(Where) Does the God exist?

When someone asks me, ‘Do you believe in God?’, I say ‘No, I am an atheist’. That’s a sufficient answer, something which sums up the whole thinking process that takes place in my mind when I ask myself the question. But it doesn’t do so faithfully. The actual answer is not so easy to express in one word.

Sometimes I wonder if I am an atheist or an agnostic.  For years, I’ve tried to find a fitting definition for god, rather for the power that the people believe in; and I’ve failed. There is no universal definition. In last 10 years of my life, I’ve learnt to interpret the God differently in different situations. All interpretations are connected but none is a whole.

I was a believer and a worshipper when I was in primary. It was not an age when I could understand what God means, but I believed that Gods are watching us, they hear our prayers, they respond to them when time comes. I loved temples, I loved doing puja and I chanted the Hanuman stotra, Ramraksha every day. I used to kneel before God when something bad happened, requesting him to fix it.

It lasted until the fifth standard. In fifth, we had a poem that told the story of achievements of science, the things ranging from medicals to spaceships, the things that couldn’t have been possible without science. It was a poem so potent that it changed my life completely, turning me into a non-believer. All things that had been considered long ago as unexplainable force were explained by science. All feats that we had achieved were the results of our own knowledge and work. Everything was possible for a man. So where was God, what was God?

It obviously was a very narrow minded approach which I clung to for three years. I stopped going to temples. I suddenly hated saying prayers. I stopped taking prasad in pujas at school, much to my teachers’ dismay. A complaint reached home, that I was harming the beliefs of other kids. I was given a lecture at home by my parents on how to behave in the school, in the public. But still I used to push in my atheist self wherever I could.

In tenth standard, my English teacher once asked me if I believed in God. I said, “No, I’m an atheist”. He smiled. He said, “Nice. So you are prepared to take the additional responsibility that comes with being an atheist, aren’t you?” I nodded, smiling sheepishly.

What responsibility was he talking about? Over next two years, I realised what he meant. People don’t just worship the God because he’s almighty. God is a support, God is the hope. He is the judge who watches you every moment, backs you when you are right, guides you where you are clueless, indicates you when you are wrong. The watchful eyes of God keep you on the right path. It is very comforting to have the almighty as a support, a last resort. When everything goes wrong, he is there with the power to repair everything. So what happens when I deny the existence of God? Who is watching me, who will guide me?

The answer is ‘I’. I have to watch my own steps, I have to judge myself, I have to look at me from God’s point of view. The responsibility is to live under my own burden of expectations.  An atheist needs to have very strong belief in him. Confidence would not be a proper word because confidence is what man knows he can do. Belief spans a wider area, a space of all possibilities. An atheist has to believe that the power comes from within.

Suddenly I found the connection, between a believer’s God and a non-believers force of life. Of course the God doesn’t exist. But the very concept of God helps in bringing out the power contained inside everyone. To put it in simple words, ‘Please God, make this happen’, unknowingly translates to a renewed energy with which that man tries to make it happen. The logic fits with the message that many saints and leaders have given years after years, “God lies within man” and “Man is the creator of his own destiny”. The force, the power is the same. Atheists realize that it’s within them, while believers attribute it to an external force.

This definition has evolved over years, it has got stronger. Today, I’ve stopped seeing the difference between a believer and a non-believer. I realise how foolish I was as a child when I looked at the worshippers with contempt, when I refused to step in the temples, when I told friends, ‘There is no god, only science’. Speaking of science, there’s a branch of science called Noetic science, which deals with extended human capacities, power of mind. So even science is getting its share in my definition of God.

Today I don’t mind jumping from one interpretation to the other as per my convenience. Sometimes when it gets too demanding to tell self that everything will be fine, I request it to the external (indirect internal) power. As I said before, it’s comforting to know there’s someone out there to help you. Sometimes, when something takes longer than expected, I switch to the mind power zone, me telling myself deep inside ‘I can do it, I can do it. Yes you can do it.’

I don’t mind going in the temples, I quite like the environment inside, filled with the renewed human energy. I respect the people who pray because they are grateful that the concept of god has kept alive the power inside them. But I do feel sorry for those rare ones, who literally put the burden on God’s shoulder, separating themselves from it, as if it is God’s problem, saying ‘God will see to this, we’ve got other things to do’.

Then there is a weird but sweet theory that my friend jokingly mentions, that the God didn’t exist, aliens did. All those unexplained powers, structures man is supposed to be incapable of building, mysteries are because of the aliens. Maybe they are still watching us. Being a sci-fi fan I love to ponder on this theory. And I think ‘If they could do it, so can we.’ Those aliens are my inspiration, like the 1st rankers in my class whom I’ve always tried to surpass. That’s a far-fetched theory but an interesting one.

Finally if you look closely, there is one common thing buried deep in all the definitions, Optimism. Optimism is what makes us keep going. Optimism is the force of life. It is the ultimate God.