This topic might be controversial or sensitive to some of you because it deals with God and you might think this is a religious topic. But, actually it is not. The intention of this article is not to promote any religious faith because God is non-religious and common to all. If you believe in atheism and you are reading this article, I am sure you have encountered similar question before and you know how to handle it. But, like I said this article is not framed to prove the existence of God nor to justify who God is. Rather it is framed to define and decode the word, God and allow you to intuitively think for yourself about it. So, I encourage the reader to read this article with an open-mind and willingness.
Let us get into this topic now. When the word “God” resounds in your heart or when you hear it through your ear, you suddenly apply your thought process to relate it with your religion or any of the religions. Isn’t that true? If suppose you were brought up in an atheistic faith, there is no doubt you would suddenly convince yourself saying, “Hey! There is no God”. So while you read this article, do not affiliate the term ‘God’ with religion, but please consider it as a new Name and only then you will know the wisdom, power, knowledge and joy hidden behind this Name. This name, God is not invented recently like we invented electricity, but it was in existence since the day mankind existed. The quest to search and find God never vanished since then. Generation after generation, year after year, century after century and era after era people searched for this unique Power with great curiosity to know, communicate and unite with that Power. Have you ever sat and spent time to think why people are so much attracted towards this Name?
How God would be?
Can you imagine how God would be if He is real?
Wonderful, Marvellous, Beautiful, Glorious, Holy, Powerful, Full of wisdom, Great and finally you end up saying, He should be the creator of everything including me. I hope you agree this point that if there is a God, He is the one who created you.
Let us see some of our traditional approaches that have projected God in different forms in our minds
- Fear: If something is fearful, we name it as God. Ex. Natural disasters, some fearful animals, the planets & stars which are roaming around our head (roaming around our earth), even some person who have fearful look.
- Good men: As we see in many religions, humans are worshipped as God and some religions give the status to certain good & noble men to be revered by people after their death (saints). Some people are not ashamed to create temple for their celebrities.
- Beauty: The beautiful things which we see around are sometimes called as God.
- Love: As we were born in our mother’s womb and well cared and loved by our mother, some of us call her as God.
- Wonderful creatures: we sometimes marvelled by the mighty of the creatures such as sun, moon, earth and the other creatures present in it and call them as God.
- Culture & Geography: People worship different Gods depending upon their culture, profession, background, race, caste, land etc. Even the kinds of the idols they use are varying depending upon their culture and land. For example: If you see in south India people use stones to create idols (black in colour) but in north India they use marbles as a material (white in colour) because of the availability of the materials in their land.
The above said things might have somehow related to God; however we can’t assume the characters or things created by God as God. If you clearly examine why we allow these factors to administer our mind, then you could come to a conclusion that it is just for our personal satisfaction. I accept that the above said factors might have involved in your life in some ways to contribute to the growth of your mind, body and soul. Here is a question for you to think, if you agree that God should be the one who created you, can you acknowledge any one of the above mentioned man-made Gods to have created you? You can be afraid of so many things in the world, marvelled by many creatures, admired by beauties of the world, loved and cared by your loved ones, attracted by your celebrities, well brought by your cultures, traditions and land and pretty much inspired by the goodness of certain men. However the above said things cannot satisfy you nor have created you. They may seem to be leading you towards satisfaction up to some extent but actually they are leading you to nowhere. As a matter of fact, they are limited by time, wealth and many other factors and ultimately they are not the source of your creation. For example if you say mother as your creator, a doctor can give a correct answer that ‘she is not’ as she has no control over creating a new being. She does not know how her loving child would be nor does she know the gender of her child. As a matter of fact, she was used as a vessel in the creation of your body. So she is not your creator at all. Moreover the love of loved ones, wonders of the creatures, our tradition and all the above said things are mortal in nature (they cannot exist beyond a time limit, even our earth has a life time). I like this statement when I read it in my friend’s signature, “The only One who can satisfy your heart is the One who made it”. The only One, who knows the depth and breadth of your heart, is the one who can understand you and He alone can be your Creator, The God!!!
Why God?
You might have a question why we are attracted towards this word God and we are longing to have a relationship with Him. Let us assume that you are creating an object applying your knowledge, wisdom, imagination and with all your intelligence. You make it beautiful, useful as well as friendly to you (i.e. you want the object to be well with you always). So as a creator of that object you know everything about it, you love it, you want to keep it always with you and use it as you want. You will make sure that it will not be destroyed or captured by anybody. If suppose the object you created can think and has sense, it is well aware that only you (its creator) know how to use it and without you it is useless. In such case, the object will do everything it takes to stay with you and will never leave you. The same example applies to the relationship between you & your God. You were created by Him and somehow because of the worldly rules, customs, religions and boundaries you have been disconnected from Him. But still you are striving hard to connect with Him. The good analogy is the cell phone, which has lost its signal and tries to connect with the tower that matches its frequency. In this searching process you are the cell phone, searching for the actual Tower, God. While searching you encounter some fake towers that seem to match your frequency. But unfortunately they are just sucking your energy and not allowing you to proceed in search of the real Tower, God. Finally, at the edge of depression you end up saying there is no God and you become an atheist. When closely monitored, atheism is not rejecting God’s existence rather it is neglecting the existence of God. Let me give an example for this. Many of us might well aware of Periyaar, the eminent politician who played a great role in Tamil Nadu politics and of his belief in atheism. Once there was a meeting arranged in a particular place and he was speaking in front of a crowd. When it started to rain at the middle of his speech and he shouted saying, “Oh my God! Why it is raining at this time?” After hearing this statement from Periyaar, a follower of him asked “Sir, though you are an atheist, you called God why?” Periyaar replied the person saying “Hey, Who said there is no God; If I say there is God, Hindus would start telling a list of names and say they are the real Gods, Muslims would say Allah is the only God and Christian would say that Christ is the only God; In order to avoid this confusions and competitions that lead to communal violence, I say there is no God”. This is the case of most of the believers in atheism as they are confused with many things and they finally come to a conclusion that there is no God. One of the powerful weapons of atheists is Science. Since neither Bible nor Gita nor Quran is in agreement with Science, atheists conclude saying there is no God. My questions to atheists are: What if those books have not projected God correctly? Are you trying to justify that God does not exist by proving Bible or Gita or Quran is wrong? Do you think this way of your justification is fully valid? I seriously doubt.
Unlike animals you have a soul (that is spirit) along with your body (that is flesh). Animals are not led by the spirit so they do not know what is good and evil however you are led by the spirit which you got from God. The body in which you live may perish however the spirit will live forever. That spirit instructs us every day about good and evil and the same spirit urges us to have communion with God as it is from God.
Why Religions?
Then you may ask a question, why religions exist in the world? The simple answer is marketing. Let us take mobile phone as an example as it is easy to understand. You wish to buy a simple mobile phone, nothing fancy but use it solely to talk with your family, friends and loved ones. Now you are looking for the products available in the market and you are eagerly searching which will well suit your requirement. Different mobile representatives will try to convince you to buy their product by telling the goodies of their product. Finally, you who are confused, end up buying a mobile that you never have planned to buy. The same case applies to religions also. Though they may proclaim them as mediators to reach God; when following them you end up in failure rather than meeting your goal. This is because they are not the real mediators rather they are making use of your aspiration to reach God to meet their own benefits. Though sometimes we find the genuine teachings that lead the way to God, we fail to take the way because of the factors like money, traditions, customs and culture.
Though we see many religions in the world, God is One, He is alive and He is longing to have communion with you when you long for Him. Because He created you by specially using all His intelligence and wisdom, He made you a living soul by His breath. He is not a mere man or any creature in the world but He is the Creator of the world and all the creatures in it. The creatures & human beings are mortal. As it is said: “As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the wind passes over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.” However God is immortal. He is everlasting, He neither has a beginning nor an end, whereas all the objects in and around the world have. He is indescribable, uncontainable. As a singer describes in his song, “You are beautiful beyond description; too marvellous for words; too wonderful of comprehension; like nothing ever seen or heard; who can grasp you infinite wisdom? Who can fathom the depth of your love? You are beautiful beyond description; Majesty enthroned above; and I stand, I stand in awe of you!”
Do you know your God?
Just think about this, the One created you, also created the whole universe and all the things which are present in it. We marvel the majesty of our earth and of its vast landscape, but the earth becomes negligible when compared with the abundance of this universe. Do you know that God, who created the great universe and the marvellous things in it, is not considering you as a negligible one? He knows you by your name and He loves you so much and does not want to be sitting as a great person existing very far away from you...But He wants to be with you, He loves you and wants to live in you. You are something special in His eyes even if you are neglected by the world. The world may consider you nothing but He never does. He is such a great and loving God not like a fearful one as you think. You might be going through a touch situation in your life, but as you read, just remember that the God who created you knows your situation and listens to the outcry of your heart. He is the God who sees the heart not the face as men do. He knows your mind, feelings & your understandings. Just acknowledge Him in your heart and ask Him to reveal Himself to you. He will surely help you as He is not the God who does not have ears to hear your prayers; However He is the God who understands the feeling of His dear one, who is none other than you! You can share the feeling and agony of your heart with God, like you share with your best friend. As a singer says “He never sleeps, He never slumbers. He never tires of hearing our prayer. When we are weak He becomes stronger. So rest in His love and cast all of your cares on Him”. He is very near to the one who seek Him truly!
Do you know the real joyous and unforgettable moment in your life is when you know your creator & God! Few months back, my friend was narrating an incident in a Tamil film called “ROBO”. It was the time when the ROBO was being checked for quality by asking different kind of questions. The ROBO was good enough to answer all the questions. Finally, the scientist who created it asked a question “Is there a God?” The ROBO responded with the question “Who is God?” The scientist replied that He is the One who created us. The ROBO waited for a moment and gently responded the scientist saying “Then you are my God”. It was a tear-filled joyous and unforgettable occasion for the scientist, the ROBO and the crowd who watched it.
Can you ask this question for yourself, “Do I know my God?”
