God?

Lets start with my definition of God.  Unlike Descartes who starts on a 'zero base', I will start with the presumption that God is the Creator of this Universe... of everything we see.  And, if it turns out that it is not God, who is the creator, we will stay with our definition and change the term God to whoever is the ultimate Creator. 
Now, if we are discussing God, I guess it stands to reason that we look to Saints, Sages, Mystics and Prophets to enlighten us - or to seek clarity on any issue.  For, these are the names we have given to people who focused their energies on God.

In that spirit, if we need to understand God better, we need to see what these authorities have said about Him (By the way, will use the pronoun 'Him' and 'He' for the sake of convenience alone.  No gender, or even human, bias is intended.)  Going by most accounts, the Creator is certainly not a human being. He has been variously described as the Word, Love, the Holy Ghost, Energy, Force, etc. Terms like Father or Mother to describe the Creator are poor metaphors used by us, to describe the indescribable, based on our own relationships. Many Hindu, Sufi and Christian mystics have in fact described the Creator as a Sound or Word.  The Hindu Om and the Sufi Kalma are other pointers.  But more of this later.


For man to think of the Creator as a human being – except with more hands or more heads, or with wings behind him or a with kindly eyes and a halo around him – or for that matter, in any shape or concept, is but a pathetic output of man’s own imagination. It cannot bear any resemblance to truth.  There is a Buddhist story which liken this effort of man to the story of the blind men trying to describe an elephant.  One who has felt its legs talks of it as a pillar and another who has felt its sides, as a wall.  At least these blind people had touched some part of an elephant.  Most of us have not even seen God, much less touched him (if He is amenable to the sense of touch, that is!).  So, for our purposes, we need to stay with the fact that at least in our present state, God is indescribable.

And, yet, such is the human predicament that he cannot but think of God.  Witness this pre-occupation with every community, every tribe, every continent!  Man invariably comes up with a concept of God that suits him best and then goes about worshipping Him.  That's the other 'co-incidence'.  It is one thing for men everywhere to come up with the idea of God, quite another for all of them to consider Him worthy of worship.

Most of this worship is done with the intention that somehow, by falttering - or otherwise getting in to the good books of God, we can ask Him to fulfill our wishes!  The mystics and saints however cautioned us against this,  They argue that God is pleased only if we worship Him for Himself - not for his creation. They typically recommend falling in love with God himself, as the ultimate blessing - for reaching everlasting happiness.
This makes sense from a human perspective.  The wealthy man, much as he likes to be fawned upon, would like to believe that his fans are attracted to him and not just to his wealth. 
Now, if we go by this and set ourselves the objective of falling in love with God, we immediately encounter the problem of His being indescribable!  For man to fall in love with or even be devoted to an invisible, incomprehensible energy or sound is nothing short of ridiculous, even laughable.

That's where we reach a big decision point.  We will address this issue and take it to the next point in my next post.

Meantime, please feel free to let me know how we are doing...