Power... Fear... God...

In my pursuit to understand the association between my existence and GOD as a superior being or idea and the influence that we both exert over each other, I ended up scribbling how everyday things and people around me with their unique ways, behaviors, beliefs and faith influenced me and where I stood on a scale, measuring my “Association with GOD” as compared to the numerous like and unlike me. One particular comment from a friend which had me pondering upon was;

“Cause without the concept of god, d world would become a complete pandemonium... Disaster everywhere… Order would be lost… Absolute freedom…”

The statement by its very constitution makes a very strong remark on the nature and characteristics of one of the most dominating specie to have ever walked this planet,

“That we as a race need a constant governing, more like a vision which in turns trickles down to our society, to our community, to our family and finally to ourselves, by the very nature this vision which encompasses every aspect of our living, we are at every moment of our social and personal life influenced if not controlled by it.”

While my journey in search of truth and being able to classify myself based on justified grounds as either a believer or a non-believer in GOD is still on track, I am most certainly a believer in the power of Human Mind (conscious and subconscious), its potential to see definitive patterns in our social behavior and its ability to condition the social behavior of most species on this planet.

So then would a world without the concept of god actually become a complete pandemonium, a complete disaster?

Though it’s a question that majority of us would like view through a microscope of belief and faith, I’d propose looking at it more logically (logic as defined by research).

The modern man evolved in Africa some 2, 00,000 years ago (Out of Africa Theory), while the existence of complex, multicellular life form can be traced back to 2.1 billion years ago. The time period between these two life forms is a process which Charles Darwin termed as the “Natural Selection” in his book “On the Origin of Species”. Now the concept of God was nowhere in existence during the differential period between the above two life forms and yet this period in the history of this planet can be categorized as the most important phase as it saw the most astounding of changes to have occurred and which laid the foundation for the evolution of this world the way we see it now.

We humans who are less blessed then the other creatures from the animal kingdom when compared to the evolution of our sensory organs still managed to survive, grow and rule over all other life-forms. What made this possible? The answer to this question has been a subject of research since we have known science. Something that sets us apart from the rest of the pack has been our ability to communicate and share knowledge among us, I am not proposing that we are the only ones who can communicate and share knowledge, other species are also adept at doing that, but we were able to organize this knowledge and then encrypt it in the forms of our writings, paintings, folk tales etc and then pass it on to our subsequent generations so that they had a ready reference to the experience of their ancestors. It was all the more important to document and share this knowledge, since survival was still the biggest issue at hand and the command over this knowledge had the key to survival and growth.

“There is no knowledge that is not power”

                                                              - Ralph Waldo Emerson

With mastery over the skill of communication and knowledge sharing, the human race flourished from small dispersed nomadic tribes to more populous complex civilizations. This change in social dynamics gave rise to our need to organize the collective knowledge of our civilization into central knowledge centers, this knowledge both explicit and tacit. By all means this knowledge was the most powerful weapon anyone could have in his armory and an individual or a group in possession of this knowledge was equipped to have an unprecedented power.

One of the prerequisite to realize this power was to have an unchallenged command over the knowledge centers which in turn meant a complete control over the source of this knowledge i.e. Human Mind….

In order to have this supreme command over human mind, it was necessary to bring the majority under one roof, to unite them, to glue them together in a way which would make it possible to influence the behavior of this populous majority. This need to control and the resulting power it gave fuelled the concept of God. Every phenomena occurring in nature was propounded as God’s work, the unexplained, the mysterious were all camouflaged under the banner of God. This brand of God gained in popularity, eventually becoming the single universal concept in this world.

Yet another contributor in making the God as the eternal truth is fear…. Man’s fear of the uncontrollable nature as it is the only thing which we have not been able to master. And the concept of God was coined to give people a feeling of security in an insecure world, and a feeling of control over the environment where there was little control. It also aided our chances of surviving in a cruel and unpredictable world.

“Many times when we think we are worshipping God, we are actually comforting our very fragile egos. I’m not so naïve as to assume that we build temple and erect altars to ourselves…directly. But our core needs to be safe, secure and sound mandates that we construct reality systems that will support us.”                                    -    David C. James

So will this world become a completely chaotic place without the concept of god… it existed before any humans walked and it will continue to do so without us… Concept of God is an outcome of our fears, need for survival, lust for control, hunger for power and quest for knowledge…

So by that interpretation, the concept of God is like a pseudo identity that we have created to whom we account all our fears, our deeds (good or bad), our miseries, our accolades and everything that we created tangible or intangible. What it enables us is to comfortably dust of the responsibility and accountability that we owe to this Nature and to our Community (Human Race). By doing this we as specie walk away from any situation clean…..

Particles of Faith

"To me the sole hope of human salvation lies in teachin Man to regard himself as an experiment in the realization of God, to regard his hand as God's hand, his brains as God's brain, his purpose as God's purpose. He must regard God as a helpless longing , which longed him into existence by its desperate need for an executive organ."

- George Bernard Shaw

I am not an expert, nor a knowledgeable person like the many great minds and souls of the past, just another man trying to find an answer to a question which has both created an intrigue and a flamed curiosity within me while transcending into my conscious and sub-conscious living.
I do not intend to classify one’s faith or belief about the existence of god into a prison of words conceived to satisfy our worldly means. I am in all reality in pursuit to understand and in process realize this enigma that haunts my very way of living.

Every-day I find myself surrounded by the material creations all around me, every time when I walk past them I see some of my fellow souls in total utopia, having devoted their lives to a cause they find just and of the highest order. I see them sip the calm vibrant droplets of water as if it’s a potion of elixir which can free them of all the miseries that this mortal life has bestowed upon them.
Every now and then I hear people chant and sing about an entity which they reckon is the, be all and the end all of the entire creation, the universe and beyond.

Entity which is more commonly called “GOD”…

I was having a casual conversation with a good friend of mine, when the topic of discussion took a sudden turn and we found ourselves discussing about the very existence of god. Something that stood out from that conversation and is still alive in my thought is the fact that god as a mortal or immortal entity might actually not exist; instead there exists a bundle of energy that we are surrounded with, that we are part of and that is part of us.
This being the case we and the integral energy that resides in and surrounds us share a love-hate relationship, a more scientific term to be used would be a “Cause – Effect relation”, as such every action that we account for acts as an cause on the energy within which then effects the body of energy which surrounds us, this effect in nature becomes the cause when I manifests into the surrounding energy and in return has an effect on us.

We may call these actions “KARMA”, and the effect the body of energy has on us as “Fate” or “Luck” even “Destiny”…

This when we ponder upon the ancient text or manuscripts, all talk about how our destinies are controlled by our actions or to be more precise “actions in our present, decides our future”…
So if it is this energy that guides our very way of living then why do we coin them in idols and cage them in our mortal imaginations, for something as measureless like this energy which originates from timeless space, which overcomes time, transcends dimensions of knowledge and wisdom that we mortals could not even fathom.

The reason to this might not be known but may be it’s because we need to have some sort of physical embodiment of this omnipresent energy I front of us to be enable us to connect to it.
So what about god does it exist or does it not? Well I guess it’s all up to us how we want to live our lives finally, for our god breathes within us, the sooner we realize it, the easier it becomes to witness this enigma….

God, to me, it seems, is a verb, not a noun, proper or improper.”

- Richard Buckminster Fuller

Linguistic Orgasm

Throughout our history we as specie have held within us a tremendous urge for self expression; from this urge an unrelenting need to communicate emerges. And it is this need, which is fragmented into a more astonishing, complex and vibrant particle of mixed flavour which culminate in a single feeling of actualization. What it sows within us are a set of universal questions: Who am I? Who needs to know? Why do they need to know? How will they find out? How do I want them to respond? Individuals, communities, and civilizations express their individuality through their identity. On the continuum from the cave paintings at Ajanta to short contorted messages transmitted via satellite, humanity continues to create an infinite sensory palette of visual and verbal expression.

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”

    -Rudyard Kipling

Now what sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom is the 3 pounds worth of calcium in our heads that we more commonly call as “Brain”, it is this piece of calcium that enabled a feeble creature like man to surpass our predecessors and develop into one of the most dominating specie that this blue rock has seen.

But then what helped us evolve into such a force, it can’t just be the survival instinct, can it?

Well our survival instinct did contribute, but what really made the difference was our ability to communicate, express and share our knowledge with the like minded creatures around us.

“There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication.... Try the experiment of communicating, with fullness and accuracy, some experience to another, especially if it is somewhat complicated, and you will find your own attitude toward your experience changing.”
     -John Dewey

With time the crude symbols, abstract drawings and sounds mimicking the nature were refined and replaced by Alphabets and Words, which were universally accepted and applicable within the given set of geographical limitations. Later on these groups of words went on to become the language of the land, which not only gave us our own unique identity and personality but also united us under one roof.

So it is but obvious that our love towards language is not just a passing romance, but a never-ending obsession which will continue to enthral, attract and create individuals who will devote their lives towards mastering the very essence of one’s language, works of very a great men can be cited here who have spent their lives understanding the nuances of the very language they speak. From Confucius to Shakespeare, from Tagore to Toby Litt, all in their own capacities have and are contributing to the vast ocean of Human Knowledge using language as a tool.

These men who have invested their lives into refinement and preservation of this cultural heritage and in process have at time broken the tangible and intangible boundaries of society by their works which shake up an entire society from its roots, what do they gain from such an act? What motivates them to go beyond the stereotypical nomenclatures of our society? What benefit do they derive by putting their lives and the ones they love on the line just the sake of their devotion?

“The word of man is the most durable of all material”

                                                                                    -Arthur Schopenhauer

Well there has to be something greater than what a commoner’s brain could materially quantify something more than a mere satisfaction of completing their work. It is a form of elevated ecstasy which sets the creator on a pedestal from which he finds himself detached from the rudimentary issues and achievements of a common man, perhaps a Psychological Orgasm!!!

And this form of unorthodox orgasm is experienced by almost all of us at various levels, in various situations in life, depending upon the inherent personality of the person.

For instance, when we express or share our thoughts, our feelings with someone, which we had encapsulated within the walls of our psychological dungeon, we feel a sense of relief which at times cannot be put forth in words or expressed in actions, it is to be experienced, it is nothing else but an form of an Orgasm that we go through.

If a person who likes to talk a bit more than your average sane man is forced to keep his words to himself, he would be able to successfully complete this activity, but he will always be on the lookout of that one opportunity where he could talk freely, about anything and everything around him or her, this is because he is so addicted to be expressive that such pockets of lifeless silence are virtually suffocating him or her and that one moment where he gets to blurt things out, he feels an inflated relief a Virtual Orgasm....

A person who has command over multiple languages feels the same kind of ecstasy when he converses in those languages, this feeling is contributed by a host of factors; ability to converse in multiple dialects, respect for the language, appreciation for that language, command over the language etc...

“Language is the armoury of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.”

                                                                                      -Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Every person whether by choice or chance experiences such ecstasy, it is the inherent nature of our species, the degree of intensity may vary from one person to another but the fact remain we all have a Linguistic Orgasm.....

Nothing + Everything = Something

A mere mortal I am, far from realms of reality, Reality as I perceive,  is a distant clone of the one meant to be.

Life that I am... Matter is what I represent, eternal, immortal, omnipresent....!!!

Yet as I stand populated by my fellows I see nothing, I sense nothing and nothing is how they see me...

But then there is more to life than pure science or psychology, it encompasses the normal and transcends the paranormal.

The questions that I ask..!! Can we limit, restrict or contain life, the way we see it or decide to spend it in a prison of words, that man has created to stimulate our literary and linguistic taste buds...???

In an idealistic scenario the concept of nothing & everything can only be used in “relation to” some other similar situation or scenarios.

From a purely human perspective when we use the words nothing or everything, we use it to express a state of mind or content.

So if an individual is content with the situation he is in or with the material of consumption at his disposal, he would convince himself to believe that he has everything.

A stark contrast to this would be the feeling of having “Nothing”.

Thus we can say that “Nothing” & “Everything” are two ends of a prism, what makes the difference is the end that we are looking towards.

On the other hand if a person is not content with is resources (Materials), his emotional balancers or the situation he would convince himself to believe that he has nothing.

So to put forth a hypothesis to explain the relation between nothing or everything, we could say that nothing/everything is a function of content.

Thus,

        N(b) or E(b) = f(C)

Where,
        N(b) = Belief of Nothing

        E (b) = Belief of Everything

        C = Content.

Scientifically, whole of universe is a space and any matter would occupy some space within it.

Similarly, we all occupy some space in this world, when we love someone more than the other all it means is the space that one has occupied in our heart is more than the other, same goes for any emotion or feeling we have or express.

And if this is fact then, there is no scientific justification of existence of “Nothing”.

Where as we can safely say that at any given point of time or situation there exists something in nature, be it material or emotion and it is this stance/side we take that determines the belief we carry.

So, what I propose to put forth is that there exists something in nature and it is our level of content acting upon that something that converts it into a belief of nothing or everything.

All of the best thoughts to be put forth here could be summed up in pearls of wisdom passed on through generations to us probably the most apt here is a German proverbs which says ,

“No man can do nothing and no man can do everything”.