I am an ugly Indian. I am selfish and ignorant. And I am vociferous and honest which works against me. My scientific temper forces me to question a lot of traditional things I have been doing for a long time. For instance, God. They say God is a necessity ; you cannot live without God. It is absolutely true. We love and hate God. We pray to him to shower his blessings on us in terms of money, health and worldly possessions. We pester Him to make us rich, the envy of the neighborhood. We demand His help in getting a cure for our bodily ailments. We ask for a healthy life and a peaceful death. We want Him to be our ally in our stealthy activities too and often tempt him with a part of the ill - gotten booty. For all the largesse, in return, we promise to pray to Him daily, do our pujas regularly and undertake our annual pilgrimage to His shrine. We offer money for the upkeep of the temple. Often we part with our hair as an offering too, inflict sufferings on ourselves and remind God to note that we are God- fearing devotees. Indirectly we are issuing a warning: Beware God, you cannot go on accepting my prayers and offerings, and do nothing in return. See, I am waiting for a promotion and if you do not help me to get it, I will abandon you. I will stop my pujas and prayers and annual pilgrimages. You will be the loser. I may even think of transferring my allegiance to the other gods.
Our relationship with God is complicated. It is based mostly on selfish and ulterior motives and on our faith that God could be manipulated. We look at God as we look at our Mothers. Mothers are amoral and generous when it comes to their children. Whatever demand you make on your mother, she will try to provide you and whatever offences you commit she will overlook them or forgive them. Is God like that ? Does He have a different role to play in our lives? Better than mothers?
We try to learn the ways of God. Our Godmen do not inspire us. They sing the praise of God and tell us that God is powerful and he will assist you in all your activities. We place a demand with God; if it is met, we thank God and the Godmen credit it to the power of God and his willingness to help you. If it does not happen, Godmen say that it is our fate and even Gods are not able to help us. Either way God wins, and we are left wondering if it was not true that the first success of our demand is also our fate, not God’s doing?
What role does God play in granting or refusing our demands? Is fate more powerful than God?
Godmen are not able to explain why good men suffer while bad men thrive? A neighbor, arrogant, corrupt and an atheist, has amassed wealth, built a palatial house, has a faithful wife and lovely children, while, look at me, I am honest, humble and god-fearing, but I live in a rented house, my wife is a diabetic and our children are puny and emaciated. What did we do to displease the gods other than perhaps skipping our annual pilgrimage for want of money? Are we being compelled to pay for the sins our fathers or grandfathers committed? Are we paying the ungodly debts our ancestors accumulated in terms of their bad activities?
Why do good men suffer? Don’t tell us that God is punishing you for your own good. Is he like the school master who punishes an errant student? Do you want to say that your neighbor who is corrupt and arrogant and who is well off is not favoured by God? They also say that God gives them wealth so they could damn themselves. Let us have the same kind of sweet punishment like our neighbors.
God makes his favorite devotees suffer for their own good? Somehow we cannot buy this flawed argument. We are praying for worldly goods, but God deprives us of them for our own good. How does one qualify for being the favourite of God? Or is it an attempt to explain away the anomalies in God’s dispensation? It may not be possible for us to fully understand the ways of God, but we arrive at certain conclusions, using our limited vision, based on the power, compassion and wisdom God has thought fit to give us. If we question God’s ways, it is His will that we do so. It was God who created day and night, good and bad ,light and darkness, “asthikas” and “nastikas.”
I do not understand all the high sounding words like atman, paramatman etc which mean nothing to me in the midst of the crises I find myself in. Discussion of those topics seems an idle man’s pastime.
It may be true that the original soul which resided in my grandfather’s body got corrupted and transmigrated into my body with all its unresolved and unrequited passions and sins, and it may also be true that I am paying the price for my ancestor’s commission of sins; but how long am I going to suffer? Is it possible for my body to discard my soul and get a fresh one as it had been possible for the original soul to get a fresh body to reside in? Is it true that there are unlimited bodies while the supply of souls is limited? Is it possible for one soul to split and enter several bodies? What is the tedious process by which the original soul, after passing through several bodies and accumulating fresh sins and purifying the old ones, stops its journey and merges with the one glorious flame?
Remember I am an ugly Indian. All these commonsense questions, some of which may be regarded as foolish and agnostic, are quite important to me as the answers to them may help calm my mind and understand and solve my worldly problems without much rancour.