Living Reality of God

When I use the phrase living reality of God, I use it in a very conventional sense. I use it in the sense a common person will prefer to use it. Hence, one does not need specialization in theology or philosophy to comprehend what I mean to say here. It is simple, related to the common sense notion of God. Further extending my assumption, I argue that most of the human beings believe in God; only few are atheists or agnostics. Here, I am emphasizing on this majority God-believing people and drawing their attention to the discourse here. On basis of conjecture, I argue that among the seven billion people the earth tolerates now, at least six billion people believe in God. Whether you are a Christian or a Hindu or a Muslim, or belong to any other religion, I am not alluding to that- my major point is that most of we humans believe in God (I am afraid whether we could attribute gender to God, particularly when we talk about God as infinite, formless and shapeless). We believe God is three omnis (-potent, -scient, -present), magnanimous, kind and embodiment of all perfections.

We adorn our houses with beautiful images or symbols representing God, we pray every morning and evening, or any other time. A devout Muslim says Namaz at least five times a day, a Christian goes to Church to pray God, a Hindu goes to a temple to offer prayers. In all these actions, I identify an underlying motive of good, we pray – O’ God give us strength, give us wisdom, give us wealth, and all other kinds of endowments which any human being may desire in his life for a dignified living. I do not dispute it, and do not quarrel on this attitude. This, in a range a God prayers, may be rated one rung, there are many other prayers – for instance a saint may ask for salvation instead of wealth, a wealthy person may ask for solace and peace of mind, and so on. The basic point I am trying to underline is we believe God is the giver, and we are the receiver. God is good, and we can ‘earn’ and ‘learn’ from God.

That is fine, and that in a sense fortifies human belief in a higher power, which is beyond our grasp. I will not debate here various implications of such a belief, but certainly I will debate the human individual the center of attention-seeker and seeker of things from God, and the contrast between his prayer and his ideas while praying, and what actually he does. I emphasize on the term contrast, because this contrasting nature of human personality is the issue of core debate. And the contrast is so glaring, so naked, that it appears that the whole human cycle since ancient days is just a continuum in repeating this contrast, without any actual transformation or change in this cycle. I will elaborate this point.

Let me simplify this by alluding to simple instances in our daily lives. We pray– O’ God make us peaceful. But after we finish the prayer, we get angry at instances which do not warrant anger, or which can be subdued or controlled, and the prayer goes to oblivion. This prayer does not take place one day, but for months and years. We pray something, we vow before God to do something, but aftermath we just do the opposite. We know how many people take oath before God that they will never do evil things, but actually they perpetrate all those evil things. We might laugh at the situation in the law courts. The witness touches Gita or Koran or Bible (the religious scriptures believed to have directly flown from the mouth of God) and takes oath that he will not lie while answering to the lawyer, but he knows he is there just to tell lies. I am not generalizing the issue, but it happens in many cases. This is another case of striking contrast. There are thousands of such contrasts in human lives, which make human person most paradoxical, most contrasting. 

Why then this contrast? Is it essential? Is it inevitable? I offer this psychological explanation for this contrast. Human beings are fragile and at the same time shrewd, and also at the same time he knows that he needs a veneer of good-nature knowing well that he cannot be that. This thinking pervades not one human being, but all human beings; as a consequence this contrast has been accepted as a normal order in human society. Putting it figuratively, it is not one or two, but all are naked in this public bath, hence it is considered neither immoral, nor anti-God, but it is just Normal. Rather it is encouraged so that at least such a practice can provide a kind of social guarantee that people stay attached to such an order. This is acceptable as society accepts this. Here social regulation trumps up God, while we believe God is supreme but in reality we make social beliefs and social practices, which are full of contrasts, supreme.

Why this prevalent contrast, which has taken such a deep root? We seldom question it. When Tolstoy said – the kingdom of God lies within you, what did he mean? When Gandhi proclaimed Truth is God and God is Truth, what did he actually mean? Or when Sri Aurobindo argued All Life is Yoga, what did he actually imply? There is one common thread pervading all these arguments – that in God-believing there cannot be a difference between thinking and practice, between ideas and their implementation, and most importantly when we believe in God and worship God, we must live God and God-Reality. Otherwise, it will be better to throw the images and symbols representing God to dustbin– in that way at least we will shed some of our pretense.