Pause to reflect on the title of this blog

Let us digress for a while to address the title of this blog, “Help me find God”. There must be a hundred questions tied up with this alone, but I will dwell of just a few of the most pertinent ones.

Wikipedia says “Religion is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of life and the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a supernatural agency,^[1] or human beings’ relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, spiritual, or divine.^[2] Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life. They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature.”

We have been trained to think of religion and God as somehow linked and indivisible. Our confusion in this subject knows no bounds. To clear up all the confusion, I will discuss each aspect separately. The ultimate goal of this exercise is to arrive at a formula which we can use to make our world the kind of place most of us would like it to be. The world we can proudly call “ours”.

Let me begin by clarifying the word religion. A religion is anything which we subscribe to that dictates how we think and how we act. It is something to which we subject ourselves. Why would anyone wish to subject himself to something else? Many people have claimed an aversion to religion because of theuir  wish to be free, and not subservient to anyone or anything else. I will get back to this later.

The fact of the matter is that everyone is suberviant in some way. It may be overt or covert, obvious or hidden. It is the foundation upon which our thought processess are built.

To some, making money is the most important aspect of life. Success is measured by how much wealth one can accumulate. Everythingh in life is directed at that objective. Decisions are made with that ultimate objective. If lying would increase wealth, then such a person would lie with no remorse. If telling the truth produces wealth on another occasion, then the truth will be told. Neither lying not honesty are objectives, only tools to further the accumulation of more wealth. To such a person wealth is their “god” and the process of accumulating it their “religion”.

Thibnk of anything which we work towards, be it education, career, beauty, illicit relations, etc. If the decisions we make are founded on pursuing these, then they have become our “god” and the process of acquiring it our “religion”. That becomes our “way of life”.

What has any of this to do with God?

When we make “God” our god, and seeking His pleasure becomes our way of life, then the process by which we seek His pleasure becomes our “religion”. Please note that under this scenario, whether it is God or a god that we “worship”, it is our decision who we worship, and also how we worship. It is something we decide to do from our own perspective of how we would like to do things. In the process, we our worshipping not God but ourselves. Allow mww to explain.

Some of us see no reason to attend a place of worship and feel “praying” as and when we wish is all we need to do. Those of us who fall in this category see no need to blindly follow rituals. We do as we please. Follow carfefully what I am saying, and it will all make sense soon.

We have looked at “religion”, now let us look at the word “worship”

Again, wikipedia says “Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed to one or more deities”. This definition is not helpful. The one we worship is the one whose laws or instructions or guidance we follow or obey. Think about this carefully.

If we obey the directives of our parents without any consideration of what anyone else has to say, then it is they that we worship. If we follow the instructions of a “deity” then that is the object of our worship. The object of worship may be a pop star, a priest, a parent, a parliament, or ourselves. There is no restriction on who we may worship. We may choose to worship satan.

If we act on our own understanding and our own reasoning, then we are own own objects of worship. We worship ourselves. If we follow the guidance of a parliament sometimes, and not ohers; if we follow the guidance of our parents when we choose, or the guidance of a deity when we choose, then in all these situations the one we worship is ourselves, since we act at our own discretion When we act exclusively according to the dictates of a deity, then one can claim to worship that deity exclusively. In such a situation, we do not allow our own opinions to guide our actions. When we "worship" God in the way we wish to worship, we worship ourselves and not God. We become the product of our own decisions, not the product of God's guidance.

From this it must be clear, we cannot continue this discussion until we have resolved the fundamental question of whether God exists, ie God as the creator of everything, God the Supreme Being. Everything that we talk about is based upon clarification of this basic question. The question that is linked to this is whether there is only one or many “Gods”.

This is a suitable place to stop, to allow us to reflect on these questions. Next time I will present an answer to these, and move on from there.

Bye for now.