Saturday, 24 November 2012

God…and the illogical logic behind

It was ‘Dhanteras’ that day and an article in the newspaper said that if you buy something this day, the goddess of wealth, ‘Lakshmi’ (as if she exists!) will bestow her generosity upon you. Logically, if you buy something, you’ll have to pay for it and you can only get a little poorer! If buying something can make a person richer (nonsense, but still let us somehow assume), the rich who can buy will be richer and the poor, poorer. So god is the one (actually he isn’t one-there are 360,000 in Hinduism alone) directly responsible for the divide between haves and have not’s! God!

God is no good, and people know it. The difficult part is accepting it. Had god been good, would there have been natural calamities, where thousands die, irrespective whether they are saints or terrorists? Would there have been criminal tendencies in people’s mind-for crime, corruption and dishonesty? Would there have been disease and illness like cancer and AIDS, wiping off lakhs off the planet? Any explanation? Still believing that god exists, and that too he is ‘good’ is like believing that earth is flat and sun revolves around it!

If you see a mother crying her child’s dead body or a terminal stage cancer patient being consoled by his relatives that it will be all right despite knowing that it won’t, or a handicapped child trying to stand up and fall instead and you still believe in god being good, you need to consult a doctor. A mental one. Urgently.

All that’s there is nature, and its creator, who is up to no other good than ensuring continuation of survival of species. Survival of the fittest, not the ‘best’. On this very context, you can’t call a tiger sinful for killing a deer, despite the emotional strings attached to it. (Animals have emotions too, remember? Sometimes better than mankind.)

Doing good won’t get you anywhere. This concept that doing ‘good’ is indeed good was made only so that there isn’t a total anarchy (to keep people from slitting each other’s throat and ending up alone). Believe me when I say evil will make you more prosperous than by doing good. Pick up any famous personality, successful businessman, each has an evil story behind him. And once you achieve success, no one cares about your sins. So there are only two types of people on earth: the rich and the good. Choose one.

Anyway, getting back, all of us have come across the supernormal devotion (?) people have for god. Unnecessary is a better word. They pick up bells and that metal plates and bang it at the top-decibel ranges, in a hope that god will hear them directly from heaven. Like you can shout your voice to your relative in Delhi, while sitting in Ranchi. Instead first confirm whether a relative exists at all in Delhi. Even if after knowing there isn’t, if you need to contact this non-existent being, try the cellphone. Same way, you can close your eyes and feel closer to god, then you can talk in a normal tone to him, if need be. No need of carrier waves.

I once quoted the example of a temple in my state, and I state it again. There, in a room about 10 feet by 10 feet, about five dozen people pray together at a time, many not even getting to touch the holy ‘stone’. How can you concentrate on connecting to god when you are in a suffocating room, with your soul desperate to leave your body and hence the room? It is far better a pray, if you do that from your home, in front of His pic. And if they are so much bent on believing in god, why don’t they let him rest peacefully, instead of banging bells and shouting hymns day and night long.

Just imagine yourself smeared with all that milk, sticky honey, leaves, inhaling incense smoke 24x7, people singing the same song to you in a terrible voice (most religious agents have a croaky voice, like mine) throughout the year, no time to sleep, waking up at daybreak, with people cutting goats at your feet, offering you the most delicious food but you are not able to eat it (have you ever seen god eating the ‘Prasad’ you offer?)….and the list goes on. Students are a step ahead in disturbing god’s peace, the last bits of what’s left of it. We wake him up a three in the night, praying to get better marks in the exam the following morning. This is the reason, I decipher for my meager marks. It’s a revenge god takes for disturbing his peace.  Why don’t we just let him be?

Why’s the need to give this ‘godly’ treatment to someone who hasn’t given you anything? To get it straight, whatever little or phenomenal achievement you have, it’s all because of you and you deserved it. No one can take it away from you. If you’ll be successful, you won’t start giving a heavenly treatment to the first stranger you meet on the road for your success, despite having no contribution in your it, apart from being the fortunate stranger to cross you on the road.

Just do good for yourself, your family and well-wishers, obviously without causing anyone else any discomfort, including the almighty, and good will happen. If you shift your focus on god, obviously you’ll lose focus on the job at hand. So don’t lose your focus to god (yeah He is a distraction, and a good one at it). Work, learn, earn, enjoy.

Those understanding that they have what they deserve don’t need god. It’s for those who don’t. For them, it’s just a symbol to blame, to ask strength from. I said good is god. But the good don’t need god.

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