The Evolution of God

Who said that the wheel was man’s first invention? To me it is God The Almighty - The unquestionable, the Omni present and Omni potent, Universal donor, the You Know Who.

Hailing from a moderately orthodox Hindu family and schooling in a highly orthodox Christian school, with contrasting beliefs, I learnt the similarities and differences in people’s mind set of the different faiths. They were all common in that they shared similar fears, similar sense of guilt and were similar in the ways they oppose the each other’s faiths. They were different in ways of their worship, their intensity of criticisms and periodicity of godly behaviours. So, in order to strike a balance between the two extremes, I developed what was called ‘Tolerance’.

I visited my school chapel everyday and the temple at least once in a month. As expected, I was a mixture of both and original of none. I used to question my families’ practices at home and dared not to question those at school. Then came the question ‘whom to pray to’ (or honestly, which God was more powerful to grant wishes with zero waiting time). Also, during Thanksgiving, whom do I attribute my gifts to? I could say ‘Kadavulin Kirubai’ or ‘Deiva Sangalpam’, taking careful precautions not to offend any God. To solve these confusions, I adopted ‘generalization’ as a way of worship – The Universal One God!

I stopped referring to Gods by their proper names and was now more strategic in pleasing them. This saved me redundant requests and redundant acknowledgements on responses. As years passed by, even this became difficult. With more probing come more questions. With this common God, what would I imagine him as? What physical form is he? Does he have one? Is he of human form as we have always perceived him to be? If so, does he wear wealthy robes and latest fashion jewellery like the Saravana Stores advertisements (Is he a Capitalist?) or appears to be a pauper (communist?) With mounting confusions and more search for ‘knowledge’, I found a more comforting way of life. And that was ‘Aham Brahmmasmi’!

W

hy do we always glorify God as a third person? Because the ideals we associate with him, the omnipotence we assume of him are all too idealistic to associate to any second person, leave alone first person. We can not imagine our sibling, our boss, our flight pilot, our spouse, our neighbouring country as Living Gods since we are so intolerant to humans that we cannot accept their slightest shortcomings. And what about experiencing God in ourselves? We conveniently ignored it, since in this case, with the original objectives we have set for God, we wouldn’t be able to yield to ‘worldly pleasures’, which are the driving forces of most of our lives.

But I decided I should be doing a balancing act between my belief and pleasures by following Aham Brammasmi or Naan Kadavul. It gave me so much comfort to relish myself as God that nothing I did seemed wrong. I had my own world. I loved everyone (though with a varying degree), I hated none (with uniformity), I accepted others as they are. I observed myself, my reactions to my own bliss, solitude, depression, freakiness and framed my God.

All was not well. And then some more disturbing questions arose? Am I omnipotent? Can I stop a calamity? Can I fix a broken heart? Can I solve the Indo-Pakistan dispute? Can I assure a plane’s safe landing? No. But what seemed soothing was that even the universally much acclaimed, God The Almighty himself has not been able to achieve these. If he is everything that he is claimed to be, are these happenings beyond his power of influence? Furthermore, man has to wage wars to protect the existence of this unseen being with hundreds and thousands being killed in his name. What good is a God who would let millions of his believers mercilessly massacred during the Holocaust? How omnipotent is God who can not save people from diseases/ famines? Why can’t he stop global warming? Why can’t he uplift the oppressed and suppressed as he had done in my High School Moral Science books?

I think I like confusing myself. But after confusions come clarity. So, now after all these I strongly feel, if I could do everything that God could, and more so, if God can not do what I can not, then he is as good as non-existent. If men are in their right senses, doing good, or at least doing no harm, accepting each other and ever learning, the world would be a better place to live in, even sans God’s help.

Now, is that my final belief? No. I will continue to evolve, for my good! Who is John Galt?