Redefining the concept of God

Humans have evolved with a faith and belief circuitry in their brain. This is also called the God's module, as it is responsible for our Faith in God.

Thus the existence of a belief mechanism inherent, necessitated the invention of the concept of God. Every civilization, society and even tribes have this concept. Most started with multiple gods and then culled it to just one God. Hinduism and its derivative, Buddhism went for the next lower number, from 1 to zero. Thus both these religions have provisions for the possibility of non-existence of God.

Though the evolution of thoughts have facilitated the concept of multiple to a single God; Most of all the evolutionary concepts are still preserved within their folds. Just as evolution from reptiles to mammals does not make reptiles extinct automatically, so does the evolution of zero god progressing from multiple to one, does not make people who still carry the belief of multiple gods extinct. However, people should be aware of their options, so they can choose their belief system.

Since all of us have a faith and belief circuitry embedded in our brains, and given that we do need a concept of God; further given that the God concept, as it stands today, is at least 2000 years old. Why not consciously re-invent God?

For the current concept of God, He is not omnipotent, because He has a nemesis, the Devil.

We can't use the politically correct "he or she" for God, because 2000 years ago, when this God was invented, it was a male dominated society and anyone familiar with the Bible will know that women were treated less kindly than animals.

God does not have jurisdiction on Hell. So He is not omnipresent as well, since He is absent from Hell. He is not kind, for He often punishes human-kind severely for failing to praise Him. He is whimsical, for He is prone to break His own laws, just to dole out favors to those undeserving people, whose only merit is to flatter Him.

So, given that the current God concept is outdated and obsolete; What should be the new concept?

Lets say, God should be Fair, Omnipresent and Omnipotent and should therefore be politically correct.

Thus God can't be either male or female, so lets reject the anthropomorphic model of God.

Best to make God inanimate, so lets refer to God as It.

God could not have consciously created this world, because of two reasons. God is beyond desire, and if a perfect God had designed this world there would not have been any cruelty nor death. No sins by design! Therefore, there would not be a Hell necessary. If there was no hell, then a perfectly design World would be Heaven! This earth is not that, so it has not been designed by God.

If God has to be omnipresent and omnipotent then God has to exist in Quantum dimensions. and, since we know that at Quantum dimensions mass and energy only exist and that they are interchangeable. We can easily call the Omnipotent and Omnipresent Quantum mass-energy as God.

The side-effect of the interplay between mass-energy at quantum level results into the illusion of space-time. Thus the world as we see it, is NOT designed by God, but God is the fabric that makes the world.

Yet, God is not responsible for good nor evil. The concept of God is beyond good bad or ugly.

Purity

Purity only gives. Never wants
- Suzlon advertisement, Economics Times, 10-Jan-07

Pragyartham

प्रञ्येति यथार्थं।
प्रञ्येति भूयं॥
प्रञ्यार्थं भूयं।
यथार्थं भूयं॥


Itrans format of the Shloka:

praJNyeti yathArthaM .
praJNyeti bhUyaM ..
praJNyArthaM bhUyaM .
yathArthaM bhUyaM ..


What we think is our only reality.
Our thoughts are our being.
We exist for our thoughts only.
That is the only meaning of being.

(c) Ashish Banerjee, www.Ashish.Banerjee.name

Shiva Shakti and Yoga-Maya

Life is a journey towards our Destiny. Shiva is our destiny. Shiva is the metaphor for the concept of Death. Shakti, in Hindu mythology, is the better half of Shiva. Shakti is the metaphor for the life forces.

Shakti by its very nature is flowing, always moving and never stops. We move towards our destiny pocessed by Shakti. Shakti is thus the mother, the giver of life and its sustainer. when we get tired, unable to keep pace with life; the Shakti must leave us behind. For, Shakti, by its very nature must flow on.

As we stop walking, devoid of Shakti, we lie down. Shiva, the destiny, takes compassion and comes to us.

Devoid of all desires, Shiva accepts us; And, we unite with Shiva, our destiny. we loose all our identity. This is Moksha.

Shiva is the father, for without death there cannot be life.

In the Kali imagery, the Shaki stands upon Shiva! meaning that the death is the foundation of life.

Life builds upon death. This inter-play of duality of Shiva and Shakti is all but apparent. Apparently, this is a duality, but in reality its Unity. Ardhnareshawara metaphorically represents this reality of Unity of the apparent duality. Thus the unified cycle of life and death is represented by kalachakra; the great wheel of time.

But, this duality of life and death is an illusion; the illusion of Yoga-Maya. Yogamaya is infinite, that is Shunya. In sanskrit, shunya literally means nothing, and represents both infinity as well as zero. This nothingness is everything.

Here is its sanskrit shloka:
Itrans format:

shivaashaktisyacyevaM pravijayate yogamaayaa ./
yogamaayastu dhuritaM kAlachakraM ././
kAlachakraM sarvaadie iiti ./
sarvaadie iiti shunyaM ././

Unicode format:
शिवाशक्तिस्यच्येवं प्रविजयते योगमाया।
योगमायस्तु धुरितं कालचक्रं।।
कालचक्रं सर्वादि ईति।
सर्वादि ईति शुन्यं।।

ॐ नमो शिवाय॥

Deepak chopra on Richard Dawkins

My Comments Deepak Chopra's take on Richard Dawkins:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/the-god-delusion-part-4_b_34842.html

Re: Do you think you are conscious and intelligent, or are you being fooled by random chemical reactions inside your skull?

Yes, its called Maya in Hinduism. IMHO, consciousness emerges in higher dimension as an self organising processes at molecular level.

And, this leads us to the Free Will debate. The question is if the consciousness emerges out of quantum dynamics, then where is the free will? And, the karma is predicted by the initial conditions at the start of the current cycle (or Big Bang if you please) of the Universe.

My hypothesis is, that though consciousness is the projection from neural network of our brains and at yet lower dimensions its quantum interactions; The higher level influence the lower level through a feedback system. Just like in computers, a software program influences the electrons flow in the transistor etched on the silicon chip, and yet the software is manifested at electron level within the same silicon chip, what we call RAM.

Re: then we must assume that throwing water and salt together--along with about six other basic building blocks of organic chemicals--suddenly makes them intelligent...

again the answer is Yes! only the process of self organisation took a few billion years.

If you wish to give God the credit for this creative intelligence, go right ahead and do it, I have no problems with that; as long as, that God, that you created, does not answer personal prayers by breaking the laws of the nature.

(c) 2006, Ashish Banerjee, www.Ashish.Banerjee.name

Illusions by Richard Bach (ISBN 0-440-20488-7)

Illusions is a mystical first person narrative of a lonely biplane pilot, who makes his living by selling air rides for $3 for ten minutes. He gets an imaginary friend and Messiah called Donald Shimoda, with whom he tries to reconcile the preachings of the Bible, the modern physics and the Indian mystic concept of Maya (illusion).
Twice in this narrative the imagery of this imaginary friend borders at schizophrenia. Once when he meets the Vampire and the other time Don is assassinated. The two underlying Christian beliefs, that is of the second coming of Jesus and the violent death that the Messiah must suffer for the salvation of the humankind; are intricately woven in the story. The Indian concept of Maya (Illusion) and that of concept of rebirth is also used as the fabric of the narration.
Richard introduces two innovations that of the God is not referred as He but Is. The second being that imagination is sought to replace faith as the foundation of one's religion.
He attempt to straighten the triangle into a straight line. The vertices's of the triangle being Maya, Christianity and science.
Overall a readable book, if one is comfortable with the concept of Maya.

(c) 2006, Ashish Banerjee, www.Ashish.Banerjee.name

Scientists and Their Gods

My friend Ranjan sent me this link:
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/schaefer/docs/scientists.html
I would like to share my response to this beautifully written article above.

Re: This is a story from the end of Landau's life....
I did not get the meaning of the Landau's death bed story. Are they saying that if he believed in God, then and only then God would have saved him? Or does it mean he would have died with a false hope of after life?
and
Re:Chandrasekhar : But I have a feeling of disappointment because the hope for contentment and a peaceful outlook on life as...

I think it is possible to be enlightened about a possibility of No God AND be happy. The whole world is an illusion created by our mind, yes its called Maya in Hinduism. And, this illusion can be as horrible or as beautiful as you want it to be.

I meditate regularly and feel ecstatic, its the goal to reach from Sakar (manifested) to Nirakar (un-manifested). One must realize the beauty of Yoga Maya.

Even Jesus, realized it when he said" The Kingdom of God is witin us" Luke 17:21
In Hinduism we say Mandir, that is maan ke andir (inside us).

So concept of a personal God is NOT useless, it is the first stepping stone to enlightenment. A journey from Saakar to Nirakar.

We humans have a God circuit built within us during evolution. So, we need God, and necessity is the mother of invention. Thus all civilizations invented the concept of God.

There is a beautiful insight given by a poetry derived from Brihadaryanaka Upanishad mantra 30, Canto 28.

Lead me from the unreal, to the Reality;
Lead me from the darkness, to the Light;
Lead me from the finite, to the Infinity.

(given below is the Unicode formatted Sanskrit text, you need to turn on Unicode support to view them properly)
असतो मा सद्गमय
तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय
मृत्योर्मामृतं गमय।
asato ma sadgamaya
tamaso ma jyotirgamaya,
mriityor ma amriitam gamaya |

Here is more if you would like to know about my thoughts:
http://ashishbanerjee.blogspot.com/2006/05/neo-vedanta.html

Neo Vedanta

Hindu religion has been evolving even before the Aryans brought Rig Veda to India.

I believe that India had a form of Shaivism existing prior to the invasion of the Aryans. Images of Shiva and Nandi have been excavated from the Mohenjodaro and Harappa, which was a pre-Aryan civilization. Also Rig Veda criticizes the Dravidian people for worshiping Phalus, which is an obvious reference to Shiva Linga. Also Rig Veda refers to Krishna as their enemy awaiting them across Yamuna with a 10,000 strong army. Also the Hindu mythology, including Ramayana is full of conflict between Devas and Daysus. The conflicts were resolved mostly by violent means and finally the caste system evolved as a solutions for peaceful co-existence.

Thus from multitude of gods and deities; emerged the Tri-Deva or the Hindu Triumvirate of Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva, the destroyer (or the change agent).

The Triumvirate was then evolved to Shiva Shakti duality. In scientific terms Shiva is a metaphor of mass and Shakti, the metaphor of energy. The mass and energy interaction results in the creation (big bang), continuation (current expansion) and destruction(Black hole) of the Universe. This duality gave way to singularity, thereby emerged Vedanta which is a Monist religion. It allows for questioning the existence of God, stopping just short of admitting to atheism. One of its conclusions are : इश्वर असिद्धेय

iśvara asidheya, that is, the existence of God is unprovable.

Here it is worthy of mention, the famous sutra : अहं ब्रह्म अस्मि (Aham Brahma Asmi) or I am Brahman. This is not an egoistic statement but has a deeper meaning. It states that that, since Atamn = Brahman , it is the reflection of Brahman, that is our mind (or atman), creates this illusionary image of this world as it appears to us. Thus when we say that Bhraman created this world we mean that our mind is the creator of this illusionary world.

Our mind is Atman. Atman is an instance (or reflection) of Brahman. As we meditate on Brahman. The subject (Atman) and the object of meditation (Brahman) becomes one. The distinction between the object and subject melts away. This results in shunyata or nothingness.

This nothingness is everything.

There are two types of Maya (or illusion). Persistent Maya and impersistent Maya. Dream is an example of impersistent Maya whereas World is a persistent Maya, that is, it exists yet is unreal or an illusion.

In scientific terms, we perceive a crystal as an solid object yet at atomic dimensions it is mostly empty space. Thus our mind creates an illusion best suited for our survival in this illusionary yet persistent world.

Hinduism has a wide philosophical base and allows for questioning the basics, thus it allows for both theist and atheist practices and philosophies to peacefully co-exist and exchange ideas.

Scott Adams God's Debris is a good example of how Vedanta has influenced post modern western philosophic thought.

The concept of God is like the Horizon, it moves farther away as we advance in our knowledge. We have moved from natural phenomenons as acts of Gods in Rig Veda to concluding that the existence of God is unprovable to finally questioning the need for God in Neo Vedanta.

(c) Ashish Banerjee, www.Ashish.Banerjee.name,2006