Here’s the problem with asking God for help. In the Gita, Krsna says “I also know all living entities; but Me no one knows”. This gives us the premise that no matter what we do in our lives, God still significantly elude us. This, at least logically, means that even the existence of God cannot be proven or disproven. A great deal of a spiritual life is having a lot of faith, which can be a good thing and a bad thing. I will explore the idea of God from a scientific, rational or “atheistic” point of view, and hopefully bring about an important stepping stone to the path to reach God consciousness. I will express the difficulty of understanding a spiritual or religious practice from my frame of mind.
I think it is very important to maintain a scientific or critical mind when approaching spirituality or religion, as without it you may be lead down a irreligious path by those who wear the same clothes and have the same size of a following as the real gurus, except they are false. I have met spiritual elders that believed that the moon is not a physical place, but a spiritual place. I have met people, who I would otherwise admire or look up to, believe that the mythos of Sita and Rama actually happened, and that Ravana actually had ten heads, or some bending of the story such as Ravanana could regenerate his head in a few seconds. Or perhaps that people, like Hanuman, can grow themselves to be giants at will within seconds, and can shrink to 2 feet tall just as easily. If I claimed that science can allow that to happen, people may be skeptical, but then why do people believe that in a spiritual world this can happen? I believe that people give more leeway to religion than they do science. Religious people believe that their own personal beliefs and experiences do not supersede a sacred text, but science is built on arguments and data fighting against the current norm. I have heard the argument that science is full of contradictions, but I would argue that religion has much more contradictions than science.
Religion for example has clear boundaries and contradictions within itself. In layman terms, the grand unified theory is the problem of being able to understand the world at an atomic level and also understanding the world at a larger scale (like materials a square inch big). We do not have an explanation that ties the macro and micro world together, but the point is, the scientific community as a whole accepts this as a discrepancy that may be solved in the future.
Every religion should be treated with respect, and interfaith communication and acceptance should be encouraged and cherished as part of a long history of harmony. However what the sacred texts say about other religions may not always promote this harmony. I have more things to say about this, such as the idea that every religion has something “no other religion has”, hopefully this is talked about in another blog post.
In science, the general norm or current view is always free to change. This is important when the study of the world is always improving.
When people say religion is a science or there is a religion of scientism, It’s like saying a spanner is a hammer or that a spanner is better than a hammer. You have to use the right tool for the job.
Science is not designed to answer the meaning of life. And religion is not designed to study the universe materially.
The answer is that we expect religion to answer every question. Through my repeated questions about even a part of life of monkhood (celibacy) the religious leaders of my community did not want to fully answer these questions, and seemed sexually anorexic and avoidant even to questions about this. Spirituality can only answer questions regarding spirit. We must separate politics and power struggles from spirituality.
The Buddhist monk who stayed seated in meditation as he was being burned alive was real. The idea that the Ganges is so sacred that despite the immense amount of toxic waste being poured into it, the Ganges will clean itself if left to do so is fake. The material nature of the Ganges needs to be studied by science. The emotional, cultural significance of the Ganges should be studied by religion. Krsna actually coming to this world and performing all his miracles? I believe it is fake. I don’t think that Jesus actually performed miracles, at least on a logical and rational level as opposed to a salient level. Jesus’ miracles have salience, but to me no basis in reality, archaeology or science. To me, the point of Jesus isn’t whether or not he could perform miracles, it’s how his teachings can bring you closer to him. The point of these stories is not that they hold scientific or archaeological validity, but that they mean something on a emotional level, that they describe something we understand but can’t yet put to words.
To know if a spiritual phenomenon is not scientifically true, think of the importance of simplicity. This means straight-forwardness and ease. Think about this as if it were a mathematical proof, such as proof by contradiction. Let’s assume, for sake of argument, that Ravana actually did break and regrow his heads. There is not a single case of someone having their heads cut off and through the power of their own body be able to regrow it in a matter of seconds. In order to make sense of this, we need to accept that the time when that had happened was different to the time now, that there was essentially magic in the air that allowed this to happen. This can be explained as the idea that we live in the kali yuga, where magic like this is a lot less likely to happen in today’s world (which is a concept we need to “prove” as well, as it just sounds like an imaginary explanation which complicates things more). Through prayer alone, Krsna would not grant me green skin even if I prayed and prayed for the rest of my life. Perhaps it is God’s illusory energy that means that we haven’t found a case of boons being documented? Krsna is said to command Maya, which is essentially a veil of illusion or ignorance that the material world has. We can’t fully trust our own thoughts, feelings because of Maya. But now we need to prove and explain God’s illusory energy (another magical concept). Ravana was given boons like near immortality that meant he could go and even consider a fight with a reincarnation of God. We must also do another thing, we have to disregard all of our science about that time, the archaeological findings etc. At this point it is too complicated to accept that Ravana could actually do this, and it is much simpler to say that this is just not true. There is simply too much magic to explain. We should have overwhelming evidence of this, and not have to try and force this belief into our lives. It should be clear that Ravana could do this, but it is not.
I do not mean to insult other peoples beliefs or to humiliate others. I am simply arguing their points against my points. Much like in the scientific community, if I find reason to believe things are not true, it is my duty to argue against it, otherwise I am being academically disingenuous. Conversely, if my idea is proven wrong, then it is not an insult, but rather an idea beating another. There are people who hide their insults in logic or reasoning, but it is honestly not my intention here. Any seeming expressions of frustration or anger should be seen as my deep desire to find spiritual and scientific truth, as they are important to me.
I understand that it might seem like I am being overly verbose or pedantic here, but it is sometimes the simple things that require a lot of thought to prove. And you can apply this blueprint to other parts of your spiritual journey. The gist is as follows. Is there overwhelming evidence for this? Or is there an overwhelming amount of magic required to prove this?
When someone completely takes the vedas or the bible as literally true, I aim to admire their devotion and faith, first and foremost. But at the same time, I will hope to point them to this article whenever we have a difference of opinion about things. This should form the basis of my argument.
Take for another example vehmanas. These were essentially building that could fly. Think of a temple that flies through the sky like a plane. Think of the aerodynamics of a temple. Temples are not built to fly. The air resistance would crumble a temple. So we need to invent something to make it work. We have to say that the temple had some sort of “magic” that allowed it to fly, without regard for drag.
the :~ means defined intuitively. In mathematics := is used for definitions, and I replaced the equals sign with a ~ or an approximation sign.
Magic:~ Something that is not fully explained of understood, that is used to craft another argument or belief. If the magic is actually false, then every other belief must fall or require a new argument or evidence.
In computer science, reasoning, mathematics and elsewhere, the word “magic” is almost like a curse word, in the sense that we should have either extreme anxiety of how much faith we need in this technology, or extreme joy that we now have an emergence of something previously unknown to us. We should be able to explain, rationalise or reason things, and when things are left simply to “magic” i.e what we do not know or haven’t thought through, chaos can ensue.
I have to admit, at least somewhat, that the challenges I face are ones that I alone may not be able to solve. I already rely on giants to help me, asking God for help is just the embodiment of how fragile life is. I am fighting the devil. The multi-billion dollar industry that only cares about profit, and not the fact that our attention span is as important as our relationships, our loved ones, and ourselves. Because our focus enables these things. The fast food industry, the drug industry, the porn industry. They are all heavily armoured and with weapons of mass destruction to our minds, peace and sanity.
I’m struggling to ask God for help as one of my biggest fears in life is depending on people. My biggest fear is saying that I need someone else, on a fundamental level, other than myself and God. What does asking God for help entail? It means that I shape my personality to being more receiving, grateful and of asking for help rather than just giving, and not to idolise rescuing people. To see what other people can do for me rather than what I can do for other people. What I mean is that helping other is important, but allowing yourself to be helped by people is important too.
I woke up this morning begging for Krsna’s mercy.
Asking God for help regularly means that you slowly become God conscious. I’m not talking about asking God for things, like material or social gains. I’m talking about asking God to remove deep rooted personality faults and problems. So that you can see God again. That you have a lacking of something, and you have faith that God will help you in your path.
God doesn’t struggle, have negative emotions to overcome nor give what he doesn’t think he has. So when we struggle for God, give up something that we hold dearly in our live and we may not fully want to give, God accepts and is grateful for that gift. To a being that is perfect, you can give something that even he doesn’t have, that is struggle, hardship, and even seemingly obsessive attachment.
I conjecture that early forms of Religion and views of God were more transactional than what we have now. If your tribe beat another tribe at war, you can say that your God was stronger than their God. As a result, old religions such as Hinduism can be quite transactional. If my family wanted something, they would pray more to God to receive things. In my current religious practice, it is offensive to be transactional.
The relationship with God is an abstract relationship, similar to ones we find in human relationships. If we engage with someone just to gain from them, we are not living our relationship to the fullest. If God gave us nothing, would we still love God?
While praying is helpful at times, praying mainly helps you with the mindset to do whatever you can to help the situation. It helps with the fear and panic.
If you had the option to either take medical treatment or to pray to God to help someone unwell, always seek medical treatment. If the doctors tell you there is not likely to be a solution, then you should prepare for the worst. God might not be there to heal your loved one, if it is not in his plan, but he is there to help you to be equanimous during the tough times, process the emotions, and help the trauma of the situation.
That being said, it is important to note that if your loved one is dying I am not in a position to say God can or cannot help, It is my position to listen only, as John Green said
I feel as though I have more to say but this may not be the time to say it.
To me, salient:~ relevant. Things that are true are not always what is salient, and what is salient is not always true. I would even go as far to say that the things that are true and salient (true and relevant) are actually a lot rarer than we think.
There is no evidence to say that God is real. But it is very obviously very salient to have faith in God vs not having faith.
Just because something has no tangible quality of being real, doesn’t mean that it’s not important or worth trying to understand.
There is things that I want to say about this, and I think this point is incredibly pivotal on my view of God, and this argument should be developed more in the future, but for now I’ll leave it here. Art (in this case the blog article) is never finished, it is only abandoned.
As always thank you for your attention. I have donation links above if you are able to spare the money, and even if not there are ways to support me (like subscribing to my youtube channel).
I hope you forgive me if I was controversial or I sparked negative emotions in you, I mean only to help you on your path to consciousness.