On a whatsapp group of old hostel friends, I once happened to express dislike for Amish Tripathi's Shiva Triology since he wrote that Shiva became a God and was previously a normal human being in flesh and blood. My comment kicked up such a storm that I recieved accussations from all directions. One said you're too passionate about your point of view. Another one said, "I don't have issues humanising gods. We are all godly in some way... We just have to realise it. Humans only acheive greatness. Gods are not a different species... They are just spiritually evolved beings".
Yet another one said, "It's interesting how Amish gives a perspective to the journey from being human to being god for Shiva. Read it in this light, you will appreciate it better and will help you to understand that humans have infinite potential... It's all about the direction u focus it in." And the final blow came with "Don't we humanize Gods as our belief? Who or what God is, God only knows. We make paintings and idols and books and think that that's God and we believe so much in stories we tell ourselves, yet we don't appreciate someone else's story or God."
Having had become a couch potato lying in front of TV all day while nursing a broken bone, I'd lost touch with the exact words from the teachings of The Bhagwad Geeta to answer my friends as to why I don't endorse their logic or Amish's point of view. All I knew was I find it unbearable.
This actually left me a little bewildered that I'm finding it difficult to put my learnings from the Geeta into words. And the strange part is that for days I was praying to God to break this spell of engaging my senses all day in the name of getting rest. This was it.
I had to get my head in order. So I picked my Geeta again to get answers. There is such a magic in this translation of Geeta that every time I go to it, I find my answers within minutes.
And here they are to those posed to me.
In the Bhagwad Geeta Lord tries to help us see how the world around us is perishable. Everything from our bodies to the house we live in, to the nature around us, the sun and the stars above and this whole earth comes with an expiry date. But God is imperishable. God is timeless and endless. How can something which is mortal know the immortal, how can darkness know light? Our senses, our mind, our intellect, or our 'antehkaran'. These are all perishable. No matter what we do, these cannot help us define God. Lord answers this question by saying that you cannot know me fully but if you keep trying with all your senses, mind and intellect you will be able to experience my love with the help of the soul or the Self which resides in you.
But for that we have to know what this Self is. If you observe our sense of self remains constant all our life long. We say when I was a child, when I was a tennager or when I will die, or in my next birth etc. This means the 'I' remains constant whereas the body keeps changing with time. This is because the body is mortal whereas the self is immortal. When you experience The Self inside you, you will understand that our mind is a chatter box fitted to our body to extend the life of this body. That is why if we keep listening to the mind it will make us very selfish. The Self awakens our conscience and takes us in the right direction.
However this doesn't yet answer why I don't endorse Amish Tripathi's Shiva Triology or my friends' take on things.
Lord has all the answers and I'm no expert but crudely put He says if you analyse Me with your intellect, you will not get anywhere. Whereas if you read scriptures, do jap, yog, and satsang regularly without any desire for anything, I will reveal myself to you.
And whoever says Lord Shiva became a God is grossly wrong. Shiva resides in every speck of this world and the whole world exists because it gets energy from Him. Millions of universes thrive inside Him. How can a human being suddenly become the whole of our universe and beyond? How did the whole world exist before the so called Shiva the human being decided to become a God. Everyday a new star is discovered which is farther away than the previous ones. Who knows the limits of this universe, what to talk of others.
Now for the idols and paintings, it is an attempt not at defining God but an attempt to engage our restless mind and frivolous senses with God. There is no other purpose.
Well maybe The Shiva Triology has some answers but I've no inclination because the Geeta has answer to every question not just these.. Because as Lord says no matter which subject you pick, and no matter what depths of that subject you go in to, you will find only Me.
Then the question arises how can God be in everything which is perishable if He Himself is imperishable? This is because we exist because of God. God is not because of us. How can then every human being suddenly became a part of that one spiritually evolved human being called human Shiva? Yes the demi Gods are spiritually evolved beings but not the God almighty. They may have their journeys of evolution and one can use the label of 'species' for them but I would not risk it with them either. With my limited existence I'm no one to hold opinions or make efforts to discover God. To me I know that He loves me more than I will ever know. I may get lost in my sensory world, but He never forgets me even for a second. In this world or the other. Whatever time I have I must use it to praise Him and love Him back.
And it is pure bliss. If ever I've felt truly blissful in my life it is when I praise Him with my heart full of nothing but love
I will close this one with these beautiful lines by Swami Paramahansa Yogananda in Autobiography of a Yogi
"He is the sole Owner of the cosmos, He silently showers man with gifts from life to life. There is but one gift man may offer in return - his love, which he is empowered to withhold or bestow. In taking infinite pains to shroud with mystery His presence in the atoms of creation, the Creator could have had but one motive, one sensitive desire: that man seek Him only through his free will."
Yet another one said, "It's interesting how Amish gives a perspective to the journey from being human to being god for Shiva. Read it in this light, you will appreciate it better and will help you to understand that humans have infinite potential... It's all about the direction u focus it in." And the final blow came with "Don't we humanize Gods as our belief? Who or what God is, God only knows. We make paintings and idols and books and think that that's God and we believe so much in stories we tell ourselves, yet we don't appreciate someone else's story or God."
Having had become a couch potato lying in front of TV all day while nursing a broken bone, I'd lost touch with the exact words from the teachings of The Bhagwad Geeta to answer my friends as to why I don't endorse their logic or Amish's point of view. All I knew was I find it unbearable.
This actually left me a little bewildered that I'm finding it difficult to put my learnings from the Geeta into words. And the strange part is that for days I was praying to God to break this spell of engaging my senses all day in the name of getting rest. This was it.
I had to get my head in order. So I picked my Geeta again to get answers. There is such a magic in this translation of Geeta that every time I go to it, I find my answers within minutes.
And here they are to those posed to me.
In the Bhagwad Geeta Lord tries to help us see how the world around us is perishable. Everything from our bodies to the house we live in, to the nature around us, the sun and the stars above and this whole earth comes with an expiry date. But God is imperishable. God is timeless and endless. How can something which is mortal know the immortal, how can darkness know light? Our senses, our mind, our intellect, or our 'antehkaran'. These are all perishable. No matter what we do, these cannot help us define God. Lord answers this question by saying that you cannot know me fully but if you keep trying with all your senses, mind and intellect you will be able to experience my love with the help of the soul or the Self which resides in you.
But for that we have to know what this Self is. If you observe our sense of self remains constant all our life long. We say when I was a child, when I was a tennager or when I will die, or in my next birth etc. This means the 'I' remains constant whereas the body keeps changing with time. This is because the body is mortal whereas the self is immortal. When you experience The Self inside you, you will understand that our mind is a chatter box fitted to our body to extend the life of this body. That is why if we keep listening to the mind it will make us very selfish. The Self awakens our conscience and takes us in the right direction.
However this doesn't yet answer why I don't endorse Amish Tripathi's Shiva Triology or my friends' take on things.
Lord has all the answers and I'm no expert but crudely put He says if you analyse Me with your intellect, you will not get anywhere. Whereas if you read scriptures, do jap, yog, and satsang regularly without any desire for anything, I will reveal myself to you.
And whoever says Lord Shiva became a God is grossly wrong. Shiva resides in every speck of this world and the whole world exists because it gets energy from Him. Millions of universes thrive inside Him. How can a human being suddenly become the whole of our universe and beyond? How did the whole world exist before the so called Shiva the human being decided to become a God. Everyday a new star is discovered which is farther away than the previous ones. Who knows the limits of this universe, what to talk of others.
Now for the idols and paintings, it is an attempt not at defining God but an attempt to engage our restless mind and frivolous senses with God. There is no other purpose.
Well maybe The Shiva Triology has some answers but I've no inclination because the Geeta has answer to every question not just these.. Because as Lord says no matter which subject you pick, and no matter what depths of that subject you go in to, you will find only Me.
Then the question arises how can God be in everything which is perishable if He Himself is imperishable? This is because we exist because of God. God is not because of us. How can then every human being suddenly became a part of that one spiritually evolved human being called human Shiva? Yes the demi Gods are spiritually evolved beings but not the God almighty. They may have their journeys of evolution and one can use the label of 'species' for them but I would not risk it with them either. With my limited existence I'm no one to hold opinions or make efforts to discover God. To me I know that He loves me more than I will ever know. I may get lost in my sensory world, but He never forgets me even for a second. In this world or the other. Whatever time I have I must use it to praise Him and love Him back.
And it is pure bliss. If ever I've felt truly blissful in my life it is when I praise Him with my heart full of nothing but love
I will close this one with these beautiful lines by Swami Paramahansa Yogananda in Autobiography of a Yogi
"He is the sole Owner of the cosmos, He silently showers man with gifts from life to life. There is but one gift man may offer in return - his love, which he is empowered to withhold or bestow. In taking infinite pains to shroud with mystery His presence in the atoms of creation, the Creator could have had but one motive, one sensitive desire: that man seek Him only through his free will."
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