Wednesday, October 31, 2007

God vs Idea of God

In a recent discussion some of my friends(?) were ready to push each other off the roof in order to deduce the existence of God. I realized how shallow we can become, trying to prove our mean arguments, especially about things which we ourselves have no solid understanding of!

Understand that whether god is or god is not, the “idea of god” is a social creation and its an abstract idea. Quite unlike other abstract ideas of Love Silence Beauty which you might experience and you might need to survive happily, you can very well survive on this planet without knowing or understanding the idea of God. Now since this idea is social creation much like any other social construct it has its own ideological support in the society. You might be in favour of this God ideology, a theist or you might be opposed to this God ideology, an atheist.

Both stands are socially programmed and determined. If you subscribe to the belief system to the attributes and the image of god as conceived by some scriptures seers or past prophets you have your own tension. If you don’t accept this image you have your own tension.

So god as an ideology is a mental concept and a belief system and much like any mental concept it can be challenged or defended and is subjected to normal argumentative logic. Both sides then will have their own logics for and against god.

In my understanding both stands have their own validity. It depends on the quality of your consciousness, the depth of your understanding and purity of your purpose.

If you are a Nagarjuna If you are a Mahavira If you are a Brihaspati If you are a UG Krishnamurthy If you are Ramana Mahrishi then God doesn’t exist and this emptiness this Shoonya is your experience. If you are Tulasidas If you are a Thyagaraja If you are a Meera If you are a Rama Krishna then god exists and this completeness this Poorna is your experience.

The catch is experience and experiential understanding of the higher reality which is beyond our current limited perception and experience. The expression of Meera might not be the expression the Mahaveera. To Meera ecstasy is the fulfillment she gets losing her self in the Krishna Identity. To Mahaveera ecstasy is the fulfillment he gets in losing himself in the void of his own inner silence. This or that, it is the state of god, the zone of fulfillment which is paramount and central and not the idea of god.

The idea of god is subject to your petty logic and your petty understanding and you can play your dirty tricks there, prove or disprove him. Win arguments and prove your superiority and your intellectual prowess and impress people. The state of God however is the precious gift which lies concealed in your very silence which humans cannot prove or disprove for when the expression dissolves it begins to happen.

Ignore the people who are trying to prove or disprove understand they have their own axe to grind and only harm happens when you gift your head to their axe. They are window shoppers who have no business in buying the gift of god which existence can offer to them in this body. They are just here to have entertainment and time pass and are contented, fiddling with the ideas of God intellectually throwing their weight around. Neither have their eyes known any tears for God nor have they spent nights in deep silence grappling with questions related to questioning the idea of Divinity (or their own identity).

Seeking is absent in them and nor are they empty, they are filled with their second hand prejudices which they picked up from some stale books or stale thought warehouses or stale minds.

3 comments:

TheQuark said...

indeed thought provoking.

There was this anecdote our dear old daddu (VP Sinha) told "There was an argument about can God do anything. To refute the claim pat came the answer: If god can do anything then can God create a heavy stone. A stone so heavy even the God can't lift it!"

If he can create such a stone he won't be able to pick it up so there is a task he can't do and if can't create such a stone the claim is refuted at the first place.

I know this is not related to existence of God your post reminded of this. And also the fact the shallowness of 'logic' which crumbles my mere act of reflection (put God's own power against itself).

I feel the idea of God is necessary. Some part of us (mind/brain/soul/subconscious/i am not sure what part) wants something to guide us/ give us norms of behaviour / values / ideals. Something that gives you an axis (probably a belief system).

It may be God, parents, celebrities, money (or the idea of money/wealth), work, love so that part of us manifests itself in different forms. And Neitzche was right when he claimed "God is dead"
(dont take it literally). According to my interpretation he meant that part of us which I had talked about is being replaced by other things on a large scale.

I said...

yeah what VP sinha is challenging is an attribute which ppl identify with god that is Power. Power again is a social need and a human aspiration and we create an identity from which we can demand power and call it God.

This conception of giving god attributes is in Indian philosophy called Sagun Sakar brahmn( conceiving the higher reality to be of form and attributes). Since we think we have some qualities we just think of the higher reality to have them though in much much larger quantity :D

God in Indian phil could also be Nirgun Nirakar.

I disagree with Neitzche, for God to be dead he has to be alive. Again this is conceiving god in your imagination. Of course I think he is attacking the popular social conception.

-ashu

TheQuark said...

Though I am not an expert but I guess Nietzche meant this only the idea of GOd and its importance has been replaced by others. His reference was more towards Christian God