Dr. Vijai S. Shankar MD.PhD. India Herald Houston, USA 24th October 2008
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“The Almighty”
God is everywhere; man accepts this as universal truth. But what does this statement mean? It surely means that God is present in every possible direction and every speck of the universe. That is why the statement is universal truth because God occupies the entire universe. Does man understand or realise the implications of this statement?
God is very well known: He is the saviour to man in every religion. His existence is passed on to every generation. The child picks up the name of God later in life, but is never born with the name of God on his lips, nor is God pronounced by any child at birth, nor is God the first name spoken by a child. The child picks up the name of God by observing the religion believed, practised and taught by his family. Even if a child is not told that God exists by his biological parents, he comes to know about God by observing the practices and listening to the beliefs about Him that prevail within the family.
Man visits places of worship reserved for God, and this is good because it gives him an opportunity to realise that, if ‘God is everywhere’, He would not only be in the sanctum sanctorum, but also in every speck of the place of worship. It would also make man realise that even his house, and wherever he finds himself, would be a place of worship. More importantly, it would make him ponder who he could be when God is everywhere. Man does not need to realise God; he needs to realise that he is not man.
If man’s parents are atheists, the child comes to know about God from secondary sources, school and friends, in which case he is open to any God that fancies him. He may embrace Him or be an atheist like his parents. So, God is not innate to man; God is cultivated. If God really existed in the manner in which man thinks He does, then every child’s first spoken word would and should be God, which will assert and prove that God is his creator.
Man reveres God, and there is no man who does not believe in Him. Even the atheist thinks of God because he believes God does not exist. There is no difference between a belief in the existence of God and a disbelief, because even disbelief is a belief, and both beliefs focus on God. God is alive in a belief and even in disbelief as well. If God were not alive in disbelief, then disbelief would not exist. Such is the power of God.
Man prays to God in times of need. Some pray to Him religiously every day so that they may not be in need. God manifests prayers of every sort and kind, and there is no question about this, but would He manifest prayers, or has He, that enable man to request his needs through them? If God has manifested man, would He not have taken care of his needs of every moment? If prayers work, they should do so every time man prays, and that too immediately. But they do not.
Man lives in hope that his prayers will be answered. Since he has been praying for generations, for whatever reasons, God should and would have learnt by now what man really needs so the need for him to pray, and that too every day, would not be necessary. But man still does pray, a proof that either God does not hear or listen to man or God does not exist in the manner man thinks He does.
But man nevertheless prays to God more from habit and fear than pure love. He prays to the God he believes in every generation and in every generation his distrust in life and fellow men and, thereby, God himself, as He is everywhere, has been the same, if not more. Man’s anger, doubt, malice, worries, anxiety, sadness, etc., have been on the increase ever since he has been praying to God. It should be decreasing, and this is what man prays for and expects, but it has not. Sophisticated life may be, and it is, and so is man’s plight.
Life is alive because God is alive. God needs to be alive in every moment if life is to be alive every moment. Man does not keep life alive, but life keeps man alive. If he were to keep life alive, then he would never die, for he would keep his life alive as long as he desired. Man is not in control of his birth or death and this is proof enough that he is not in control of life or death either. Just as he is a manifestation of life, death too is a manifestation of life, because death requires life to maintain death. Death cannot maintain death, only life can do so.
Death, therefore, is a manifestation of life and therefore God, and not an end of life or an end in life or of God. If death were an end, it would mean God has ended, in which case the universe would end too. It is certain that God is alive for the universe is still around and kicking. Man does not wish for death, which means that he refuses to embrace God, since death is part of His manifestation. Man cries and laments over death not knowing that he is lamenting a form of God and his manifestation.
Man has not understood God, life and death, or His manifestation, i.e. the world, man and mind. He merely believes there is God and he has many ideas about Him. Man is yet to understand that God does not exist as an idea, or in the manner he believes He does. If it is God who manifests, how could man pray to Him to change his manifestation? Does man know better than God?
Where does God fit in this manifestation? He comes in every moment for life is present every moment. Life or God is the same. God is, therefore, present in every moment. He manifests life every moment and if He does not life will end; there will be death of life in total and not in parts, as the mind is used to thinking. Life cannot end in part or parts. Hence, solitary death that happens in the house, hospital ward or anywhere for that matter, and multiple deaths that happen in wars are all a manifestation of life or God.
God is present and has to be in solitary death and multiple deaths so that they may happen. It is only the presence of God that permits death to happen so that life may continue. Death is a process of sophistication; without the appearance of death sophistication just cannot happen.
Since primordial times life has sophisticated itself to its present state, and further sophistication will continue to happen every moment because God is present in every moment. Since death is an integral moment in this transformation or process of sophistication, it is life or God. God is everywhere and every religion preaches so. If so, God must be present in death too, and He is, but it is a truth that man does not realise.
Man cannot be certain that God created the world, as he was not present during the creation. How can he be certain that God created the world and himself, when he is not certain of his own life or anyone else’s for that matter? He merely believes that God created the world and everything else, including himself. It must be understood that if God created or manifested the world and everything in it, including man, He must be present within everything in the world, including man, to keep them all alive. So, the statement ‘God is everywhere’ holds ground.
If God keeps the world and everything in it including man alive, it must be because of God that the sophisticated world, including the sophistication and the drama of life, is happening, in accordance with His will and plan. Man’s mind too must be a manifestation of God, and man definitely could not have manifested it. He could not have manifested the mind because that would require a mind, which man did not have to begin with, as prehistoric man. The mind came into being in the process of the sophistication of life. If man had manifested the mind, he would be certain about life, while it is every man’s knowledge that he is not.
Man’s belief in God cannot be questioned, neither can his belief in what God likes or dislikes. Man speaks for his God and guards His honour, reputation, prestige and holiness. He is even prepared to die for his belief that God should not be insulted. But spare a moment, would God be insulted by what He has created? Would God be insulted at all? Would that not make God equal to a man with an ego? Does God have an ego that could be insulted? If so, God will also be jealous, will doubt, will be sad, will be worried etc.
Now, towards what or whom would God have such feelings? It has to be towards another God and not towards anything or anybody else, because God would have anything that He wanted. This is what man believes and asks God for, because he believes that God will give him, as He has everything in abundance to go round. With so many people asking for the same thing, it is strange that God has not run out of things that man wishes for.
The beliefs man has about God forces him to defend them, but why should beliefs in God be defended if they were the truth? If beliefs were the truth, it would not require anyone to defend them; they would stand by themselves as the truth. The fact that beliefs have to be defended, along with man’s anger when he is provoked, proves that he is not sure of his beliefs. Has any man asked God whether his honour needs to be defended? Is it possible for man to do that if God cannot himself?
If God needs man’s help to defend His honour, it can only mean that man is more powerful than God. Then he would only need to pray to man and not to God. But who could have instilled such beliefs into his mind? It cannot be man for he neither made himself nor his mind. It is the intelligence of God that manifested these thoughts in his mind so that he might understand that whoever or whatever man is against is only a manifestation of God. Understand that God is everywhere as everything, including man and his mind.
Man is taught to trust God and every religion preaches this fundamental. He is advised to trust God. The fact that he is advised to implies that trust has not happened to man. Since trust has not happened to him in spite of many generations of preaching, what guarantee is there that it will happen? Trust is yet to happen to the man who preaches trust. If trust has happened to him, who advises others to have trust, he will not advise man to have trust. He would in fact be preaching ‘understand that life happens to man and man does not make life happen’. As long as man believes that he is the doer, he will be advised to trust God, and he will never have trust but only expectations. Man neither trusts himself nor his fellow man nor God: he only has expectations of himself, his fellowman and God too.
The blame-game that man involves himself in is proof that he does not trust God, for he has not understood that God is everywhere and manifests as everything. As long as he believes that duality is real he cannot trust God. Duality needs to exist so that he may recognise the meaning of the words within his mind; without it he would not be able to recognise anything, no matter how illusory. Only the illusory can be recognised and never the real, because there is no need for the real to recognise the real, nor would it be possible. The ego cannot either, for the false can never recognise the real. The false is there to be understood as the false and not as real. The understanding of the false as false reveals the real. This understanding reveals God.
Man prays for one arm of duality, and that is to have a good life and not a bad one, but such a life does not exist: it neither has been, nor will be, nor can be manifested. So, man praying for a healthy and prosperous life does not exist for God to deliver on prayer. If such a prayer were to be fulfilled by God, it would necessitate His making the life of man, who does not pray, filled with sickness and poverty. Now what type of a man would pray for a good and prosperous life, knowing the fate that would befall the man who does not pray? Would such a prayer make the man who prays religious or would God have the heart to render the one who does not pray to be sick and poor? Is God or can God be partial? These beliefs exist so that man may understand the illusory world of duality. This understanding is God.
Man prays for peace in the world, but is not the prayer admittance that peace is absent in the world? Would God create a world that is not peaceful? It just cannot be true that He has – it may be that man needs to understand what the world, man and mind really are. As long as he believes that he is the thinker, speaker and doer, he can neither trust God nor find peace within himself or outside. He needs to understand that if God is everywhere it is He who speaks, thinks and does, as and through man. God is beginningless and endless and, therefore, life is too: it is a singular flow that is spontaneous, uncontrollable and unpredictable. Life flows in only one way for there is only one God. This understanding reveals God.
Sickness, mild or extreme, makes man turn towards God. He prays for a miracle to happen, not understanding that every moment is a miracle, which would include the sickness, for it happens and he does not make it happen. The moment, as it is, is a miracle and it cannot be changed for another. In a world that is illusory, the miracle and the sickness too would need to be illusory. Man undertakes many vows that he will fulfil if sickness is kept at bay or good fortune shines upon him. This is part of the trust that is preached for man to have, but is it not God who manifests sickness or misfortune, if any? Why would man manifest these only to suffer later? And if he could, would he? Would he not make life free of sickness and poverty? He would definitely and no question about that. Does it mean that man is more intelligent than God, for he seems to know what is needed and what needs to be prevented? He cannot manifest what he wishes for, nor has God manifested it; nor can He manifest what man does not wish for.
When everything and everyone in the world is God, it is God who allows man to blame, criticise, fight, be jealous and doubt each other so that an understanding may happen that it is towards God that these feelings are expressed. It is God who allows man to be happy, joyous, ecstatic, good etc. towards one another, so that an understanding can happen that it is towards God that such feelings are expressed. It is God who allows man to wage wars, so that he may understand that he does the same at home with one another and thereby to God. It is God who allows man to destroy, so that he may understand that he is destroying God. It is God who allows man to construct, so that he may understand that it is God whom he is constructing.
The chaos seen in the world, the wars, the atrocities of man and animals alike, the natural calamities that occur, drought, untold suffering and misery from which man prays to God to be saved, makes one wonder why God, who is present in every situation of life, does not prevent them or why He allows them to happen. Does God need man to pray that they do not happen? Would God not know that they should not happen?
If everything is allowed by God for man to do, could he do everything as an actuality? If so, then the world cannot be illusory as proclaimed by the enlightened. If everything that is seen and recognised were really God, then it would be impossible to determine which is truly God, for that which is real is eternal, does not change and is everywhere. Hence, whatever is identifiable or man thinks he knows, can never be God. The known has to be illusory and not real - even the knowledge of who God is, or is not.
Then who or what could God be? God or life is energy, which is light. Since God is light, everything in the world, including the world, man and his mind, needs to be a reflection of this light. Light is energy, which transforms from one form to another. This transformation is a process of sophistication. The process reflects an optical illusion of form, shape and consistency and an auditory illusion of different names, multiple belief- systems, varied fields of knowledge, unlimited situations and God Himself.
Vegetation make sounds, sway with the wind and bear seeds, fruit and flowers that blossom. This is their speaking and doing. Thinking is dormant within them, yet present. Animals make sounds, walk, run, gallop, digest, defecate and procreate. This is a sophisticated version of speaking and doing present in vegetation. Thinking is still dormant within animals, but surely sophisticating every moment. In humans these virtues have sophisticated to appear as thinking, speaking and doing. These happen in humans just as in vegetation and animals, but in a sophisticated form. This sophistication makes man believe that he thinks, speaks and does. It is illusory but not real, for man makes sounds and moves just as vegetation and animals do, but they do not claim that they do. The sound and movement give an optical and auditory illusion of words with meanings and actions. Man is part of nature and is nature, so he cannot be a doer, while the entire nature does not claim to be.
God is light, and not an individual, who watches, judges, controls, punishes or grants wishes if prayed to. And light is intelligence. Intelligence sophisticates every moment and projects an optical and auditory illusion, which is a drama that appears as the real world, including God, that illusory man believes. God is not whom man imagines Him to be. God is life, timeless and thoughtless. The root word for God is good.
The world appears in the morning and disappears in the night, both of which are illusory too. Life is timeless and thoughtless, while the mind is thoughts and time too. This optical and auditory illusion reflects the drama of life. It is not real and, therefore, could be admired for its perfection and precision. The real cannot be admired or experienced for even an experience is a thought and not an actuality, as it is believed to be. Everything is a gift from God and God is within the gift.
© Copyright V. S. Shankar 2008
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