June 7, 2006

O My God!!!

Taking this statement made popular by the F.R.I.E.N.D.S series, where every one has to do anything saying “O, my god”. So what is it about that unseen person/thing/being that enables one to overcome no matter what is the hurdle that he or she is facing? Faith in divinity, what is it? I mean, I am still to understand what divinity is, but to have faith in it seemed absurd to me.
The best instance of this shall be our parents. By our, I am including all those who are less than 30 years old. The reason that I am doing this because it is around this time that the faith in the abstract was replaced by faith in a more concrete being, the self.
To understand what someone means when he/she says “god will give” is difficult. My father is a staunchly religious person. Each day will start of with a prayer and each night will not end without him spending at least a few moments in front of a depiction that has four arms! Yet he is a successful person and borders on brilliant. This is completely opposite to me, a moderate achiever.
In fact I have had many discourses with a friend of mine as to what is the reason that god exists. The main reason that we were able to come up with is that during the times that the thought process of man was not developed, there were things in nature that scared him. Imagine, you are alone in the forest and you see thunder and lightening. What do you do? Think that it is just electrical discharge and leave it? Well you could do this if you knew what electricity was. Since you have no idea that electricity exists you do the next best thing. You make it all-powerful and then pray that it will not harm you. This can be extended to all the gods of all faiths. Take the thunderbolt throwing Indra of Hinduism or the same with Zeus of the ancient Greeks.
Coming back to faith, I guess that over the years, faith in divinity has been a security blanket, a way of saying that this is not the end. There is something more to come, A way of saying to your self that I may be down but then I am not beaten. However, since science, the all-powerful science has come up with all the right reasons to justify why god does not exist and the religious heads have all the wrong ones that say that god exists, god is being pushed to the back shelf of life.
Also during years past, god was a method to keep the society in check. How many times have we been told, “Don’t do anything bad, else god will punish you”. So much that we have stopped listening to it completely.
Then why is it that there are people that still believe in that all powerful, all pervasive being? That is a question of faith. That I cannot answer for you. All I can say is that it is another among the long list that differentiates us from the animals. May be if we did not have a god we shall not kill so many of our own species in his name. It is too late for all that now. The security blanket has become a way of life; a check has become a barrier; faith has become fanatic. O My God!

1 comment:

pushkalAn& pattabhiraman said...

Be it the fear of a boogeyman waiting for u behind the door .. or the Four Armed God captured in a frame.....both serve the same purpose...!
prupose is to put in a bit of decorum in our life that would ohterwise becme chaotic...!
Wat we call Divinity is Discipline in Disguise!
HAev Faith in urself... be sure od ur Spirutual self... ! i m sure u will find the divine residing within u!

OMG ...its been a looooooooooong comment!!
cheers
suha!