All my friends – with one exception or two – seem to be very God-fearing
people. My WhatsApp space is replete with religious messages every time I open
it. Some messages are prayers or spiritual messages related to COVID19. Some
are warnings and threats issued on behalf of none other than God. Quite a few
are prophesies made on the basis of certain scriptural verses or the visions
that certain preachers claim to receive from God directly. I rarely open any of
these. I opened one this afternoon because it happened to be a very large file,
the video of a prolonged speech by a Catholic priest. The speech went on for an
hour or so. I listened to half of it. The message that accompanied the video
was that the priest was making an accurate prediction about the present
happenings and the future of the earth. It turned out that the priest was
opposed to all such predictions, miracles and other misuses of religion. So why
did the sender of that message mislead people by giving a false introduction? I
don’t know. Maybe, he was trying to grab some attention from people.
I noticed, however, that there are a lot of people who have suddenly
become religious because of COVID19. I know that their religion is just a
temporary shield that will fall off the moment the virus vanishes from their
neighbourhood.
This is precisely my problem with these religious people and their
preaching. They make use of god(s) and religions as if these were some ferry boats
just waiting to row them across to a safer shore.
God is not a ferryman, please. Neither is he your replica to send a
virus when he is angry with you and then perform a miracle when he is pleased
with your slobbering prayers. If you wish to believe in that kind of a puerile
god, keep that belief to yourself. Why send such silly stuff over to me?
My god is a divine presence within my being. It’s not a silly old perverted
irritable man. It’s a soothing breeze, a gentle caress, a healing touch, a warm
embrace, a soul-stirring melody… It has no religion. It doesn’t need prayers
and sacrifices. It needs you. It is you.
Don’t ask god to work miracles. You perform the miracles. Love is a
miracle, for instance. Compassion is. Goodness is. You decide what miracle you
want. And perform it. You are the miracle worker. The world can be a better
place if you leave puerile notions about god and discover the real god. May
this lockdown help you in that. Amen.
God loving or God fearing people are divided into three categories - arta, artharthi and jignasu. Some are desperate, some are greedy and some are genuinely interested to know what stuff is this God made of. Of course the underlying presumption in all cases is that there is an entity called God, even thorough its form and concept may vary from culture to culture.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I belong to any of those categories because God, for me, is not an external entity. God is a projection of ourselves. Or God is the best of me, for me.
DeleteIt's true and I'm with you for that, the thing is that, the people are not interested in taking God that way cause if they do most of the things that they do will pretty much sound awkward. So they just go on with the crowd.
DeleteYes, Tony. It's easy to go with the crowd. Most people choose to do that because that's easy. I chose to be genuine. I needed that.
DeleteWell proclaimed.
ReplyDelete