It was then that my team mate started telling me about Islam (he himself is a practicing Muslim and therefore I trust his words on whatever he quoted from the Koran), Christianity, Jesus, Moses and Jews and a lot of other things. Then he started telling about how idol worship is wrong and how you should worship the creator and not what got created by Him, while referring to Hindus worshipping idols and the Sun god and cows and snakes and explained how illogical it is. Whatever he told was totally convincing, although a part of me failed to agree to it – blame it on my Tam-Brahm upbringing. I like my Pullaiyar and Murugan and Krishna.
I believe in ‘Anbe Sivam’ – Love is God. I told him that my idea of God is very simple – whoever helps you when you are distressed is your God at that point of time. Example, to a man who has not eaten anything in 4 days, a plate full of food is God; it is as simple as that (according to me, of course). Am I an atheist? I don’t think so; it is not as if I don’t believe in God.
I don’t even know why I am writing this. I just felt like it. How many of us are religious? How many of us are spiritual, but not religious? How many of us are not spiritual at all? How far have we gone with our idea of God? Is there someone sitting above us and laughing and crying over our silly and disgusting actions? Is there someone who created us? Are we all just mere evolved scientific creatures? Is the world going to end? Is God going to destroy the world? Is nature going to give us a taste of our own medicine by bringing on some serious destruction? There are so many questions in my mind and I just had to vent it all out. Please feel free to write in your thoughts on possible answers to these questions in the ‘Comments’ section.
Hinduism to believes in the formlessness of the Almighty. There is a shloka in Upanishads-
ReplyDeleteॐ पूर्णमद: पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात्पूर्णमुदच्यते।
पूर्णस्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते॥
This talks about the infiniteness of the Lord. That is all what the "dvaita" and "advaita" philosophy is about. Sri Ramkrishna Paramhansa himself said that "dvaita" and "advaita" too are the forms that God has created for the devotees.
And Muslims too believe in having a marker of God. That is why they face Mecca for their prayers. Thus, for them, Mecca is like an idol. So, next time your Muslim friend starts preaching against idol-worship, tell him that Hinduism does address that issue and also helps you graduate from worshiping the form to worshiping the formless.
The guy who posted right now! ^... Kudos!!! Great great!!
ReplyDeleteHey Sandy,
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that these days you have loads of such questions everywhere around you??
Well I must say that am not religious but i do believe in the existence of some power that keeps us going. :)
Sandhya,
ReplyDeleteReligion/God or whatever should be totally a Personal thing.The problem starts when People try to highlight it in all the possible ways.Whether a Person believe in God or not,if believes in which God ,if don't then why, all this stuff should be purely personal.
I totally agree with "whoever helps you when you are distressed is your God at that point of time."There is no second thought about that.
Have a nice weekend,
K.Kiran.
@Vinay
ReplyDeleteI hope he reads this blog and reads ur comments. By the way, "Poornamatha..." was our daily prayer in school :-)
@Raahul
I am asking a lot of questions because I neither know nothing nor do I know everything! :-)
@Kiran
Thank you for ur continuous support...
@All
You guys keep me going!
பரித்ராணாய சாதூனாம் விநாஷாய சதுஷ்க்ருதாம் தர்ம ஸந்ஸ்த்தாபநார்த்தாய சம்பவாமி யுகே யுகே ...
ReplyDeleteThis is what is ultimate truth, whether we like it or hate it.
@Satish
ReplyDeleteThat is one of my favourite verses! :-)
There are other things apart from Religion for which we must be tensed about And if Earth is going to be destroyed in 2012,We must be happy at least we do not have a fear of loosing our near and dear ones before us,
ReplyDelete@Ramandeep
ReplyDeleteOh no... I don't want the world to end in 2012. I wanna live for at least another 100 years!!!
Nice post Sandy!!!!
ReplyDeleteNice post Sandy..
ReplyDeleteFirstly,
The message from Mayan culture can be perceived differently. What it says is by 2012 there will be end of one culture not the human race. This could be a point of evolution for human beings like how we evolved from monkeys(Darwin theory) . With current scientific progress I wouldnt be surprised if we evolve into something more efficient. Or there could be some break through in technology. Or existence of aliens can be proved. Or like mentioned in the book "The penultimate truth" we might start living under ground.. So technically the world will not end.
Secondly,
God and religion are the strings to control people. The customs practiced lets people have fear of wrong-doing, control over their mind, purity in their acts and creates beleif in their mind when they are at the verge of giving up. But over time the customs has been twisted by people and had both good and bad effects on people. This is especially because of few people in all the religions who started using people's beleif to their benefit. But the fact is if you cannot get the drive from within, you believe in something which gives you the drive.
But people like Shakespere, Socrates, Leonardo Da Vinci did not beleive in God. But they beleived in principles. So it's a personal choice if you have to beleive in God or not.
"Kadavul illanu naan sollale but irundha nalla irukumnu solren" -- Kamal Hasan - Dasavatharam.
@Yals
ReplyDeleteCan I borrow that book? I wanna read more abt this...
Also, I am noticing so many youngsters these who are not very religious, but spiritual. Being religious is your thing, but you can't force your opinion on others. :-)
sandhya,
ReplyDeleteNice post.
(below are only my opinion & don't urge others to accept it)
I agree with the point "kadavul irundha nalla irukum as kamal said" and also the concept of Anbe Sivam. If i help a poor/needy, @ the moment i was the so called god/whatever.. you know. just one line to prove my point- there is a guy helping the deceased people by providing the only contacts of people(he is doing it @ hospitals) (not collecting fund 4 poor) who can help by giving money..till now he helped more than 600 poor people (i.e financial help for 600 operation).. thats it. its practically impossible to determine whether is religion is really extending its hand to help the poor (i believe nothing like this is happening).
- Ragav,Chennai