Are religions outdated?

149. Development and critique of religious thought. Part one.

 

I respect all religions, but believe in none. I think that the religions are outdated now. Moral conscience of the society has sufficiently developed. Today is the epoch of secular humanism, which this mote believes (in my case, with the addition of fervent love of God and to reach Him through mysticism).  

The religions arose to fulfill the needs of a particular society at a particular time in human history.

Why did man need religion? I have written about it in various blogs (33, 36, and 98). Let me repeat them over here.

Human beings saw a flat, stationary earth.  Sun and moon rose in the East and set in the West. Stars filled the sky. Sunlight permeated the day and the moonlight suffused the night. Cool breeze in a hot summer day was delightful. There was a pregnant pause at dawn and dusk, as if the whole universe was holding its breath. There was joy in watching the children play. There were myriad plants and animals. Rain came to nurture the harvest. Fragrant flowers attracted butterflies. Each season came with its own delights. Beautiful snowfall in the winter, and fragrant flowers in the spring. There were blue lagoons, winding rivers and deep oceans. Clouds scudded the blue sky. Fish swam in the water and birds soared in the air. Cows and horses roamed in the pastures and camels in the deserts. Bees supplied them with honey and quadrupeds with meat and milk. Man was filled with wonder.  Everything moved with precision. Just as a house could not develop by itself, somebody had to make it; similarly, the world had to be made by somebody. The thought of the grand universe making itself never came in the imagination of humans. There had to be a creator of the universe. 

Against such beauty and grandeur, there was ugliness. There was great suffering and injustice.  

Famines were common. Just few years of drought were sufficient to cause them in ancient times. Hundreds of thousands of people would die, including women and children. Tsunamis, floods, hurricanes and earthquakes would wipe out hundreds of villages and towns. There was the constant misery of epidemics of smallpox, plague, malaria, cholera and many other such diseases. Childhood sicknesses and birthing problems killed hundreds of thousands each year. Most of the globe suffered from chronic malnourishment in the poor.

Then there were the problems created by human beings themselves, such as poverty, wars and slavery. The dark ages had cruel kings like Tamerlane and Genghis Khan who would construct towers of heads. Last century had unprecedented number of deaths by the hands of Hitler, Stalin, Hutus and Pol Pot. 

The problem of misery and injustice has plagued philosophers and religious scholars for over two thousand years. The ancient Greek philosopher, Epicurus posed what is now called Epicurean Paradox 

“God is omnipotent, God is good, but Evil exists”

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

It was more natural to think that sufferings could not be explained by religious arguments, so human beings thought about it and tried to reconcile the 3 powerful observations, which were before them. Those 3 observations were the following: 

(A) Huge universe is present, and could not have possibly arisen, on its own.  

(B)There is lot of suffering

 (C) People do good things and bad things. Cruel or bad persons are not necessarily punished, in fact they may have a great life, and the good are not necessarily rewarded. 

Since it was obvious and unalterable fact (to them) that there was a God, the need was to reconcile it with the second observation, the suffering. The logical answer would have been that God was not such a kind entity; in fact He appeared to be downright cruel. Even under the best circumstances He had to be indifferent and uncaring. So the wise men convinced themselves that there must be a life after death where justice will eventually be done. And to explain the bad deeds in the presence of omnipotent God, the Devil (Satan) had to be invented (bad deeds were the work of Satan and not of God). Hindu religion used a different theory: ‘Your sufferings are due to the misdeeds done by you in previous lives’. Oppressed people needed these dogmas, because that way of thinking gave them strength and eased their burden in three ways:  First, because they may think that their suffering  was due to God’s will, so it must be good, since God is good. And religion taught unquestioned surrender to God. Secondly, they may think that there may be a hidden benefit in the present calamity ( there is a silver lining in most clouds). And, through these trials, there may be an improvement in the better part of one’s nature. Who were they to question God’s wisdom? He knew better. Thirdly, if they were not rewarded here, then God’s justice made it absolutely certain that they will be rewarded in the next life.

 

To be continued.

Why does God do miracles?

 

148.  System of the World. Part Six

 

This leads us to a paradox: On one hand mankind is supposed to develop on their own, without outside interference, on the other hand glaring examples of divine intervention. No doubt is left in the mind of the participants (like prophet Muhammad^pbuh, Giri Bala, and Therese Neumann) and the people around them, that this is the finger of God doing it, because the two women lived on air for years, for everybody to see. God is supposed to be hidden. Why manifest Himself by miracles? 

I do not know the answer, but I can try. 

God intervenes in a major and a minor way due to His three eminent qualities. I have picked these three, in a litany of others, with some consideration. These are Goodness, Mercy, and His desire that people should appreciate Him, and if possible love Him.

 

Goodness. The proof of His goodness is that when He intervenes in a major way through prophets like Moses, Jesus, Muhammad^pbuh, Buddha, Krishna, the ensuing teaching is to love the fellow man. To create a good society. All the preaching of prophets and mystics, inspired by God, is to do good and make the society better.

Mercy. Although He appears indifferent, but He is merciful. If a society becomes selfish, a major reformer, like Jesus, is sent. Here is a thoughtful verse in Gita, the Hindu scripture: Lord Krishna (human incarnation of God, according to Hindu religion) said;

 

“Whenever dharma (Divine way) declines and the purpose of life is forgotten, I manifest myself on earth. I am born in every age to protect the good, to destroy evil, and to re-establish dharma.”                                                                                                                                  The Bhagvad Gita. 4:7-8
 

Why would God take the trouble of helping if not from mercy? 
 

Consider the two prayers of Mufti Sahib (blog 112). He begged God to help him in feeding his guests. Prayer was immediately answered. Money was provided. His other request was for helping him to spend Eid with his family. Again his request was granted, and money came through the hands of a stranger. The person who wept so much that skin under his eyes broke down.  He importuned God for a huge debt relief (blog 112). His request was granted. All these three episodes denote mercy. Out of all the qualities of God, this mote, appreciates His mercy the most.

 

To be appreciated if not loved: When Jesus was asked what the most important commandment was, he replied; to love God.

There is something in God which is attracted towards the people who love Him. The person, who loves Him without any reward, and without any answer (from Him), is indeed rare. Because it is very difficult to love somebody which is just an idea in the mind in the form of infinite expanse of empty space; Dionysius the Areopagite gave it the name of Divine Darkness. It is difficult to love a concept. To love Goodness, Justice and Beauty. It is much easier if there was a human form to love, such as Jesus, Muhammad^pbuh, Buddha, Krishna, and Ram, or an object such as Kaaba ( the holiest site of Islam ).

 

2. What is the purpose of life? I don’t know.

 

3. Is God personal or impersonal? By personal God is meant that He is approachable. He has human qualities such as joy, sadness, love, and justice. Requests can be sent to Him as supplications. He takes interests in the affairs of the world. And finally, he interferes in the world. 

By impersonal God it is meant that He is somewhere, far, alone, absorbed in Himself. Nobody can reach Him. He is not aware of the affairs of this world. 

He is neither happy nor unhappy

He is neither angry nor jealous

He is neither just nor unjust

He is neither merciful nor cruel

He does not love or hate

He is neither good nor bad

 

From my own personal experience and from centuries of mystical thought, I am certain, as certain can be, that God is personal. To experience Him, one has to invite Him in one’s life. As I have said earlier, this is a cardinal principal. I have narrated so many incidents of His (or His deputies) interventions in blogs 102-112, that there is no doubt left of a personal God. 

But part of God is impersonal. Unapproachable.

 

The only fact which is still unclear is that what if all these instances of miracles, answering of prayers, prophecies, spirits of dead connoting life after death, are perpetrated by His deputies and not by Him? He may be remote and unattached to this world. It is an unanswerable question, but it does not bother me at all, because the system under which these deputies operate has been created by God, and all the prophets and thousands of mystics have said the same thing ( except Buddha ), on rooftops, at peril of life. These systems, such as spirits of bygone human beings, (trillions of them, over millions of years) and life after death, are huge systems. They cannot be created by humans, since they predate them. The spirits could not have developed spontaneously, because brain, like the rest of body, disintegrates.

 

Therefore, God is both personal and impersonal. The great saint Sri Ramakrishna said that impersonal and personal God cannot be separated; they are the same, like milk and its whiteness.

This mote thinks that the Holy Spirit in Christianity is based on the same principle; it is the kinetic energy of God.­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________________________________________________________________________________

(1) Dionysius the Areopagite, ‘De Mystica Theologia’. Taken from the book, ‘Mysticism’ by Evelyn Underhill

130.Importance of spiritual sites

 

 

When my brother asked the Great Qalandar that why my Hindu friend was given the gift of closeness to God, when he was so rich, had never performed any penances and austerities, and had never quit the world (tiag). The great mystic gave the surprising answer, “These things do not matter. He got it because of some spiritual site (which he visited). There are sites in the world where you get grace (of God). Consider Jerusalem, holy to three religions”. Although in this mote’s opinion he got the grace of God (from the site) because he loved God, perhaps, as good as anybody else.

 

The Yogi Krishnaparem mentioned two such sites. One was the Srirangam temple at Trichinopoly, India, where he had the vision of Lord Krishna and Radharani (blog). The other was at Maharishi’s hall. In his own words:

 “As I meditated, it was borne home to me through the mystic silence that though the peace descends from the Lord Himself^____does’nt he say in the Gita that He is the primal source of all experience^___the peace in this instance was transmitted through His beloved agent: the Maharishi. I have previously mentioned that Brunton had experienced and said the same thing regarding Maharishee (blog 91)

Therefore these sites are not only the broadcasting sites to God, but also the receiving sites.

 

My Hindu friend once visited the room near Clacutta, where Sri Ramakrishna had spent the last years of his life. My friend was at that time in his early youth and had visited the place, unintentionally, with a bunch of loud, happy friends. None of them had any thought of God or spirituality and were just enjoying the gardens and the boat-ride. When he entered the room, he felt a shiver go through his body. There was something in the air. He became quiet. He realized that his friends had also become quiet. The experience left a mark on him because he never forgot it in the next fifty or more years.

 

Sri Daya Mata mentions in her book (1), how she had great mystic experiences at the following places: cave of Mahavatar Babaji, in Himalayas; in front of a huge statue of Lord Buddha in Nara, Japan; in Tarakeswar temple in India; in sacred Jagannath temple in Puri, India (also see blog 5).

 

St Therese of Lisieux had an indescribable experience in the church of Our Ladies of Victories in Paris, France(blog 14).

 

There are many spiritual experiences described by various persons, that I have described at the Holy site of Data Gunj Bakhash in Lahore, Pakistan (blogs 62-4, and 67).  The law of secrecy prohibits me to disclose more.

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(1). Finding The Joy Within You  by  Sri Daya Mata