Perceptions

Are we afraid of God? Let me ask myself, Am I afraid of God? I feel I’m. I know he is omnipotent, omnipresent as well. My upbringing, the readings, the conviction, the morals, all these days taught me that he is every where, taught that even I’m the God! Then why should I feel scared of him?

By the way am I calling God him? Is he male? Or may be my manly eyelids aspire he were a male. God can be female too; in the most popular deities of Hindu dharma, there are prominent Goddesses too. When I refer God, am I mentioning any one of them, Saraswathi, Laskhmi, Durga, or are they assigned to particular occasions? It can be, some where my sub conscious was educated, each Goddess for particular cause, for strength, for wealth, for learning, for victory. Oh then we cannot spot to a singularity that this is God, oh God itself is plural, quite perplexing!!!!

Or is he (now it can be she too) just an emotion which renovates the world of appearance into more cherished world of sentiments? Or is he a set of traits which stimulate my emotional qualities? But at times is he not linked to our own selfishness, rather than absolute emotions? Being Godly is being unselfish and it can be unfinished too.

God was an evolutionary idea for me. As a child the small Lord Krishna photo kept at the corner of the mediocre ‘pooja room’ in my home, where mother light the evening lamp, for my folded hands, tightly shut eyes, for the 8 year old kid, that 10x10 inch frame was God, the matchless fear to whom he confessed, requested, beamed, innocently. He was commanding and listened to my pleas, needs, at times despair, (after all at that age what was there to be worried), however, it was a compelling fear, a mark of obedience to fold my hands in front of the frame fusing to the middle class values. When an enhanced room and a place was given at my home, God was upgraded, the frame was replaced by a bigger idol of Krishna, the yellow robes, the anklets, the flute, the ‘mayilpeeli’, oh he was handsome, I remember, just as my mythology taught, yes my God was good-looking, he was gorgeous, and I was proud.

Any way, God was a revered figure in the house hold. He (or she) demanded respect when ever I passed past the nearby temples, unknowingly I chased the elderly gestures, touched the heart in front of the deity, folded the hands and pretended to ask some thing, oh I should please my Lord, my modest mind was mutely mentored, this is the way to pray, which even today I follow; yes I’m dutiful, I stick to my values. The very presence of God is realized (or acknowledged) in all the occasions, without fail.

Later God was described as a truth, a timeless authority, splendour and superiority, an intellect of precision, transcending all quantitative standards – a perception of secret satisfaction. There are many temples of all sizes in my home town, during childhood I never frequented them, but for the rare festive occasions, and pilgrimages were less I must say. During college days, God became more fashionable, we all had relatively bigger tasks, larger issues, better desires, and superior ambitions, obviously God became a necessity, each religion had their own God, and their own days for worship. If my Muslim friends visited the mosques on Friday afternoons, Christian guys had Sundays, the pious day, well enough to stay occupied than sleeping the day out. We were confused, being Hindus (oh, in the meantime there came a pretending noble thought, far beyond the reach of ‘ism’s Hindu is a dharma, a way of living and not a mere religion, so anything can be excused!) we did not set apart a special day for any cause, at least we never practiced, slowly started visiting temples nearby; I realized what is expected out of me. Thus slowly God stood for excellence, with discord of belief about excellence. Later he was the righteous knowledge of the path to unselfishness, the eternal truth.

By the way did I take God with religion? It is a fact; we take everything allied to God with religion. But for me God stood for unselfish truth for the satisfaction, truly personal.

Why do we elucidate so much about God? Is he not beauty? Then what is beauty? Do you remember the last time when you witnessed beauty? And why is it called so? With a school boy’s curiosity did I not watch the beauty contest held first time (even last?) in India with passion? When the skimpy Venezuelan lady, the name which is too insignificant for me to hold in my little memory for that long (yes beauty fades, then why should I?) walked with tiny diamond crown (they called it the world beauty title), and a gentle pay pack, did I not sit in disbelief? Was it not the teenage girl in my neighbourhood with wide open eyes much beautiful than the half naked (!!) South American. Oh shouldn’t complain, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, or I must be blind.

Much was heard about Goa, the sprawling beaches of the former Portuguese territory - they have been the most adored Indian holiday locale, then why were they not appealing for my eyes when I visited there and why even today the little known quiet beach near my ancestor home more beautiful to me? Why do I passionately equate beauty to those sands where we built towering dreams, watched the setting sun, quarreled with cousins for the broken play ball made of coconut palms, why am I relating memories to beauty rather than abstract considerations? May I call beauty as character? Then what is character? Is it the essence of life inside a being? It must not be a logic, but must be a magic which works at the world of appearance, producing harmony, an inter relationship. Will it not give a power to raise in the individual an intimate feeling of reality?

Excuse me; when I reveal beauty as some thing related to individuals and locations am I not narrowing myself? Poets sang the beauty of the flower, the river, the little bird, the charming lady, the seasons, the nature, the sunlight, the darkness, the stillness, the silence, and what not. Is it not the magic of character in all these which define the beauty? Don’t you think that there is a rhythm which is in the heart of all creations, which moves in all the atoms and in different measures fashions the voice and the deaf, the rose and the thorn, the dawn and the dusk, the sweet and the sour? And don’t you harbour the lovely thought that it is not a relationship of facts that weaves the pattern of beauty but is the sense of oneness of our thoughts and the character of the object which radiates it? At least, I do.

Again what is the pattern of beauty? When I watch a cricket match, say India playing Australia, a perfect test match at a crucial juncture, Aussies chasing a possible target and are 3 or 4 down for twenty some thing, and if Steve Waugh walks in with that trade mark chirpy smile, is it not the character that is dictated in the field by the Aussie legend which enthralls the normal Indian fan inside me to enjoy the cricketing beauty that is unfolded in the century that is followed in the doggy determination of the baggie green captain which denied a probable Indian sweet victory?

In a crowded city tram, the betel chewing, dark, dirty, bald fellow carrying metal scrap in the bag which is as old as him, when he offers the seat to an elderly woman, in that air of thick disgust, when he acknowledges that thankful smile back, is it not that gentle gesture that pours in the onlooker the sense of beauty in those shining betel clad teeth and the smoky face?

And character is bonded with laws of beauty every where, in the acquisition of all awareness, in the faultless dignity of the human stature, in the wild excitement of the rains, in the earth’s green layer of pasture, in the blue tranquility of the sky, in the ruthless self-restraint of winter, in breathing the exercise of all powers and in fighting evils, in a hard won success, and at times in the un avoidable failure, it is everywhere which radiates beauty. When I stand in front of that sanctorum, with my hands folded, packed wisdom winds from behind murmurs in my ears, beauty is everywhere, showing that bonds of law can only be explained by character embedded in love.

And then what is love? Is it a movement of unending vibration, a movement at its outset infinitely swifter than anything that we can visualize, and at the same time at absolute peace, rich and full? There every thought and feeling can be an act. Love is where a sentence need not be whole but the idea is understood, where the language need not be applied still one is understood, hence it is total understanding. But there is an inescapable element of pious stupid innocence, which equates the subject and object of love. I always wondered watching the childless old couple in my neighbourhood in their late seventies understanding each other at the slightest wink of each other’s eye, the resonating rhythm in their communication and the care they impart. They often quarreled on the silliest chores, but the time tested love vibrated the rays of innocence and the humblest trust in the fading eyes of that poor farmer couple who sweat out their days to meet the ends. It gave glow to those eyes and their beauty was held there.

We all are mortals, normal human beings, with the purest essence of emotional existence. Evolution process of the world must have tried to bring the elements of truth in every being. It is this evolution that teaches individuals their views, rights, beliefs and ways. Life will always evolve towards a critical mass of truth, towards the revealing of a greater meaning, towards the justifications of the selfish 'I' inside all of us, and all are perceptions, how we see things and most importantly how we want to see ourselves.