“So what happened to your talisman? “, My mother asked me.
“What? “
“You are not wearing it. Did I not tell you how important a man Sujan Da is? ”. My mother has exalted ideals of that Godman. Petty godmen. All they do is profess to know all about you by just looking at your sweaty palm for a few minutes or perhaps drawing a lot of stars and weird characters on a chart which suspiciously looks derived from ‘Chinese Checkers’.
“My arm itches”, I said without bothering to look up. I was engrossed in a Tinkle (yeah..!! don’t roll your eyes just yet.. I can probably fish out a stack of Archies from underneath your pillow. Atleast I am contributing to an Indian cause).
“That’s no reason” My mother was shocked at my flippant dismissal of such an important subject. “It will be ok after sometime. Do not act like the child you were. I think I have had enough for a lifetime”. Ouch. Yes. I know. And she says she loves me. Go figure.
And yet it brings me to a singular point. What drives my mother to believe in God? Why have generations of people believed in God? Forgive me if I hurt your prudent sensibilities but I am an atheist. What power or what belief makes people prostrate themselves in front of stone replicas of some generally accepted appearance of a God?
Did I hear Faith in your thoughts? Are you really serious about it? The power of the mind and blah blah?
I must say that you are seriously mistaken here. What is religion? What is faith? Let us settle one fact after another. I think the stone idols are like the mascots of a local football team which in turn can be compared to a religion. Ok. Not a local football team. You can think of whatever kind of team you want to. Make sure it has some amount of fan following.
My point simply is that religion is like this team which is really big on members and which follows a similar line of thinking and social behavior. This fact is synonymous to whatever we know generally you say? Well yes. We must tread on known grounds before we venture to explore the unknown.
Let us go back a few years or rather a lot of years into the neo or paleo or other such Stone Age periods. Picture the barely clad men and women (not that intensely .. come back.. come back ..). Uncouth and manner less when viewed with our cultured eyes, this generation of people was without a general direction of progress. Mindless Hunting for men. Housekeeping and endless preening for women.
Then there emerged a guy (I mention a guy for purely demonstrative purposes. Nefertiti, Cleopatra .. see I know my history.) who wanted people to serve him or carry out his commands. This was the beginning of society as we see it now. He laid down rules that suited him or were to his well being at the start. But this would be short lived as man is capricious by nature and a revolt wouldn't have been far. But our clever guy foresaw this and tuned down at some point of time. Now he laid down a set of rules to follow and that brought the people together into a semblance of a society and a common direction of thinking and way of life.
All in all, what we believe to be religion or faith now is the indulgence of a control freak guy in our past. You may choose to differ. You are just amused now, aren't you?
So? This doesn’t explain the many diverse religions and faiths and sects? Well, there can hardly be only one clever guy. There are many clever guys. One only has to take a look at the roster of the politicians in power in our country. That roster is a veritable list of the clever people who do have some extent of the religionistic properties mentioned above. Now in case this guy ascends to another level, he may be labeled as a god. Generations which come a century later may even be pouring oil on a stone statue of that person. I hope Tendulkar doesn’t mind so much oil on him.
Do you really think Jesus was a God or that he came back from the dead? Or do you believe that whatever Ram did was not just a fantastic work of fiction? Or that Krishna really had more than 9 lives?(Doesnt that make him a Super Cat instead?). It is time and the need for a role model that has made these people immortal. The need of us common people to see good win over evil time and again.
If you do believe the above then I vote Gandalf be venerated as God. He was God if there ever was one and LOTR is as good a treatise as any other.
The Prophet Muhammed, Moses, The Buddha were all individuals who had passion for their ideas and could influence people. That they were good people and understood the need for peace and teamwork is pure coincidental. These very people could have been known by different names and we would be following them instead. It could be me? Or you? Who knows?
Who wouldnt want peace? It is but common sense. A no brainer actually. Ask yourself.
If Hitler was a wee little bit good, he would have been somewhere up there. And if you were amused before, are you livid now? "Sacrilege" The Incas cried as One.
I know the above may be a shitload of nonsense but then I am entitled to my
theories. As a matter of fact I have another one.
I am still not sure what my role is in this gigantic plan which is so assiduously attributed to God. I mean if God had a plan for me, he would have indicated it to me in some way. But then I am presuming God to be a straight forward Man. Or at least a Superior Man. Something akin to the Indestructible Man in the Watchmen Movie. The one who is a Cool Blue all over and can do anything he chooses.
But then gauging by the fact that I have not been instructed directly to do anything to fulfill some kind of a purpose, I can safely state that God is a Woman. Frightening though it is, it is but the truth.
Huh? You say. Well, think about it. I must have been given a lot of chances to prove myself or use myself in a more rewarding manner which would inevitably lead to the happiness of more than a handful of people. (How big is a handful ? Or how less is it ?). And yet I have blundered through life as blind as a beetle. (Or is it a bat?)
What I mean is, God must have given me innumerable hints, shown me a way when I was stuck. But like all men, I have not been able to read between the lines or understood what was unsaid. Typical Man behavior? But then that is what it is.
If God were a guy, I would have a pretty clear idea of what I want or what my mission here is.
Did you always want to know the source of all chaos in this world? The poverty, the hunger, the civil riots ever shake your being? You can blame it on clarity of thought. And you know Who.
Tough to digest? Deal with it.
