My search for God - Success or failure?




What is this?

This is article I’m writing to present my journey with God, and my current stand.

Why is this?

I’m writing this to present my views about God in a simple and effective way.

Who needs this?

Anyone who’re interested in discussing God related subjects, who’re interested to know about me, or discuss with me.

Do you believe in God?

Let’s read on to know.

What is God?

I think defining what is God is one of the most important aspect before continuing any discussion about God. Myself I had different definitions of God in different stages of my life. I’ll discuss all those stages and my definitions of God in coming sections.

Why what is God instead of who is God?

But some of you may wonder why I’m raising the question what is God? Rather than who is God? My answer is you’ll be able to answer who is God only after you know what is God. Different people have different answers for the question what is God. The answer for who is God depends upon the answer for what is God.

Is it possible to answer what is God?

Yes it is possible.
For a better understanding just have a look upon theory of language. What is language? Language is collection of words and their sequences which are used to convey a something. A sentence is meaningful collection of words. A word is something which reminds something which we know already. Understanding a word means recollecting the memory associated with that word. If you say you’re understanding a word, this means you’ve something already known about that word. So answer to my question what is God is very simple one. God is a word. So you just have to answer what the word God reminds you. Or simply what you know and currently agreeing about God.

Stage 1: Introduction by family elders – 7-11 years

I was born in a Muslim family with father and mother who are not actively involved in religious matters, living with grand-mother and grand-father who are active in religious customs.
Religious customs were introduced to me while I was growing up. They are Namaz (Salah), reciting religious chants, quranic verses and similar kind of activities. Since we’re (we means me, my sister, and my cousin who are of similar age group) children and active students, we’ve actively participated in those religious activities, and learnt those chants. At that time I don’t know what is God. We just by hearted those chants and followed instructions of elders.

Stage 2: Joining a religious teacher – 12-15 years

We’ve joined a religious teachers who taught us reading Arabic script, so that we can read Arabic Quran and also by heart some Quran verses. (Most of the non-Arabic Muslims love to read Arabic, but they have no interest to understand Arabic). These people introduced me the concept of after-life, heaven and hell. They told me that what worshiping Valis in dargahs is wrong. And worshiping Allah is right, there is only one who is eligible for worship, who is Allah. During this stage Allah is someone who is invisible observer, who observes whether we’re worshipping him or not. Hence I started worshipping Allah. Until I’ve joined 9th standard I’ve continued this worship. After joining 9th standard I’ve got busy with studies and got no time to focus on God

Stage 3: Small discussion with recently converted Christian 16-21 years

My classmate in Diploma, Lakshmi Narayana is converted to Christianity recently at that time. At that time, due to previous influences I thought that Islam is right path (as our religious teachers said), but I didn’t understood why people (my college mates) approaching Christianity. I want to know about Christianity so I asked Lakshmi Narayana about God which is the basis of any religion.
Here is the conversation
Me: Hi Lakshman! (We used to call him Lakshman) I want to know about God. Can you explain me?
Lakshman: God is someone who created us.
Me: Then who created God?
That is the first time I got this question into my mind. The answers given by Lakshman not found convincing to me, and I realised that even I didn’t had answer to this question. By that time I’ve changed my definition for God, and kept those Islamic beliefs aside. After little observation of society, I thought that people represented good, fear, bad as God, devil, and Satan respectively. At that time my view about God is “I don’t know about real God, but God spoken in our society is just mere presentation of society”. I continued with this state of mind for many years until my age of 21 years.

Stage 4: Introduction of Jinns, increased interest in study of Religion 21-23 years

During this stage I started to work as a freelancer, and a Muslim guy used to be my assistant. In free time he used to speak about jinns and devils. One day we went to his native place. On that night I and he didn’t had enough sleep, and had some dreams. Morning we discussed about that. He thought that it is due to ghost present in house. His family members believed that there is a ghost in house and when we discussed this topic with his family they also believed that is a ghost and also they emphasised that it is a ghost and not a jinn. With that I’ve started studying about ghosts and jinns. By following some instructions from a web page on how to remove jinn from body, I misconceived that a jinn is removed from my body, and started believing in jinns. And since quran is giving details about jinns, started studying Islamic articles, viewing Zakir naik videos, and believed that Islam gives a better society. My mind is observing Quran and Islam. But due to Zakir naik influence I thought that propagating Islam is the need of time rather than studying quran and analysing it. During this time I lost my grandmother, which left me in a kind of depression. After some search I found an Islamic propagator in my area who also had some knowledge about jinns. We used to discuss about propagation of Islam, using different religious books to attract the people of those books toward Islam. I believed the need of propagation to such an extent that I even discontinued my education for the purpose of propagation of Islam. I’ve spent a year with him studying the styles of different propagators in our state, attending their classes, debates. During this time my definition for God is creator of everything other than him, controller, and I almost agreed with Quran defining god.

Stage 5: Being Questioned - realisation – 23-present

In the stage 4 as we’re discussing about Islam, one Islamic dayee (propagator) told us about someone, with good logical abilities, and good scientific analysis. He also told us that that person even point out errors in quran. We were astonished by listening this. We want to meet the person who is challenging the scientific accuracy of quran. One day we met him in Vijayawada, while discussion on another subject (Right to Information Act publicity) is going on. But his constructive approach of a movement appealed me. I started to think deeper than before. In the starting of 2015 I and my Islamic propagator friend of my town met with him in his residence, when study of bible is going on. During those 2 days of time, he questioned my propagation guide, some questions, by which my guide went emotional. Even I started being emotional. But within time of some seconds I thought that there is no need to be emotional. Questioning always leads to good results. If there is answer, it’ll lead to conclusion point whether right or wrong. After thinking this pain disappeared in my heart and smile appeared on my face, by seeing the question as an opportunity. After being questioned, I’ve rechecked the base of the building of faith. My base is existence of jinns. But there is no evidence for jinns, and my experience is not enough evidence in belief of jinns. My incident can be explained even scientifically. And even if jinns exist, it is not a proof for existence of God, and authenticity of quran. By observing these points immediately I switched my mind from belief mode to observation mode. In observation mode, I’ve studied different aspects of quran, and came to a conclusion that Quran is not giving enough evidences to believe in God, and also there are unscientific, inhuman things in Quran. But I’m ready to correct my conclusions if anybody proved me wrong. Hence my current status about God is I don’t know what it is. Back to children phase, where I don’t know what God is. All external beliefs I’ve supplied proved inappropriate to me. But if anybody showed me an appropriate approach to know God, I’m ready to accept, and know God. Before that I’d know what is God, according them, what they are speaking of, and how to they know it.

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