Feb 17, 2009




so.. im back again after a super hectic, tiring weekend of travelling, still trying to get back into the swing of things.

lately i've been spending some time trying to learn about different religions and what they teach, in a quest to understand what life is all about. it's a very interesting exercise, however, far from clearing my doubts its just made me all confused. not that i have read much.. probably like half of the Bhagvad Gita and a few verses from the Quran.. its all written in a language that no one speaks or uses anymore, and so its all open to different interpretations. i know neither Arabic nor Sanskrit and hence heavily depend on the translations and interpretations, which means i can only read some one else's understanding of these holy texts, not the orginal way that God might have intented it to be.

which leads me to think about the whole credibility of religion. if God indeed had revealed these texts to great men in the past, it was obviously done in the language and style that people of those days understood easily and accepted. Obviously God must be aware that times and people change and styles and customs and languages change as well.. why then, can't God reveal the divine secrets or laws of life again to us in a way that we can understand it? In plain simple english.. like..in a blogpost or something.. has God given up on our generation? Is there no hope for us?

then again, this is merely another confusion, a part of my frustration that there are no real answers to my questions.

religious people really believe whatever the Holy texts of their respective religions tell them. Atheists really believe that there is no God. What do I believe? I have no idea.

Not that I dont want to. Believe me, I want more than anything else to have a system, a Guru, a God. Like all human beings, I want to believe that there is a higher power, there is a reason for this silly world, and we are all really going somewhere and all the madness that is this world really has a reason.. but which reason do I believe?

The Quran says that we must follow the rules set down by Allah, and if we sin, on the day of judgement, we will be punished severely. these punishments do seem severe. However, Allah is also forgiving. I assume that the Bible says something similar to that as well. But I dont understand.. how that's possible. Why would God give mankind the gift of free will, and then punish us for our choices? How can God say, you can take road A or road B, its absolutely your wish, but if you take A you'll go to a beautiful, bountiful paradise and if you take B, you will burn in the eternal fire of Hell. That can't be free will can it? No offense, but it sounds kind of sadistic to me. There's seriously something wrong with this concept or my interpretation of it. I'm sure God can't be like that.. there must be some other vital point or logic that we are missing. I want to believe that God is more rational, moderate and loving and not an extremist, no matter what people do.

The Bhagvad Gita, however, doesn't talk about a day of judgement, but of reincarnation. It says that whatever we do out of our free will, we will face the consequences in this world itself, whatever we do, we will think about it deeply at the hour of our death and in this way, we decide the nature of our life and destiny in our next birth, in this way, humans decide their own fate. if we have lived a very pure life and can think of nothing else but God at the time of death, the soul automatically passes on to God, and there will be no more lives. This is the concept of Moksha, or Nirvana. Hell is to be born on this world again and as long as we sin, we will suffer here. Heaven is to do good deeds and attain the realization of God, thus breaking the cycle of reincarnation and attaining freedom. While this is a more liberal or moderate view than the previous one, there are things I don't understand here as well.

Such as, why do we have this cycle in the first place? who are we and how did we accept to be a part of this cycle? did we sign some kind of eternal, binding contract? who made this cycle and for what reason? what is it meant to accomplish? it is believed in all religions that the world will come to an end some day. So what happens when the world is destroyed, to all those souls who are still in the cycle of reincarnation and have not attained their Moksha yet? where will they go? what will they do, since they have not attained the realisation of God yet. there seems to be no answer for that.. or maybe i haven't found it yet.

Is all of this stuff really as serious as we take it. Is it really such a big deal? What if God is just playing a game? What if this is all really just an experiment, or something like a video game. What if we are here just for fun, to play different roles and have a good time. What if in reality, there is no sin and there's nothing wrong to do what we feel like? What if we are just wasting our time in all these rules written centuries and centuries ago, instead of just enjoying ourselves now. or is everyone enjoying, and just me that's confused?

i read a verse in the Bhagvad Gita yesterday that the human eye is not designed to see God. As in even if God showed us, our eye could not see Him/Her. This kind of reminded me of the sound thing we learned in school that the human ear is not designed to hear super sonic stuff. maybe even our brains are not designed to comprehend the secrets of the universe no matter how much we try. maybe me trying to understand all this stuff is as futile as trying to teach an elephant to speak english. maybe i just can't.

but will it stop me trying? will it stop my questions and my quest to find answers? maybe not. im not sure. im still confused.

2 comments:

  1. Lite teesuko..oh this is why u r getting horrible headaches...dont think so much..heheheh .well anywayz..nobody can answer such questions i guess...

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  2. well u really cant say much about it as it is a debatable topic but there's one thing that I woudl like to say and it is that you cannot have a clear picture about it till you have some kind of a experience (good or bad) which makes you realise what is it that is required from you and why is it that you are here.

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