Need for Gods

   When we see all these and think about the appearance of life on earth, one feels that definitely there must be a powerful force, an unseen (adrushta) power (shakti) that create and govern all these. There is a higher power that sits everywhere, within us, too, driving the universe as a chariot by a charioteer like Lord Shree Krishna (driving the Chariot of Arjuna) in the epic Mahabharata War. It is He who creates jivas at His Will and pleasure and infuses prana, desires, dreams, ambitions, aspirations, thoughts and ideas, give imagination, forms, and motion and drive jivas around in all their pursuits. We do not believe that “He, the God is within us” and, do not realize that “It is He who breathes in and out within us as the life-force and consciousness!”

   Despite our understandings, we do not know full well how and why there are gods with animal face or gods ridng animals and birds, and even plants and humans behaving like animals?

  There are people who abuse God for their ills. They do not understand the fact that, God has nothing to do with people’s behaviour and actions, for He has given them ‘Free Will’ to do as they like and ultimately pay for it. Also, let us be clear that He, the Lord, has not created anything like a country by name Aryavarta (India), America, Australia, or Africa, nor did He create the Varna (colour and creed), Ashrama and its divisions, dharma such as Brahmin (priestly class), Kshatriya (fighting clan or Royal families/kings), or Vaishya (tradesman), or a Shudra (farmer). Nothing prevents a wandering soul from continuing its journey in any part of the earth taking any form it likes! Sage Vishvamitra may take birth as an Alexander or a Galileo or Newton if he wishes so. In fact, He, the Lord says, “Everything is Him only.” These castes and creeds, the names of States and their divisions and demarcations of boundaries are all of people’s own foolish making! First they mark a boundary and then they cry foul! He, the Lord only exists in all. Is it not a miracle that we live and work together despite all our jealousy, infirmities, ignorance, poverty, squalor and deficiencies as if nothing happens?

 Rishis, discoursing on Brahmn, ask: “Is Brahmn the cause? Whence are we born? By what do we live? Where do we dwell at the end? Please tell us, O ye who know Brahmn, under whose guidance we abide, whether in pleasure or in pain. Should time, or nature, or necessity, or chance, or the elements be regarded as the cause? Or, he who is called the purusha the living self?” [Yajur Veda, Sveta. Upa. Part I, Chapter 1, 1-2].

    The supreme Lord manifests in numerous forms. In the Bhagavad-Gita, “He asserts that, “maya is created in my seeing. People are mesmerised by this maya.”He, the Lord, says, “My maya is so sweet, a person cannot understand how very sweet this ‘I’ is. Oh Arjuna, do not forget me; is you do not forget me, maya will not be able to do anything to you.” Further, He, the Lord, goes on to say, “See the characteristics of maya! She created a huge lake and birds and insects! Observing this, it all appears to be true, but it is nothing. There is no escape from the hands of maya. Yet God saves one who takes refuge in Him. That person alone whom God bestows his grace can escape the hands of maya.”  This ‘i’ is the maya. The jiva goes on saying ‘i did this’, ‘i did that’, and ‘i am so and so’, etc. It disappears as soon gets into deep sleep (sushupti) every night or day. The moment one gets out of sleep, this ‘i’ appears! None has understood where this exists and when it makes its appearance.

   All the problems of the jiva are created by this ‘i’- the ego. "The moment this ‘i’ disappears, the jiva is liberated from the clutches of maya. Maya binds the jiva due to jiva’s ignorance, not due to it power.‘Maya’ disappears the moment jiva looks at it and realizes what it is! Thus, ‘i am’,I, me, mine and you, she, it, they are allmaya. Maya is in a way the hypothetical non-existent, mental creation. This ‘I’ merges in brahmn every night when we are deep sleep and the jiva enjoys a blissful existence unaware of the world! This i only will come out ignorance refreshed after a night-long sleep. “The gross body of liberated souls will decompose when they are discarded; yet, even if the body goes, their spiritual, super-human powers remain; their power does not go.”

The vasanas, karma kleshas form the seedlings for next birth.Every desire, thought, resolve and action becomes a seed for next birth. People unmindful of this go on quarrelling themselves. They create divisions. So long as there is divisive thinking, divisive actions, so long will people are selfish and create sects. If the divisive attitude departs, the upadhi disappears, false identification is destroyed. At the destruction of the upadhi, one becomes aware of one’s divine consciousness. The realization comes when one realizes that “One Brahmn has manifest as many.” When one becomes pure, one will have the understanding that: “I am verily Vishnu. I am a child of Vishnu.”

    Our existence on this planet is almost a miracle! It has no logical or rational explanation. Mysteries surround our birth and death. So far, no plausible explanation is forthcoming for our existence. It seems ‘no purpose is served merely eating and sleeping, whiling away time in seeking joy in extraneous things’. Moreover, all our thoughts and actions, attitudes, behaviour, problems of hunger, disease, old age and death are not in our hands. Life is full of and probabilities. Nothing is certain here. What we see and believe may not be true at all! Things have to be seen in the background of an unstable earth, a vast expansive universe that is ever on the move, a universe of no known magnitude or dimension, and of illusory nature bound by Time and Space. In fact, this Time that creates Space by its movement is by itself an illusion! If Time is illusion, the space created by it as well as the objects that fill it and endure are also illusion. Illusion of illusion is delusion. Thus, there is no end to this delusion, ignorance.

We, as the humans, should realize the fact that we are nothing but specks of dust, star-dust, at that! These jivas or vibrant life-forms are like sparks of fire flying out of flames. Once we realize ‘who we are’, where do we come from, and where do we go from here when we die, or how we give up one mortal body and take another soon after, the ‘Reality’ dawns on us. We are truly the spiritual entity- the atman, embodied in an earthen shell like a pot made of clay susceptible to leakage and breakage. Symbolically, a pot filled with water is broken at the time of cremation of the dead bodies. This signifies the fact that the inside and the outside separated by an earthen shell is no more, and everything is one! 

    However, the purpose of our existence is yet to be defined. The ancient scriptures are our best guides. But, we neither have the complete texts of these, nor do we ever understand their coded language. The story of the arrival and departure of a jivatman on this planet is narrated here. It is an autobiography of the soul. Thus, the soul only speaks here. It is an intuitional knowledge obtained from parame vyoman in yogic trance.