This is the English translation of my
Hindi Post
God : Faith, Logic or conviction?
Comprehension of that Art was as much difficult for me as the understanding those great literary works, which hold a higher place in literature, and I just like an illiterate one, look them in wonder without grasping a bit.
Because so great scholars adore them, how I could dare not accept their authority?
As a child, one day while visiting a Shiva-Temple, I was thinking : Swami Dayananda Saraswati (of Arya Samaj) might have been right. But my intellect interrupted my thinking :
“O.K., that was the intellectual-logic of Swami Dayananda Saraswati, just because he saw a mouse climbing over the Shiva-lingam, and picking-up the sweets and the things offered to Shiva that made him think so.”
The next day when I was there in the temple as soon as the Pundit (the priest) entered the place, I asked him:
“Is not the God formless?”
There was no-one else except me and him.
On that circular-path which surrounds the holy hill and the devotees perambulate the same, there are many a Shiva-temples big and small, or only just a single stone Shiva-Lingam placed on an altar, and most of them have no visitors any.
He just cast a smiling glance over me and started, cleaning the temple-premises as usual. I too helped him as every day I usually do.
Soon the place was washed well and he performed the ‘Rudra-pATha’.
When finished, he asked me:
“What do you think …? If the God is formless, with no form any whatsoever, who could worship Him? Then, is not He in everything, and everything in Him only?”
“But then He could neither be confined either an idol or an image..”
“So why worship, what purpose is fulfilled by worshipping Him?”
“But then how the one, who feels strongly about worshiping Him can do this?”
“ …”
“Who knew if the God is formless or has a form, or even if He exists or not at all?”
“Does not The God have existence at all?”
“Answer my question: Who knew if the God is formless or has a form, or even if He exists or not at all?”
“That is according to individual faith.”
“The faith keeps changing its form and content, how the faith can deal with the question about the God if He is formless or has a form, or even if He exists or not at all?”
“Is then, the idol-worshipping (idolatry) right?”
“Is then, the idol-worshipping wrong?”
“God is formless implies that worshipping an idol with a form is verily wrong only.”
“What do you think? If the God is formless, with no form any whatsoever, who could worship Him? Then, is not He in everything, and everything in Him only? But before answering this, let me know your view about ‘who knew if the God is with or without a form, or even if there is the God?”
“That is what I try to see!”
He smiled once again.
--
And then I could sense, may be, he had no answer to my question, but that doesn’t mean he was wrong.
Before saying that worship of an idol is right or wrong, should we not first understand if God has a form, or has no form, or even God exists or doesn't exist?
Thus, we accept some notion about God, just because tradition has forced upon us either such a notion of God (or no God), whatever are the tradition and our own imagination, and we tend to believe such a concept of God. We just become a robot driven by such a concept and the word dictates our behavior which becomes a habit. Then we are instrumental in following the dictates which are different from person to person and group to group, cult to cult and culture to culture, and of course from sect to sect and religion to religion.
But when the existence and the truth (whatever) of what we call ‘God’ becomes the very question of life and death, only then we try to see with due attention what ‘God’ is or might be.
There is another aspect of this problem.
Do we really ‘need’ a ‘God’?
Just as we need air, water, food and a home to live and survive, do we really need a ‘God’ without which our very survival and existence is threatened?
The fact is as a collective species, man is far more threatened and in danger because it has embraced the notion of ‘God’ and religion.
When we treat this question in this light either we discard this notion altogether by understanding its absurdity and the relevance, or we work out what we mean by ‘God’.
--
" If You are trying to arrive at a conclusion, just as most of the intellectuals try, the logic and thought keep moving relatively in a smaller or a bigger circle, and you are stuck into thought only. First the imagination of a 'God' is accepted quite without knowing such a thing, so that thought can find a centre where it is tethered firmly, and then keeps wandering in a circle around this centre.
Is not the the worship of such a mental image also kind of idolatory?"
" ..."
"Could we perhaps start from some hypothesis about suc a God and deduce this hypothesis till the end so as to find out if it is proved true or false?
For example when we start to see if the square-root of the number 2 is a rational number or an irrational one. That is, if it could be expressed in terms of a fraction as an arithmatic divison of two integers, which have no common divisor.
Then working on this we ultimately find we reach a result which is false.
This leads us to say the squuare-root of the number 2 is not a rational number.
This is called the method of Mathematical induction."
" That exercise is quite appropriate for finding out a result in terms of Mathematical Logic. But is ‘God’ a Mathematical notion?
“Who knew if the God is with or without a form, or even if there is the God?
Or, perhaps if there is or is not a God?”
He returned to the same earlier stand (presumption?).
“Some-one might have known for sure and therefore this thing ‘God’ assumed an object for contemplation, thinking and pondering over.”
“And then many a such people might have ‘known’ and ‘experienced’ too…!”
He remarked with a bit a sense of ridicule and smiled.
I could guess what he might have in his mind.
“So, do you doubt the existence of God?”
“Neither have I doubted the non-existence of God.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just want to say some-one must have known about the existence or non-existence of God, or might had have imagined about God.”
“From here, we can talk about this further more…!”
“But the one who ‘knew’ or imagined must have been a human only.”
“Of course, we can’t talk for the animals and birds, and fish and the trees! We could sure restrict our discussion to humans only.”
“Is God a subject to intellect?”
“What do you mean?”
“Could the intellect grasp ‘God’ and deal with it just as it deals with other things?”
“ …”
“Whatever is called ‘God’ is either imagination or thought or conclusion because it is not known in terms of sensory-experience.”
“ …”
“Is it also untenable as a conclusion?”
“A conclusion is also either an experience or a guess only.”
“Or a principle.”
“A principle is again either immediate (direct im-mediate) or mediate (indirect), where there is a medium that enables one to ‘know’ in terms of ‘knowledge’ or ‘information’. In such knowledge there is the knower, the knowledge and the known. The three collectively define knowledge or experience. Such a knowledge is always incomplete and partial.”
“Please further elucidate this.”
“This means when such knowledge is dealt with at the practical level it appears to be true, but this ‘truth’ is but in thought only.”
“This means knowing the God is almost impossible.”
“Yes, Because God is the knower, the known and the knowing all at once together.”
“Isn’t this also again a principle only?”
“Yes, when applied in practical, this is apparently true, but when structured in a word-form it reduces to a mere thought only.”
“Could we call it the immutable unchangeable fundamental support, in comparison to which the ‘world’ seems to undergo change constantly?”
“Is there a thing that exists different apart from and other than this, and could be compared with this?”
--
I candidly accept, I could not honestly debate, argue or even converse with him upon a topic like ‘God’.
Meanwhile, at my home, I used to tutor a student and taught him Calculus.
After a few days one day he asked :
“Sir, what is this ‘Calculus’?”
I had already expected to face sooner or later such a question from him, and was well-prepared in advance. Will full self-confidence, I told him:
“In simple words, Calculus is the Mathematics of change, precisely the Mathematics where the rate of change of two or more variables is studied about. There are two mathematical quantities, the two variables, where one is treated as dependent upon the other, while the other is said to be the independent variable.”
“I can understand the idea of the dependent variable, but can’t see how (the other) could be a variable as well as independent at the same time? Parden me, if it is independent it could not be variable, and if it is variable it could not be independent.”
“How could you say?”
“I think it will be subject to some condition or a certain law.”
“And the law?”
“The law could never be formulated nor explained by the intellect.”
“Why?”
“Because the law is Intelligence the immutable Reality, while the intellect is but a faculty of brain. The intellect is a variable all the time, -a dependent variable indeed, while the Intelligence is a steady unwavering light and intellect is but a reflected ray of this light. The intellect can never understand the Intelligence, but can sure understand it is there which activates intellect, though is ever so unaffected by the intellect.”
Once again, I candidly accept, I could never have come across such a straightforward deduction of intellect and Intelligence.
“O.K. let us say, under Mathematical conventions, one variable is the dependent and another is the independent.”
“Just as ‘time’ and the ‘velocity’ …”
My student helped me overcome my loss of self-confidence.
“Yes, the world is a totality of changes.
Accordingly, we can choose two variables and call the Mathematics of the ratio of the measure of their mutual change relative to each-other, ‘Calculus’. And of course we suppose one the dependent upon the other which we call the independent variable.”
After a few days, when I visited the temple, Pundit asked:
“Couldn’t see you since so long! Were you away somewhere?”
“Oh no, I was just busy!”
“O.K. now get those old flowers and garlands and take away them from here, and fetch a bucket water from the outside well…”
I obeyed his orders rather reluctantly.
“Don’t want to help me in the cleaning of the temple today?”
“Now-a-days I do my cleaning home.”
“Why then you come here?”
He asked with a subdued smile.
“Just to have a ‘darshana’, though am I still under your orders.”
After this, for some time I lived there and almost regularly visited the temple too, but altogether stopped discussing, debating or exchanging the views about ‘God’.
--
Hindi Post
God : Faith, Logic or conviction?
Comprehension of that Art was as much difficult for me as the understanding those great literary works, which hold a higher place in literature, and I just like an illiterate one, look them in wonder without grasping a bit.
Because so great scholars adore them, how I could dare not accept their authority?
As a child, one day while visiting a Shiva-Temple, I was thinking : Swami Dayananda Saraswati (of Arya Samaj) might have been right. But my intellect interrupted my thinking :
“O.K., that was the intellectual-logic of Swami Dayananda Saraswati, just because he saw a mouse climbing over the Shiva-lingam, and picking-up the sweets and the things offered to Shiva that made him think so.”
The next day when I was there in the temple as soon as the Pundit (the priest) entered the place, I asked him:
“Is not the God formless?”
There was no-one else except me and him.
On that circular-path which surrounds the holy hill and the devotees perambulate the same, there are many a Shiva-temples big and small, or only just a single stone Shiva-Lingam placed on an altar, and most of them have no visitors any.
He just cast a smiling glance over me and started, cleaning the temple-premises as usual. I too helped him as every day I usually do.
Soon the place was washed well and he performed the ‘Rudra-pATha’.
When finished, he asked me:
“What do you think …? If the God is formless, with no form any whatsoever, who could worship Him? Then, is not He in everything, and everything in Him only?”
“But then He could neither be confined either an idol or an image..”
“So why worship, what purpose is fulfilled by worshipping Him?”
“But then how the one, who feels strongly about worshiping Him can do this?”
“ …”
“Who knew if the God is formless or has a form, or even if He exists or not at all?”
“Does not The God have existence at all?”
“Answer my question: Who knew if the God is formless or has a form, or even if He exists or not at all?”
“That is according to individual faith.”
“The faith keeps changing its form and content, how the faith can deal with the question about the God if He is formless or has a form, or even if He exists or not at all?”
“Is then, the idol-worshipping (idolatry) right?”
“Is then, the idol-worshipping wrong?”
“God is formless implies that worshipping an idol with a form is verily wrong only.”
“What do you think? If the God is formless, with no form any whatsoever, who could worship Him? Then, is not He in everything, and everything in Him only? But before answering this, let me know your view about ‘who knew if the God is with or without a form, or even if there is the God?”
“That is what I try to see!”
He smiled once again.
--
And then I could sense, may be, he had no answer to my question, but that doesn’t mean he was wrong.
Before saying that worship of an idol is right or wrong, should we not first understand if God has a form, or has no form, or even God exists or doesn't exist?
Thus, we accept some notion about God, just because tradition has forced upon us either such a notion of God (or no God), whatever are the tradition and our own imagination, and we tend to believe such a concept of God. We just become a robot driven by such a concept and the word dictates our behavior which becomes a habit. Then we are instrumental in following the dictates which are different from person to person and group to group, cult to cult and culture to culture, and of course from sect to sect and religion to religion.
But when the existence and the truth (whatever) of what we call ‘God’ becomes the very question of life and death, only then we try to see with due attention what ‘God’ is or might be.
There is another aspect of this problem.
Do we really ‘need’ a ‘God’?
Just as we need air, water, food and a home to live and survive, do we really need a ‘God’ without which our very survival and existence is threatened?
The fact is as a collective species, man is far more threatened and in danger because it has embraced the notion of ‘God’ and religion.
When we treat this question in this light either we discard this notion altogether by understanding its absurdity and the relevance, or we work out what we mean by ‘God’.
--
" If You are trying to arrive at a conclusion, just as most of the intellectuals try, the logic and thought keep moving relatively in a smaller or a bigger circle, and you are stuck into thought only. First the imagination of a 'God' is accepted quite without knowing such a thing, so that thought can find a centre where it is tethered firmly, and then keeps wandering in a circle around this centre.
Is not the the worship of such a mental image also kind of idolatory?"
" ..."
"Could we perhaps start from some hypothesis about suc a God and deduce this hypothesis till the end so as to find out if it is proved true or false?
For example when we start to see if the square-root of the number 2 is a rational number or an irrational one. That is, if it could be expressed in terms of a fraction as an arithmatic divison of two integers, which have no common divisor.
Then working on this we ultimately find we reach a result which is false.
This leads us to say the squuare-root of the number 2 is not a rational number.
This is called the method of Mathematical induction."
" That exercise is quite appropriate for finding out a result in terms of Mathematical Logic. But is ‘God’ a Mathematical notion?
“Who knew if the God is with or without a form, or even if there is the God?
Or, perhaps if there is or is not a God?”
He returned to the same earlier stand (presumption?).
“Some-one might have known for sure and therefore this thing ‘God’ assumed an object for contemplation, thinking and pondering over.”
“And then many a such people might have ‘known’ and ‘experienced’ too…!”
He remarked with a bit a sense of ridicule and smiled.
I could guess what he might have in his mind.
“So, do you doubt the existence of God?”
“Neither have I doubted the non-existence of God.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just want to say some-one must have known about the existence or non-existence of God, or might had have imagined about God.”
“From here, we can talk about this further more…!”
“But the one who ‘knew’ or imagined must have been a human only.”
“Of course, we can’t talk for the animals and birds, and fish and the trees! We could sure restrict our discussion to humans only.”
“Is God a subject to intellect?”
“What do you mean?”
“Could the intellect grasp ‘God’ and deal with it just as it deals with other things?”
“ …”
“Whatever is called ‘God’ is either imagination or thought or conclusion because it is not known in terms of sensory-experience.”
“ …”
“Is it also untenable as a conclusion?”
“A conclusion is also either an experience or a guess only.”
“Or a principle.”
“A principle is again either immediate (direct im-mediate) or mediate (indirect), where there is a medium that enables one to ‘know’ in terms of ‘knowledge’ or ‘information’. In such knowledge there is the knower, the knowledge and the known. The three collectively define knowledge or experience. Such a knowledge is always incomplete and partial.”
“Please further elucidate this.”
“This means when such knowledge is dealt with at the practical level it appears to be true, but this ‘truth’ is but in thought only.”
“This means knowing the God is almost impossible.”
“Yes, Because God is the knower, the known and the knowing all at once together.”
“Isn’t this also again a principle only?”
“Yes, when applied in practical, this is apparently true, but when structured in a word-form it reduces to a mere thought only.”
“Could we call it the immutable unchangeable fundamental support, in comparison to which the ‘world’ seems to undergo change constantly?”
“Is there a thing that exists different apart from and other than this, and could be compared with this?”
--
I candidly accept, I could not honestly debate, argue or even converse with him upon a topic like ‘God’.
Meanwhile, at my home, I used to tutor a student and taught him Calculus.
After a few days one day he asked :
“Sir, what is this ‘Calculus’?”
I had already expected to face sooner or later such a question from him, and was well-prepared in advance. Will full self-confidence, I told him:
“In simple words, Calculus is the Mathematics of change, precisely the Mathematics where the rate of change of two or more variables is studied about. There are two mathematical quantities, the two variables, where one is treated as dependent upon the other, while the other is said to be the independent variable.”
“I can understand the idea of the dependent variable, but can’t see how (the other) could be a variable as well as independent at the same time? Parden me, if it is independent it could not be variable, and if it is variable it could not be independent.”
“How could you say?”
“I think it will be subject to some condition or a certain law.”
“And the law?”
“The law could never be formulated nor explained by the intellect.”
“Why?”
“Because the law is Intelligence the immutable Reality, while the intellect is but a faculty of brain. The intellect is a variable all the time, -a dependent variable indeed, while the Intelligence is a steady unwavering light and intellect is but a reflected ray of this light. The intellect can never understand the Intelligence, but can sure understand it is there which activates intellect, though is ever so unaffected by the intellect.”
Once again, I candidly accept, I could never have come across such a straightforward deduction of intellect and Intelligence.
“O.K. let us say, under Mathematical conventions, one variable is the dependent and another is the independent.”
“Just as ‘time’ and the ‘velocity’ …”
My student helped me overcome my loss of self-confidence.
“Yes, the world is a totality of changes.
Accordingly, we can choose two variables and call the Mathematics of the ratio of the measure of their mutual change relative to each-other, ‘Calculus’. And of course we suppose one the dependent upon the other which we call the independent variable.”
After a few days, when I visited the temple, Pundit asked:
“Couldn’t see you since so long! Were you away somewhere?”
“Oh no, I was just busy!”
“O.K. now get those old flowers and garlands and take away them from here, and fetch a bucket water from the outside well…”
I obeyed his orders rather reluctantly.
“Don’t want to help me in the cleaning of the temple today?”
“Now-a-days I do my cleaning home.”
“Why then you come here?”
He asked with a subdued smile.
“Just to have a ‘darshana’, though am I still under your orders.”
After this, for some time I lived there and almost regularly visited the temple too, but altogether stopped discussing, debating or exchanging the views about ‘God’.
--
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