I find it difficult to explain to people that I do not believe in Ram, Krishna, Shiv, Vishnu, Parvati and the gang. To me, they are stories. You know, like batman, james bond, ethan hunt, chacha choudhary and so on.
Some guy woke up one fine morning and decided to write a story. He wrote about a guy named Ram who was supposed to be the ideal man in the society at those times. Ram was the ideal which men in those times should strive to be - respect their parents, never go back on a promise, pack their wives off to the forest and so on. For effect, he was awesomely cool with batmobile kind of vehicles, flying buddies and super powers. This story was passed down through the ages and people were expected to be like Ram.
Fair enough...
...Till I am expected to fold my hands and pray to him. He is an ideal man (that too, not in my opinion). He is not God. I will not pray to him.
Again, this is my opinion and the same holds true for Krishna, Shiv and the gang. For that matter, the same holds true for Allah, Jesus and the others.
At this point, I would like to clarify that I believe in God. Only she has no name or form for me. She does not live in a temple and she would not hurt me if I don't suck up to her.
Coming to the point, I keep having these religious faith discussions with some hapless souls who cannot pour petrol on me and burn me because I'm their friend and they basically love me enough not to do that. (Thankyou Ram, Allah, Krishna, etc :P). One such hapless soul happens to be sho who is a religious Muslim. I keep attacking him with my usual arsenal of questions: why do you have to pray 5 times?, why can you marry more than once?, why do you starve for 8 hours everyday for 40 days?, and my favorite - why can you not drink when you can smoke?. So much so that he wants to name me 'why'. (For the record, sho does not agree with everything his religion says. Please don't kill me, sho.)
And then one day, tables turned and sho asked me - why don't you eat beef? Nice comeback, I must say. I don't eat beef because I'm a hindu. I don't know why hindus give such a special place to cow and not to any other animal. Even buffalos are perfectly nice animals, even goats or even hen. Cow is supposed to have some very special medicinal or curative qualities which nobody uses in today's date. Hell, I don't even like cow milk.
The end result of it all was that now I'm a beef eating Hindu. (I only had a couple of bites and must say it was yum!)
God, I'm sure, doesn't discriminate between her animals. If I'm going to hell, I was enlisted the day I ate my first chicken dish.
Me
What I read
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Beaches and Isola Bella1 year ago
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The disco ball1 year ago
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The bottom of the bottle4 years ago
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Church, Wash Your Hands4 years ago
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Powdered coffee - seriously?12 years ago
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Auf Wiedersehen Deutschland12 years ago
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Across Mumbai13 years ago
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Um Back!15 years ago
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6 comments:
Honestly u have never understood the concept of god... As u said u believe in god without any form and again y do u confuse yourself with remaining stories.
There is saying in Kannada, I will put it in English here for ur shake... hope u will at least believe in this..
"Ur legs are the pillars,
Ur Body is the temple,
Ur head is kalasa(one on top of temple, i don't whats it called in English),
And
Ur heart is GOD."
Basaveshwar vachana.
Only worship ur heart, the way u want. keep it clean and pure. It mean's lot... there fore always its said ask ur heart(god) before you do anythings then u will never do anything which harms others. let it be killing animals or what ever else u say.
Even if u don't believe in god its OK, at least believe in ur heart. No need to go to temple as ur heart is always with you.
rest are stories...
By the way its none of ur business to say anything about someones imagination.
Stories are written to give wonderful message not too debate on the characters and forget the basic purpose.
Caution: Anyways these are purely my point of view, cause of any anger in any form to anyone is not my responsibility.:-)
Completely agree with you. You don't need to punish yourself for god sake. You like beef?..go ahead.
I think the concept of God is created just to maintain some discipline in the society. It's up to the individual to believe it or not.
It is funny (not surprising though :)) you call God as 'She'.
The concept of god has eluded and amazed mankind since eons. You have just touched the tip of the iceberg with your post.
Even though you evidently do not believe in the personification of "god" or a "supreme power" you do feel a certain connection with spirituality.
Now thats where these "stories" come from. From these connections. And its deeper than you think!
Was good meeting u the other day
Anjaan
... sometimes it's make more sense to believe in self... and then sometimes one has to trust the cabbie... so u enjoy the monsoons, eat cow and save the buffalo's milk! ;-)
Hmmm..the mention of God and religion has evoked so many opinions. Well, to each his/her own, right?
@Cheekya: It is my business to speak about other people's imagination. You are also interpreting these stories your way. So am I.
@Anjaan: People keep saying it's deeper than you think. But can never explain this.
So like @Atul said, I'm going to go about life as usual. I can only do what my head and heart give permission for.
... mentioning God is like mentioning "Ex" ... every one has a unique story to share... some good some better and some better left unsaid... so while i am enjoying the sunny weather here... i am sure the Buffaloes are giving milk in the pub city... take care...
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