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Loving God and Hating People

Illustration by Gemini AI


There are too many people, including in my extended family. who love God so much that other people have no place in their hearts. God fills their hearts. They go to church or other similar places every day and meet their God. I guess they do. But they return home from the place of worship only to pour out the venom in their hearts on those around them.

When I’m vexed by such ‘religious’ people I consult Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov in which there are some characters who are acutely vexed by spiritual questions. Let me leave Ivan Karamazov to himself, as he has been discussed too much already.

In Book II, Chapter 4 [A lady of Little Faith], a troubled woman comes to Father Zosima, the wise monk, and confesses her spiritual struggle. “I long to love God,” she says. She knows that she cannot love God without loving her fellow human beings, or at least doing some service to them. The truth is, she says, “I cannot bear people. The closer they are, the harder they are to love. Their petty demands, their ingratitude, their endless complaints – I lose patience.”

Father Zosima’s advice is to face her struggle. “Loving God in dreams is easier than loving people in reality. … Real love is hard work… silent effort, with no reward, not even gratitude. That is where true love begins.”

That woman realised that her longing for God is not false, but incomplete.

My acquaintances, on the other hand, makes God just an excuse. The church for them is a place to where they escape from home or society.  Other people are their scapegoats on whom they pour out all the poison in their hearts. I have seen many non-religious people who are far better than the religious ones.

PS. I‘ve been suffering from a rather acute flute preventing me from getting up from bed. That’s why I didn’t write in the past few days.

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Comments

  1. Jose D. MaliekalAugust 26, 2025 at 10:36 PM

    " Religion is an Illusion - not Untrue - but a Striving for/after the fulfilment of the long-standing unfulfilled desires of the devotees."

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jose D. MaliekalAugust 26, 2025 at 10:39 PM

    That paraphrase is from Freud. For him, r"eligion is also the Return of the Repressed. "

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yamini MacLeanAugust 26, 2025 at 11:04 PM

    Hari OM
    I love that quote from the priest... and sorry to hear you have been down with a lurgy. Sending all good wishes for full recovery. YAM xx

    ReplyDelete

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