Of course, given the title, there would be no need for explicit disclaimers, but I would still want to put one up in case one of the easily offended generation takes offence of this post. Not like anyone even reads this blog anyways, but still with the internet being the internet, you never really know. Anyways here goes:
All ideas and arguments expressed in this post are absolutely personal to the author, and by no means representative of the ideologies of any groups or communities.
Now that that’s out of the way, shall we begin?
Where did it begin?
Well it probably started when I was conceived into this universe, being named “Siddarth”, and then ending up with the name “Ramakrishna” due to some miscommunication that my dad had with my mum. Despite the mess up, it was interesting that both names that I got were prominent human religious symbols. I was born a Hindu. Or more accurately, born into a Hindu family. And Hindus impart the Hindu ways of living onto their children before they even gain self-consciousness.
I was introduced to God as a child before anything else. I was taught as an infant, to put my palms together and close my eyes in prayer, everytime I wished to connect with God. In Tamil, “kadavul” is the word for God. However, since that might be a little hard for children to grasp, they simplified it with the child-friendly term “umaachi”, which stuck with me through my entire childhood till the recent past.
Umaachi was like a friend, more than a God to look up to and worship. He was almighty alright, but he was also down to earth. He would listen to your problems, your worries and emotions. He lends you an imaginary shoulder to lean on, and tells you that it will be okay. Sometimes he jokes around with you, sometimes he gets a bit serious. He was never one that I feared. More like a friend I valued and respected.
Every time I erred, I would go to Umaachi crying, my hands in prayer, apologising for my mistake. Not in fear that He might punish me. There were higher chances of my mum punishing me than Him. But rather in embarrassment of myself, that I had disappointed the expectations that He had on me.
The relationship I had with God was close and intimate as a child. I would have conversations with God, sitting in the prayer room and talking to Him. Whenever I felt fear, I sought out to Him for comfort, and I just knew things would be alright. Whenever I felt happy, I shared the joy with Him. If I was sad, I would cry to Him. And He would always listen, and make the right things happen at the right time, making sure that I was alright.
God was my (imaginary) best friend.
Through my teenage years, God was always a part of my life. Never once did I think to question the existence of God himself. I wouldn’t say I was extremely religious, but being born into an orthodox Brahmin family (the vegetarian caste of the Hindu religion), religion was very well intertwined with my life. I never went to the temple often, but I performed daily morning prayer rituals for 20 mins before going to school. This consisted of a good 10 minutes of silent meditation within the ritual. That’s right, I was meditating at the age of 15 when other kids were masturbating. I think I could attribute the strict discipline I had in those years, to my overall calm and collected nature in my prime teenage years. While others would make rash impulsive decisions, I was always the “wet blanket”, coming up with rational reasons why we should avoid doing something stupid.
A Whole New World
Till I was in school, God was still a part of my life. Quite significant part I would say. I would pray everyday without fail before going to school. Sometimes after I come back from school, if I got home early. I had learnt the Vedas (ancient scriptures in Sanskrit) and often took part in mass prayer chanting rituals. As I mentioned, being in a religious Brahmin family naturally made religion a very integrated part of my life, without me having to make much of a conscious effort. It was second nature.
However, that second nature slowly started to evolve, when I got out of school and entered the army. Army did not just mean spending a lot of time away from home, which acted as my sanctuary for religious activities, but it also meant exposure to thoughts, ideas and people, that I had been guarded from for many years of my teenage life. It was a partial breakout, out of the disciplined lifestyle (more than the army) that my entire life had been.
Alcohol, music, vulgarities (new ones), cigarettes, clubbing, nightlife, regimentation, authority, relationships and many other experiences opened up a whole new world to me.
Having been brought up in a primarily academic oriented environment, home and school, my years in the army were absolutely eye opening. Many ideas changed and evolved, while many other newer ideas started to form as well. I started reading more non fiction, growing my knowledge in various topics from astrophysics to economics to business to philosophy and even human psychology.
During those two years in the Army, I grew a little distant from God. I was not a non-believer, but given I wasn’t too actively religious before, the lack of involvement in religious activities made me not think about God too much. Over time, I had stopped my daily prayer rituals and started indulging more in the newfound pleasures of nightlife and alcohol. God made a guest appearance now and then, but those were carefree years. Not being bound by the strict rules of the household, I truly explored a different world. Of course my morals were still strongly imprinted within my nature, but from a conservative, my mind started to open up.
Those were also the years of my early exploration into philosophical ideas and frameworks. I was still a Hindu at heart, so I delved more into the ideas that Hindu ancient texts spoke about, particularly the Vedas.
My dad being a strong believer in the ideas of Swami Vivekananda, introduced me to some of the works written by him. The topics touched a variety of religions, from Christianity to Buddhism to Islam and primarily Hinduism. The ideas however were very modern and avant garde, never once criticising another religion. Instead it took a standpoint to compare the approaches of each of these religions, the similarities between them, and where Hinduism stands amongst those ideologies.
These texts gave me a very fresh perspective on Hinduism. Hinduism was no longer about going to the temple and praying to a couple hundred Gods. I was never really a temple person anyway. Non of the ancient texts and Vedas spoke about any of the Gods that Hindu Temples worshipped. Instead they had Gods for fire, water, wind, earth and the all unifying Brahman (not to be confused with the deity Brahma). The Vedic ideas of Hinduism were more profound, taking a more holistic approach to life and religion.
I was very drawn to these ideas, though momentarily, as they made me rethink the whole concept of the religion of Hinduism.
Lost in the World
More than a year after my entering this new world, I experienced the single most transformative experience of my life.
Heartbreak.
I went through my first breakup. And it was brutal. Naturally being an introvert, and not having that many friends that I was able to trust, I was very alone and lost during the entirety of the breakup.
Being lost is kind of a blessing and a curse. It was a curse because I would not know what was good for me or bad for me. It was a blessing for the same reason. Basically I was completely open to anything that were to come my way. This is a dangerous state to be in, but at a point when your ego is at its lowest, lines are very blurred.
So there I was completely alone and lost in this mental space that was void of any familiarity. Nothing in this world made sense. The world did not function the way that I thought it did. And that very realisation shattered my reality.
It was in this state that I made some new friends in Uni who changed me for life. A large part of who I am today is owed to them. And I’m thankful, for both the good and the bad that came into my life at that point.
One of the best things that happened to me at that point was meditation. I found a friend in Uni who was starting up a small meditation club, and invited me to join. I decided to give it a shot, as nothing was really stable in my life at that point, I figured why not try meditation. To my surprise, it came absolutely natural to me. In retrospect, it could potentially be attributed to my meditation practice in my teenage years. However after years of not meditating, most newbies would find it hard to quieten the mind and sit still for a significant period of time. But I never had any issues at all. I could sit for 30 to 45 minutes continuously, entering deep meditative states, without any discomfort at all, feeling absolutely energised at the end of it. It was transformative. I had many surreal experiences when I meditated. It gave me this sense of calm and peace that nothing else was able to provide. More than anything, it sparked my interest again in spirituality and religion.
It was with these group of friends that I went on a trip to Bali, where I had my first drug-induced psychedelic experience. Good ol’ shrooms was the substance, and my mind was the subject. The experience was ethereal. Out of the world. I meditated while tripping, and my mind brought me to places that I never knew existed within the mind. Since I already had visual experiences with meditation without any stimulants, the psychedelics greatly enhanced elevated the experience. It was meditation on steroids.
It was at this point that I experienced something so phenomenal, that I became religious once again, stronger and more convicted than ever before. I started parading the ॐ (Om) symbol, wearing bracelets and ear studs with the symbol, and even hanging up the “Om” in my room. I was convinced of a God. Not one of the many idols of Gods that Hinduism possessed, but a single all-encompassing energy; the “Om” was the only thing that I connected with, at a very core level.
Om lies at the very core of the foundations of Hinduism. As Wikipedia states, the Om “refers to Atman (soul, self within) and Brahman (ultimate reality, entirety of the universe, truth, divine, supreme spirit, cosmic principles, knowledge)”. It was beyond what conventional Hinduism advocated and practiced, it lied at a much more philosophical level, almost at a personal level.
Ahaṁ Brahmāsmī, I am God
It was not much after this, that I happened to chance upon this book called “Vedanta: The Voice of Freedom”, which also happened to be one of the most transformative books in my life. It was in this book that I discovered the Hindu school of thought known as Advaita Vedanta. Advaita is the final episode in the journey of Hinduism, one of self realisation and spiritual enlightenment. It was the only non-dualistic school of thought (Advaita literally means “not-two”), stating that the self and the all encompassing Brahman were one, and that with this realisation, the soul will be liberated within one’s lifetime. This was in contrast to most other schools, which believed that the soul could only be liberated beyond death.
As the subject matter suggests, it was not something that could be easily comprehended or digested by most. It was no surprise that this was not a very popular school of thought, as it rejected the conventional Hindu practices and ideas of idol/multiple God worship completely. Most would not be able to relate to the idea of a non-dualistic God, as the idea of God itself was something external. Neither could I comprehend the ideas of the Advaita completely. However a fundamental part of me strongly connected with these ideas, and I was certain that I was heading in the right direction.
Ahaṁ Brahmāsmī was the core principle of the Advaita. “I am Brahman”, or simply put: I am God. This core philosophy changes everything about how the world functions. No longer was there an external force that was rewarding and punishing us for our deeds and sins. Everything was a result of our own thoughts and actions, and that of everything around us. Brahman was everything, everything was Brahman.
I am other than name, form and action.
My nature is ever free!
I am Self, the supreme unconditioned Brahman.
I am pure Awareness, always non-dual.— Adi Shankara, Upadesasahasri 11.7, [5]
And the path to this realisation was only through acquiring of knowledge, in the right ways, without being subject to the biases and errors that our minds were commonly subjected to. “Correct knowledge, which destroys avidya, psychological and perceptual errors related to Atman and Brahman, is obtained through three stages of practice, sravana (hearing), manana (thinking) and nididhyasana (meditation).” While I had already been practicing the first two to some extent, the last one had been a recent practice, and it was necessary for me to consciously continue it in order to further discover the true nature of the Atman and Brahman.
The Illusion of Control
Over time meditation became a part of my routine. I would meditate at least once almost everyday. My lifestyle had started changing tremendously. I embodied the self-discipline that was advocated to attain this enlightened state. I had completely given up my ill-habits of smoking and drinking and even the occasional joints. I started waking up proper and attending classes on time, completing assignments, and being more proper a student than ever before.
Meditation gave me control. Control over my thoughts and emotions. Control over my anxieties and fears. Meditation allows one to take a third person perspective in understanding one’s self, and become fully aware of the thoughts and emotions that pass through one’s mind. The quiet that people attain through meditation is not so much of silencing the mind as much as it was allowing the mind time to make noise and eventually it running out of things to say and becoming quiet. And all through this noise, as the meditator, we sit and observe these thoughts, analysing ourselves and our thoughts and actions.
While it certainly gave me a sense of calm and peace, it also made me more distant from others in my life. The deeper I got in touch with myself, the more distant I grew. I hardly hung out with any friends, spending most of my time alone. I figured this was why monks had to leave their families and societies and go into forests in order to truly achieve deep states of meditation. It was a lonely process, and the further you went, the lesser you could connect with others, knowing that they do not see nor understand the things that you saw. It was a process of self discovery, and discovery of the beyond.
A couple of months went by, and it got increasingly harder to maintain my stability within this state. The mainstream does not tell you about this, but there is a dark side to meditation. The opening up of the mind brings up strong sense of euphoria as well as keeps the mind in a state susceptible to deep depression. Everything is balanced and you cannot have the highs without the lows. And the deeper you get into meditation, the darker your thoughts can become.
What started off with me attaining a sense of control over my life, came spiralling to an overwhelming sense of loneliness and fear. I could not sustain much longer alone, the flame started to flicker, the fear of losing my sanity became imminent. The illusion of control was melting away.
Personal God or Devil?
As I was in this void of emptiness, struggling to sustain this flame of mine, there was a month of extreme transformation and enlightening drug experiences, where I think my mind craved company and social contact so much that it became attached to those whom I was talking to/ relatively closer to at that point in time. Some of these were my university friends whom I would then spend a lot of time smoking up with. Some were external friends, one of which then became my girlfriend. Some were older friends whom I reconnected with.
I was flooding myself with contact and company. Suddenly my dynamics had completely changed internally. I would feel low in energy while I was alone, and high in energy when I was with people. This was unusual for an introvert, especially one who puts in effort to avoid social interactions. I think I feared and despised that loneliness so much to the extent that some deep psychological change had happened (aided by some neural rewiring substances), making me more sociable and quite selfless in my social attachments.
However, the level of selflessness coupled with unrealistic expectations and faith in people and humanity led me to some very toxic relationships with all kinds of people over the next two years. From my girlfriend, to friends and even my employer, everything became an unequal toxic relationship.
Essentially, in retrospect of course, given that I had struggled to keep my internal flame sustaining while I was alone, whatever I had built back was entirely reliant on others. And while this made me a very humble and giving person, it slowly started to suck the life and soul out of me, making me incapable of giving to anyone at all.
Due to the kind of experiences I had within these relationships, my self control and state of calm slowly faded away, turning me into the very kind of person that I would hate. I became pessimistic, and people-hating. I grew into something so ugly and disgusting, I could not recognise myself anymore. What set out to be a path of discovering the personal god, Aham Brahmasmi, became a path of discovering the personal devil.
I hated myself.
A Universe of Selfs
It took me a lot to realise that I needed to get out of this self-destroying spiral, where I would do bad things and hate myself for it, and do even worse things, and hate myself more. It became a horrendous cycle, where I lost all self-worth and self-confidence. I lost the will to continue, as I saw no value in my existence. Thankfully I never went to the extreme of wanting to end my life. I had the will to live, I just didn’t know how.
So I started getting rid of everything and starting from scratch. In software engineering, when you cannot identify the cause of a problem, you start taking away everything and building it back part by part. Once you start building it and testing it at every stage, you will begin to discover where the problems lie. A lot of times the bugs are never too apparent. Only when you strip down the program to its bare essentials will you be able to detect them.
This is where I started realising the fundamental problem in my life: I had surrounded myself with toxicity. And the reason was not others. It was myself. I had let it become that. And I let it get there by not ever taking time and energy for myself, never putting in effort to my own light, entirely depending on the light of others to keep me alive. Of course this would work well if everyone else was equally selfless. However we do not live in a world of the selfless.
We live in a world of selfs.
Sorry not ‘world’.
A Universe of Selfs.
This was one of the biggest, most ground-shattering realisations that I’ve ever had.
That we as an individual, are at the core of the entire system of the universe. And without this individual element, the world, or the universe will not be what it is.
Everything in this universe is programmed to ensure its own survival. From the animate to the inanimate, everything is a self. Everything sustains itself. And everything else exists in a way that accommodates this self. Nothing can exist, while being invisible and non-obstructive. Every particle needs to establish its existence in one way or another, and everything else needs to acknowledge that existence in one way or another.
This means that every self will need to exert its individuality for the betterment of the whole. Because the more the self acts as an individual, the better the rest of the selfs become aware of this self, and the better they are able to coexist in harmony. Remove that self exertion, and it becomes very hard for the other particles to be able to be conscious in the way that they acknowledge this particle. This holds true from the quantum level to the cosmic level. Everything is an interaction of the self with its system.
Zooming back in from the abstract to something at the human level, the idea is that every individual is autonomous and independent in the way they perceive the universe and express themselves. Every individual is unique, and every other individual needs to accept and behave in a way that accommodates this uniqueness. At a societal level, in modern societies particularly, this might not seem very true, as we as a society seem to constantly emphasize on the need to be “normal”. However we see that this holds very true within our closer interpersonal relationships, with parents, friends and partners. This is the basis behind every relationship advice telling us to be transparent and open with our closed ones. The idea of transparency and openness is nothing more than the idea that the self needs to be fully expressive of its individual nature.
Apart from being open and transparent, the individual also needs to accept that his relationship with another individual is not necessarily indicative of their relationship with him. This means no matter how much you have invested in a relationship, how much you love them, how much you have shared with them, how much you have tried to give in to their needs and wants, or how much you have sacrificed in order to make them have a better life, they can choose to walk away at any given moment. While meditation and self-discipline Gurus would claim that a detachment is the answer, there is no amount of meditation, discipline, self control or mind control that can allow you to change the decision of another. The other will always decide as an autonomous self. It could be influenced or swayed, but ultimately the decision is still independent, and no amount of frustration or anger or sadness or manipulation can convince a mind that has made its decision.
And likewise no amount of external factors can manipulate a decision that was made in the depths of your mind. Every decision is a byproduct of your independent neural network, tirelessly working through the probable outcomes of multiple scenarios, evaluating past personal experiences, factoring in the good and bad decisions, and extrapolating them into future outcomes, making sure that it makes a wise decision for the sustenance of the self. You define your actions and decisions through every other action and decision that you have made. And while it might seem like every decision is a conscious logical decision that you have made, every decision is merely an output of the interaction of billions of neuron (selfs) within the mind, that makes you believe that you are in control.
We are nothing but an inter-connected + intra-connected network of selfs.
There is no God(s). There is no meaning or purpose in life. There is no end. There is no beginning. We are just a bunch of particles floating around, knocking into each other, aimlessly.
That, my friends, is the truth beyond all truths.
So where is God?
So if this were the truth, then why was there a God in the first place? Surely the great sages and enlightened souls in the past must have figured this out. Why then did they all still preach a God? Why did so many generations of people on Earth believe in a God (or multiple ones)? Why are there still billions in this day and age of science and technology whom fight and kill each other in the name of God? Why is there still a God? And where is he (or she)?
Well to be honest, nothing that the ancients said about God was wrong. Every description of God is fitting for what it is. God is the supreme ruler of the Universe. God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. God is within and without. Brahman, Allah, Yahweh, Jehovah, or Shangdi, they all represent the same monotheistic almighty. The only issue is that as humans we used to viewing entities as wholesome singular elements. However God is not an element.
God is in the gaps.
What do I mean by gaps? Imagine all the selfs being orbs in a liquid. All aimlessly floating around. God lives in the gaps between those orbs. God is nothing but chance. Coincidence. Luck. Fate. Whatever you wish to call it. All that lies in the gaps. God is what creates that random encounters or interactions between these orbs. And while the orbs are independent and autonomous in its decisions, the history of its interactions with other orbs also influence the way in which the orb behaves, and the direction that it will end up moving towards. Therefore, the coincidental connections of random chance encounters is what we call meaning or purpose in our lives. If things go our way, we thank God and celebrate the greatness of the almighty. If things go bad, we get angry, annoyed and frustrated, increasing our piousness or simply accepting that God has better plans for us and made us go through suffering to learn a couple of lessons. Because of all the random elements of the past influencing and determining our present and future, we as humans try to connect the dots and find meaning and purpose in these elements. And because all these interactions are neither predictable nor consistent, we call it God.
If it were all up to chance and randomness, how is God omniscient? Imagine a super-computer simulating the interactions of atomic particles in an enclosed space. We have computers which are able to accurately map and predict such behaviour. This illustrates one point, that true randomness does not exist. Randomness is merely the complex interactions between multiple autonomous variables. However, as there could never be a super computer simulating a reality to the extent of the one we are living in (if there is it would be highly likely that we are living in it), there could never be an all-knowing all encompassing entity. Chance and randomness will be the supreme ruler of us all. That is our God. That is whom we have been worshipping for millenia, waging wars and killing lives for. Going on long diets and trekking trips for. Being good and killing “evil” for. All for this unknown variable called chance. And the brilliance of it is that God can never die. While chance and randomness exists, God will exist.
As hard as we can try to understand and comprehend that chance or randomness, we are unable to. There are way too many factors involved in determining that randomness. So our enlightened ancestors decided to tell people that this was God. That everything was the work of God. And how He designed this universe for us to live and revel in. And all we have to do is follow the rules of the ruling state, sorry I mean God, in order to enjoy the greatest luxuries of life and the afterlife.
That’s about it.
That is what God is, and why there still exists a God, and why there always will be one.
The End.
The End?
Is that really the end? Are we fated to be stuck with Gods and religions for eternity? Will this war against religion continue till the dusk of time? How can we ever win this war?
I’ve good news. All hope is not lost, and there is still hope of a better future. One without God, and people living in harmony without the need for an invisible man in the skies. And we already see that shift slowly taking place across many countries all over the world.
As we become more connected as a global civilisation, breaking the many geographical borders and boundaries that have entrapped us for centuries, we become more understanding of the ideas behind religion, and behind other religions. We begin to understand how some of those values resonate with the fundamentals of human interaction, while some are just ridiculous rules that make no sense in the betterment of society. These realisations will increasingly make people either more open and accepting, or closed and defensive over the long held beliefs of a particular religion. Let’s just hope that the majority is on the right side (which is left).
Strong advancements in technology, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning (yea I know you’ve heard enough of these buzzwords), can also deeply contribute to our understanding of the human mind, and how it learns and interacts with other minds. An accurate enough mapping of the human mind, and the ability to simulate such interactions virtually, might show us better that chance and randomness aren’t really that unpredictable, allowing us to better understand ourselves and operate in a way that maximises our cognitive capabilities.
However, God is necessary for these changes to happen. Until we come to a personal realisation that life is indeed inherently meaningless, and be okay with that reality, we need a support system for the millions and billions whom are hoping for a better life, and striving day and night in the name of God. God is needed for the change to happen organically. Ex-prisoners are the ones whom give talks about the importance of being mindful of our actions. Ex-drug addicts are the ones whom can give good advice on staying away from drugs. Likewise, only the ex-believers can become non-believers, live that life with conviction and give a good and clear reasoning behind the shortcomings of being a believer.
The ancients were right.
Only through God, can we attain true enlightenment and liberation.
~