Monday, January 17, 2005

Does God exist merely as long as I do?

11 comments:

  1. Yes indeed, God exists merely as long as you exist. Why? Because you are God. You and God are identical. If you exist, you must have existed from the beginning. You could not have not existed once upon a time. And if you exist now, you cannot become non-existent later. Your form will change, just as your form has changed since the beginning. But the you that is at the core has existed from the beginning and will continue to exist timelessly. That you is God. Of course from the vantage point of a human, a limited vantage point, it may appear that you are not God. That is just a trick that God plays upon himself. He says, "I am going to pretend fully that I am not God but I am just Eroteme, a being limited in time and space. And when Eroteme changes into something else, I will be that something else also and pretend fully that I am that something else. It will be a great show." The ancients in India figured it out and they gave this great show a name: Maya--the play of the Infinite in on the stage of the apparently finite.

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  2. Atanu,
    I couldn't but agree with what you said. Had it come from my mouth (which it has often in the past) it would be called foolishness (oh! don't get me started on those scornful looks I used to get from my relatives. They thought I was stark raving mad and too young to make sense).
    It has always been our own inferiority complex that we created a god. Not the god that we see in a wonderful wave lapping the shells on the shore or the frivolous fall of a flower from atop a tree. We have always needed something great to exist. Sometimes it is ambitions and goals (of being a greater person) and sometimes it has been God.
    The post was a consequence of a wonderful ghazal sung by Ghulam Ali sahab. A very popular one called "Hungama hai kyoon barpa". In that he sings -- "Har saans yeh kehti hai, hum hain to Khuda bhi hai". Not sure whether the poet (I think it is Akbar Allahabadi) meant it the way I interpreted it, but I couldn't help see it when it stormed out of the song and stared straight at me. Would the concept of god exist if I didn't? Would anything exist if I didn't? I say there is air, but if I were not, then there is nothing to know that there is air, so does it mean there is no air? Its like the old aphorism: If a tree falls in a jungle and there is no one to hear it fall, did it or not make a noise?

    On another note, I am honoured to find your comment on my blog. No, honestly. No euphemisms and subservience. I have been reading your blog and talking about it (and you) to all, interested or otherwise. I had a lot of comments to post on your blog, but ... I will do so. Thanks for stopping by. But how did you land here? Merely curious...

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  3. Glad you concur with my comment. Thanks very for your recommendation. I appreciate it very much.

    I came upon your blog by following the link recorded by the visitor tracking program. Best wishes.

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  4. but in many places God is referred to as the Creator. so in one way God is not within oneself.

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  5. Most places? Where? Texts? Who wrote those texts?

    Let us not worry whether God is within oneself or without or whether he is the same.

    Did you know about God before you were born?
    Does God exist for you once you are gone?
    I fear my search would anger him
    I fear my search would reveal him

    This doesn't mean that we drop all our beliefs and adopt new ones. What it does suggest is explore. What greater beauty than finding that sense of God which you needn't convey in words to mortals like myself!

    Think about this. If you were born on an island and continued to live there till you were 30 with no one around you. Do you think you would know any god who is popular across the seas on a distant land? Would the sacred verses be sacred to you? Would the same symbols evoke a sense of respect in you?

    Think. Please do not merely agree. Your assent means little to me as it would to you.

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  6. Vedant,
    A good friend of mine read this sequence of posts and said, "You sounded impatient while replying to Vedant's post. Were you?" I never thought about it that way. I went back to read my post and wasn't sure. In case you sensed the same tone, I would like to assure you that there was no remote sense of impatience in what was said. If such a timbre came across, I offer my apologies. None of it (the tone and temper) was intended. But I hope what was written helped you think or rethink!

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  7. Your good friend is correct. The first line (Most places? Where? Texts? Who wrote those texts?) without any header shows you WERE impatient to post.

    God was "created" by our ancestors. No one knows when the universe began, how it began, how it started expanding, from where the matter to make it come, etc. The evolution of life is also not completely understood.

    Lets fashion it like this: Earth was only a planet without any living body millions of years later. Out of the matter that was in earth or due to some reaction made by other objects a body started "living". That living body, with time, reproduced. The cycle continued and the living body started spreading on the earth.
    When it reached a different climate, it started to change. That change continued and perhaps is continuing. Due to that change a human body was formed. That human body were our ancestors, and we are also humans. Our ancestors were puzzled by the question "How did I come to life?". Then they "created" the theory that there is "God" and he created us all. Therefore the truth is "God" never existed and is nowhere. But people fear that there is a "God" and they dont want to disprove it. However, if someone only believes there is "God" and does not do(or think) anything because he cannot overcome his fear is fine. But worshipping "God" does not make sense (at least it does not make sense to me).
    So this "God" never existed and does NOT exist now.

    But leave all this, do you use a mac? or you sit in front of your computer seeing all viruses, and whetever staring at you using windows made by m$?
    mail me your answer to: vedant.lath@gmail.com

    Have a good day,
    Vedant

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  8. Defination of "god":

    god
    n.

    1. God
    1. A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.
    2. The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.
    2. A being of supernatural powers or attributes, believed in and worshiped by a people, especially a male deity thought to control some part of nature or reality.
    3. An image of a supernatural being; an idol.
    4. One that is worshiped, idealized, or followed: Money was their god.
    5. A very handsome man.
    6. A powerful ruler or despot.


    [Middle English, from Old English. See gheu()- in Indo-European Roots.]

    Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
    Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
    Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

    http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=God

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  9. Vedant, (Is this what you meant by header?)
    3 posts from you and I am not sure what you mean. Your first post say that you feel/believe/heard that God is the creator and hence can't be within oneself. So you do feel/believe that there is a God?
    Your 2nd post tells me that you "realise" that there is no God; never was and definitely isn't right now.
    Your 3rd post tells me that there are various possible definitions of God and you quote from a dictionary. (BTW, I never knew that a very handsome guy is called a God.)
    What are you trying to say? Do help me understand.
    This post threw a question in the air: Does God exist only as long as our consciousness exist (slight modification of the post title)? Atanu commented with his opinion that God was within oneself or rather the person in toto. Not just a part of the person, but the person in his/her entirety. His view is looking at the thing from a different POV.
    My reply to his comment acknowledged that POV and presented my original one, which was, whether what we understand now as God, ever existed before we came into being and whether it will exist after we are gone.
    Imagine this. You wake up in this city. People are there. They are doing the stuff they say they have been doing for years. You do not remember how you came here or when you slept. So everything exists for you and you believe that is how it is? After a long time, you go to sleep again. Are you sure you will wake up in the same town? Lots of people investigated this. Ramana Maharishi, Chuang-Tzu, et al.
    Sometimes it seems like pure intellectual entertainment (no one can confirm it for you, and you can make as many hypotheses as you want). At times, it seems to be the most relevant question.

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  10. Eroteme,
    What I meant by header is '< fname >","'. (Actually I wrote < fname > (without spaces) but the computer didn't accept it. It gave this error msg.: Your HTML cannot be accepted: Tag is not allowed: < fname >(without spaces). Forgive me for my techie style.
    But you didn't answer my last question: Do you use Mac or Windows or perhaps Linux?
    Here is what the posts mean.
    1st post: I knew that the opinion of Atanu saying that God is within oneself and answering "yes" to your question was fully wrong. I felt that I should post something to help you understand the correct thing. So I posted that comment try to move you in a different direction. Actually, I never believed that there is a "God" from the time I could actually think these things (it was perhaps when I was entering high school).
    2nd post: I then posted the actual opinion of mine.
    3rd post: Just posted the meaning. I did not mean to say anything by that post.

    Does God exist only as long as our consciousness exist (slight modification of the post title)?
    "God" never existed so how is it(no! He) existing now?

    Are you sure you will wake up in the same town?
    It seems many have not yet seen the true thing.
    Let 'Aa' be a man or woman. Aa is born. Aa does something. Then Aa dies. Aa is gone forever. Aa's body does not contain life. Aa ends. You then perhaps beleive that Aa then goes to heaven or hell || (two pipes mean 'or' in computer's language which is quite familier to me)somewhere in the universe || Aa cannot die, Aa has to live && is born somewhere in the world. It is perhaps this thought that leads to the question: Are you sure you will wake up in the same town? The thought is, in my opinion, wrong (I never beleived in rebirth).
    The people who carried out investigations were fools(!).
    It seems to me that this opinion was recorded by a famous poet in one of his poems and that opinion spreaded from place to place. Those who were intelligent enough at the time it reached to them did not accept them. The rest accepted it || thought nothing about it. Then you ask the question to have my answer. And I have now given my answer.

    (If Atanu is reading all this, how will he be reacting to this?)
    --
    PROBLEMS = Purposeful Roadblocks Offering Beneficial Lessons (to) Enhance Mental Strength

    Think different. (You seem to be already different in some fields.) Think success.
    Vedant

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  11. Anonymous4:52 PM

    @ALL: Whether it is God or a flower or earthquakes or anything at all in this world and out of it, all of it exists independant of whether I am conscious of it or not. I COULD OF COURSE SAY THAT IT EXISTS "FOR ME", or has a reality for me if and ONLY IF I AM CONSCIOUS OF IT, AM AWARE OF IT, I ALLOW IT TO HIT MY CONSCIOUSNESS.

    Beyond this, it is so simple to see the world going on whether someone is dead or not. Someone is aware of it or not. So too with God, the perception of something which seems superior to our ordinary average mental/emotional/vital/physical consciousness, if you perceive it, you declare that It / He exists otherwise you dont acknowledge Its validity ever.

    Where is the debate? Where is the question? Am I the fool here that sees no issue at all to validate 10 comments, none of which seem to make sense to me visavis the original post, except for the word God God God thrown all over the place?

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