God?!

It's a long post and also very sensitive, you have been warned! Continue only if you wish.

Traveling together is one of the most wonderful ways to develop a good and honest friendship. If the place is as cool and beautiful as Coorg, it becomes even more easier. It was more than a year ago, when I, along with one of my juniors in dept. of Periodontics and also two professors (and also heads of department of periodontics in their respective colleges!) went for a Lasers in Periodontics seminar. Basil, my junior and a friend took his car and we all began one of the most memorable journeys together. As post graduate students we were in for a surprise as both the professors turned up in completely different moods (inside the department it's usually a bit scary to be around them). The conversation went on and the road trip from Mangalore to Coorg got over in a blink. We were greeted with awesome weather which is of course expected of Coorg. The Seminar began in a little boring fashion and then picked up really well in the afternoon and evening session.

There was a small banquet at night. The banquets are usually all about the boozing, but neither Basil nor I drink alcohol, so it became a buffet with some loud music for us. after socializing with the students of Coorg Institute of Dental Sciences, we returned to the hotel. There was no tension(!) of getting up early next day for college as it was a holiday for us due to seminar. Neither of us were feeling sleepy, so we decided to have some chitchat. We are quite different. Basil is an NRI (Dubai) and basically from Kerala where as I am from Gujarat. The names suggest we have different religions as well (My name is Hardik and I am a hindu, if you didn't know!). Even our sports and food preferences differ.

At one point, out of no where he asked me, if I believed in god?
Easy and quick answer from me was, "No".
He smiled.
"Why did you ask that?" I asked. I knew he was a religious man but an open minded one.
"Just wanted to know if you are religious or not. that's it." he replied.
"It's just that I have never been able to understand the concept of religion, and on top of that I see more harm being done in the name of religion every day than good. I haven't been able to pick one religion which could be blamed for that. I feel all are same, they all misguide the people" I added to explain my point of view.
He, however had a very different theory, which was interesting as well.
"I like religious people, because I can easily trust them." He said
"How is that related?" I was curious to know.

"It's simple. Religious people believe in god or any higher power. They have fear of god, which prevents them from any wrongdoing. But aethists..?! Uhh.. They are tricky, they have no fear of god, what can possibly stop them from doing wrong?" he explained the logic to me.

He had made a very strong point. Probably he explained me entire concept of religion in that small explaination.

It's the "Fear of God" that keeps us all in check, or at least most of us.
Was it an eye opener for me? Yes, but it wasn't going to make me a religious man all of a sudden. All it did was, making me an even stronger atheist. I had a lot of questions in my head. Ofcourse it was quite late and we didn't continue the debate much further. It's been going on in my head eversince though and I am going to continue the debate here.

Why do we need fear of god to stop us from wrongdoing? We are probably the most intelligent species on the planet, and we do understand the difference between good and bad. Then why do we need an external motivation to stop us from doing something that is already known to be wrong? In an ideal scenario, we should not do the wrong things simply because they are wrong, not because they will lead us to hell and god will punish us for that. Personally, I believe that the reason does matter.

If I don't commit sins, due to fear of god, It does not make me a good person. That's called paranoia in my dictionary.

Fear is a strong emotion, perhaps the strongest or may be as strong as anger. A decision taken under fear is never considered legit even in the court of law. Fear can manipulate the strongest of minds. That is why religion and fear of god are dangerous. There are smart guys who know exactly how to play with fear of god. The worst part is, the fear of god is not the only thing that can manipulate people, the blind faith in god can also lead them into commiting despicable things. The crimes commited in the name of god are the most dangerous ones as there are no guilt or shame attached to them.

For sake of fair argument, let's say there is an almighty god who sees and listens everything and everyone and rewards or punishes accordingly. In this scenario, an atheist who understands the difference between good and bad, would still not require the fear of god to be a good human being.

Would god be angry with him just because he does not care about god, even if he is a good person? If god is what I have been taught, he would love that person the most! Guess what? God doesn't need to motivate him to be a good human being. Yay, one less guy to worry about!

But hey, stop right there. Who will teach us how to separate good from bad? This is one of the strongest argument in favour of any religion. Do we need religion to teach us the difference between good and bad? Did we learn to stay away from fire from religious books? Not at all. We experienced the fire and we knew it's dangerous. Our ancestors told us and we didn't even need to actually put our hands in fire to know it burns us! We learnt by experience and passing it on helped us even more. Grown ups have experienced both good and bad, they can just pass on the experience. simple, isn't it? Does reading the religious literature help? Yes, why not? It is one of my favourite ways of learning. But at the end of the reading what lessons you take is very important. From Geeta, we can learn to be honest and brave like Krishna and fight for what is right, or we can just say he is almighty and just worship him. It's up to us, what we gain from it.(I am a hindu and I have read lot of hindu literature, it's one of my favourite places to look for answers. I do not mean any disrespect to Krishna.).

Moral of the story: The best teacher is experience and not the religion. We have awesome literature in all religions, but we should know how to read and interpret. Or else it won't serve the purpose.

Lastly, about the good and bad times in our life. Who do we reach out to, when we are all alone and find ourselves in trouble? Who do we thank when we are happy? God? Really? Why can't we have faith in ourselves instead of god? It's so much more acceptable. The thing that we control the most is what we do. And god, well he is almighty. How can we trust someone who is totally out of control and unseen? Logically speaking, it's far more easier and comforting to have faith in ourselves instead of god, about whom we only have our imaginations.

So next time when you find your self in trouble, believe in your self not god. And when you find a reason to celebrate, never forget to thank your self for having selfbelief.

The main post ends here. Next is some personal blabbering! Read only if you are interested.

Well I guesss you are! It's been a very long time since I posted on blogger. I actually intended to be regular blogger though. This helps me find some peace. Post graduation exams are about 52 days away from today. Do let me know your thoughts through comments. If you feel it's worth it, then share it! Hope I'll come up with something soon.

Hell or Heaven?!

                                          It was just another Sunday evening. I had a lot of work to do before catching the train for Bangalore. It had been more than a month since I had finished my internship, and I was yet to go to Bangalore to get my degree certificate and to register my self as a Dentist.
                                          In Mangalore, it can rain on any day of the year. When I stepped outside my home, the drizzle was no surprise for me. My love-hate relationship with rain dates back to my early childhood. As a kid I always enjoyed walking out in the rain. Playing under the open sky showers was one of the best parts of  my childhood, and when it helped me skipping the school, I felt like I was blessed by the Raining Gods!!! However it was about to change very soon. Evil rain started showing its bad intentions quite early. Playing under the rain was not going to be as enjoyable as it was in past. It would rain relentlessly for hours, but when I went out with intentions of enjoying a rainy walk, the clouds would vanish dramatically as if there was no rain at all. On the other side, whenever I would go out for some important matter, it would rain like never before. Now I am quite used to it, so It doesn't irritate me anymore.
                                           The photographs, the attested copies of important documents, healthy amount of cash and almost everything needed for my journey to Bangalore was alright, even some snacks for time-pass!! Except one thing though, a confirmed ticket for the 12 hour train journey at night..!
                                            Finally the announcement about arrival of Yesvantpur Express was made on the station and I could hear the loud whistle of train. With a waiting-list ticket in my hands, I could have chosen any coach, as I didn't have any confirmed seat number..! The picture of the train was as horrible as I could have imagined. All the coaches were overcrowded. However, it wasn't much of a concern for me as I expected the same. The plan was to get in to the train and try to get a berth by convincing the Train ticket examiner(TTE). As I boarded into the train, I saw an empty berth, and wasted no time to place my luggage there. After 20-30 minutes the TTE had arrived to my coach. All the other people who didn't have confirmed berth, rushed to him to convince him and get a berth. This, however had started to annoy him and after few moments he broke his calm and the crowd was cleared. After waiting for a while, I went to explain him my condition but he denied any chances of a berth. Now, it was almost clear, it would be 12 hours of torture, I hadn't given up all hopes though..
                                              At around 11:00 I saw another TTE, who looked a bit senior and I thought I would give another try. Before I can say anything he came to me asking in typical South Indian tone, "Saar(sir),  don't you have a berth?" "Yes, I mean no, I don't have a berth, but what can I do now?" I replied with a gloomy face. "In fact, I was ready to pay." I added to let him know my intentions. "Ready to pay?? can you pay 600?" He asked again. "I'll give you berth in two tier AC compartment if you want." Without any second thought I replied with my hands hurrying towards my wallet, "Of course I want it.." I extended my hands with 6 notes of 100rupees and asked him, "Can you tell me the coach and seat no.? What about the receipt?" "A1 32 is your seat and I'll come there to give you the receipt, you don't need worry at all." He replied. After a small pause he asked in a smaller voice, " The receipt wont be exactly 600 rupees. Is it fine if I give you a receipt of 400?" I just nodded in response. "You can understand right?, I am trying to help you."  He said justifying himself. "Oh yes, I do." and I gave one of the most artificial smile I have ever given.
                                             Finally I had a berth -A1 32. I felt relaxed and immediately went to the A1 coach and made my self comfortable on the berth. So here I was, lying comfortably on the berth and happy to be back in the same old corrupt India. Corruption really helps sometimes, I felt. Just a few months back I was chanting the slogans  in support of 'Janlokpal' and Anna Hazare's anti-corruption crusade. "After all I am  a common man, it's not only my responsibility, everyone should put some effort to prevent corruption." I told myself to give me a fake assurance. And with that I decided to stop pondering upon such useless topic and switch my attention to the playlist of my phone. Again my uncontrollable mind reminded me that all of them were downloaded from pirated web-sites. I felt it was better to ignore my mind. So I put my head-phones in my ears and started the music on shuffle mode. 'Minchagi ninu barlu'(Kannada song), my favourite song started. I just wondered how my phone knew it!!! I don't know the meaning of lyrics, but the music and voice of Sonu Nigam are just too good. The phone kept playing my favourite songs and almost an hour had passed, when suddenly the most annoying notification blinked on my mobile screen with a loud warning tone, "Battery low". To add to my misery, there was no charging point near my berth. This meant, I can't keep listening to the songs and my uncontrolled mind would travel in any direction without my permission. At around 12:30 it was impossible for me to sleep as per my routine cycle. All these meant I was going to tolerate my mind for quite a long time.
                                            Just as I tried to close my eyes, the memories of Ortho-posting during my internship came alive. I was doing my extension there and with me were a few girls posted in the same department. We don't have anything to do in that posting rather than writing dummy files(again a form of corruption) and doing the chit-chatting. We had finished writing files and were searching a topic to kill the time. "Did you like the film last night?" a malyam girl asked the other girl(Kannada girl, localite). "Not much.". she replied. "But I enjoyed it a lot, I love horror films" other girl (from Gujarat) interrupted. "What are you talking about? Did you all see a horror film yesterday? Which one? When? How was it?" I flooded the atmosphere with question marks. " We saw some horror films last night. All were boring" the Mallu girl replied. "By the way, do you believe in souls, spirits evils etc??" she asked at the end of her answer. "Don't know much about such things, but yeah, I enjoy watching horror films for sure." I replied. "But I believe, because I've seen the people suffering, My friends used to do spirit calling. It's very dangerous though." Kannada girl said. "How about you?" I asked the Gujju girl. " Don't know much, but I always wanted to do spirit calling if someone knew it. It's fun, isn't it?" She replied. "Exactly!!" I agreed. " No, you should never do these things. It's very dangerous." Kannada girl again warned us. We all kept silence for a while. After a short break the Mallu girl said in a confident manner, "There is nothing like spirits or souls, believe me guys. I know it now." giving the reference of holy Bible. "Those who have died, can never comeback in any form, It's only Satan's way of tempting you to believe in evil and make you commit sins." "What do you mean by Satan? " I showed my curiosity. "Ok, I'll explain you briefly." and she continued, "Before god created Humans, there were only angels. Among all the angels Lucifer was God's favourite angel. As the time passed God created humans and started to take interest in humans. Lucifer started feeling ignored and jealous. So he begun protesting humans and ultimately he became an Evil. Since then he has been luring people to commit sins and distracts them from God. Whenever you feel any spirit or such thing, it's only Lucifer(Satan) trying to distract you from faith of God."  And with that she explained us about Satan. "Quite an interesting story." I said while still thinking about it. "So how do you avoid him(Lucifer)?" I asked again. All of us were looking at her with a very deep interest. Though she looked like a model, the catholic mallu girl was talking like a saint. She began to explain with more interest now, "It's very simple and yet so complicated. All we have to do is keep faith in god, no matter how we are distracted by Satan. I know at times it's very difficult to keep believing in God, but that's the only way." "What if we are somehow distracted in the evil karma by the Satan?" I asked. "We are all his (God's) children, so he will always forgive us  whenever we return to him." She said. And with that our conversation on this topic ended as it was almost time to leave.
                                            The conversation had ended but the topic was still buzzing in my thoughts. The reason was simple, just the day before I had read an article about Karma. In that article the author had explained that even the smallest act of kindness, done intensionally or unintensionally, does not go unrewarded. But he also said that the same is applicable for your sins. If you commit sins, even unknowingly, it will be punished. His statement seemed to have logic. He had pointed some nice incidents of 'Mahabharat' and 'Ramayan' to explain his theory. "So who goes to the Heaven and who goes to Hell? Where will I go?" My bloody mind came up with some more teasers. I decided to leave that question and take an afternoon nap.
                                              After all these days, here I was, sitting in the train under a dimly lit bulb above my berth and again the same question was dancing in my head but this time though I had no choice but to tolerate it. Yes I am confessing it here, sometimes I am really slave of my own mind. "Hell or Heaven?" I needed to find an answer now. I started to think with honesty and I had my answer, I am not a saint and I have done things which are not ideal, but who else wouldn't have done such mistakes. "In fact, in such a scenario who will go to heaven?" I wondered. As far as I know my friends none of them is fitting in the frame to be in heaven. The picture was getting clearer, I am not a saint and heaven is probably not the place I may see. "Is it a bad thing?" again I wondered.

 Suddenly my evil mind responded, "No, not at all. In fact it's the best thing to be in hell." The reason was quite justifiable. If only those who have not committed any sins can go to heaven, then surely heaven is one of the most boring place to be in. And to add to that, which of your friends will be with you in heaven? Perhaps no one. Instead why not make the hell enjoyable like hell with all your friends?!!!! And what's the point in spoiling your life on earth for something you don't even know about?"

Finally I was reaching on a better conclusion. Hell was now looking like a better option than heaven, all thanks to my evil mind. "Still awake saar (sir)?" I was startled by the sudden voice of TTE. "Oh yes, what to do? can't sleep early. I have a habit of sleeping very late." I replied. "No problem saar, here is your receipt of 400Rs as we previously agreed. Good night" He extended his hand to give me the receipt as he spoke. "Oh thanks, Good night." I replied and took the receipt. I read the receipt carefully, 400Rs was the amount written on it. Again I thought, I was his partner in corruption and I laughed at my evil mind. Hell is not that bad place, I told my self as I pulled over my blanket to sleep!!