What is God - the summary of all religions

October 19, 2002

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October 19, 2002

I don't think this is a peculiar case with me only. Ever since my child-hood i tried to understand God. In my quest i read almost all Scriptures of almost all the religions. I went to many Ashrams, read many scholars. i wondeed if one has to renunciate like Buddha, behave like Mahavir, be like Asharam Bapu, act madly as Ramakrishna(dressing tranvestite) did.

I passed through various phases of emotions related to God starting with seemingly total devotion to anger and even to the phase of being an atheist. But one thing was there- the more i tried to be away from God, inwardly the more i was drawn to it. Outwardly i became an atheist for a brief period of time but my heart always thought about God.A time came when i was totally confused.

But as is always the case, light comes after darkness. Once while meditating, i got a picture of the whole creation. I don't know if it is a figment of imagination etc but i have got peace and aim of my life with it. According to me, this is the crux of all religions and scriptures. I have come to conclusion that i can attain mukti the way i am and not be carried away by the lives of the Great persons.

I am using this platform to express this view.

The entity called -I- has really two aspects.

1. Tangible - the body or physical aspect.

2. Intangible - the emotions or mental aspect.

Not much is there to be discussed about the physical aspect for it is fairly well understood.

Let us then consider the mental aspect - we all experience the feelings of pain, pleasure etc. At a given place these emotons become a function of time, at a given time it becomes functuion of place i.e. say I am in Bangalore, at various points of time i will have different emotions; at a given time say 8 am, i will have different feelings at different places. Hence the feelings of happiness, sadness; pain, pleasure etc. are dependent on space and time.

Contrast this with the emotion which is neither happiness nor sadness; neither pain nor pleasure. It will be by defintion be independent of space and time.

Hence the intangible aspect of I has two parts:

a. Feelings of +(say pleasure), -(say pain) which varies according to space and time.

b. Feeling of 0(neither pain nor pleasure).

i.e. Mental(I) = Variable + Constant.

The variable can be varied and in the ultimate case can become 0. So in the ultimate case we are just the constant part i.e. one beyond pain and pleasure etc. in shunya.

This is the soul/atma and the variable part is what is called maya. This is our ultimate aim. For this i don't have to follow the path by the so-called great men(whose acts confused the masses more than it did good.)

The aim of all religions, meditation, incantation is to make the variable part null.

God is one with Variable part = 0 and once we do the same we will become one with God.

Now we are living an aimless life, we don't know the ultimate goal. Merely the knowledge of this can be very helpful as i perceive it. This state of zero can be attained in various ways - Bhakti whence all positive, -ve is bestowed to the God who is himself in Shunya, hence one ends up in Shunya; Gyana Yog- the knowledge of this fact that our aim is to go to to Shunya; Karma - not to have either +ve or -ve attachment to karma.

Shumya or Zero was for that reason invented philosophically and not mathematically. Shunya is called Pujyam in Tamil. In the discourses of Shankaracharya, one can find that this matches the desciption of the Yogi. He who is neither sleeping nor awake, who neither is happy nor sad etc.(i.e. in neither of the opposite states, he is in shunya).

Though Gita is very vocal in this, Quran and Bible has this message in a very discreet way.(Bible - We all are born out of sin, but we are ultimately divine in nature. Similar is in Quran).

Regarding the universe i got a very beautiful view; but i am getting late for my bus now. Hence will post this sometimes later.

Please get in touch with me at ajit_kumar@infy.com

My aim is not fame etc. i simply want to spread the message of religion when people are misinterpreting religion according to their whims.