SBenegaL

Category: God

  • Am I an atheist?

    A conversation with my sister triggered this thought of writing a blog. She asked me am I an atheist! And that triggered my thoughtful reflection and what it meant to me.I have had an interest in the notion of GOD for a long time… (read this post) I have also oscillated between the beliefs about God and its nature over a long time. Do these oscillating beliefs make me a liar, or just a constantly curious person who is trying to make sense of the notion, and refining the definition in a constant endeavor.

    Let’s begin with definitions of an atheist fist. “The Cambridge Dictionary” definition of atheist available at https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/atheist – which said its “someone who does not believe in God/gods.” So there is a definitional shift from atheist to “GOD,” and I do the same search again and find the definition as “a spirit or being believed to control some part of the universe or life and often worshipped for doing so, or something that represents this spirit or being.”

    When I look at the definition here, I see three components – the form, the role and the rituals/processes of engaging. The term atheist itself could be confusing if one looks at the three aspects different.

    1. What would form mean for me when I consider myself to be an atheist or not?

    If the form is important, it is often the case that we are in the quest of having a form mostly through the perspectives we hold. Is it male, female or others? Is it nature or is it fiction?
    My early notions of being an atheist were pushed by this aspect – I don’t like the form. I don’t see god in a form.
    But do I not believe in what I don’t cognitively explain? I do.
    I began the quest since I found myself believing in the unexplained. My experience has been a useful guide in this. I realize there are moments when my mind is peaceful, happy and undisturbed. A state of bliss, where I seek nothing more. Where I am grateful to be where I am.
    This I believe is the experiences of divinity that each one of us can have. It doesn’t happen at only specific places like temples. I find myself distancing from temple visits where I don’t find peace, where I cannot connect with myself. There are some moments when it’s so easy to connect and be at a place, just soaking in the moment completely – this for me has been the scenario when I get to treks and just sit watching the waterfall and create magic!
    I then began asking if it’s all about nature itself? Is nature God? And as I began observing my daily life – I realize there are more instances when I can choose to experience divinity. Its the feeling that I had begun soaking in, not the divine itself.
    I now know – the existence of the divine in a form isn’t really necessary for us to feel the divinity that is so easy to experience so its not the form.
    So yes, I am an atheist in the requirement of having a form. I don’t believe in a form.

    2. Role

    The notion of God has emerged for multiple reasons – may be for experiencing the divinity that I talked about earlier, or for the reduction of the uncertainty like I mentioned in the earlier blog, or as Harari says for the unifying role and control that myths around these Gods provide to people.
    I see that the role played by the notion of God gives me peace. Whatever the other aspects of the role of ‘God’ maybe I know it simply gives me a simplistic view of life and allows me to move ahead when I am stuck.
    So no, I am not an atheist in this requirement for the role that is played by God. It helps me!

    3. The process of engaging.

    Rituals and processes are effective to enable to execute their tasks with little cognitive overload. They also allow us to take benefits of the clarity that emerges with the connecting with the feeling of divinity and the reduction in uncertainty. So practices help connect with God and so should make me someone who believes in God ain’t it?
    Here I look at the implications of the rituals to me and my push on others to follow the rituals. I find myself only interested in finding the peace, the flow I experience through following the rituals, but I don’t want others to simply follow what I do. I am pretty sure they have their ways of finding the divine feeling – be it through music, dance or simply our work. We call these as “Aradhana” too, just as we call “praying” in front of God – the worship itself is flexible and just a means.
    So I see as following rituals are never going to be indicative of the belief in god itself. It’s only indicative of being in the moment, doing it for its own sake. The state of flow!
    With this, I guess I realize now that god is a very personal notion. The rituals are simply so customizable to suit our state of mind — that which makes us feel the bliss, the peace, the happiness, the flow.

    So am I an atheist? I don’t know. I do believe I am one in some ways and not one in many ways. Maybe I am agnostic, but simply do what I do.
    My views here are personal. May not be strictly adhering to the notions of anyone else, but you have to find your answers.

  • Brahma: Why dont we workship him?

    An interesting aspect of trinity of the Hindu religion -Brahma (Generator), Vishnu (Observer), Maheshwara (Destroyer); is that of the three Brahma or the creator is not worshiped unlike the other two of the trinity. This question got me thinking and here is a documentation of my thought on this issue.


    The Mythological Explanation:
    The mythological explanation as to why Brahma is not worshiped could be found even in the story of the famous Indian temple of Tirupathi (read here). As legend as it, it was the curse of Rishi Bhrigu – Brahma shall have no idols or temples of worship in Bhooloka (read earth)!


    Rationalizing beyond the Boon:
    I however feel this is more symbolic and has developed over multiple generations into its current interpretation. Following is how I see attempt rationalizing this behavior of not worshiping Brahma (the creator) amongst Hindu:

    1. Brahma who is the creator is accompanies by his consort – Goddess Saraswathy. She is also considered the Goddess of learning. I have mentioned about the symbolic relationship the way the Trinity and their consorts are related in an earlier blog. Brahma being the creator is one who could also be considered an experimentalist – some one who keeps trying out many different things – so as to be able to create new things. With every new experiment there is some insight and understanding that is obtained leading us to the creation of new knowledge. This knowledge could be accumulated and preserved as the distillation of all know-how thus far. In the Hindu mythology, my guess is these are represented as the “Vedas”. Sarasvathy who is Brahma’s consort holds these Vedas in her hands. Clearly, the value is for the learning that is derived from the experiment and we often find Saravathy who holds Vedas (read compiled Knowledge) in her hands. Brahma however being the experimentalist is generally forgotten. 
    2. Another possible reason could be gained from the observation of the development of technology and its capability. Technological improvement across generations could have made it extremely easy to create newer things – in the start up world today, we find so many tools available that the need of an expert engineer is constantly declining – we few tweaks here and there or search on the internet for help could really make the whole thing easier! It is always possible that in the whole process the engineer (Brahma) who created these tools and kits for others to use is easily forgotten.
    3. Frequency of occurrence of failures in the process of experimentation and learning, could potentially be another source. In fact, failures are more common than successes in the process of experimentation – recollect Thomas Alva Edison saying that he knows a thousand ways the bulb couldn’t be create before he finally built the bulb! The sustained effort in experimenting, failures and learning new things could easily dissuade one to continue the efforts further. All these make it harder to appreciate the role of some one who makes failure common place – this could be another reason why Brahma isn’t worshiped as much as the others in the trinity.
    4. Another aspect that I could co-relate is the experience when one attempts to start off. One often starts off with an idea, and the various challenges that come in the way of executing what was initially conceptualized could guide the idea into a completely different domain. The challenges of survival of a firm (or may be human) weigh so heavily beyond the ordinary that just the joy of creation is often lost or modified multiple times that is doesn’t bear any significance.
    This was a parting observation about the pattern of how many  mythological stories have the asuras (generally understood as daemons) do a penance so as to receive a boon from the Creator. The general belief in most cases is that it is relatively easy to please Brahma, the Creator, than Vishnu, the Manager. May be this is possibly because of the fewer people worshiping Brahma. It could also be that he is the one who is most open to seeing how addition of newer ability and skills (obtained through penance) could add in so as to enable new experiments and lead to the process of creation!


    What did I really take away?
    Looking back at this rationalization attempt, could this explain why we don’t really worship Brahma? I am not sure if this explains the whole aspect of why we fail to worshiping Brahma, but this is definitely is an attempt to get the attention of the readers on to the importance of appreciating experimentation, and being able to take in failures in the process of experimentation as a natural process.

  • GOD and the notion of Uncertainty…

    The nothing of GOD is extremely intriguing. All of us have different notions of the Generator, Observer and Destroyers (GOD) based on our own experiences. Yes I said Experiences – read on to see why I make this claim. 
    One of the comments on my last blog on the trinity of Hindu Mythology and the possible purpose behind the design mentioned – 
    “Wonderful Article 🙂
    Reading this, I could not help myself but think
    these gods are man-made; they represent what our ancestors thought a
    wise idea worth sharing. However, the mystery is not solved yet. I just
    wanted to point out, I personally feel there is nothing divine and
    supernatural about gods as they have been portrayed for millenia!”     
    – Anonymous
    The comment got me thinking about why the notion of divinity and supernatural ability might have been attributed to GODs. I think I possibly got the answer! or may be not! However this is definitely an interesting thought – worth sharing. 

    Scientific Thinking which found its feet has been built on the concept of reasoning. The ability to question and associate a cause and affect relationship has definitely served the human society well. The near exponential growth in the number of invention, and its commercialization that has quickened the pace of economic growth and gotten more CERTAINTY into our lives. 
    Extending this, the possible origin of the notion of God, then has to be on the other extreme – when one feels or experiences UNCERTAINTY. These two observations sort of reinforce my interpretation.
    1. The first one is definitely from my own personal experience of facing uncertainty which is so much a part of the entreprenuerial journey.
    2. The existence of a high belief rate in God in the lower economic strata of society!
     Let me try explain this observation a bit elaborately:
    As an entrepreneur and you will realize the complexity of the issues that (s)he faces from various directions and the limited cognitive ability wouldn’t be completely enough to handle this. Even effectuation strategy, which through its principles provides a very very effective way to handle this entrepreneurial uncertainty, acknowledges the role of surprises (Lemonade Principle). In handling such a high uncertain situation where the distrution is unknown and hence a risk cannot be associated requires one to be positive and optimistic all through – and also believe in the strength of miracles. Miracles that just emerge when you least expect it – while some could attribute it to luck, it could also be attributed to the ability of God to influence things in one’s favor. An extension of the above claim where this relation of uncertainly in business and a religious bent of mind can be seen in most businessmen being devout to a specific deity.
    I also extend this uncertainty to the economically weaker sections of the society, where people have no idea where their next day’s meal would come from! The physical strength, minimum skill and the effort of these people is all that they would need to rely on in being able to sustain themselves on a day to day basis. This is possibly one of the reasons why this section of the society is highly susceptible to religious conversions – when there is a slightly better quality of life could be expected!
    PS: The above is just a thought that I put across and would appreciate your  feedback on the same.

  • Lord Ganesha – Deepawali’13 sketch

    The long Deepawali holidays gave me some time to sketch a Ganesha. Feeling happy having done it after more than 5 years! Here is a low resolution scanned image of the same:

  • God – Beyond the apparant…

    There are debates all over that try to talk about GOD – where there exists a single GOD, or is there a plurality…
    I don’t take any stance here, but thought this interesting thought on GOD is worth a note…
    Most of us would have heard the acronym for GOD – Generator, Observer, Destroyer, and in the Hindu Mythology, we call these roles performed as being performed by Tridev – Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva. Brahma takes the role of the Creator; Vishnu that of the Manager of happening of life, and Shiva the Destroyer who closes life as such!
    These gods are generally accompanied by their consorts – Saraswthy, Lakshmi and Parvathy respectively. Saraswathi is considered the Goddess of Knowledge, Lakshmi the Goddess of Wealth, and Parvathy the Goddess of Power. 
    Combining the Gods with their consorts, we have Brahma who is married to Sarawathy, Lakshmi who is the wife of Vishnu and Parvathy who is with Shiva. If we are to abstract this a bit – would could take the action performed and the corresponding representations we have- Brahma the creator is with Saraswathy who represents knowledge – the underlying implication being that – “to create something new, you got to possess the knowledge. Similarly,for one to sustain and manage an existing set up, finance place a primarily role and that seems to be logic highlighted in Vishnu-Lakshmi as a pair.Also, to get to close aspects or issue that have grown beyond the point of control, use of power become mandatory – possibly represented by the pairing of Shiva and Parvathy.
    Why have these three Gods: Why not have them all in one?
    It is but usual for one to ask, cant all these be handled by a single GOD? Why have three or them and what advantage would it actually get to the table? 
    Very often we find that people who create things fall in love with their creation, they would like tobe so closely associated with their creation that they would no more realize the direction in which the creation is proceeding…it is best done with by someone else who get in an expertise on taking care of things and has the decision of taking the creation in the right direction. In the process of creation, its is always possible that the manager could be so enticed into maintaining that he/she could possibly not realize that the creation has outlived the utility.
    Where one’s responsibility ends the other begins. This however is not to state that they don’t discuss or realize that at places there is a need to collaborate. 
    In fact, Shiva who generally comes in the phase of destruction is also considered an expert on knowledge and learning – from what gets closed or destroyed, it is important to realize that learning are crucial and an means to improve the next cycle…So in some form, even Shiva is seen as an epitome of knowledge accrued over ages and generations.
    Why do the pictures generally show them meditating?

    The tasks these GODs do is very sensitive, if not delicate; and it is important to create a balance between action and involvement at the mental and physical level.  Less said the better – these are extremely high pressure roles!.
    Meditation enable self-reflection, which allows these high pressure jobs be analyzed in a perspective that disassociate the problem from the individual and focus on solving the problem and lesser of blaming it on the individual.