Still Confused: GOD!
My belief! – A confused one now but earlier i firmly believed that there are many God/s as seen in different religious stories and tv shows, I always believed that yes they are exactly how they are shown( Different kind of faces / multiple hands / miraculous powers and much more).
The question which still resolves is Who is God?” I mean I always read Ramayana and seen so many tv shows because of which I have various images and types of GOD in mind. But, Now i believe that no one has seen god, all these stories are assumptions that something of this sort must have happened and people are believing it since ages.” I want to search how these stories and other scriptures came from and how true are they?How do these scriptures were written i mean who all told them that this all happened (e.g Ramayan & Mahabharat).
I never doubted on the existence of God! There is some creator and destroyer, there is some supreme being.
Religion what I believe is all man – made, people of same beliefs and location came together to form a group and then they made their own rituals and traditions and then domination started.
I don’t believe much in rituals and traditions, I question myself every time, before doing something the concept of Causation Vs Correlation starts to move around my head. I have seen so many examples where not doing a particular ritual or not following a tradition did not had a bad effect, thus making my belief more strong.
Now after the session my thought process goes like that people still believe in all the rituals and are continuing to follow the rituals / poojas / etc irrespective of the logic or a reason.
I agree! I have grown up watching series of Ramayan and Mahabharat. I still remember getting up at 8 on every Sunday, so that I don’t miss out on any episode of these which builds up my knowledge about the traditional beliefs, values and existence of God.
My mother still tells me – Ram aur Sita ne sansaar ki rachna rachi hai. Grahast Jeevan samjhaya hai – but who knows that the series is not manipulated just to meet the needs of audience!!!
I guess, one needs affirmation to their beliefs all the time and hence they fear failure or what I call as ‘inconvenience of mind.’ Instead, it is good to be open to explore all the perspectives and be more selective in the process to form your own belief system.
As a child, I was avid reader of mythology. My grandma and I read the whole Mahabharat together and that was the time of Ramayana and Mahabharat epics were broadcasted on national television. I was really fascinated by all the characters and the depth of the stories, with a lot of critical thinking involved. I am happy that my grandma encouraged all the questions that I had, and we used to have some rich discussions. I don’t know if they were gods, but they were mortals like us who existed on the face of earth once upon a time. Some of the things that happened during those times, were beyond scientific explanation..and hence named as “god”. Now I am also reading Devdutt Patnayak’s version of these epics which depicts the events from a different perspective altogether. There is surely a lot of learning and critical thinking in these so called holy books, if we leave the religious angle aside.
I was just going through some quotes and that’s when I saw this one – “I talk to God, but the sky is empty” – Sylvia Plath. I completely agree with Swati ma’am, we have started imagining God as the we see in TV shows. For, me God still exist but surely not the way, I used to see them in Ramayana or Mahabharat.
It would be interesting to read the “Ramayan” and “Mahabharat” again but not just the Ramananda Sagar and B R chopra template that we all have in our minds but read it with fresh eyes and a critical , questioning mind. Devdutta Pattanaik’s books and Irawati KArve’s yuganta would make some interesting read. Anyone interested?