Once there was this Facebook post on which an atheist and I had an
argument. I wrote my argument in a comment and was anxiously waiting for him to
“like” it rather than retort. Unfortunately, he retorted with a long comment,
to which I responded with an even longer comment. After a few such rounds, the
length of each comment was bordering on the size of an essay. At the end of it,
we stopped not because we were convinced but because we were tired of writing
such long comments. Throughout this exercise I was thinking "Why
can't this guy understand such a simple thing? It’s so obvious that there is
God." And this thought kept building
a rage inside me and by the end of it I was drained of all energy.
I had always been accused on getting emotional
with my arguments, while I believed I was completely logical and rational with
my arguments. That was the first time I realized that there is quite a bit of
emotion attached to my arguments. If the argument left any bitter aftertaste, it was definitely not
in my mouth. I think I continue the relationship as if the argument never
happened. What I realized during this incident was that I am very
attached to my ideas. In my mind, my
point of view is absolutely logical, easy to
understand and right. Thinking
about, I find it funny that I have to be so passionate about my view point,
because I know that my views keep evolving over time. They are never constant,
and yet at a particular point of time, I feel strongly about them.
That’s probably why many of world’s biggest massacres were not
fight for power as much struggle based on ideological differences. From the
crusades to twin towers, it had always been “I am right, you are wrong”.
First World-war had many reasons, but it precipitated due to an assassination
of the prince of Hungary followed by Hungary making demands with impossible
deadlines. Hungary thought they were right in their demands, and it resulted it
so much of human lives sacrificed. Hitler killed so many Jews because he
doesn’t agree with their beliefs.
On the other hand, no one can fight more bitterly than brothers in
arms. “Greatest of
hatred can arise only out of Greatest of love.” Some of the family feuds run
for generations and in most cases the fight would have started on a petty
issue. People in undivided India were living like brothers, until the thought
of partition was planted and now India and Pakistan are bitter enemies for no
apparent reason.
The word “Islam” means peace and surrender. Sunnis and Shias
follow essentially same religion, except for who were their leaders. They have
very minor differences in the traditions that are not even noticeable to an
outsider. And yet they have been fighting bitter wars between them. Protestants
and other sects of Christianity have only philosophical differences. They
ultimately believe in Christ and Bible and yet there were so many wars
resulting in loss of millions of people. The cause is often petty, but more
importantly forgotten. What
is remembered is only the bitter animosities and avenging the previous bloodshed.
And the best part is that everyone believes that they are protecting the
true lineage of their Prophet.
Essentially, Jews believe in all the prophets before Jesus, while
Christians believe all the prophets before Muhammed and Muslims believe in all
the Prophets. If all the prophets are teaching a path to God, why is there so
much of conflict? Why couldn’t there be a clear cut guidelines by the first
Prophet Abraham with a list of names and/or insignia to come? Why couldn’t the
Prophets like Jesus and Mohammed clearly establish the fact that they were the
prophets of same lineage and make sure that everyone follows same religion?
"Why didn’t Shiridi Sai Baba clearly mention where he will be born
to everyone before he passed away so that there will be no confusion? Why
didn’t Sathya Sai Baba make sure that all Shiridi Sai Baba’s followers believe
that he is a reincarnation? Why didn’t he leave clear instructions of how to
find his future incarnation? We may now be confused with many people claiming they
are reincarnations of swami.
Context for the previous Paragraph: Across the world millions of Sathya Sai Baba beleive in Three incarnations of him: Shiridi Sai Baba (1835-1918), Sathya Sai Baba, (1926-2011) and Prema Sai Baba (expected this Century. These followers belong to various religions and follow their own religions but also revere Sai Baba. However, millions of Shiridi Baba followers did not expect Sathya Sai Baba and so they don't follow him. Millions are Sathya Sai Baba followers don't know how exactly will the next incarnation be.
It could be because God doesn’t care if there are so many
differences and there are fights. I don’t like this argument because sending in
a prophet or an avatar is a “conscious” decision which is meant to change the
way humanity flows and this cannot be without care for the consequences. Given
these conditions, my conclusion is that “God loves
conflict”. He
is more of a Narada than Narayana. (Narada is a devotee of God who through his Mischief caused tiffs between highly ferocious Demons and God and ultimately meet their end).
That statement seems atrocious at worst and counter intuitive at
best. Let me try to support it. The world as created by Lord is of
duality. We have light vs. darkness, love vs. hatred and truth vs. untruth.
From this point of view, it’s given that He created conflict as much as love.
But does He love conflict as opposed to peace? If that is the case why would He
again and again preach Love through his Avatars and Prophets. For the same
reason, Narada is known to be goading a demon against Indra so that ultimately
the demon is killed.
Ego based on ideologies is arguably the strongest demon created by
our mind. The best way to face the demon is to bring it out into open by
creating a variety of ideologies. When this demon comes out we automatically
develop hatred to our brethren and destroy them to our best of our abilities. God probably is waiting for the day we overcome
this urge and instead destroy the internal demon. May be He is waiting for the
day we become less judgmental of others thoughts and beliefs. May be he is
waiting for us to fall deeply into love which is the only thread connecting all
the ideologies, humans and in fact the entire universe.
Hope one day we will be able to appreciate the Narada Avatar of
Lord as much as Narayana Form.
2 comments:
It's possible that what we view as conflict or destroyal, the Masters view as child's pranks. The child building a sand castle on the beach will frequently crash some portions of it or flatten the whole thing and start all over again. The onlooker would find it amusing, if somebody called it destroyed. Even the child won't bat an eyelid before rebuilding it from scratch. That's why the reference to Leela while explaining God's actions.
As to the conflicts between ideologies, if the teams on either side didn't have different goal posts and play with passion as if all of life depended on the ball reaching between two poles, there won't be any game. Both teams might as well sit in the middle of the ground and ponder over the illusory nature of things such as balls, poles and goals in the grander scheme of things, ouch, boring.
But, while considering this Game Theory, don't ask game at whose cost, that's a complicated one to answer, LoL.
If you see God as the child constructing and destructing, agree, it's His game, His wish. ☺.
The problem with teams analogy is that here all teams have same goal at the center (like a mountain peak) and all teams are trying from different routes. Instead of working on our routes we are fighting with each other on whose route is better. My point is we are wasting precious time in these fights. And the hatred and violence are not getting us anywhere closer to love, which is the ultimate goal.
But of we define the purpose of the game is pure fun and not a goal, then we are in the right place ☺
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