My Experiences Are My Life

OH MY GOD:

“Oh My God!” was the movie that I  watched today after a long time. Some people had warned me that OMG was blasphemous, but I didn’t see it that way. I firmly believe that when we start labeling reasonable arguments as blasphemy, we start slipping towards fanaticism. And

many of the arguments made in OMG were definitely reasonable, some even excellent. When Akshay Kumar playing as Krishna says, “Main Bhagavan hu isliye chamatkar kartaa hu, na ki main chamatkar kartaa hu isliye Bhagavan hu”, he states the relationship between God’s identity and miracles brilliantly.

I not only appreciate OMG’s logic, but also connect emotionally with the courage and rage of Kanjibhai. I remembered how in my teens I had worshiped God for doing well in a particular exam. But when the results didn’t turn out as well as I had expected, I became so angry that I tore apart a picture of God and threw it away

But the essential cause of my transformation was education. Over the years, I have found answers to many questions that I had considered unanswerable.  Education has two core parts: to know that we don’t know and to know what we don’t know. OMG highlights the first part of education; it raises many valid questions that demonstrate how we know so little about religion. The godmen indicted in OMG make a mockery of these principles and I have no intention of defending them. In fact, I enjoyed the exposure of their arrogance, hypocrisy and peevishness. I would concentrate on the second part of education.

However, the danger of OMG-type depictions is blanket generalization. Many spiritual teachers are purely and selflessly devoted to God; they work tirelessly to help others as a part of their devotion to God. But I do know that many of my spiritual teachers live close to this saintly standard; I am their student and servant, trying to emulate their glorious example according to my small capacity. Nonetheless, the point to emphasize is that the ideal of saintly devotion to God does exist – definitely in principle and limitedly in practice.

And isn’t this the way people are in all fields? A rare few are ideal; most are average and some are abysmal. Consider the field of medicine. Doctors selflessly devoted to treating others at the risk of their own lives are a rare few. Doctors seeking a career that also provides a life long avenue for helping others are in the majority. And doctors who use treatment as a masquerade to fleece their patients as much as possible are the bottom abysmal few. If these worst of the ranks of doctors were depicted as the typical, doctors would have a right to feel wronged, wouldn’t they?

When some pathetic godmen – the worst of the ranks of spiritual teachers – are depicted as the typical, don’t spiritual teachers have a right to feel similarly wronged? OMG does try to avoid this extreme by depicting one of the gurus, the Pujari played by Arun Bali, as humble, considerate and conciliatory? However, that attempt is undeveloped; OMG quickly reduces him to the role of a cheerleader for Kanjibhai – a cheerleader dressed in saffron. The godmen are pathetic in both their behavior and in their answers to Kanjibhai’s questions. But do all spiritual teachers have to be like that? If an intelligent person like Kanjibhai can learn a few things by using his basic common sense and by studying the Bhagavad-gita for two months, then couldn’t others like him have learnt more by studying it much longer? Might there exist saintly people who combine the sincerity of the Pujari and the logicality of Kanjibhai?

Actually, OMG doesn’t just raise questions; it also claims to give answers. These answers are given explicitly by Kanjibhai in his answers to the questions he is asked in a TV talk show and implicitly by Kanjibhai through his actions that he chooses with the approval of the movie’s Krishna. These answers raise serious questions about several specific religious practices as well as the generic role of religion in society.

These are some of the questions that I came across in the movie, which I would like to clarify from what I believe.  I would be dealing with one question daily according to my leisure hours.

1.    Do we need middlemen to approach God?

2.    Does God help atheists and oppose godmen?

3.    What is the definition of religion?

4.    Is religion made by man or by God?

5.    Is religion meant for loving God or fearing God?

6.    As we wouldn’t chant “Papa, papa” if we wanted a chocolate from our father, why should we chant “Krishna,Krishna” if we want something from him?

7.    Are rituals needed in religion?

8.    Why should we offer our hair to Balaji?

9. Why do temples provide special queues for quick darshan to those who give more  donations?

10. Why do temples spend so much money on expensive religious rituals when beggars are starving outside the temples?

11. Isn’t the idea that religious rituals provide happiness just sentimental imagination?

12. Aren’t some rituals like those in which the offered milk gets drained into a gutter wasteful?

13. Why has religion become an exploitative business in the name of God?

14. Doesn’t the institutionalization of religion kill its spirit?

15. When God is in our heart, why do we need any guru to come between us and him?

16. What qualifications should we look for in gurus?

17. Do godmen who live in luxury represent God?

18. Doesn’t religion make people violent?

19. Doesn’t religion make people feel helpless?

20. When priests tell people about future sufferings and make them do rituals, aren’t they acting like hooligans when threaten people to extort money?

21. Does hell exist? What about the hell menu card?

22. Are earthquakes acts of God?

23. Doesn’t the Bhagavad-gita (9.8) state that God is the

destroyer?

24. What is the cause of earthquakes?

25. Why do bad things happen to good people?

26. Why do we need big temples when God doesn’t need them?

27. When God is present everywhere, why should we worship him in the temple images?

28. How can a stone image be God?

29. The stone image is limited, whereas God is unlimited. How can it be God?

30. How can a stone image that can’t even wave away a fly on its face be God?

31. Is image worship meant for less intelligent people?

32. Do we need to discard everything material connected with God to avoid idolatry, as is  depicted at the end of OMG?

HOPE u all appreciate it .

1. Do we need middlemen to approach God?

Even if for discussion’s sake, we assume that we don’t need middlemen, then who will tell us that we don’t need any middlemen?

In OMG, Kanjibhai takes up that role. By thus giving us the message that we don’t need any middlemen, he ends up acting as a middle-man. Therefore, those who convey the idea that no

middle-men are needed to approach God are making a self-refuting statement because by stating this they are themselves acting as middlemen.

Even if we argue that in OMG Kanjibhai rejects the role of a middleman by beheading his own image that people were about to worship, still even in that rejection, he is acting as a go-between by telling people that this is not the way to worship God. Even if we listen to atheists and reject the existence of God entirely, we can’t avoid middlemen; we are letting those preachers of atheism become our middlemen. But these are middlemen who meddle in our relationship with God and push us far away from him.

So rather than futilely denying the need of middlemen, we will be much better off investing our intellectual energy in finding out the right kind of middlemen – those who are actually close to God and will help us come closer to him.

2. Does God help atheists and oppose godmen, as OMG depicts?

God helps everyone, but he doesn’t force his help on anyone. He respects our free will. So he helps us to the extent that we seek and accept his help. The Bhagavad-gita (4.11) states that as we approach God, so he reciprocates.

To understand how God reciprocates, let’s look at the three broad categories of people in their relationship with God, as depicted in OMG. These three categories are:

1. Sentimental believers:

In OMG they are represented by Kanjibhai’s wife Susheela, his neighbor Mahadeva and the general people. Majority religious believers fall in this category. They have some faith in God, but they don’t use their intelligence to seriously enquire about him. God provides scriptures to enlighten all human beings. The relationship of sentimental believers with scriptures is limited to respect. Their reverence for scripture is often accompanied by ignorance of its import. As they don’t study scripture seriously, they don’t know the proper process for worshiping God. So they take up whatever religious practice they learn from their upbringing or culture or by word-of-mouth – anything that feels good and seems to suit their needs. As they base their religious practices on feelings and not on intelligence or scripture, they are especially susceptible to exploitation by false godmen.

2. Exploitative godmen

In OMG they are represented by Leeladhar Swamy, Siddheshwar Maharaj and Gopi Maiyya. They are materialistic opportunists who mint money and gain prestige by exploiting the gullibility of sentimental believers. They talk about God, but they are not actually interested in him. For them God is just a tool to fulfill their own materialistic agendas. As they don’t want God’s help, he doesn’t interfere in their lives. But because they often misrepresent him and his teachings and because they mislead those who have faith in him, God ensures that they get the just consequences of their misdeeds.

3. Intelligent nonbelievers

In OMG they are represented by Kanjibhai. God appreciates those who use their intelligence – even if they are presently nonbelievers. After all, he has given them their intelligence and he doesn’t want it to be kept in a showcase; he wants it to be used. So with their intelligence if they get questions about life, they have a right to ask for answers. And if they don’t get answers, they may conclude that the only intelligent thing to do is to become skeptical or even atheistic. However, if they assume that just because they haven’t found the answers, the answers are nowhere to be found, then they err and become close-minded atheists.

To answer the questions of everyone, God has provided scriptures. And he appreciates inquisitiveness, as he demonstrates through his own example in the Bhagavad-gita – therein, he answers all of Arjuna’s questions. Moreover, many question-answer sessions between sincere seekers and intelligent teachers stand out in the pages of the Vedic scriptures. And most importantly, the Vedanta sutra (1.1.1: athato brahma jijnasa) specifically urges all human

beings to become inquisitive spiritually. If those with intelligent questions remain open-minded

and continue enquiring sincerely, God will help them. He will guide them to his genuine representatives who will answer their questions. Then their skepticism will become

just one passing phase in their intellectual evolution – they will graduate through it and become intelligent believers.

In OMG, Kanjibhai undergoes this evolution as he progresses from being an intelligent nonbeliever towards becoming an intelligent believer. But his progress requires something extraordinary: the personal intervention of Krishna who miraculously protects and heals him.

OMG portrays that Krishna guides Kanjibhai alone. Were there no intelligent people before Kanjibhai? Certainly there were. Would Krishna not have guided them towards becoming intelligent believers? Surely he would have; his love is for everyone – not just for Kanjibhai. Then could Krishna not have used these intelligent people to guide other intelligent seekers? He certainly could. Moreover, wouldn’t these intelligent people themselves have wanted to help others along the journey that they have taken? Naturally they would have. This is evident from the example of Kanjibhai, who at the movie’s climax forcefully admonished people about how not to worship.

In OMG Krishna disappears at the end, implying that he doesn’t want to give to everyone the special favor that he gave to Kanjibhai. Then how does Krishna want others to become wise like Kanjibhai? Presumably through Kanjibhai’s guidance? If so, then couldn’t there have been predecessors to Kanjibhai who could have guided him? Naturally there could have been. These people comprise a fourth category of people, a category not depicted in OMG: intelligent believers. These are sincere seekers who have asked questions, found answers and have become genuine seers. OMG requires Krishna’s miraculous intervention to guide Kanjibhai because it doesn’t depict intelligent believers who could have guided him. Do such people exist? They do indeed, declare the Vedic scriptures. There exists a succession of such seers. This

succession extends back into antiquity and originates in Krishna’s personal instruction to the first seer. And there exists not just one but several such successions which are called paramparas. The Padma Purana explains that there are four such paramparas: Sri, Brahma, Rudra and Kumara. These paramparas have living seers even today and all of us can gain God’s help through them.