Confessions of a former "believer"

Caveat: You might find this very boring, illogical, insane and stupid!

India, they say is a country of festivals. Among these festivals, if you had to find one that was the most 'important', at-least in the part of the country where I live, it has to be Diwali. The festival of lights lies right in the middle of the festive season with Navratras, Durga Puja preceding it and Bhai Dooj and Guru Nanak Jayanti to follow.

I have personally never been too big a fan of the festival . However, I do appreciate its importance in context of socializing. The great part about Diwali, as far as I am concerned, is that you get to meet so many people in such a short span of time. Every year, I, along with my dad and my brother, go about distributing gifts to friends and relatives. Now, I am not one of those that gets bored while elders are talking. In-fact, their conversations are sometimes so much fun to listen to. The phenomenon started when I was young, and I was asked to go along so that I could be kept off mischief. The incentive offered to me was cold drinks and juices (yeah, they used work with me, they still do!). Over the years, it has become a sort of tradition and I have enjoyed every bit of it. Catching up with people, meeting old friends, listening to their stories, this all makes Diwali great.

However, this is where it ends for me. Diwali, at the end of the day, is a religious festival. And that is where my apprehensions start.

When I was young, like every boy of my age, I believed in God, I believed in the stories of Rama and Krishna, of Vishnu and Mahesh. Every Sunday, I used to get up at 9 am ( I could not get up early even then) to watch Krishna on the National channel. I hero worshipped him, I used to miss playing and go to temple every day with my grand mother for prayers. I had learnt all the aarti's by heart and could recite them even in my sleep. As I entered middle school, I was still the same, a devout follower.

However, that is where things started to change. I don't know how exactly it happened, but I started questioning myself regarding my beliefs. As I read about the various communal tensions across our country, I was forced to ask-" Is this really what religion is about?". In particular, I remember my thoughts after reading about Babri Masjid demolition. I failed to understand how can people fight with each other in the name of God. Since early days, I had believed God to be a source of power and inspiration, not of hatred and violence. It felt stunned and amazed. I used to look into the television, where hordes of religious fanatic speakers would be talking about religion as if they knew everything about it. The question in front of me was how could these killers understand about a thing about a thing as pure as God. The guys preaching us to fight with fellow human beings for our God, surely they cannot be the right people to follow! After all, weren't we supposed to be the son of one God? Then how can we fight with each other in his name? This all left me very, very intrigued.

As I grew, I found a set of people around me who did not believe in any of this. Every phenomenon, according to them could be understood with a rationale. There was a logic to everything that happened in this world. I am not very sure why, but to me this could not be a fact. There are some things beyond our understanding. I did not agree with atheists either.

And so I developed my own theory about how the human mind works. I am sure someone else would also have said this before. The human mind, as per my understanding is inherently fearful and curious. We all are afraid of things we can't explain. We need to find a reason for every action around us. I don't think every thing can be explained by science and logic. This is where the clever mind developed a mythological power called God. It could be used to explain everything that we did not comprehend. It was a proxy for every unexplained answer. Even though there was still no logic for some of our actions, but by passing the bucket to God, we were able to breathe a sigh of relief and point to something definitive. Same thing happens to me also. I studied hard for an exam, could not get the desired result, and hence I would pass on the blame to God. I am sure a lot of people, if they think, would be able to come up with similar stories. Gradually, we started putting so much emphasis on him and giving him so much power that we started believing he could change our lives with his magical powers. And if he could change our lives, that means if we prayed to him, he would become happy and grant us our wishes. This is what "God" says in Bruce Almighty-" People can take charge, but they want to pass on all their work to me", or something to this effect. To show our loyalty to God, we started doing all kinds of weird things, hence the rituals that every religion has. Fighting with our brothers to show whose God is superior became another symbol of loyalty. And hence we ended up in the world where we are.

Where did this leave me? I have stopped believing in "Moorti Puja". I am no longer a devout temple visitor. I don't follow any religious practice with zeal.

Yet, I have faith. I still believe in a power that the human mind can never fathom. But I do not give a name to it. I do not give a shape to it. That nameless shapeless faith is my God. The particles that conspire in helping me achieve my goal when I really want something is my God. The song/book or anything that helps me during my tough times is my God. That luck that helped me pass when I had not worked and failed me when I had worked is my God. About six months back, I had written about a monastery that I had found very peaceful, that is my God.