114. God  part eighteen 
 

 Please read blog 113 for continuity

Science has no explanation for prophecies, miracles, spirits, and granting of prayers.

               How can anybody tell the future which has not been made yet? To have my grandfather buried in the same grave with his son, required a colossal event to happen, in which millions suffered. For Swami Vivekananda to see the event of the silver cup 43 years in advance, only a Divine power had to be involved. How did Swami Yukteswar know that the veterinarian will fall ill soon, recover, and die 6 months later? How did he know that Yogananda will be fed strawberries in America? And Kasha did die, as predicted.

               How can one explain the vision of the teacher putting a garland of flowers on the president’s neck and receiving a check; Baroda Babu’s telling Dilip Kumar Roy, 12 years in advance, that he will have to wait for Indra Devi to join him as his disciple for his real progress,, and also telling him about what Sri Aurobindo advised him regarding his hernia.

               One does not have any explanation of Indra Devi’s vision of the pilot dying in crash one year in advance and then his spirit coming to Indra.

               As for as miracles are concerned, Indra Devi transformed sandy earth into sweets, Sri Yukteswar appeared in flesh and blood, twice, to Yukteswar, once when he was waiting for him to come by train from Calcutta, and once when he was resurrected from dead. I have narrated Data Gunj Bakhash’s miracles: protection from rain and mud, appearance of dates and out of season grapes, talking to a pillar in the mosque and getting the answer, and the mystic knowing what the three dueveshes had in mind.

               The episode of ‘Ninety’ and appearance of letters from thin air, are miracles. Beyond scientific explanation.

               Finally, Dilip Kumar Roy gets his wish, and the lamp lights up, and then is extinguished.

               Levitation of St Teresa of Avila was a miracle, and so was Christ restoring vision to the blind and taking away the severe pain of the sick man.

               The Yogi created the perfumes out of thin air, both for Paul Brunton and the young Yogananda.

               What powerful miracles of Therese Neumann not eating and drinking for twelve years and Giri Bala for fifty-six years! Do you need any other proof, it shows the power of God

               The great yogi Pranabananda assumed another replicate body and thus had two bodies at the same time, when young Yogananda visited him (I think it was for Yogananda’s education).

               The raising from dead of Rama, by Lahiri Mahasaya, was a powerful miracle (I think it was for Sri Yukteswar’s education)

               The proof of spirits of people who once inhabited earth, is, in the end, a proof of a Divine system, and God. We were made aware of the restless spirit of Bimla Kumari in the haunted house. In blog 108, Prophets Jesus, Muhammad^pbuh Krishna, visited the devotees. Data Gunj Bakhash, an eleventh

Century mystic, cured 3 brothers suffering from plague, in twentieth century.

               The resurrected Sri Yukteswar talked not only to Yogananda but also to his disciple, Ma

               The spirit of Yogananda came out of his picture and helped Sri Daya Mata.

               St Teresa of Avila saw the spirit of Jesus and Fray Peter of Alcantara many times.

               The spirit of St Mira came hundreds of times to Indra Devi, and dictated her songs, sometimes in a language which Indra did not know.

               Paul Brunton, became his own spirit, and saw his own motionless body lying on the stone slab in the Great Pyramid of Egypt. 

As I have said before, nothing convinces me more about the existence of God, than His granting the prayers. I have narrated seven examples. Three prayers were unique, and the other four had the quality of last appeal. Shahab’s prayer to God, to allow the spirit of Fatima^pbuh to talk to her father, and getting his permission for Shahab to travel in search of God, through a particular path, was unique. And what a way of confirmation; a letter from Germany! Mr. Shevani’s prayer to meet the greatest Qalndar of this era, and his spending his life with him was also unique. Who would ask for such a thing? Giri Bala’s prayer, wanting not to eat anything, was so unique, that even the guru remarked that God was touched by its extraordinary nature.

               God listened to Mufti Sahib (even Mufti Sahib himself told it to a friend, that God listens to him) and came to his help, twice. This is the same Mufti Sahib (I have mentioned it in Foreword to book two) who did not have the courage to enter Kaaba for several days, and sat outside. He prayed to Allah “make me Yours”

               The prayer of the man for debt relief shows that God has compassion. Not Spinoza’s passionless, inaccessible, remote God. 

At the end, let me answer the question: is God personal or impersonal? Let me explain, by personal God, it is meant that God is approachable. He listens to you, and helps you, if He deems it fit. A friend once said, “I tell God, even if my shoe lace breaks, and ask Him to give me one”. On the other hand,  impersonal God is not approachable. He does not have human feelings like joy, anger, compassion.

               The answer, according to this mote’s understanding, is, Both.     Part of God is remote and inaccessible and part of it is personal and approachable

 

The End.     

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 “On a dark night…………without light or guide, save that which burned    in my heart”

                                                                          St. John of the Cross 

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99. God. Part three

               And then came Charles Darwin. In 1858, the two separate works of Darwin and Alfred Wallace (who independently arrived at the theory of evolution) were published in the same journal. In 1859, Darwin published his famous book; “On the origin of species by natural selection…………..” laying out the details of his theory with an immense amount of data. I have relied heavily on the well written Fowler and Kuebler book “the evolution controversy” in writing about evolution, although I have read many books on evolution including Darwin’s own account of his voyage on Beagle, in 1831-36.

               One hundred and fifty years have passed since Darwin’s publication. All the essential elements of his theory have been accepted by large majority of scientists. Most importantly, no evidence in fossil data has been discovered which would demolish his theory.

What are the important components?

               1. All life forms descended from a common ancestor. Potato and monkey had a common ancestor

               2. Random mutation and natural selection are the two processes by which new species are formed. It is a slow and gradual process of modifications.

               3. Long time spans are required, from microbe to man it took almost 4 billion years (remember one thousand million make a billion, so these are 4000 million years). This directly contradicts the Biblical view of earth, merely 5-10 thousand years old. Our species Homo appeared approximately 2 million years ago (one million dollars are ten thousand, hundred dollar bills).

As biologists have observed during the last 50 years or so, spontaneous random mutation in the DNA (genetic code) of cells take place all the time ( off course, Darwin knew nothing about it. DNA was discovered almost a hundred years  later. ). Cells make errors while copying DNA. Billions upon billions of cells multiply every day (see blog 95 for just RBC’s). Most of the errors are deleted, but some escape destruction. This is the process, the engine; random mutation, through which, in my view, God created all creatures. Therefore Darwin’s theory of evolution is not against God.

               Mutations can also occur from external sources, like radiation and chemicals

The role of natural selection is to filter the mutations. Beneficial changes are preserved and favored. Therefore the mutation which favors deer to run faster, and thus outrun its predator, gives a selective advantage to that deer population. They will live longer. Such changes are passed on to posterity and get established in a population. It is the survival of the fittest.

For a scientist, was supernatural intervention or help needed anytime for the progression to humans from microbe? Most scientists will say NO

Therefore Darwin’s theory is a crushing blow to the need of God to make plants, animals and humans. God could certainly have made them, but it is not incumbent upon us to believe so, it could have happened without God.

Let us examine the evidence supporting evolution.

One has to familiarize oneself with terms such as radiometric dating, geologic columns and fossils, intelligent design, common DNA triplet, TCA cycle, irreducible complexity, and Cambrian explosion. I will try to keep it simple and brief.

Radiometric dating is fairly accurate in telling us the age of rocks and fossils (of animals). Isochron method is even better. When one dates a sedimentary rock column, the oldest rocks are at the bottom, and the youngest on top.

               When we look at the fossils of animals found in a geologic column, we always find simpler life forms in the oldest rocks. Thus we may find only animal such as jelly fish, comb-jellies, and sponges, in rocks over 550 million years old (pre-Cambrian period).  These animals don’t have shells, or dorsal notochord, or vertebral column, or wings, or gills, or hand, or feet, or mammary glands. Vertebrates (with vertebral column) appear later (birds, reptiles, and amphibian). We don’t find reptiles in rocks dating Silurean period (420 million years old) or older, but we find them in rocks dating 260 million years and younger. We don’t find mammals before 250 millions, birds before 160 millions, apes before 30 million years, and man before 2 million years.

These bones of animals provide strong evidence of a stepwise progression, from simpler life forms to more complex and advanced (bigger relative size of brain). The complexity is evident in organs, such as eyes, also.  Darwin studied the eye. Eye is a very complex organ. How could such an organ emerge spontaneously? If theory of evolution was correct, it must have progressed from simple to complex. As it turns out there are various types of eyes. Some mollusks have just pigmented spot of photoreceptor cells. Next two improvements are invagination (forming of cup) and restriction in the size of the aperture. These two changes impart better resolution. We find animals with just these changes. Next is formation of lens for better focusing. We have animal with a proto lens. And so on, till we reach the mammalian eye. . Darwin himself recognized the importance of gradual improvement and presence of intermediate forms. He wrote:

               “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not have formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down”

               We have never found the fossils of advanced animal such as a horse, or a rat or a tiger, in rocks older than 250 million years old. Dinosaurs roamed the earth from approximately 200 million to 65 million years ago. There were wiped from the face of the earth about 65 million years ago, never to come back.
                 

To sum up. The evidence shows that there is no evidence that God exists and there is no need  for God to exist. Life could have emerged, on planet Earth, without God.

               Keep in mind what I said before; there is no evidence that God does not exist.

 

 

To be continued