. But is that enough (a book which gets printed at the the press in my neighbourhood) proof of Jesus' miraculous birth? After all, Jesus could have been just another abandoned child whom these couples found out by chance! But does it really matter? Why should someone become God just 'coz his birth was shrouded in mystery? Then none of the Hindu God's ever had a proper birth for that reason. Lord Ganesha was carved from sandal wood. Lord Muruga was born out of a lotus. Lord Ayyappa was born out of a magical unison of two male Gods (Shiva and Vishnu) and the list continues. And all these are recorded in our various mythological texts (Puranas). What about them? They too had non-sexual births. Is that enough to consider them Gods? And for that matter, our mythological texts speak of even Asuras (Demons) who had such magical, no-sex involved, births! What about them?


Then there she tried to convince me by telling me that, Jesus did magical curing! Are, even demi-god people like Sai Baba and Amruthanandamai do magical curing almost every single day. There are true life testimonials of ascetics at the foothills of Himalayas who does magical curing. Are they Gods? Oh mine, then India is so full of Gods!


Her next argument was that Jesus got himself crucified for the betterment of humanity. In that case, I'd like Krishna better to have caused the war between Pandavas and the evil Kauravas and got the latter killed and saved a whole nation from the clutches of evil doers. I admire Shiva to be so short tempered and kills every demon with one swish of his Trishul!


I do not know how many of you're still reading this. If you're still reading this, I promise you'd not be disappointed by me. I promise not to hurt any of your religious sentiments.


My point is not to prove Jesus was a lesser God. All I want to say is that Jesus is as much a God as Krishna is; as much a God as my Dad was. Jesus is as much a God as my friend who fed me for one whole month without twitching his one eye brow when I was jobless and penniless and lost in a big city. There is no one God in this world. This world is not such a small place. It is big enough to afford a million Jesus' but with other names and perceived in other faiths. And contrary to what she said, I do not believe that there's only one way to salvation. There are so many of them in the forms of different religions, faiths etc. etc. etc. Only when you can understand the true meaning of FAITH that you'll ever attain any kind of salvation. 


Every religion talks about loving humanity, loving your neighbour as much as you love thy self, caring for your fellow beings, not to hurt others, to be righteous, noble and courageous. Just that the different religious texts talk about these things in a different tone and in different languages. If you can read between the printed lines in your Bible, Quaran, Geeta or whatever, that's all the message is - Love. Love each other and protect each other. And what does that imply? It means that we are all capable of being Gods and we need to try and be that and not just mere mortals leading an existence of "I" and "mine" (I'm a Christian, I'm a Hindu, my people, my community...). Good that you have things for yourself and do consider it to be the best in the world. But others have their best things too. Respect each other, be accommodative... love each other (not the selfish love of I'd love my neighbour only if he believes in the same things that I do. That's no love at all).

Why is there so much of intolerance of other faiths when you yourself have not understood the true meaning of FAITH; when you yourself wouldn't trust your husband or wife with another person? Why this rivalry between religions? Why the blood sheds? Why? Why? Why?


And here is a call to all those who call themselves atheists and never miss an opportunity to sling mud on the concept of God and religions - You often ask, why are there so many natural disasters and why are so many women getting raped? And you smile and say, "see, there's no God". I do not wish to counter this. But let me ask you, why are you not doing anything about these inhumanistic activities going around in the world in the name of religion? Why don't you ever question them? Why don't you ever try to stop them? Why don't you urge your governments to bring about a rule that says "fighting over religion is a national crime that'd win you capital punishment"? What gain if you finally did prove that there is no such thing as God? Millions would've shed their blood and dear lives by the time you prove that you are intellectually superior to others in so meticulously being able to argue and prove that there's no God! See my point here? You might not even have enough people around you to celebrate your mighty victory over God!


Ah! Gr... I'm becoming a preacher myself! Good Lord, save me!!! I pray to you to either open the eyes of people and make them look at the truth or (if it's my eyes that's closed) open my eyes enough to agree to such horrible truths like "there's only one God", "there's only one true religion" and stuff.


As such, I too believe that there's only one God (that's there in you and me) and one religion that is Humanity.