You are safe from no-one these days. The one truth that we all live by is the fact that we can safely blame God for anything without any comebacks from Him. When it comes to me, though, even THAT truth fails. There I go, happily blaming God for being remiss in some things, and the next thing I know He comes over at night to tell me off for it.
God: Where do you get off blaming Me for being remiss?
Me: Wait a minute. Ain't I got no privacy? You been spying on me - that's against the privacy laws.
God: Really? Ever heard of My being omniscient? There IS no privacy when it comes to Me.
Me: You have nothing better than to eavesdrop on me? No wonder the world is going to Hell in a handbasket.
God: Wait a...ah! Contact with humans is corrupting. Why am I sounding off on My powers? After all, you put that up in the public domain, so what is all this nonsense about privacy?
Me (embarrassed): Well - I didn't know you were active on Social media, so how could I know You would know?
God: You had the gall to blame Me for sending different instruction manuals? All of them are similar with only minor differences.
Me: Come on! You do not even have the same appearance in all of them. Some have you looking like You now do - an old, wise man; others have You with supernumerary hands and even heads; still others make You look like ...
God: Why not? You call Me omnipotent, don't you?
Me: What has THAT got to...
God: Do you think, then, that I HAVE to be in one shape? Omnipotent in everything else but forced to remain in one shape?
Me: Not exactly...I could also see you as a Lion, for example.
God: Named Aslan, I suppose. Well - no matter what you think - I can appear and have appeared in any shape I choose to anyone. So, what about it?
Me: Then, what was that about making Man in Your own image?
God: Any image IS My own image, so what about that?
Me: That is as it may be but what do You mean all instruction manuals are similar. They are vastly different. They all seek different behavior from us.
God: Yeah? Tell me. Is not Greed a sin in all of them? Envy? Do I not ask you to love your neighbor..
Me: Come on Lord! Of course, You do not mean that. You meant that I should love him IF he believed in the same things I do, looks the same way I do, talks the...
God: What is this? Some sort of amendments to the Commandments? I do not remember putting in any exclusion clauses to My Commandments.
Me: You must understand that what You ask IS impossible. How can I love my neighbor? If You had known him..
God: I might have excluded him from the requirements? Is that not what you always say? If he gave you all you wanted, looked as you would have him look, behaved as you wished him to behave, and asked nothing in return, why should I even need to enjoin you to do it? Does a starving man need a diktat to make him eat food?
Me: Well - my neighbor is an atheist. Surely You cannot mean that I should love someone who insults You?
God: You really DO think I am like you. But then, when you keep saying that I made you in My image, all you meant was that you conceive of Me as being made in your image. Do you think that I care more for whether a man worships Me than whether he lives the life I seek humans to live? That, unless he is My follower, he is a bad guy and whatever he does is evil?
Me (changing track): Your instruction manuals do say different things about how to treat women, treat different types of people...YOUR messengers said so and THEY ought to have known what is the right way to live. BUT each one has said a different thing.
God: I hear that there was a man called Einstein, who once said, "When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity"
Me: You know I hate physics and are trying to confuse me. What has Einstein got to do with this?
God: Do you think that Einstein said that because he knew that THAT was relativity or was he communicating to suit the audience?
Me (pretending to think): Hmmm...
God (relentlessly) : Or do you think that Einstein was saying that the courting experience ought to be enjoyable ONLY to the man and NOT to the girl?
Me (confused): I do not get your point.
God : You have no intention of getting it anyway, so why do I bother? The point is that My messengers can only open a window on Reality for you. It is for you to see what you will. AND, practically none of you bother to look through the window to see and understand Reality to the extent you can. As far as I can see, the best you do is to start worshiping the window, and fighting about whose window is the real window. Most of you do not even bother to do that - you worship the messenger who opened the window for you, and do not heed either the window or the Reality behind.
Me: You can't say that. Why, we have been insisting on all the rituals prescribed by you, the dress codes, the...
God (despairingly): AND that is all that you have learnt of My Word? You see Me merely as a fashion guru crossed with a finishing school? AND a further exclusion clause on my omnipotence, that prohibits me from making any changes in even the dress code and social behavior from time to time?
Me (soothingly): No, Lord! We have allowed certain modifications to suit the modern world. You know, we have deleted all the seven deadly sins from the list. And that thing about non-violence; that thing about respecting your elders; that thing about caring for your parents in their dotage....
There was a Cosmic sigh and God vanished.
BUT - was it God, really? I mean, could it be God if, when it came to people who did not adhere to his code of conduct, He would be against my beating them up or beheading them as per choice? It must be some trick of the Devil. God save me from the blandishments of Satan.
Meanwhile, I must stock up on a lot of garlic!
Oh wow, now this was the perfect follow up post to your earlier one.
ReplyDeleteLoved the lines "The point is that My messengers can only open a window on Reality for you. It is for you to see what you will. AND, practically none of you bother to look through the window to see and understand Reality to the extent you can. As far as I can see, the best you do is to start worshiping the window, and fighting about whose window is the real window. Most of you do not even bother to do that - you worship the messenger who opened the window for you, and do not heed either the window or the Reality behind"
Thanks Jairam! I loved writing those lines too, so I am glad that it found an echo in your mind
DeleteWindows windows nu enna idhu - Microsoft marketing campaign aa? :)
ReplyDeleteJokes apart - this is indeed a thought-provoking post.
Guru ji ki jai :)
Idhu verai! Thappa purunjukkaradulai namma aalunga PhDye pannaranga :)
DeleteYou make it seem like you will start singing bhajans in front of my photograph soon :)
Haha :) "Amendment to the commandments"! Wonderful read.
ReplyDeleteThanks Adarsh
DeleteIts a very profound post though through a humorous window :) that window statement of yours has so much truth in it. Lovely Suresh
ReplyDeleteThanks Jaish! I sure hope that it does not mean that people are going to start worshiping me :P
Delete" You must understand that what You ask IS impossible. How can I love my neighbor? If You had known him.. " :-D
ReplyDeleteI love the philosophical note through the " window "... :-)
Hahaha! NOW I am sure that some day soon, I am going to get worshiped, if I am the guy opening a window :P
DeleteSure..if only that window doesn't make me face my neighbour ... :-P
DeleteNo thanks! Just because I have a beard, I do not want to become a Swamiji :P
DeleteNice! I quote from a New Year post from my blog.
ReplyDeleteFrom Hope springs Life, Charity is wedded to Love but what of Faith? Faith, I’m afraid, has failed us. She has driven us apart, brought about anger, fear and cruelty. Faith has become the Handmaiden of Religion rather than the Daughter of Trust, the Harbinger of Hate not the Herald of Humanity. Yet, as January comes upon us once again, I implore you, think, cogitate, consider, contemplate, cerebrate, meditate, reason, reflect and ruminate. Free Faith from the narrow confines of clergy. We cannot continue to perform unspeakable acts of cruelty and greed in her name. We cannot continue to hide behind her skirts and expect pardons for our sins; for they are our sins not Faith’s.
The bigger problem is that people do not even think they sin - for when they act in the name of Faith, they feel whatever they do is virtuous.
DeleteHumor and philosophy. Not easy to blend the two but you seem to have mastered the art.
ReplyDeleteNot mastered, Alka! You are being too kind. I just try...sometimes.
DeleteThanks Ash! I am afraid that they never will. My cynicism shows in the post too - "I" would rather not believe that it IS God saying those things, if what He says is against my prejudices :)
ReplyDeletewhat better way to pass on the message if not through humour? and only you could do that Suresh. Btw when you mentioned God coming in your dream all I could think of was Morgan Freeman in his white suit :P and if that did not have me guffawing all throughout, the last line on garlic def. did :)
ReplyDeleteHahaha! As I keep saying - I try
DeleteThis was so creative and hard hitting. I feel so very helpless with all that takes on in the name of God and religion. Very aptly conveyed.
ReplyDeleteAs do we all, Rachna! Thanks
DeleteThe whole world is now a global village,but the mindsets of so many are narrowing down.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that we are increasingly assuming that information is knowledge and knowledge is wisdom
DeleteI am not sure I love my neighbor, but I sure loved the part of the neighbor in this post the best. In a simple way you are shining light on the truth... (or is it truth?)
ReplyDeleteAh! It may be a truth, it may even be the truth but who knows the whole truth? :)
DeleteMade me think of Akshay Kumar and Paresh Rawal's conversation in "Oh my God"..... we indeed don't bother to look through the window to see and understand reality....there's a curtain of our "own self righteous image" covering the window...
ReplyDeleteHow true that!
DeleteThis post, humorous it is, but I think you were more concerned about the message
ReplyDeletethat got through. Traditions and rituals are not unimportant but it is what is behind them, the message as it were, that is most important.
Unfortunately these days, even if God appeared--you would end up thinking that it must have been his counterpart--like you so rightly mentioned. Wish that Utopia would come to be where the spirit of the instruction manuals is followed and not a slavish adherence to the instructions themselves--will we do that? I hope we find it in ourselves to do so and SOON.
And the 'My instruction manual is the only right instruction manual' :)
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