Sunday, November 06, 2005

Unix and God

I always had this confusion since childhood......One theory says that God is Omnipotent and Omniscient. In the sense that he controls and rules the world and that he knows everything about everything. Another theory says that we are the masters of our own destinies. I never understood how can both the theories co-exist. If it is already decided by God as to why and what I am going to be doing in this world, then how can I be the master of my destiny? Do I really have anything in my control.....and the thought of me being not in control of myself and my life really made me feel miserable. Even the Shakesparean play said that "This world is a stage and we are all actors on this stage". This did not help in allaying my fears because if we are all acting in the play directed by God, then the script must be already finalised . I seriously doubted God's intentions.

Though I am not highly spiritual, but this question always haunted me. I did ask my father regarding this and I guess he thought that I must be nuts to doubt God. Anyways, like so many other questions concerning rituals and customs, this was also thrown into oblivion. I still don't understand as to why parents don't agree that they don't have an answer rather than doubting the credibility of the question.

I had a lot of discussions regarding the same with Rajit and Pradeep, two friends who are the most inclined towards spirituality. I got the best possible answer to my longstanding question from Pradeep's explaination. This is how he explained it to me.

He said that God is omnipotent and omniscient no doubt but he realised that it is not at all pragmatic for him to control everything. So like Unix operating system, he has forked child processes of himself within each of us. So what it essentially means is that there is God in each and every living being. So when we pray, we are praying to the God which exists within ourselves. This God is what we also call as "The Soul". I instantly liked the theory because there was no scope of any external factor here. This made me believe that I am in control of my own life. Of course, there are lots of external factors which does have an impact on our lives, but then we are in a position to choose and act on those choices.

But still there is something that still haunts....Ok I understand that once I am into this world, I am in a position to choose between the rights and the wrong and etch my own destiny. But I still don't understand why I am existing in the first place. Why did God create the universe and all the people, animals etc.? What fun does he get by doing this? Did he do it out of any compulsion or in short, is there any reason for all this at all?

I have discussed this with quite a few people including my spiritual gurus Rajit and Pradeep! But I still haven't found any satisfying answers to this question.

But I do hope to find an answer to this ......atleast by the end of my life's journey.

2 comments:

Pradeep Bhat said...

I will surely answer this question if I get to know about it from my experience in the long journey.

Well, First of all, let me ask you something. How many people ask the same questions as you asked? I have no doubt that it is a small number compared to the world's population. Now, from this group who ask such questions, how many go ahead to find an answer? Again, undoubtedly a very small number strive to find an answer. I am telling all this just to impress upon you that you are on the right track of thinking.

Check out my blogg for more on this. I thought of writing something about this as it would be helpful to many.

Love,
Pradeep

Sandeep said...

Hi Olivier,

Thanks a lot for the wonderful comment.

Honestly, it took a little while for your thoughts to sink in.But I agree with you on this one. I guess thatz the best we can do....after all what we can do with our life is something that is in our control.

Just out of curiosity....are you by any chance a friend of Nitin in Paris?

Take care,
Sandeep.