I was introduced to the concept of God when I was very little I guess, for I don’t remember not knowing Him. Coming from a fairly religious family, we had our share of rituals and customs that we happily and eagerly adhered to as kids. I remember my paternal grandmother performing Puja well into the afternoon on an empty stomach and being very very particular about ‘madi’ – the concept of not touching anything or anyone to maintain purity. Having dropped off my uncle in the airport, my sister Lata was licking a lollipop in front of my grandmother only to be chastised – ‘either put it in or spit it out! Why do you keep popping it in and out of your mouth!’ We found it hard to explain to her that a lollipop was meant to be licked! Hygiene apart, it was totally unacceptable to her, prompting several reprimands.

My father is a historian and an ardent lover of the idea called India. My mother is a scientist who is always open minded to new thought and exploration. Their combined influence ensured we as children (my sister, my brother and I) were exposed to a wide variety of thought and action with the absolute freedom to openly discuss anything under the Sun with them – a parenting style that was not really prevalent when we grew up in the 1970s. As part of our orientation to being Indian, we accompanied my parents to various temples, mosques, churches and other religious places of worship. We were frequent visitors to the Theosophical society, to the Ramakrishna mission, the Aurobindo ashram and the Shankara mutt at Kanchipuram. We were in the presence of the Dalai Lama, praying at the Vellankanni church, learnt the full name of the Nagoor Andavar and interviewed Acharya Tulsi of the Jain faith. I remember a summer spent in temple travels that had my brother Bharat asking my dad for the mythological story behind each place. We heard so many many tales.

The entire prelude in the opening two paragraphs, is to set the foundation that God has been an intimate and everyday part of my life, assuming various definitions and contexts. I never remember being ‘afraid’ of God. But I always remember talking to Him. He was never a stranger and certainly never confined to just one aspect of my life. I was ritualistic as a child, following different types of practices. I started enacting with God as my partner when I became a professional Bharatanatyam dancer. I began writing about him as I began reading traditional literature and modern thought. I began inquiring about God when life taught me lessons I wasn’t willing to learn. I befriended Him when I matured to see the larger picture. I switched from being religious to being spiritual when I heard my guru Mahatria utter the words ‘You should be so pure that God should want to be in your life!’. In these 47 years everything about what I believed as GOD has transformed. Yet the divine presence of GOD has never been relinquished from my life.

As scientific thought and exploration became an integral part of my life with the series ‘When science met God’ I started writing for infinithoughts in 2008, a need to express GOD in scientific ways was born. It also became an extremely effective tool of self awareness for on the one hand logical thinking was rampant and yet, thanks to Mahatria’s presence subjective emotional experiential validations were also in abundance. My heart and mind began a synchronised duet, dancing in awe and celebration. God had moved from being a person to a presence to a feeling to an all encompassing state of being. It was time for the next transformation…

“For thousands of years humans used God to explain numerous natural phenomena. What causes lightening to strike. God. What makes rain fall? God. How did life on earth begin? God did it. Over the last few centuries scientists have not discovered any empirical evidence for God’s existence, while they did find much more detailed explanations for lightening strikes, rain and the origin of life. Consequently, no article in any peer-review scientific journal takes God’s existence seriously” –  writes Yuval Noah Harari in his book Home Deus. Many a well read friend have begun to subscribe to this thought and have retired God from any need to exist. The soul was next to follow, ditched by insights into life sciences, that could provide no evidence of a soul’s presence or need. Scientific theories now maintain that sensations and emotions are biochemical data-processing algorithms – much like the computer variety, a methodical set of steps that calculates, resolves problems and reaches a decision or answer. Electric brain signals create subjective experiences and as 99 percent of bodily activities take place without any need for conscious feeling, our life seems to be run by highly refined algorithms we call sensations, emotions and desires. And if robots and computers today can run algorithms without the effects of conscious feeling, craving nothing, charting cruise control cars without fear and auto-pilots without exhilaration, what do you think actually distinguishes man from machine?

Some scientists declare that consciousness and the presence of emotions have great moral and political value to build society, though dismiss that they fulfil any biological function. ‘Jet engines roar loudly, but the noise doesn’t propel the airplane forward’ writes Harari, reflecting some scientific thinkers of placing subjective experiences to socio-political objectives and not to any sacredness of the individual identity, form and function. Are we really saying consciousness and emotions have the same utility of what the noise is to the engine?

In my opinion, subjective feelings are the ignition that sets the car in motion. If feelings weren’t important, 90 percent of us would not be negotiating every day to exercise, for we do not need any more scientific validations on the benefits of daily exercise. Cruise control using algorithms may take charge to navigate the car but some one needs to first start the ignition and instruct the car to reach a specific destination! Individual subjective feeling is what creates the identity, and unites the form to a desired function. If indeed survival of the fittest was a mere algorithm for natural selection, all humans alive today must already be the prime of the species not yielding to the living decay of body, mind, thought and feeling! Today’s man is not devoid of emotion, rather he is volatile with his emotions leading to a total disregard for the sanctity of anything. The biological function of feelings and consciousness is to ignite the process of adding functionality to the form. And it is in this context of integrating thought, feeling and action, that a GOD was invented.

Every scientific and mathematical discovery begins with a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a supposition or a proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation. So was the God Hypothesis born equating God to a person, a set of rules, a potentiality, the Infinite, ‘shunya’, the Absolute and every which more… To some He is born human to absolve others of their sins, to some others He is the creator, protector and destroyer of the universe. Some see His presence as they dress and bathe His idolatry form, others feel Him as they sing His praise. To some He is formless, and to others, He is every form.

One assumes ‘God is ___’ defining the variable in his or her head and begins to solve the riddle of life till the assumed condition no longer satisfies the needs. Now we begin with a new definition. The first value probably solved the first two steps in solving the riddle of life. But failed to satisfy the third step. A new variable is now equated, till it takes you to step five. Does that mean variable one was ‘false’? Actually no! Because without using the first variable, we could not have arrived at the second. And so the search continues for each individual. Some are satisfied with the answers to step five. Some keep exploring even after a variable called ‘Advaita’ or non-duality is equated in step zillion. The problem is not in the hypothesis or even in needing a hypothesis. The problem is in equating your hypothesis as mine and then finding it doesn’t satisfy the conditions of my riddle!

Every man begins with a hypothesis – a definition of what his riddle called life is to him and what it’s probable desired outcome should be. Some of us call that hypothesis GOD. A staunch atheist shifts the burden of proof, onus probandi, to the man who wants to prove the presence of a God. Conversely, the burden of proof for the theist, is shifted into the hands of any non-believer to disprove divine intervention. Unfortunately, most do not realise that the burden of proof is not something sought from outside but can only be resolved from within. An argument from ignorance – trying to say God exists because you cannot prove otherwise or to say God does not exist because you cannot prove this either, is a logical fallacy. The onus probandi vests within every individual to prove or disprove his or her hypothesis of how they define their GOD or by whatever name you call it, and remains their exclusive prerogative – their subjective identification to bring functionality to form.

Written by Gita Krishna Raj  |  Published in infinithoughts in August 2019