Dark Horse Arts and Sciences

“There is the stream of thought, one thought following after another in succession, each thought coming into existence and becoming non-existent at the same moment, that’s all; there is no thinker of thought, no soul. There is no god. It’s all a delusion. We shall only be ourselves when this delusion has vanished.”

                           – Siddhartha Gautama

God, if there is any, is another victim of causation or what you call Karma, just like all the normal living creatures. If you think someone will come to your rescue in your testing times, then you are utterly mistaken. As whoever you are praying to come to your rescue, is himself or herself trapped in the prison of causation or karma, an endless cycle of cause and effect in the fabric of spacetime. The thing you are experiencing may be the mere consequences of your past actions. So, there’s no point praying for this and that as whatever has to happen will inevitably occur in your future world line. There’s no denying that fact. 

Submission to mere delusions or false hope that a greater creator of all this is there, will only lead you to a path of dependence and self-ignorance as you will be depending on some irrational personality who nobody knows does exist or not. When you are submitting yourself to some other form of god, you are only getting rid of your own responsibilities of your actions; not facing them, but still sticking to that delusional being whose existence is dubious itself. 

Hence, this concept of god is nothing but a mere illusion we created for our own comfort or for the sense of false hope that there is someone who will rescue us from all this misery and woes, but in fact, nobody will. You yourself are your own creator and rescuer. Nobody will be there for you in times of internal suffering and misery, but you. It’s only you who has to go through all that and pass that with flying colors. So, sticking to some superstitious and irrational ideas will only lead to weakness and cowardice in the face of difficulties and complications. 

Gautama Buddha with immense meditation and self-curiosity realized the eternal truth of life; that life is fundamentally suffering and if there is a thing called god, then why our lives are filled with so much agony and angst. Leaving us all with so much woe and pain, what is that god doing there in the heavens; eating grapes from his apsaras?

Buddhism denies any form of god or soul. Buddha tries to impregnate the idea of selflessness among people by being selfless himself. He never sought all the wisdom and ideas for himself, but for others. He wanted to provide others with clearance and clarity about the misery and suffering and eternal truth of this chaotic world by going from one place to another and enlightening people with what he has learned from his meditative experience. Even in this process, he was selfless; teaching everyone the importance of selflessness and to leave the idea of any supreme being to attain self-independence. Buddha doesn’t itself imply any form of god but it means enlightenment. That means the realization of the mundane truth of our existence; the truth that life is utterly mundane and bleak in its nature and one can only seek for salvation by leaving behind all the internal desires. 

Buddhism in its approach is utterly pessimistic, but in some way or the other, it speaks with utmost authenticity and honesty which may sometimes upset people to their core. People may find it difficult to shallow as it depicts something that is uniquely common and utterly hard to comprehend. People also may hate this doctrine as it opposes the idea of a mere almighty, which in Hinduism, can be really contradictory. Hindus can’t get rid of their idea of their multi-gods. So, they might not find it very pleasant to grasp the idea of Buddhism. But whoever grasps it, opens himself or herself to the honest reality of our existence. 

Sometimes, I don’t understand how they included Buddha in the ten avatars of Vishnu in Hinduism as that will be an insult to Buddha as he himself never believed in any form of that. He himself denied any god’s existence and advised people to create their own meaning and faith in life amidst the absurdity of it all. 

Just putting the statue of Buddha at your office or home will only increase the beauty of that place, but it won’t do anything to your life. If you think praying Buddha as a god will give you some salvation, then again you are badly mistaken. Instead, reading about him and following his doctrines as much as possible in your day-to-day life, will help you to free yourself from this web of lies and misfortunes. Nobody is saying you should leave all your desires behind as depicted in Buddhism, but at least sacrificing those small material desires will somewhat help in the long run.It’s important to understand that those small materialistic desires are the one that lead to all this internal suffering. Even as a writer, I myself want more readers to read my work and appreciate it; but if it doesn’t materialize as I have imagined, then I become sad and my mood suddenly becomes melancholic. So these small desires are what lead us to all the melancholy and misery, so better try to get away from them as much as we can. 

There’s no fault in going after money as it will lead us to a great life, but depending only upon it to obtain some kind of solace is kind of illusory and misleading. Being rich economically is a blessing and a great thing as it gives you freedom to do a lot of stuff, but getting attached to it will only result in misery and desire to have more. 

So, on the whole, what I wanted to convey through this writing piece is a mere perspective of my own as you know reality is completely subjective. I know you may hate me for writing in opposition to the idea of god, but these are the honest words of my own shattered perspective. I am not saying through this article to not believe in any god, but what I am saying is even if you believe in god, which is not a bad thing at all, don’t get dependent on him or her for results. Don’t pray for mere earthly desires. Don’t go after him or her asking stupid nonsense things. Just let it be whatever it is. Just let it go. Just breathe and relax. It’s all there. Right in front of you. Lying with its expanding wings. Waiting for you to capture it and play with it.