Hindus- God and Fear

 We are human beings and we have the power to think and we all speculate inside our heart and wanted to know the meaning and purpose of our lives. We all wanted to know that why we are born in this world. We wanted to know that who made us and for what purpose we are here in this world. We all feel that there is some supreme power that is running this world and designed purposely our birth and send us on this earth. We all feel that someone is looking to us, watching us, monitoring us and he wanted us to walk on the right path shown by him. We all feel that if we fail in fulfilling his purpose or any duties it is because the supreme power or god designs this because he is testing us.

And after speculating inside us we all universally together feel, sense and experience and believe that god has created this world and god has made us for a purpose. The creator is there who bring us in this world and wanted us that we do good things as he is watching us every time, every minute and keeping watch on us. We, as human beings, fear the god, the creator, frightened and scared of him because he is watching us and we do not wanted to betray him because the creator, the god, the divine will be angry and thus sensation of fear emerge in us.

When we fear god then we feel really bad because the god or the divine will be angry with us and because the anger of god will certainly do bad to us either by bringing bad luck or that he will not bless us. We fear and fear whole of our life because we do not want that god should punish us. The god is the creator and the god is the one who bring us in this world because of some purpose. The god is the master and we are slaves to him.

This is the average and common spread feelings in devotees that are worshiping thousands of stones and statues and maintaining hundreds of rituals and superstitions every day. We always try to please the god because we fear him and do not wanted him to made him angry, We fear every time and every day and in every thought and whole life keeping our self busy in making the god happy. We really do not ask question that why the god whose every wish has been fulfil then what wish he left for creating such imperfect world.

 

Gaudpada- the Vedanitist said, “Some say that creation is the expression (Vibhuti) of god, others maintain that it is like a dream (Swapana) or an illusion (maya), some believe that is the will (iccha) of god and others say that is for god enjoyment ( bhoga) and some declare that is proceeds from time (kala) while other say that is a sport (krida) of god. But it appears to be so that what desire can god have who has realized all desires.”

“In fact there is no creation at all, if this world of plurality really existed it will surely come to an end, Duality is only an appearance, non duality is the real truth. Reality is non organisation, it always remains the same, and causality is therefore impossibility. It cannot be proved that samsara, the universe is without beginning but has an end. That which exists neither in beginning nor in the end cannot exist in the middle also.”

In Hindus, particularly there was no concept of god and the Hindu started with the concept of ‘Aham Brahma Asmi’ (I have myself a Brahma). For Hindus, the god was not creator of us and therefore he has no purpose to bring us in this world. The god in past, was not running the life of Hindus but the theory of karma dominated us to fulfil the purpose of living our own lives.  The Hindu rationality included in Philosophies, Upnishads and Vedas never advocated that god created us or god has any purpose for bring us in this world.

“The self is hidden in all bring and does not shine forth but it is seen by the subtle seers through their sharp and subtle intellect. Rise awake having obtained your boons understand them, the sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over, difficult is the path to the self the wise tell us,” Katha Upnishad of the Yagur Veda. 

B. Russell said that every pow4erful emotion has its own myth making tendency and this myth making faculty is often allied with cruelty. For Hindus the ideology of life was so democratic that in past anything that came with logic and reasoning was accepted  because Hindus were not adamant like Christianity that mother marry was virgin and they have to accept without any evidence. The new ideology and concept of Buddha and Mahavira was accepted because the made a rational mark.  Hindus were never adamant that what are written in their holy books are gospel of god and therefore the diversity of culture and thinking prevailed on this land for hundreds of years.

But the tendency of being too democratic bring downfall in corrupting the original ideology of Hindus and later therefore we started accepting everything and anything without using logic and loosing rationality. Havell in Aryan Rule in India said, “Vedas represent the culture of a race of warriors, poets and philosophers who despised the art of commerce and lived mostly by agriculture. They built no temples but worshipped Nature spirits with simple sacrificial rites.”

Life for Hindus was simple and they have four Ashrams including Brahmacharya, Grastha, Vanprasta and Sanyasa. And for Hindus the matrix of life was Karma and according to Karma everyone get the result accordingly. There was no fear of next life but rationality of coming out from the cycle of birth and rebirth was the main aim. There was no greed, no remorse and no hunger for wealth. Life for Hindus were simple and so the society and religion.

But influence of religions like Christianity where god created us and god wanted us to praise him to secure a luxurious seat in heaven or influence of Islam where we are slave and almighty is our master and he will punish us whenever we try to betray him. These religions overcome and shadowed the Hindus thoughts who knew that ‘Aham Brahma Asm’i (I am the Brahma). Now we, Hindus remain busy in pleasing the god or gods every day, every minute and every time so that he will shower his blessing on us. We, the Hindus lost the dignity of hard work and theory of karma.

And we still feel and proud to be the oldest civilization in the world but with skins wrap on our soul of other religions and becoming slave of rituals and superstitions. We feel proud that we had rationality and scientific attitude of life but follow those rituals and customs that are unnatural and never were the part of Hindu ideology.

 

I asked many youths of Hindus that what they think of god. One of a student preparing to be engineer is going bare foot to temple to please god so that he can get good marks. A science teacher of high school offer prayers for two hours in a temple and feed grass to cows on road instead of teaching scientific attitude to students. One of the youth said that he feel that there is some power and that is god but he really miss the concept that he himself is the power as stated in Vedas.

Now Hindus are worshiping in temples, feeding cows, feeding dogs but went away from their karmas of respecting parents, helping needy and working hard to support their families. All philosophical thoughts in Hindus advocated that greed, stealing, jealousy and envy should be left apart and simple life was the theme of beautiful way of living in Hindus.

 At present Hindus think that god is their creator and to please the god or gods will make their lives easy and have showers of blessing. The neo- Hinduism made Hindus more cowards, lazy and greedy, jealous and keeping envy from everyone. When they saw someone developing through hard work they do not wanted to compete but went to the shelter of god for two reasons, first they wanted our self to be rich and to punish the one who is developing through hard work.

And therefore for Hindus there is god and therefore there is fear of god and they lost the self confidence of Aham Brahma Asmi and they lost the self reliance of better life and they think it is the easy part to worship god for good life rather than moving on the path of hard work, karma and path of ethics.