A few months back when someone told me to watch a movie called, “A Man From Earth” and added that it’s a good movie, I, like every normal Indian youth, downloaded the movie from torrent and watched it, which was when I realized how wrong my friend’s comments were about the movie. It was not just a ‘good movie’ but was a life changing one which unconsciously changed many of my views on religion, life and me. In brief, the movie is all about a 14,000 year old man from upper paleolithic age who survives until the present day, his unique experiences, ideas and his beliefs. The man starts his experience by narrating about his early life, rise and fall of empires and finally reaches a crescendo when he reveals his identity.
So why am I writing a review of an already well acclaimed science fiction movie that was released some 5 years ago? The reason is, the movie unconsciously has imbibed into me certain ideas. At one point, the oldman when talking about religion says,” Believe in what He (God) tried to teach without the rigmarole...Piety is not what the lessons bring to people, its the mistakes they bring to the lessons.” Yes I am going to blabber about this in the forthcoming paragraphs and these are completely my opinions alone and I do not wish to insult or dishonour any religion or its beliefs although I may talk my opinion about many of the practices involved in them.
Almost all religions, especially those of Indian origin and Abrahamic religions when started, stressed more importantly on the principles to be followed and the ultimate gain associated with it – to reach God or to reach the ultimate truth and in some cases both the same. The prophets who established the religion also laid some basic ground rules for the group to follow to facilitate easier practice of the principles without confusion. But as time followed, the principles got diluted and the rules became more rigid. Men who were head of their religion started bending the rules according to their whim in the name of God and made humans as sinners. The principles, the reason for which the rules came into existence in the first place is now long lost in books and rules are followed blindly without reason. Even the principles present in the books are twisted beyond recognition by the heads who followed the initial founder and modified it in the name of commentaries and explanations.
I definitely do not blindly accuse that all commentaries and explanations are fake and misleading. There does exist some worthy explanations but are like finding white grains of sand in a pile of rice. The original manuscripts of these religions cannot be directly read and understood by a naïve common man since most of them are either lost, mutated or is present in extinct languages leaving him to go for translations and commentaries most of which are screwed up beyond recognition leaving the ignorant man bewildered as to which path he has to follow. This was the same problem which I too faced unable to decide where to rest my belief. Unable to rest it at one place, I decided to test it.
Yes I am talking about the incident that occurred in Tirupati of which I’ve described about in the blog , “The Fortunate Folks” - http://www.thoughtsofvenky.blogspot.com/2011/04/fortunate-folks.html It has been less than a year since I had challenged God for 3 favors and asking for atleast one to occur! Interestingly, of those wishes, exactly a half of each of my three wishes has become a reality.
So does that mean that there is a God with conscience? If so what does that exact half signify? Or since only a half of all the three occurred should I stick to the idea that there is no God. But since the prayers seem half answered I come to this final conclusion. There is a God (definitely not the God what you are thinking right now). But he doesn’t have four hands and ten heads or he doesn’t say that all humans are sinners. Neither he asks women to cover their faces nor does he ask men to grow beard and cover their head.
A God is above all these mundane stuffs. He doesn’t ask you to praise Him and sing about Him. He doesn’t care whether you pray, worship and chant his name a million times. He is above what is good and bad to human race. A superior man may want his subordinates to do all of the above said stuff. But definitely, not a God. A God doesn’t even need to have a conscience to give justice at every single turn. God is truth and justice incarnate. He is the physical law that acts upon the universe, the law that makes earth go around the sun, the law that generates huge quanta of energy when hydrogen is fused to helium in the sun and the law that causes protons and electrons to attract and at the same time unite the same positively charged protons tightly together. He is present at every soul around you, every inanimate object that surrounds you, every celestial bodies including the very earth on which we stand and also on the empty voids that lies between two such objects. He is the Universe, the law that created it and the law that holds it together. Every single atom to supermassive blackholes, from suns and nebulas to yourself and your hated neighbour - we are all a part of this universal soul – The God.
Aham Brahmaasmi!!
