What is GOD? My question is important. I do not ask 'Who is GOD?,' instead I ask 'What is GOD?.' 'Who is GOD?' is a religious question, while 'What is GOD?' is a spiritual question. Religion is a way of life – not the way of life. Religion is 'getting answers', while Spirituality is 'experiencing answers'. I feel 'What is GOD?' is a more important question than 'Who is GOD?.' So how do we answer this question?
'Sahasra Seersha Purushah' – thus starts the Purusha Suktam. The Purusha Suktam extols the personality of the Supreme Being, the Almighty God. What does the first verse in this Suktam mean? By literal translation, it means 'One with thousand heads'. The Suktam goes on to praise the purusha as one with thousand hands and feet and eyes. Does this mean God has thousand heads, hands, feet and eyes? What is the significance of the number 1000? It is well known that in Hinduism the holy numbers are 18, 108, 1008, or numbers like 11, 51, 101, 1001, etc. Why then 1000? Large numbers are often used to represent uncountable. The meaning of the beginning verses of the Purusha Suktam is, to me, means God is everyone. The Vedas extol the qualities of an ideal person. Humans need to strive to attain those qualities.
So coming back to the question, What is GOD? God is the ideal human being, the human being with all the ideal values. So attaining these values is the goal of life. This is exactly what the non-theistic religions are about. They talk about being good and ideal and do not mention about an external GOD.
2 comments:
Hi,
What u have said is absolutely true. Once we have risen above the benchmark ( accept the fact that there exist a super power ) then the next step is to try and realise What is God. And the fact that U have concluded by saying that God is everyone hits the nail on the head. Afterall, this is what God wants from each of us....be ideal humans!!!!
Well, Raghav what u have said is definetly true but i think there is a little more to this than just being good human beings. Life evolves from the bacteria through plants, animals and finally to human beings. But does it stop there?
The theories of evolution say that Man is the pinnacle of creation. Is that it? We become ideal human beings and then what? And that too who defines what is meant by being an ideal human being...it is all in ones' perspective.
I think the process of evolution is Matter to Man(Ideal Man) to God(remember the awareness classes of B.N).
Does the Ideal Man feel that He and the creation are not different? Does he feel one with every atom in this creation? Does he cry when he sees me and u crying and dance with joy when he sees us happy? Does he shed tears of blood when he sees himself (we) plundering and destroying himself (the nature)?...We can go on and on.. If the ideal man does all this then i think he is God.
The question is this..Do we identify ourselves as( and not just 'with') every other being in this universe..and this may be only the first difference between ideal man and the divine.
And this is what the Purusha Sukta is trying to convey...i.e we should be one with the 'thousands'...with the creation itself.
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