When I had
developed sufficient awareness as a child, certain things, images,
impressions remained in my memory.
I remember the family members, my father, mother, my sisters, and
neighbors, people who came to the house or passed by, friends. The
house, its surroundings, grassy lawns, flowers, plants, bushes, trees,
animals, birds, canals and insects, spiders, frogs, snakes and the
mysterious world beyond these surroundings and the sometimes gray,
sometimes blue, sometimes bright, sometimes clouded canopy of the
inverted bowl--the sky. Little beyond started an unknown, mysterious
world.
The visit to temples aroused questions as to why we had to fold our
hands, why we had to kneel or lie prostrate on the ground, why we were
supposed to learn some words or prayers and mumble them or chant in
unison with others without knowing the words or their meanings, let
alone understand them.
Many people, when asked were unable to tell the words they were supposed
to be saying, reciting or mumbling as a prayer. Most did not know the
meaning. They were just copying what they had been taught to do by their
elders and those who commanded them to behave in a particular way.
I saw images of various Gods and Goddesses, made of stone, metal and
other materials. I was confused by so many different places of worship
and so many different Gods and Goddesses. I asked questions and did not
get satisfactory answers.
Over the years as I grew up I had opportunity to visit so many different
places of worship of Jains, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Jews
and Parsees, in so many different places in India.
I read about the concepts of religion, theosophy, philosophy, God,
Goddesses, Bhagwan, Allah and about Ganesh, Christ, Krishna, Ram,
Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh, Siva, Parvati, Hare Krishna, Radhakrishna,
Hanuman, Ganpati and so many others like Durga, Saraswati, Laxmi,
Mahalaxmi, Bhagwati, Amba, etc. I found they had been given an identity
by us (our forefathers or ancestors) human beings according to our
imagination of their likeness. I read the books by Sri Aurobindo. I read
Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan books. I read books by Dr S. Radhakrishnan.
Reading science, I came to the conclusion that there is only nature and
its laws which are in existence along with play of matter and energy in
various forms between life and death, living and nonliving.
But when I looked
at nature and the way it has been made and is moving I began to wonder
that there is some supernatural power above us all human beings in
nature, on this earth, in this world, in this universe. We are just
nothing, a minuscule speck in the vast universe. We have but a very
small lifetime in the eternity of time, past and future. Generations and
generations of human beings have come and gone. Born, lived and left
after death. Maybe reborn or got liberation or Moksha.
We are only one of many living animals and plants on the earth. We have
the same body model with difference in male and female models, which too
are meant to form a whole by uniting to result in further production of
similar life models.
The blood is divided into few groups like A, B, O, O+. These groups are
spread in the human populations and similar blood may be found in a
person coming from any country, state, city, community, caste, and
religion without such discrimination. This is helping a large number of
people who need blood transfusions. The blood group of donor has to
match the blood group of the donee. That’s all-no question of race,
caste, community, religion or any such divisive group.
I found that the same material that is clay is used to make bricks; the
same rocks cut from hills and mountains and dug from the same earth are
used in human structures. The same materials like wood and plastics,
marble and granite, all come from nature, which is one and only one
nature. NO one made them, they were present in nature.
I found that persons of so called different countries, different skin
color, different languages, different races, different religions,
different castes, different communities all inhale the same air with its
oxygen; drink the same water with its combination of hydrogen and
oxygen; eat food comprised of the same rice, wheat, potatoes, tomatoes,
beans, carrots, cabbage etc; non-veg people eat the same fish, goats,
chickens. All this is the same as it comes from this one earth only.
Hence, how could there be a separate God for anyone? I could see only
one sun, one moon, one earth, the same stars, anywhere I went.
I could feel the same heat and the same cold. Men and women were found
to have the same cycle of birth, life and death. The same emotions of
love, affection, joy, sadness. The same desire for pleasure and sex. The
same nine months for pregnancy and childbirth. The same labor pains. The
same morning, the same afternoon, the same evening and the same night.
The same joys and same sorrows. The same expectations and desires. The
same longings. The same wishes for love, affection, marriage, children,
jobs, money, business, houses, cars, travel, enjoyment, savings,
insurance from future problems and same problems of pain, suffering,
disease and death and bereavement and loneliness, aging and loneliness.
Natural disasters, diseases and accidents did not single out any people
on the grounds of man-made divisions.
Human beings prayed for many things like asking for freedom from want,
freedom from misery, freedom from poverty, freedom from sins, freedom
from fear etc.; the birth of children; marriage partner; long life;
healthy life for themselves, their children, their brothers and sisters,
their parents, relatives, friends and people in general; good jobs,
promotion, posting in a particular place, particular charge; more money
and material things; election to some position of power like corporator,
MLA, MP, Ministership; power, privileges and pelf. The list of human
desires prayed for, for fulfillment is endless and would be long.
By understanding all these facts I began to see and perceive the Unity
in Diversity--Of human beings and hence of "God", because God is also a
man made concept. I began to think of just one big supernatural power,
not divided by name or religion.
So now when I feel the need to be united with that one supernatural
power in this universe I humbly join my hands, close my eyes and take my
inward eyes and my being towards that superior being in nature which
made this universe and keeps it running the way it is according to the
laws of nature.
And my prayers in search of God and Goddess, go to each place of
worship, everywhere on this earth and in the universe, not confined to
any home, place, place of worship, town, village or city; not confined
to any particular sect or group; not confined to any stereotype or
language; not confined to any custom or ritual.
Because, I know that if there is a God/Goddess he/she is the good God
and is one for all of us children of God in God's own world with both
the good and the bad in it.
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