146.  System of the World. Part four 

 

We were discussing that you have to invite God in your life.

 

How do you invite God in your life? By praying to Him. You have to beg God again and again. He may or may not grant your prayer. But if you are earnest in your desire to reach God (and God will look in your heart), this mote is certain, as certain can be, that He will grant you your prayer. He will transform you. Some people are lucky (because they are ready) and get transformed quickly; otherwise, most often it is a gradual process and may take decades (two or three decades in the case of this mote)

God enters your life, often, in an unobtrusive way. Law of cause and effect is not violated, although there are exceptions. For instance, in the case of Shahab, a letter came from Germany, which was a supernatural event, because the spirit of Fatima (daughter of holy prophet) could not have known the prayer of Shahab (blog 65). There are other examples.

 

The principal that is never violated is that the sanctity of the overall experiment is preserved. The rules of the game are not changed. One is not allowed to interfere in God’s system. Let me give you some examples to illustrate this important point.

               Giri Bala did not eat or drink for fifty six years (blogs 79- 80). Therese Neumann did not eat and drink for twelve years (except for a wafer each day). When Sri Yogananda asked Giri Bala that why didn’t she let the public know her secret of living on air, it would eliminate hunger in the world, she was shocked. Her answer was most revealing. She said it would be against God’s plan.

               A seer learnt the seven winning lottery numbers, one day in advance of drawing, by a spiritual technique (blog 135). He was strongly warned by higher powers, never to do it again. God’s laws, such as hiding the future, are for important reasons. To look into future, without God’s permission, is against God’s plans

               Jesus Christ performed miracles left and right. Why didn’t he (or other powerful mystics like Sri Yukteshwar, Data Sahib) disclose the secrets of making electricity, or a fusion nuclear reactor, or disclose the existence of American Continent, etc. Because, that would have interfered with God’s plans. It would violate the sanctity of the experiment.

               I used to wonder in the past (I don’t anymore) that why don’t Data Sahib, the highest saint of Pakistan, help the inhabitants of Lahore in a major way (Blog 62-63). He helps in the form of daily free food for hundreds. Perhaps few dozen are helped, monetarily, each day. In a city of 6-7 million, and in a country of 190 million, these efforts seem to be very insufficient. I used to wonder, why doesn’t he eradicate the basic problem of poverty, and thus help millions. Perhaps he could do that. He could provide the secret of cheap solar energy, or to produce rain on demand, or reveal a cheap way to convert sea water into fresh water. I don’t wonder anymore, because he is not allowed to do so. It would interfere with the basic premise of the experiment, that human beings should progress ( or regress, as in the case of 16 centuries of stagnation in human thought from Greek period to Renaissance ) on their own.

 

Before we proceed any further we must address what is meant by supernatural. Miracles are supernatural events, because they apparently do not obey the existing laws of nature. They may yet obey some other undiscovered laws of nature.

 

 It is clear that there are souls. I have provided ample evidence (107-110). Now how do we explain souls scientifically? We simply cannot. A dead body is no different from an inanimate object like a lump of coal or a cup. Brain disintegrates after death. I suppose if we were to ask this question to Mr Einstein who reportedly did not believe in God, after showing him a soul and convincing him that there is life after death in the form of souls, he might have answered in the following way. “There must be physical laws governing the existence of soul forms, just as there are laws which govern the visible universe. It is just that we have not yet discovered those laws. After those laws are discovered the explanation will be very simple. Think, how our ability to predict solar eclipse to a second, might appear to a man living thousands of years before Christ. Or what would he think of a man walking on the street talking in a few inches long cellular telephone to another person who may be thousands of miles away, and only the recipient, out of 7 billion inhabitants of earth, can hear him. Think of a bird pecking at his own reflection in a mirror, a reflection that looks and moves like real.  Soul may be like a reflection in a mirror, both real and unreal, but obeying the laws of nature.”

 

To be continued

 

 

145.  System of the World. Part Three

 

 Materialism with God Theory. This hypothesis is an attempt to compromise the two basic observations that ordinary human beings make. First, everything is made by somebody; thus, this highly complex universe could not have come into existence just spontaneously. Therefore, there has to be a Creator who created it. Secondly, one thing leads to another, every action leads to its consequences. Every human being has observed that such and such thing happened or happens due to such and such thing. For ordinary human beings God never comes and plays any role in their daily lives or anybody else’s daily life

This theory is an amalgam of hypothesis no 1 and 2. It accepts a Creator, and therefore answers the first criticism to the “materialistic theory”, namely, that nothing can be created out of nothing. The theory also explains the second criticism to the  materialistic theory; i.e. the phenomena of miracles, answering of prayers, foretelling of the future, and the existence of the spirits of dead persons who once inhabited earth. God or His deputies are responsible for these occurrences.

 

It also answers the criticism to the religious theory (see details in blog 136), namely, why is there so much suffering and injustice; the answer is, because they have nothing to do with God. God ordinarily does not interfere in the running of the world; therefore, whatever is going on in the world is happening due to the law of cause of effect, just as it would happen if there were no God.  If people are poor, there are economic reasons for it. If they suffer due to old age or disease, that is due to the limitation of their body. If they are preyed upon by cruel or powerful people, it happens because they are weak, or their government is not redressing this problem, and so on. Even animal suffering is due to their weakness or old age. Remember, God does not have to be good according to this hypothesis; at best, He is indifferent and does not care.

God has to be hidden, because He wants human beings to develop on their own, be their own masters, and learn from their own mistakes. It complies with our daily experience of events happening due to our free will interacting with environment.

Human effort is not useless. As a matter of fact, it is the engine that propels us forward. The whole of human history is due to human effort.

If we were to take this theory in its pure form, then God created this universe 13.8 billion years ago, and since then it is running on its own.

But things are not so simple. We still have to answer three questions:

 

1. Does God ever interfere in the running of this world?

2.  What is the purpose of the universe?

3. Is God personal or impersonal? 

Let us try to answer these questions: 

1. Does God ever intervene in human affairs? This is a difficult question to answer, because logic will say No, while evidence points towards Yes. I don’t have the answer.

If you try to place yourself in the position of God, you will imagine Him as some form of tremendous energy with a mind. A mind that is supermind. That Mind sets up an experiment with a set of basic unchangeable rules, like the speed of light (nothing can exceed that limit ); charge of an electron; magnitude of strong nuclear force ( which holds the atoms together ); principle of conservation of energy ( energy can be neither produced or destroyed ); attraction of atoms to each other resulting in the formation of chemicals and thus formation of life, including us; force of gravity to be the weakest of the four forces of nature and yet the only one which acts at long distances, 4-7 billion km in the case of Pluto. It is this force which makes the earth revolve around the sun.  Dark energy pushing the galaxies apart; nuclear fusion atomic reaction that fuels all stars ( including our sun, which then provides solar energy to the earth ). liquid water, a source of energy from a nearby star, and oxygen, are the requirements of life anywhere in the universe, etc.

The purpose of the experiment may be to see the emergence of intelligent, self-aware (animals are not self-aware), sentient (capable of feeling) life forms, and follow their progress over billions of years. After the experiment is over, make necessary changes and start a new experiment. Logically there should be no outside interference because it would pollute the results.

But, this mote thinks that the evidence is to the contrary. God (or His deputies) interferes in two ways:

(a). Minor way, when a person invites God in his/her life

(b) Major way, when He interferes in human development and history 

(a) Minor intervention. Everything in our lives happens by the interaction of our free will with the environments through the law of cause and effect. God is not concerned. He does not interfere, whether we are virtuous or evil, whether we perform good deeds or bad deeds.  To ask God to interfere in your life, you have to invite God in your life. This is a cardinal principle.

 

To be continued.

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