OMG-metaphor misundestood

PROLOGUE:

Some religions talk about God indulging in graphical showdowns with mythical monsters and multi-headed/limbed demons, while some talk about God being a modest Good   Samaritan( far cry from being flashy) who uplifted people by his virtues and eventually was killed lamely by the villain. So which version is true? the dramatic folklore animated with larger than life happenings or the subtle one, that would qualify as an award-winning art movie?

The phenomenon of God is a very guarded enigma that makes it inaccessible to logic. It puzzles you more & more you to try to explore the origin. God is the best example of the concept of word of mouth, through which it has been survived across continents for eons. How do I know about god, my mom told me, who told her? her mom…who told her?...it goes on! Has anybody has seen God?...Phat comes the cob-webbed reply that -like air, God can only be felt!!

Did God make man or man make God?

Is God then one of the many things which MasterCard can’t buy??

Or maybe like in Incognito Mode where the access is a secret process, but downloads are visible…God can’t be also seen, but his manifestations can be!

ORIGIN

Let us try to fathom the origin of God-As the early man was evolving from an ape to a barbarian to a civilian, his reasoning & questioning ability was also improving. Gone were the days when his purpose of life revolved around food,  mate, shelter & Nature worship. Now he started questioning  the cause behind inconceivable  happenings beyond his imagination like rain, snow, thunder, flood, hurricane, earthquake, volcano, Identity of the creator of the Sun & Moon and even the regulating authority behind birth, old-age, disease and death were burning issues.

Much to his dismay, he couldn’t trace down the origin of none of these happenings &  manifestations  and there were a lot of looming gaps in his existing  assumptions, that hurt his ego a lot. So he thought of the most convincing answer to all these super-natural happenings & manifestations in a dramatic way-A super-natural being  with unlimited prowess should be controlling all these happenings from a celestial planet above the earth-thus were born GOD & HEAVEN.

Like an imaginative figure balancing an untallied balance sheet, the inclusion of the concept of GOD into the equation seemed to fill the gaps. Then he gave God a form, started worshipping him and from then on, the following generations followed suit with implicit obedience. But, even after Science demystified the process behind all the natural happenings & manifestations with logical reasoning, the concept of God would remain unscathed, as it had already penetrated deeply into the lives & minds of the people who were already regulated by religious institutions for generations  together now. Thus divine logical reasoning was made blasphemous by self-appointed religion police & the sore thumbs were called-ATHEISTS.

Please remember that I’m not a skeptic who wants to belittle God nor do I want to inflict provocative feelings in the minds. These are the point of views of a rationalist, who believes in things that appease his common sense. I just can’t buy the “Ignorance is bliss” concept here, even more when it plays a major hand in orchestrating my lifestyle. Ironically ,I do go to temples  & pray to the Lord’s Idol there.

Lets discuss the major issues revolving around the concept of God:

IDOL WORSHIP:

This is the most ancient form of worship that works on the assumption that God resides in the statue. But the rationale behind this is to direct our gratitude for being created as a human being when we could have been an amoeba & attribute our happiness, success to infinite supreme energy that is not conceivable by a mortal mind. Hence the statue of a God/Goddess in human form for us to relate better. The statue acts as a focal point to direct our positive feelings towards the universe & concentrate our gratitude on something concrete .Smearing the statue with multicolored powders, bathing it with sandalwood extract, curd, honey, milk etc is not even remotely divine nor is it a shortcut to earn brownie points in Karma table. These edible items are for mortal consumption & there are so many people who go without a course of meal for weeks together in our nation and bathing a stone with these edible items is a national crime and even the creator would hate it. So worshipping an Idol without appreciating the ideology behind it is IDLE-WORSHIP!

 CULTURE,FOLKLORE & FESTIVALS:

Our nation’s diversity is characterized by so many cultures based on so many religions that are in turn based on so many  Gods. A weird phenomenon is that  like onion & petrol prices- the same god has different names, different mother tongues ,different parents & in-laws ,different stories of birth ,different speciality weapons, different  favourite snacks, different marital status & even if the marital status is same …then different wives, different modi operandi  with the same villain, alternate climax to the same showdowns in different states .So the same festival is celebrated on different days in different states in different manner. Yet we are proud about the looming concept of unity in diversity!

Activities consisting of bursting crackers, whipping away to glory in hordes, , butchering clueless fowls & animals in the name of sacrifice, distributing coloured eggs & decorating unassuming trees , drowning idols in the sea are all parts of the esteemed festival agenda. Subtility has not been our thing really, but the significance behind all these festivals that ring periodically year after year like an alarm is totally overlooked by us.

 Lets take for instance, a myth that talks about a God who killed a demon who was a serial womanizer who abducted his wife. The implicit value is not about glorifying the god’s prowess, but is to improve moral values of the civilization and remind people of the end results philanderer’s would have to face. The god and the demon were metaphors assigned to create awareness, but like the person who neglected his parrot to decorate the cage, the message is ignored and the metaphors are decorated with pomp & splendor.

RISE OF GOD-MEN:

Ours is the only country where the population of Gods exceeds the actual population. In such a scenario, the population taking advantage of this booming industry has to be sizeable. Going by the current trend,  degree courses with specializations  in specific areas would get introduced as follows:

  Key: NB-Naughty Bachelor of

NB-MJ(Mumbo Jumbo-General)                                       

NB-SI(Spitting Idols)

NB-DM(Domestic magic)

NB-HWV(Civil including house warming & vasthu)

NB-BCBM(Baby creation & bullion management)

NB-LBB(Literature behind the bars)

 NBA-P(Astrology via Passbook)

NB-MM(Ministers Management)

People seek inner peace/solace from god-men after falling for their well-crafted gimmicks and feel that their association puts them on the fast track road to self realization, only to realise that what is actually reducing is their bank balance and not their sins! If you have a fascination for magic, then go for P.C.Sorcar shows or watch David Blaine on youtube rather than trying to find God in half-baked/ amateur/ cheap tricks executed by a uncouth buffoon with a weird ethnic name like Sri Sri Satya Sodana Nanda or Satguru Baba Damndev. Like seasonal fruits they bloom for limited period. The need of the hour is not God-men, but GOOD-MEN!!

MATERIALISM IN WORSHIP:

When do most people hit the temples or pray to God- when someone’s ill or when they need to pass in their exams, to get married or divorced soon, for the embryo to be of preferred sex, for the repayment of existing debt, for wealth creation, for seeking employment or during an idle sunday morning before breakfast at a restaurant next block. We try to get these things done in a quicker way trying to jump the imaginary queue of existing prayers by performing special pujas, dropping large chunks of money in temple hundis, distributing free food, buying jewellery for the Idol, walk on fire, body-piercing with religious iron rods, barefooted walkathon on mountains, skip KFC trips in order to bribe God.

But the worst thing of above all this is some people make quick hand gestures seated in their bikes or cars from outside the temple as they wanted to do God a favour by sparing those few seconds from their “busy day”.

But we fail to understand is temple visits & prayers should be motivated by gratitude & neither be done mechanically like brushing & bathing nor should it be done for a favour. Nepotism is not among the virtues of the Supreme Being. When a person with the virtues of Ravana goes to a Rama temple and makes a sizeable donation, it really doesn’t serve any purpose like an empty bottle with a hole at the bottom.

EPILOGUE:

Maybe we can’t see or touch God due to our sensory limitations, but what would be permanent is to start understanding the significance behind every story & symbolism behind the image of every God.

God is omnipresent as he recedes in the lift given by a youngster to an elderly person on the road, biscuits distributed to stray dogs on the road, food given to urchins, assistance to a blind person to cross the road, skipped meal of the parents for the son’s education and a son’s sacrifice to make his family debt free and all genuine feelings. God is simple, let’s not complicate…God is accessible, let’s not exaggerate. In doing this we would only be moving closer to God as a race that is God-loving & not God-fearing.