Does God Exist?

Richard Dawkins is challenging the idea that a Deistic God created the universe and set it in motion and then keeps aloof. In other words, according to him we believe in an absentee God who seems to be indifferent to what is happening in the world. But if He in fact does create individual souls ‘off and on’, then he should face the problem of evil that exists in the created universe in the form of sorrows and sufferings, injustice, exploitation, birth-based deformities. Why should there be any birth-based differences that make some more privileged than others?

Besides, aggressive atheists who deny the existence of God do so because believers have been committing horrible acts of commission and omission in the name of religious creeds and God. Despite this, it is said that the so-called all-powerful, all-good, and all knowing God remains silent. Therefore, God’s silence is equated with God’s non-existence by materialists and atheists.

Howeveer, the wonderful structure of the universe and of the things and beings in the universe does seem to suggest the existence of a Grand Design, which needs explanation. Can it be due to matter and motion? Though human reason is capable of understanding a lot, it points to the existence of Universal Consciousness or Cosmic Intelligence, and this, say nay-sayers, is more faith than fact.

The theistic world view gives cosmic support to the believers. After all, the question of all questions is whether the universe is friendly or inimical to life in general and human life in particular. Long before the ‘Sun’ in the solar system was seen as the friend of humans. So the believer bowed before the Sun and said, “Aum Mitrya Namah” – O Lord, I bow to you, our friend. Darwin’s theory of biological evolution is a grand hypothesis to explain the origin of species on this planet. He never claimed that he could explain the ‘arrival of life to evolve in favour of the fittest’ in the world. How did the rudimentary amoebas evolve; out of nothing? Biologists aver the principle ‘life begets life’. Can they reduce biology to physics? Can they accept biology as a branch of physics? The usual and answer to this is ‘no’. Moreover, physics itself is becoming a science of the minute following the discovery that atoms can be split! The concept of God is not a stupid idea. It cannot be done away with so cursorily. It was the agnostic H Spencer who applied the concept of evolution to the evolution of the cosmos. Later philosophers formulated different ideas of evolution, as did S Alexander in the idea of Emergent Evolution, H Bergson in the concept of Creative Evolution.

The tiny logic and intellect of man should not be elevated to the status of God or the Cosmic Intelligence; perhaps its role in human affairs ought not to be dismissed or underestimated. Such a stand has its own limitations.   German philosopher Kant refuted the traditional rational argument addressed in support of belief in God. Yet he formulated the Moral Argument. For belief in the existence of God – and morality are special to human beings. Unless we accept the moral in the universe it is very difficult to make the universe morally intelligible. The discussion cannot be left in the hands of priests and pundits. Education in humanities will help believers liberate religion from the clutches of the priestly class. For aren’t modern liberation theologians willing to learn from Karl Marx to solve the issue of hunger and injustice?

Courtesy: Speaking Tree

Learn to Die

The body has its own ways of accumulating anger. When you feel angry you gnash your teeth, you clench your fists. Why?

Your repressed anger, sexuality, greed and all kinds of poisons accumulate in the body, in the muscles. By deep massage those poisons can be released. Deep massage of the body can make you aware that your body is carrying many things. Your body drives you into things which you may not have gone into if the body was not driving you there.

Learn to be dead

Buddha says master the body. How? The first thing is to learn relaxation. You lie down on the ground as if you are dead. Let the body slowly, slowly die. Start from the feet. In fact, communicate with your body; say to the feet, “Die, please die.” And then go on upwards. Buddha does not say to go to sleep. He says, “Feel dead. Let the body die for the moment, as if you are just a corpse.” You cannot do anything. An ant starts crawling on you; you can’t do anything.

And it is really a great experience, to feel like a corpse, and the ant crawling on your face or a mosquito biting—but you can’t do anything, you are simply a watcher. It is a rare experience to go through it. Slowly, slowly, you become a master by relaxing your body. The more tense your body is, the more it is a master of you.

Distance the body and mind

If you can watch the body, the mind and all the functioning, you will become so separate from them that you can master them. You can master something only when you have a distance from it. If you are identified with it you cannot master it. And Buddha says one who is master of his own self is the master of the whole existence; he has entered into a different plane of life. You are slaves, he is a master. You are machines, he is a real man. You function unconsciously, he functions consciously. And to function consciously is to go beyond all sorrow, beyond all misery, beyond all anguish; it is to go into the beyond. Other religions call that beyond god; Buddha calls it simply the beyond. Prepare for the beyond… Become masters of your own beings.

Stop being a robot

Watch what you do, what you say, what you think and you will be surprised; without taking any alcoholic beverages, without taking any drugs, you are in a mess. Just look at what you have been doing to yourself, to your life. What have you made of yourself? What have you gained? What meaning have you attained? What significance have you experienced? People don’t ask such embarrassing questions because then they feel very depressed. But these questions have to be asked. Unless you ask these questions you are not going to change.

Man goes on living like a robot, functioning well, efficiently. In fact, the more like a robot you are, the better you function, the better the society feels with you–because it is a society of robots. To be awakened, alert, and conscious is dangerous. It is a society of blind people; to have eyes is to invite danger. If you become alert to at least one thing–that you are not alert–that’s a great beginning. To be aware that “I am ignorant” creates the possibility of seeking, searching in your own interiority for the truth–for your truth. Once your illusions are dropped, your dreams shattered, a great awakening is waiting for you.