Creation Theory

I am not so sure if God created man/woman or whatever. But it appears that man did create God. Every major religion in the world today, has some story around the creation of a man and a woman. The most popular across the world, atleast the Christian and Muslim world, is the story of Adam and Eve. Hindu literature speaks of Manu, who was the first man created by God. There is an entire page on Wikipedia, that is dedicated to the first man and or woman.

However, the more i think about it, the more i am certain, the story is entirely the opposite. God was created by man, not necessarily the first man. He had to. There was simply no way to control the unruly masses. Some form of laws were important. Laws alone were not enough, because, people probably found out that, they could break these laws, without having to worry about punishment. Talk about a flawed justice system. There had to be a higher being, that we all feared and willingly accepted as lord. The punishment for sins and rewards for good deeds were perceived, and not real. I am sure you understand how easy it is to convey perception of pain or reward, than the actual reward itself. Man, bestowed by eternal greed, fear and despair or by the quest for bliss and joy, can be influenced more by a promise than anything tangible.

God is invented or created by man, with a form of his likeness. This God is then presented as someone to be feared, and so must be appeased. The likeness then takes on fearful appendages and weapons. Or sometimes the God is merciful, and then is cloaked in white to signify purity and peace. The imagery must be the reason why some of the newer religions, atleast one in particular, require that there be no image at all to represent God. But even this attempt has not been fully successful, because people have attempted to fabricate alternates, like symbols to personify or equate to God.

The biggest causation for this theory is the medley of God and religions. Each religion has its God. Many of the newer religions, that originated in the Common Era (CE), have one or more Prophets, holy books, and its house of prayer. Each conceivably, distinct from the other. But, each new religion or faith, simply modifies  the set of beliefs in practice at that time. The hope and intent is for Man to evolve into something better, but invariably it can also regress or simply diverge. Man constantly evaluates the moral code structure and wants to gravitate to something different.

Few of the older religions, Hinduism in particular, professes polytheism, and provides its followers an array of gods and goddesses, and also demons and evils. The more the merrier, seemed to be their philosophy. Even the later religions that profess monotheism have not been able to control its followers, and have them adhere to its basic tenets. Many of them have varied branches, that can be radically different from the claimed origins. Man, it seems will not be bound down, when it comes to him and his God. He is more than willing to experiment, and if required another God to suit his tastes.

And finally, if God did really exist, she would clearly have done a better job, than create this species, which manages to invent unique ways to find unhappiness.

Oru Jati, Oru Matham, Oru Daivam Manushyanu

These were the words of Sree Narayana Guru, it simply means, "One Caste, One Religion, One God for all mankind". I was born a hindu, and brought up so. But i also had to fortune to go to schools which which professed a different thought or none at all. My family also helped, because their was no direct imposition of strictures, other than a regular evening prayers, but we were also taught about humanity and brotherhood. My first direct exposure to the concept of one man, one god, or rather one man, many gods (both indirectly preaching the same concept or universal love), was from the singer KJ Yesudas.

I must have been 8 or 9, when life was full of black and white only. Yesudas had come to sing at our school, Bain School (a christian school run by Church of South India), as part of some fund raiser. The crowd was filled with malayalees, including our family. He singing was interrupted after about an hour or so, by some elaborate garlanding ceremony of a whole bunch of people. He soon ended the program, with thanks, but was clearly distraught. The interruption my mother believed was because he sang a few classical songs (bordering on devotional), altho' i dont particularly recall anything specific. We came out and waiting for my dad to pull his car, when we noticed that the real Gana Gandharvan was sitting in a black Ambassador near us, waiting for space to pull his car out. My mother walked up to him, tagging us along, and asked him, "why didnt you sing any Ayyappan songs", to which he pulled a rudraksha chain he was wearing around his neck, showed my mom three or four lockets, one ayyappan, one guruvayoorappan, one jesus and something else. He said, "for me all gods are one", and if we wanted to hear him sing more Ayyappan songs, we could visit his next program in chennai at a local ayyappan temple. The image of the chain extended by his palm, the lockets, and his bearded face mouthing those lines are still vivid in my memory.

This concept was further reinforced at my next school, Asan Memorial. I would later come to know that this founders and the trustees of the school were also devotees of Narayana Guru. But my school prayer was not any elaborate devotional songs, but a simple recital of a sloka by our painting master. And if he was absent, then we said the 'Father in heaven', christian prayer recited by our piano teacher, and sometimes a few small prayers by others. 

I came to fully understand and know about Narayana Guru much later. I remember passing the temple dedicated to him at Vepery, in Chennai, wondering who this man was. I also thought it was some jain cult or some nondescript guru from the north of India. When i did come to know of him, i still wondered this temple had his statue. I am yet to understand that, and more on this a little later.

A Doordharshan program in the 80's, introduced me to Sree Narayana Guru. The single biggest thing that struck me most about him, was the temple he opened in Kerala, were he consecrated a mirror as the prathishta (idol), to be prayed. Already a little attuned with the philosophy of Adi Sankaracharya, i was amazed by this simple yet sublime act. In one stroke, he displayed eloquently the Advaita philosophy. I interpret this as, 'pray to the god that you see in you', or 'you are the god you seek'. Of course, understanding this and appreciating these will require a lot more learning and discipline. But this temple would help bring this concept closer to the people, instead of some abstruse philosophy.

More readings and understandings, brought forth, the revolution he started in Kerala, changing its culture and traditions forever. I always abhorred the caste system, and never felt that true hinduism ever preached it, or practiced it, they way it was done in last few centuries. Narayana Guru's action to break these barriers and to educate people about these malpractices were the other actions that endeared him to me.  And before i forget, his teaching was again reiterated, by a song sung by Yesudas, 'Oru Jathi Oru Matham', in a music cassette of  songs and poems written by Narayana Guru.

This mantra has always reverberated in my mind and soul. We are all one, we just seek different paths to reach our goals. There is no need to play on these differences. Every religion, seem to agree that there is only one god. But the followers take that to mean that the other gods are somehow illegitimate and/or non-existent. Instead of understanding the unanimity professed, people accentuate the anomaly. It is therefore, important to once again reiterate these teachings.

What is Om?

What is Om or Aum? The chart and the explanation for Om was what i took from the discourses of Bhagavad Gita, by swami Chinmayananda. He put it very simply, that Om is like 'x' in an algebra equation. An unknown, that we seek to find. We dont know who God is, so we shall represent him with a symbol, and that symbol is Om. He used this chart to show how the body, mind and intellect interacted with Om or God.

BMI chart as used by Swami Chinmayananda.

Of course there is more to Om, than just what i picked and highlighted here. But i found this very succint and stuck in my head. Now take this thinking a bit forward, like other math equations or logical reasoning. If Om were to represent God, it then represents any God. So no matter what name we call that being, it could then be represented with this symbol Om. Or rather another way to look at it is, to say people have replaced the symbol Om with names. Names they like to hear, names they like to say, names they like to sing, names they like for what it means, or names they like because of what it represents and many other reasons.

For me such a name is Krishna. I have my own reasons to pick this name, the image, the characterisation, the teachings etc. But yet, to me, he is just a god, could be any god, or could be used to represent any other god, as all others being an avatar of him. So i have replaced Om, in my equation with Krishna. Right or wrong, it works for me.

Krishna

What is it about Krishna that attracts me ? Well, what is there not to be attracted to this icon? One of the few gods, that appeal to children, women, men, young and old, and even the rogues
? I think i must also thank NTR for my liking of Krishna. He is the one who constantly played the role of Krishna in movies. That was an image that stuck in my head for a long time, till Nitish Bhardwaj carried it off, with the same elan.

No its not about the image alone. There is the message. Numerous, tho some attributed to him, but you cant discount the whole Bhagwad Gita, which is his song to us poor souls. His vision for our salvation. There is so much in there and i have only scratched the surface.

I was born in Trishoor, Kerala. I grew up in Madras (now Chennai), but Trishoor was the place i lived every summer vacation for first 16 years. My grandmother (ammooma) was the first to introduce me to Krishna. I was also fortunate that i lived near the Thiruvambady temple in Trishoor. Between the sanctity of this temple and the stories narrated by my ammooma, i fell in love with this character who stole butter, irritated the towns people, women folk and other cowherds, played the fool with his brother and family, always caused worries for his mother but most importantly had his heart in the right place. It must have mirrored some of my qualities as a child. Think of it, so here is a god, that does everything you do as a kid. Now why would you conjure up anyother person to protect you from evil and bad dreams. Hanuman comes close, but then he is half monkey.

As i grew up, i was introduced to the Krishna, who saved his village form the wrath of another god, Indira. He did this, when Indira was angry because the people prayed to the mountain Govardhan instead of him. This story of Krishna taught me that rituals are just that rituals, and truth lies elsewhere. The Krishna in Mahabaratha was the epitome of all things right. His means to achieve dharma, also seemed so appropriate in todays worldly sense. He didnt hide behind all things godliness. He believed in the end, good must win, evil must be vanquished.

The ultimate revelation was the story of about Krishna's death. He died because he was not above the rules of his own dharma. He died to pay for his sins from a previous janma. It doesnt matter what these stories are, what matters is the hidden truth you see. And each person has to read and understand this on their own. My ammooma narrated these stories and explained her rationale, i took what i wanted and made some on my own

To me, these two lines from Bhagawad Gita, defines my entire purpose of religion and life.

karmaNye vaadhikaaraste maa phaleshu kadaachana|
maa karma phalaheturbhuu maate saNgotsvakarmaNi||"

Soon, for me, every god became just another name for Krishna. Talk about avatars. This was more than that. I used to call his name, no matter which temple i went, no matter which god i prayed to.

I am still far away from nirvana, as i have to pay for all my sins i have committed and a few i am working upon. I think it will take a while before i see the paramatma as described by Krishna. Till then, i have only one lord and god to look up to.

Only one God

There is only one god and his name is Krishna.

This might border on conceit or narcissism, given that people from other religions, or even other Hindus may find this very offending. But this is my opinion and this is my blog. And this is not an attempt to offend others, their gods or other gods. My point is simple, all religions speak the same message, that, ‘there is only one god’.

Some of them even name him or her in their scriptures. While there are a lot of references to this in the Hindu scriptures too, they don’t always point to the same name or icon. Krishna, has always declared himself as god, also acknowledges the presence of others in the Hindu pantheon. In this blog, i am not going to into details about why Krishna, but i hope to blog about that too. The character itself is of special meaning to me, and hence the choice becomes easier to make.

We call him or her by many names. Even Hinduism and related offshoots, allows the acceptance of pretty much anything and everything as god or an icon for god, specifies that these are mere substitutes for the bigger and all containing ‘Brahman’. Newer religions have attempted to reduce this level of confusion by mandating that there be only one god. But even they have failed to enforce these strictures.

People find it difficult to associate the philosophy of religion and the meaning of scriptures to their daily lives. To many, if not all, scriptures and philosophy are of profound meaning, to be contemplated about, but when it comes to practice, any and all straws that will help keep them afloat, can and will be treated as god.

While i am not very different, i have been able to exercise some prudence. I try to clutch at straws, but i call them all the same, Krishna. I look up on at all the same, but then what i see is only one image, and that of Krishna. This is not something romantic or idealistic, but more an issue of practicality. It is easier to call out to one person, than to reach out to the rain, sun, earth, wind, money and love gods.