Does god really exist?
Some people believe in god. Some people don’t. Some people see god as a creator and some people in diff faiths & culture have defined god completely differently.
The most common belief however is that God is the Generator (creator), Operator & Destroyer of this universe and he is the supreme of all. “Not even a leaf falls without his permission” as some people say.
But Do we get problems to our solutions by just believing in God? If he is the creator of the universe and it’s care-taker then the question arises – Who created God? People who believe in God believes he has been there since eternity. He is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient. Of course, If he is such as some people believe then no harm believing in such god. But if such God exist and if he is the most powerful and supreme and he is everywhere then why is there so much suffering the world? How can he be so merciless?
So i will believe in God only if i put my hand on fire and it still doesn’t burn, If i put my hand on ice and still it doesn’t feel cold, If god exists he will protect me from fire and cold. But this does not actually happen, Right? Because Nature has some rules. Universe is self sufficient. It does not need any creator or destroyer. Nature is self regulated. Rules are absolute. Fire is hot & Ice is cold.
So, now question arises: Should we not believe in God? No, God is there. Let’s discuss it further. Now we will discuss what is the role of God.
God is like a light. He shows us everything present in front of our eyes. He is like a Sun. What sun does is throws light equally everywhere. If you have closed doors, you will not receive light. If you have open windows, you will receive more light. He will only show us things as they are. But we will have to see and notice things and interpret them on our own.
God is like a mirror. Whenever we go out, we see and check ourself in the mirror if there is nothing wrong on our face or any black spot on our face. The black spot is not on the mirror. It’s on our face. What mirror does is it shows us our true reflection. But it can’t change anything, Mirror can’t remove black spot from your face, we have to wash our face and remove the dust from our face on our own. Similarly, God’s work is only to show us our true reflection, our true being, but he will not help us in making any changes. Only we can change things with our conduct and hard work. So, expecting god to resolve our issues makes no sense. Only we can resolve our issues.
Okay then, this kind of god is acceptable. The one who shows us the reality but only we have the power to change our reality.
So, now since we have learnt that there is no god. We are back to ground zero. Then who decides our fate? What is the reason behind everything happening in and around? Why does things happen in a certain way? The answer to that is KARMA. Only our own Karmas decides our present, shapes our future & our destiny. Nowhere in the world or in any religion emphasis has been given on Karma as in Jainism. Karma has been discussed in depth in Jainism. Karma is responsible for everything in our lives and only we have the power to control our own karma.
The above text has been taken from the pravachans of H.H. Muni Shri Kshama Sagar Ji Maharaj and has been translated from hindi to english by me. Also, very little to no additions are made to it. Please pardon me for any mistakes. 🙏🏼
I will write future blogs on how karma decides our fate fom Jain lens.
Jaintleman 