Before I start adding my views on this let me make certain things clear about me.
Am I Spiritual? Yes
Am I Religious? Yes
Do I Believe in God? Yes
Do I Believe in Other Religions apart from mine? Yes
Do I Believe in after Life? Yes (But that’s a different topic to be discussed).
All my views are based on the religion I was taught and brought up in as I cannot comment based on things I don’t know much about. It does not mean that I know much about my religion but trying to share what I know of today.
Now Let me get started here, God who is he?
According to some wise people’s views, God is the supreme soul who controls everything. But I think religion is a belief and god is the core of that belief.
I recently happen to see a movie, though it was suppose to be a comedy centred movie, it did have certain things to say about god. Let me put that in detail to you, certain people have certain qualities by birth, it’s a gift to them. Everybody is not good with everything in this world. Some one who can draw cannot write effectively. There are others who are not good at anything, like me ;-). When you are not good at certain things or if you feel you are unlucky with certain things, it is then your confidence level drops. People do various things to bring their confidence level up and one of them is God, when one is depressed and sees the form of God Strong and Powerful, the seeker feels the moral boost that God would definitely be the support for the right thing. Apart from that the other things like fasting, making offering in a temple, pujas etc. are add-ons to the culture. I basically think this is the right way of seeing who god is.
Secondly, where is he?
I betcha, many people would want to know this and why would they want to know this? Just to whine about how bad they are doing in life or asking for a simple way to become the richest man in the world or to get the most secured life. The number of people who thank god for what they are today or who thank him/her for what they have is almost zero when we look at the whole group.
Now forgetting the entire above mentioned issues, does god really reside in the temples? Well my answer is, temple is a sacred place clean, pure and divine and has an architectural importance. Man has learned to direct energy in different way and I believe temples are built in a way to direct energy.
Now coming to the idea of multiple gods in my religion (my religion believes in 330 million (33 crores) gods), is based on a concept every thing living or non living is considered to be divine or sacred. Therefore everything known is ultimately god. So my religion considers the trees as God, the sun as God, the moon as God, the monkey as God, the snake as God and even human beings as manifestations of God! Now this is the best part in my religion.
God doesn’t appear before you with twelve hands and six heads to save you. A person who helps someone in distress is god to him. God is in all forms and he is by your side all the time to support you.
Finally, what is he doing?
If you really read the whole post from the start you would know what he is doing.
To sum the whole post up, God is like the flame on a candle which always points up which ever direction you turn it to, spreading the light evenly around it. So my friends, god is around you.
Now having said this all, the next question that I ask myself is, would I do the same things that the community around me does. Every sect have their own traditions and the way I look at thing like making offering in the temple, doing pujas to be traditional habits. So I will continue with the traditional things that my ancestors have been following till today. I don’t want to kill their ages of believes in a single night. But will keep asking my questions till I get a better answer.
Now there is a saying in Tamil
“arithu arithu manidarai pirathal arithu
athillum arithu manidar ayinum koon kurudu seviduandi pirappal arithu”
Meaning
Am I Spiritual? Yes
Am I Religious? Yes
Do I Believe in God? Yes
Do I Believe in Other Religions apart from mine? Yes
Do I Believe in after Life? Yes (But that’s a different topic to be discussed).
All my views are based on the religion I was taught and brought up in as I cannot comment based on things I don’t know much about. It does not mean that I know much about my religion but trying to share what I know of today.
Now Let me get started here, God who is he?
According to some wise people’s views, God is the supreme soul who controls everything. But I think religion is a belief and god is the core of that belief.
I recently happen to see a movie, though it was suppose to be a comedy centred movie, it did have certain things to say about god. Let me put that in detail to you, certain people have certain qualities by birth, it’s a gift to them. Everybody is not good with everything in this world. Some one who can draw cannot write effectively. There are others who are not good at anything, like me ;-). When you are not good at certain things or if you feel you are unlucky with certain things, it is then your confidence level drops. People do various things to bring their confidence level up and one of them is God, when one is depressed and sees the form of God Strong and Powerful, the seeker feels the moral boost that God would definitely be the support for the right thing. Apart from that the other things like fasting, making offering in a temple, pujas etc. are add-ons to the culture. I basically think this is the right way of seeing who god is.
Secondly, where is he?
I betcha, many people would want to know this and why would they want to know this? Just to whine about how bad they are doing in life or asking for a simple way to become the richest man in the world or to get the most secured life. The number of people who thank god for what they are today or who thank him/her for what they have is almost zero when we look at the whole group.
Now forgetting the entire above mentioned issues, does god really reside in the temples? Well my answer is, temple is a sacred place clean, pure and divine and has an architectural importance. Man has learned to direct energy in different way and I believe temples are built in a way to direct energy.
Now coming to the idea of multiple gods in my religion (my religion believes in 330 million (33 crores) gods), is based on a concept every thing living or non living is considered to be divine or sacred. Therefore everything known is ultimately god. So my religion considers the trees as God, the sun as God, the moon as God, the monkey as God, the snake as God and even human beings as manifestations of God! Now this is the best part in my religion.
God doesn’t appear before you with twelve hands and six heads to save you. A person who helps someone in distress is god to him. God is in all forms and he is by your side all the time to support you.
Finally, what is he doing?
If you really read the whole post from the start you would know what he is doing.
To sum the whole post up, God is like the flame on a candle which always points up which ever direction you turn it to, spreading the light evenly around it. So my friends, god is around you.
Now having said this all, the next question that I ask myself is, would I do the same things that the community around me does. Every sect have their own traditions and the way I look at thing like making offering in the temple, doing pujas to be traditional habits. So I will continue with the traditional things that my ancestors have been following till today. I don’t want to kill their ages of believes in a single night. But will keep asking my questions till I get a better answer.
Now there is a saying in Tamil
“arithu arithu manidarai pirathal arithu
athillum arithu manidar ayinum koon kurudu seviduandi pirappal arithu”
Meaning
“Out of the entire living creatures in the world, you are gifted to be born as a human being with the sixth sense. You are even more gifted if you don’t have any kind of deformity by birth”.
So thank the almighty for what he has given you friends. I have expressed my views till today but will never stop hunting for answers on this topic.
6 comments:
Guru,
My understanding about Bagavadh gita is to renounce everything to reach God, i mean all the materialistic things.Well, if everyone follows a path of a sage and become enlightened to attain the everlasting happiness or to reach the perfect of perfection.who would give birth to children and what happens to the next generation .do human beings cease to exisist if we all follow bagavadh gita.Thoughts are of mine,please correct me if i am wrong .
yes Siva, I guess you are right and thats exactly what I feel. Do your best to help as many people as you can.
Guru
Good words.
Hi Guru,
First of all, a worthy blog with deep thinking behind the words.
Second, as good an exoneration of Hinduism as I have ever seen.
Third, while I agree with a lot of what you say, I feel that Hinduism has got the answers to the basic questions of mankind, if one is willing to take the time to study the correct literature.
Fourth, our ancestors had a more advanced knowledge of things than us and designed a lot of the daily anushtanams like puja, aarthi etc. based on a lot of scientific (for lack of a more apt word) thinking. It is a tragedy to see that these anushtanams have degenerated to rote actions by people today, without an understanding of the reasoning behind them.
Lastly, it is good to see a blog like this from a fellow Melbournian.
-Kumar
Well Said Mate....Cannot be made any simple..
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