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Myself
The purpose of my life is to know God better. Not "know about God more" but to "know God better." That according to me, is the purpose of every human being on earth, but I cannot force it down anyone's throat. To each his own. If your purpose in life is to make money or achieve fame or power, or some such temporary thing, I have no problems with you. As for me, I am clear – the purpose of my life is to know God better and strengthen my relationship with him.
You get to know God better by obeying him. For those of you who are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with this kind of language, you can substitute the words "inner voice" or "voice of conscience" for "God", and you will understand what I mean. The inner voice frequently (generally? almost always?) tells you to do something that goes against your grain and the grain of the world. The more you obey your inner voice and go against your own and the world's grain, the stronger your connection with God becomes, and the better becomes your ability to distinguish it from your own emotions and ideas and fancies. The more you ignore or disobey your inner voice, the weaker the connection becomes.
This is not the story of my worldly achievements. This is about the development of my relationship with God. Ultimately worldly achievements mean nothing. Dust we are and to dust we will return, and nobody will even know or care about our worldly achievements a few years after we are gone. (And if you think that they care while you are still alive, well...) It's our relationship with God that matters.
So how did I get here? And where am I now? My life till now can be broadly looked at in five phases, punctuated by four life-defining moments or periods. We can start on 15th November 1962 when I was born in an average middle-class family, but there is nothing much to say about my childhood. I was a shy, introverted boy, preferring to keep to myself. I was good at studies but not at games. I was filled with insecurity and rejection arising out of continuously being "used" by other boys – they would copy my homework, but when it came to being selected for games like cricket or football, I was the last one to be chosen. There is no such thing as "those good old days" or "that wonderful childhood" for me; my childhood was the worst period of my life. (For me, life has become better and better over time; for me, the good days, indeed the best days, are now!) That pretty much sums up the first phase of my life.
We start straight at my first life-defining moment, a day when I was twelve years old. It started as an average run-of-the-mill day for a little boy in eighth standard at school. One of the teachers was absent that day and we had an "off-period." Mrs. Wadkar, the teacher who came to fill in, was not taking any of our other subjects; so we were free to study whatever we wanted. The other children promptly got down to doing what they wanted, and Mrs. Wadkar started talking about the waste that goes on in religion – the amount of milk that is poured down on idols and the like. I don’t remember much of what else she said, but something deep was happening to me which was to change me radically for the rest of my life. I suddenly "saw" that bowing down before a stone-idol was the stupidest thing a person could do. I knew nothing about Islam or Christianity or Judaism or any of the monotheistic or anti-idolatry religions of the world. The only religion I knew anything about was Hinduism. But here was I, with the deep realization and conviction that the most foolish, idiotic thing a person could do was to bow down before an idol.
I went home that day a changed person. The weekly pooja in our house was held every Thursday evening which obviously, we were all expected to attend. I didn’t want to attend it. I saw no sense in it. Those idols were suddenly nothing more than pieces of metal to me. But what would dad say? I was scared but decided to give skipping it a try. When pooja-time came, I purposely kept away. I expected dad to at least give me a shouting, but to my surprise, nothing much happened! Emboldened, I kept away the next Thursday too, and still nothing happened!
Soon I stopped attending all poojas altogether and refused to bow down to idols. I became an atheist and couldn't be bothered less with any god or any religion. My life was that of a typical youth wanting to make a good career, and being reasonably good at studies, got into engineering college (VJTI) and then into the prized IIM at Ahmedabad, allegedly the best management institution in the country. God or religion had no place in my life and I was not even interested whether religion was an 'opiate for the masses'.
The second defining moment came when I was 22 years old, in February 1985, at IIM-A. Jalaj Malhotra, a batch-mate and a good friend of mine, committed suicide. He was the first person I had come to know at IIM - in fact we had first met even before landing there, having spent three hours waiting for the same train at Dadar station on one of those July days when it pours not cats and dogs, but elephants and hippos in Bombay, and the train was to leave three hours late. So we spent three hours talking, with nothing else to do. That created the very natural bond which such situations invariably do, which was strengthened over the next few months as both of us were very frequent travelers between Bombay and Ahmedabad, shuttling at least once every month, and finding ourselves travelling together often.
Now why should a person like him commit suicide? He had everything many people aspire for - an IIT Bombay graduate, he had given up a well-paying job, was in the top 10% at IIM, was a good debater and a good sportsman (plus he came from a relatively wealthy family; and was handsome to boot!) He had everything most people think brought happiness; and he was unhappy enough to commit suicide! I had heard and read about people who had everything in life and yet were unhappy enough to commit suicide. Jalaj's suicide brought it right home to me. It shook me up. Questions like "What is life? What is death? What happens after death? Is there a God? If so, where is he? What is he like? Why has he created us? Who are we? Why are we here?" started flooding my mind. I wanted to know the truths about life.
The world's rat-races lost all their significance to me. Running the right race became more important to me than winning a race that the world had laid out for me. Climbing the right ladder became more important than climbing fast the ladder the world had placed in front of me. It became clear to me at IIM-A that the ladder that I was busy climbing (and all others around me were busy climbing) was the wrong ladder, that the race that I was busy running (and all others around me were busy running too) was the wrong race. Any victory in this race could only bring temporary benefits, destined to pass away with time. But what was the "right-race"? And what was the "right-ladder?"
The world's rat-races lost all their significance to me. Money comes and money goes, and if it doesn't, we go! Fame comes and fame goes, and if it doesn't, we go! Power comes and power goes, and if it doesn't, we go! Worldly achievements come and worldly achievements go, and if they don't, we go! We have all heard it being said of rich people "Is he going to take all that money with him?" It's clear to everyone that no one is going to take his money with him. But I was not satisfied to leave it at that. I wanted to know the answer to the next question, "Then what is it that we are going to take with us?" What is it that stays on with us after we die? And what happens after we die? The benefits that I would get from running the race I was in, from climbing the ladder that I was on, would only be "temporary," to be left behind when I die. What was it that I was going to take with me?
I had no answer to those questions. And worse, no-one at what is supposed to be the best Management Institute in India, seemed to have either. At IIM-A, there was a lot of talk about objectives and goals, means and strategies. But the objective of life itself? No-one seemed to be interested in such stuff. No one seemed to be even aware that maybe there is supposed to be an objective of life itself. I was like a little boy lost in the woods. I didn't know why I was here in this world, and no one seemed to know either. Worse, no one seemed to be interested in knowing either. Even if they did, where was the time to pursue that line of enquiry in IIM's jam-packed schedule?
And I lost all interest in the goings-on at IIM-A, both curricular and extra-curricular. Living life without knowing the answers to these questions became utter foolishness to me, like playing a game without knowing its rules or its objective. Life at IIM-A became a burden. What was supposed to be the best time of my life became the worst, worsened even more by the fact that I developed a severe sinus problem at that time which kept me awake sneezing away at nights and which drained away whatever little energy I needed to go through a tough course for which I had suddenly lost interest in completely.
And I lost all peace of mind.
For the next five years or so (the third phase of my life), I was a 'seeker', seeking answers to the questions that haunted me. I first ransacked the otherwise excellent Vikram Sarabhai Library at IIM-A. I was the only one who frequented the top-floor of the Library which had the books on religion and philosophy (maybe that's why it was up there - no one was interested in such stuff!) and when I borrowed those books for out-reading, I noticed as I signed the cards that I was the only one taking them after years. But I found nothing there to help me. The writings of philosophers and psychologists didn't even seem to address the questions which haunted me!
At the fag end of the two-year PGDM program, I went through Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation program, but there was nothing in it to hold me. After leaving IIM in April 86, I went through self-development programs like the est, which left me cold. I was with a Buddhist sect for four months, attending their prayer meetings regularly and going through their writings. But they too provided nothing to answer the questions which haunted me.
This was also a time of lustful abandonment. I had joined NIIT after IIM, and in June 86, I got involved. She was pretty and physically attractive, and 'on the rebound' (just out of another relationship) and it was easy. I was clear that I was in it only for fun and that I had no intentions of marrying her. I made that clear to her too, and her response was that "I would change." Fun we had, and plenty of it too, since she was a free-spirited girl. But by January 87, it was clear to her that I was not going to "change," and it was clear to me that time with her was no longer as much "fun" as before. The charm had faded off and there were many a times when I was actually bored with her! The inevitable happened and by February, we had parted ways.
The big questions of life had started haunting me again. By this time it was clear to me that the life "enjoyed" by most IIM-grads after passing out, would be more like a golden cage to me, offering little freedom to search for the answers to the questions which haunted me. The jam-packed schedule of Bombay's business life could not, and would not leave enough time, space, freedom, and energy to search for the answers to those questions. I was like a person possessed, hell-bent on finding out those answers. Playing the game of life without even knowing its rules or purpose was as stupid as playing any other game without even knowing its rules or purpose.
In December 86, I left the job at NIIT to start my own business, but more to give myself the time for searching the answers for those haunting questions! During this time, the British Council Library had replaced the Vikram Sarabhai Library as my main source of religious, spiritual and philosophical books. It was better stacked than the Vikram Sarabhai Library at IIM-A as far as this section was concerned, and it was conveniently located in the adjacent building (Mittal Towers) to where my office was located (Mittal Court) at Nariman Point. With more time on my hands from January 87 onwards, I gave myself to seeking the answers to the big questions of life through those books. But by August, it was clear that this too was as futile as the search at IIM. Also around this time, things had also started moving on the business front, and I didn't bother to renew the BCL annual membership expiring in end-87. I was still a little boy lost in the woods, now with lesser hope of finding my way about.
Astrology and palmistry too made a quick mark during this time for a brief period. Was there any truth there? Linda Goodman's Sun Signs is the obvious starting point for those interested in astrology, but the best book I came across was Steven Forrest's "The Inner Reality" (and its sequel "The Changing Reality"). Linda Goodman's descriptions were too deterministic, too fatalistic - Arians are "like this, like this, like that...", Scorpios (my sun-sign) are "like this, like this, like that..." etc. According to Steven Forrest, there is nothing deterministic about the signs or planets or houses. Nor is any sign or planet or house good or bad by itself. At the most, the signs, planets and houses represented what has been "given" to us - our natural strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes etc. What we made of what had been given to us was up to us. The finest people were found amongst all sun-signs. And also the worst. This way of looking made far more sense to me. I got interested enough to even learn how to draw up charts to know what was "given" to me, but soon gave it up when I realized that the people who had done anything significant in life had never bothered about such things.
My interest in palmistry lasted not more than a couple of months. I got a couple of books to see how much the lines on my own palm matched my nature. I had a very good head-line or line-of-intelligence - clear, sharp, unbroken, long, running right across my palm, and ending in a fork. That was nothing new to me but I still felt very good about that. Until within a couple of months, I saw an exactly similar line on the palm of the outstretched hand of a beggar! My interest in palmistry fled away faster than the speed of light. Years later, I would hear about Reiki and Vastu-shastra and such stuff but since they are just brothers and sisters of astrology and palmistry, I could never get interested in them. These things have not proven themselves on scientific and statistical tests. At the most they may represent weak natural forces, if at all. There are forces which are far more powerful than these. Human willpower is thousands of times more powerful than them, and the power of truth and of love and of God is thousands of times more powerful than human willpower itself. So do the multiplication and you find that the power of truth and of love and of God is millions of times more powerful than the power of forces that gave rise to beliefs about astrology, palmistry, vastu-shastra, Tao, Reiki and any other such stuff. For example, which house would you rather stay in as a guest - a house which has been designed according to Vastu-shastra, or a house where you feel loved and welcomed, though it is not according to Vastu-shastra? Obviously the latter. So at best, all such may by treated as extremely weak forces which can be safely ignored in practical day-to-day life. Why not tap in to the really strong forces straightaway?
June 1987 was when I had my NDE (Near-Death-Experience). I believe everyone should have at least one. It clarifies your priorities in life like nothing else. I was on Aksa Beach, known to be a dangerous beach. How and why it is dangerous, I know first-hand! I was in knee-deep water, and I thought I was safe. And suddenly, I found myself floating! The water level had risen so fast and so much in a fraction of a second that I had no time to even realize what had happened. Not only that, but the undercurrent was so strong, that I was being carried away helplessly into the sea. I knew this was it! It was so strong that no way could I fight it! These were going to be my last few moments of life! It was then that I made a most incredible decision: If these were going to be my last few moments of life anyway, then I was going to enjoy them to the fullest! I stopped struggling and stopped resisting the strong undercurrent. I "let myself go" and "let myself be" and "let whatever happens happen." Water started filling my lungs, and I started experiencing death. The experience was something like this: It was as if "I" was a tightly bound chord of strands of consciousness or awareness, and it was as if death was loosening the individual strands of this chord, setting the individual strands free. I was half gone, when my feet suddenly felt sand underneath. With whatever little strength that was left in me, I ran towards the beach. Back to the spiritual search.
In 1988, the manager of one of my new clients, invited me to attend a "Geeta Gyana Yagna" by Swami Chinmayananda where he was to expound the Bhagvad Geeta. This was my first serious exposure to the Geeta's teachings. I attended similar meetings by Swami Dayananda Saraswati, by A.Parthasarthy and a course by Swami Sukhbodhananda. I was not interested in religion, but in finding out the truth, and since the Geeta purported to answer the very questions which haunted me, I started studying it in depth. But I was not satisfied with the answers it provided. Krishna's advice to Arjuna didn't even achieve the objective of ridding Duryodhana of his sin! The duo destroyed the sinner without destroying the sin, and by his own philosophy of re-incarnation, Duryodhana's evilness would have carried forward into his next life, making him the worse for it! How did death make a difference to him?
Another big question which I have put to many people over the last twenty years, and which has remained unanswered till now: If re-incarantion is the truth, how come the world's population is increasing exponentially? The belief in re-incarnation would have been plausible when the world's population was fairly steady, but if the same souls are being recycled after their deaths (so to say), then logically, the world's population should remain steady. The theory of re-incarnation simply didn't fit observed facts. I was not willing to accept any theory which contradicted observed facts. And the fact that there was no essential difference in the lives of the people who followed the teachings of the Geeta and many of those who didn't, left me even more skeptical. And of course, my conviction against idol-worship continued to be another big wall. If most of those who preached from the Geeta were still stuck at worshiping idols, what truth can they be propounding? If their lives did not reflect the most elementary truth about God taught in the Geeta in verses like 5:29, 10:20, 13:18, 13:28 and 18:61 - that God is not found in idols but in the hearts of people, then all their talk was mere book-knowledge. If they did not have the guts to stand by this most elementary of truths taught in the Geeta itself, and lived their lives in fear of society, what could they impart to others?
(I did not consider Christianity or Islam seriously since I was most unimpressed by the Catholics and Muslims I knew. I found the Catholics' fascination with 'drinks, dames and dances' most repulsive). By August 1990, at the age of 27, I had come to the conclusion that "all religions are humbug; and to find peace you just do whatever you want to do, whatever you feel like doing and you will find peace and happiness." In my heart-of-hearts I knew that it was not true, for I had put that too into practice whole-heartedly and without any qualms, yet I still had no peace of mind. Five years down the line, I was still a little boy lost in the woods. Only by this time, I had made more serious attempts at finding the way out, but had met with no success. It seemed worse than before. Before, I had still to do the exploration, now I had done it and drawn a complete blank.
In 1990, I was doing software for a company called Electrols. On the computer there was a person by the name of Martin, and I had noticed that there was something different about him. Something undefinable, something I could not put my finger on, but it was definitely there. He said he was a "Christian" and used to tell me about Jesus. He kept on inviting me to come to one of their meetings, but I kept on avoiding it. What I found most offensive was his insistence that "only Jesus was God." Although I didn't care two hoots for any of the other gods, I found Martin's claim too arrogant and narrow-minded.
In August, he said he was leaving the company for a year's church training. Just before leaving, we had lunch together, and again he invited me to attend their meeting. I had already been to plenty of meetings of other religions, and didn't see any point of attending another religious meeting. But thinking, "What have I got to loose anyway? I have attended plenty of meetings of other religions and belief-systems, I have walked out of them, I can walk out of this too if necessary." A healthy skepticism had been my constant savior till now. Why shouldn't it be so in the future too? I had full faith in my healthy skepticism! So I decided to go and the next Sunday landed up at the meeting of Living Faith Church at Parel. The first thing I noticed and which made me very comfortable was that there were no idols! There was no cross either!
At this meeting, I sensed the same "different-ness" about these people, yet was unable to put my finger on it. And on that very same day, the pastor of the church, David Fernandes, was starting a "Foundation-course", which would introduce others to their basic beliefs. Wanting to know more, I immediately joined it.
Over the next three months, I got to know these people better. They called themselves "Christians" but were totally different from the Christians I knew. The 3-D fascination was totally missing. They lived far higher ethical and moral lives not only in behavior but also in thoughts, attitudes and motivations. They were extremely loving and caring, and very practical and down-to-earth in their helping of other people. They had a lightness in their spirits, yet were never frivolous. They were serious about their lives, yet were never morose or over-bearing; and were filled with a strange inner joy that I had never seen anywhere else. This strange joy seemed to flow from inside out and was not dependent on external circumstances since many of them were going through tremendous difficulties. I was naturally drawn towards them. And there were no idols in any of their houses; no crosses either!
According to what they said, some of them were Hindus before they had become Christians, some were Parsees before they had become Christians, and most interestingly, some were Catholics before they had become Christians! Jesus was for everyone, not just for Catholics. As I continued with the course and came to know the true beliefs of Christianity, within two months I knew that this is what I was looking for, this is what I was seeking. On all the counts this was better. On the intellectual count, creation ex-nihilo fit better with the observed fact of exponentially increasing world population, than re-incarnation did. On the spiritual count, Jesus was heads above everyone else in purity. Plus he dealt with the sin of people. Unlike Krishna, he destroyed sin without destroying the sinner. On the practical count, there was a huge difference in the lives of the Christians I had come to know and equally sincere followers of other religions. And to top it up, there was no idol-worship (which I still considered as stupid as I had done when I was a twelve-year old boy) It was perfect!
But I was still unwilling to commit myself. The deep conviction came in November 1990 at a church camp. This was a "singles" camp, where only young, unmarried boys and girls of marriageable age were supposed to attend, with the objective of drilling into them Biblical beliefs. I had no interest in marriage since I had come to a conclusion that having marital responsibilities was a burden and an "obstacle" in doing "what you want to do." I had no illusions about marriage, no stars in my eyes. Like any other boy, I was interested in sex of course, but getting tied up with only one girl for the rest of your life plus the responsibilities of marriage was too high a price to pay for getting sex! Sex could be easily had without the burden of marital responsibilities, so why bother with getting married? Although I didn't want to go to this three-day camp, I somehow ended up going. And what I saw there flabbergasted me. I had expected coarse joking and "girl-talk" amongst the boys. But there was not even a hint of such things! In fact I sensed an amazing purity of thought and emotions. And I saw young boys getting up early in the morning to pray by themselves! And they did it without any external prodding by anyone! This was flabbergasting. Only a real God could do such a miracle!
I was now convinced. This was what life was supposed to be and which I wanted. I was seeing it practically in the lives of 'ordinary' people. And the Bible provided the answers to the questions which had haunted me. Also the worldview that the Bible offered made more sense - that God was a person and was like a good, loving father who has created us with the objective that we would live in a loving relationship with him; but that man has lost it because he chose to forsake it by disobeying him. But the relationship could be restored. And Jesus seemed far purer and powerful than any of the other gods, not only by his words and deeds two thousand years back, but by the impact he made in peoples' lives today.
I was now fully convinced and decided to follow Jesus whole-heartedly. Accordingly I got water-baptized in December 1990, and joined the same church. This started off the fourth phase of my life, which lasted till end-2004. This was the period when I became increasingly clear that the purpose of life generally, and my life particularly, was to get to know God better. As Jesus said in his prayer in John 17:3, "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." As a Christian, I believed the basic, foundational beliefs of Christianity - that the Bible was the Word of God, that Jesus was God Incarnate (being one of the three persons of the Trinity), and that after death we face God on Judgment Day on which those who believed in Jesus would be saved from the eternal fires of hell.
This is the longest of the five phases, lasting for fourteen years, and plenty of things happened in it (including marriage with Urmila) which deepened and strengthened my relationship with God and which made me know God better. Now I am aware that some of you reading this might find such language strange or uncomfortable, and since from here on you will find more of this language, you can substitute the words "inner voice" or "voice of conscience" for "God", and you will get a sense of what I mean. I would be using the word "God" because for me, God is a real person, just like a person sitting in front of you is a real person to you. By real person, I mean a person who has a mind and emotions, likes and dislikes, who speaks to us and hears us, and who acts in ways we can discern. God is not some vague "the great unknowable beyond" or some such stuff. He is a person just like us. Of course his thoughts are far higher than ours, his emotions far purer than ours, his likes and dislikes not as arbitrary as ours, and his actions far more powerful than ours. We don't see him with our physical eyes, or hear him with our physical ears (although there have been cases where people have done so too). We sense and experience him not by our physical senses, but by our spirits. The purpose of our lives is to get to know him better.
The big problem is that there are huge obstacles in doing that.
The first big obstacle is ourselves. God reveals himself more and more to us only as we obey him in what he has already revealed to us. He speaks to us more and more as we do what he has already told us to do. The problem with us is that we don’t like to do what God tells us to do. We don’t like to obey God. This dislike seems to be ingrained in our very nature. Although it sounds nice and easy, when it comes to actually doing it, we end up doing the opposite of what God wants us to do. We may pay lip-service to God, but when it comes to the crunch, we do the exact opposite of what He wants us to do. How many times in your life did you know that your inner voice was prompting you to do something, yet you have done the exact opposite? And why have you done the exact opposite? Mainly for either of the two reasons: either you don’t like doing it, or you are too scared to do it.
Which is the second big reason why you don’t do it. "What will people say?" is a big question which haunts many people and prevents them from obeying the inner voice. Many of course grow out of this and don’t care (in the right sense) about what society will say. But there is another fear: what will happen to me? "Chuck your job and start your own business" the inner voice says to the confident, successful CEO of a big company, and a thousand doubts suddenly flood his mind. "What will happen if it doesn’t work out? And even if it does, what else am I going to get? I have a nice comfortable, cushy life going. The free company house, the company car, the good salary, the perks, the lifestyle, the prestige, the world tours, the dinners, the press conferences, the flashlights, the interviews, the attention, the fawning junior managers and other employees under me – all will go in a jiffy! What am I going to get by starting my own business?" And he chooses to keep all these and disobey his inner voice.
Which brings us to the third obstacle – the thraldom of the world. We are like little children. Children get easily enthralled by the things placed in front of them. Watch a child. He gets engrossed playing with whatever toy that is placed in front of him. It’s only when the child grows older and has been to a few shops that he knows that there are better toys available. Most grown-ups are nothing but big children. The world places some toys in front of them and they get enthralled and engrossed with it, giving their entire lives to it, without bothering to even inquire whether that is the thing that they should be giving their entire lives for. Their jobs, their careers, their families, their hobbies, the religions they are born in, all are good enough to keep the "normal" person enthralled all his life.
The fourth obstacle is our habits. How many times have we heard "We have always done it this way", "I have been brought up this way and I am not going to change now." Thank God that there are a few who don’t fall for that, else we would have been still believing that the earth was flat and the center of the universe, and that the sun and the moon and the stars revolve around it!
And fifthly and finally the big one – religion! "Our religion teaches us this and I cannot go against it." Religion is the biggest obstacle to knowing the real God, not only because it combines elements of all the four obstacles above, but also because it is the most effective substitute for God! People think that by following their religions, they are following God. A man gets up, does his pooja or prayer or namaz, reads his Geeta or Bible or Quran, and thinks he is done for the day. Once a week he goes to the temple or church or mosque, and thinks he is done for the week. Once in a few months he celebrates his festivals and thinks he is done for the period. Once in a lifetime he goes to a pilgrimage to Kashi-Mathura or Mecca-Medina or Jerusalem and thinks he is done for his life! And finally on his deathbed he says "I have been a good Hindu/ Christian/ Muslim" and thinks he is done for his life. Where is the development of his relationship with God? Where is the beauty, the reality and the depth of a relationship out of which can come out words like these:
Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one’s heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend.
Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you;
tell Him your joys, that He may sober you;
tell Him your longings, that He may purify them;
tell Him your dislikes, that He may help you to conquer them;
talk to Him of your temptations, that He may shield you from them;
show Him the wounds of your heart, that He may heal them;
lay bare your indifference to good, your depraved tastes of evil, your instability.
Tell Him how self-love makes you unjust to others,
how vanity tempts you to be insecure,
how pride disguises you to yourself and to others.
If you thus pour out your weaknesses, needs, troubles, there will be no lack of what to say. You will never exhaust the subject. It is continually being renewed. People who have no secrets from each other never want for subjects of conversation. They do not weigh their words, for there is nothing to be held back; neither do they seek for something to say. They talk out of the abundance of the heart, without consideration they say just what they think. Blessed are they who attain such familiar, unreserved intercourse with God.
I don’t even know the name of the person who wrote these words, but he (or she?) had clearly overcome the five obstacles and got to the real business of developing his relationship with God, as one develops his relationship with another person. Yet amazingly, even at this point, we are still not done with the obstacles! After the five, there is a sixth big one – the question of objectivity. After all, we are dealing with spiritual realities, not physical ones. With nothing to grasp with the physical senses, nothing to measure, anything can go under the name of God! How does one maintain objectivity? How does one keep oneself safe from being lost in a maze of subjectivity? According to most religions, there are spirits out there who impersonate God! How does one know that one’s relationship is indeed getting developed with the true God and not with any of these other spirits? And of course there are our own emotions. How does one know that under the name of "obeying God," one is not simply following one’s own desires?
I cannot buy the belief that "all religions teach the same thing, and all roads lead to the same God," simply because it overwhelmingly contradicts known facts. Sure, there is bound to be some common ground, but there are enough differences in crucial matters to arrive at the banal conclusion "all religions teach the same things." When we look at the scriptures of the different religions, we find major and fundamental differences in such crucial issues as the nature of God, the nature of man, the general world-view, what happens after death, the means and methods of developing your relationship with God, what is right and what is wrong, what things God is really interested in, etc. These are properly the subject matters of other essays on this site, here we only note that there are major differences. When we look at the people of different religions in the broadest possible terms, we find significant differences in their general natures, characteristics, beliefs, and behavior – between Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, Atheists . And the differences become more pronounced in those who are more religious than others! Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Atheists all have their peculiarities at the broad, general level, which get even more pronounced amongst those who are more "religious" within their religions. And even within the religions, differences are discernable – between Shaivites and Vaishnavites, Catholics and Protestants, Shias and Sunnis. Where do these differences come from? And how come they are more pronounced in the more "religious" people? The differences obviously come from the differences in the spiritual powers they relate with, and they are more pronounced in the more religious lot because their relationship with the spiritual powers is deeper and stronger. Just as slowly but surely, we take on the traits and characteristics of people we closely relate with, and of those who we idolize and look up to, we also take on the traits and characteristics of the spiritual powers we closely relate with. This leads to the obvious conclusion: all religions don’t teach the same thing, that all religions don’t present the same picture of God, and all roads don’t lead to the same God. Even a cursory knowledge of the teachings of the major religions falsifies the belief that "all religions teach the same thing, and all roads lead to the same God." Idol-worship is sin in Islam, Christianity and Judaism which leads to a blockage in your relationship with God. But is perfectly all-right in Hinduism, being a means to the end of developing your relationship with God. How can Islam-Christianity-Judaism be teaching the same thing as Hinduism about idol-worship as a means of developing your relationship with God? Even a slight shift in emphasis within common ground leads to big changes in character. Both the Quran and the Bible portray God both as a stern judge and as a loving Father. But the emphasis in the Quran is far more on his nature of a stern judge punishing wrongdoers ruthlessly, and the emphasis in the Bible more on his nature of a loving Father ever-eager for his wayward children to come back to him. Not surprisingly then (speaking in general and in the broadest possible terms), Muslims view and experience God more as a stern judge, and Christians view and experience God more as a loving Father. And but naturally, speaking on a very broad and general level, Muslims and Christians take on the character of the god they experience. How can the Quran and the Bible be leading to the same God?
Objectivity in spiritual matters becomes a huge issue once you have done away with the first five obstacles, and in a sense, the current phase of my life is nothing but a continuation of the fourth phase with more objectivity in it. And in a sense, I am still struggling with it. I can honestly say without pride that I have obtained a reasonable level of victory over the other obstacles. But I am still at it as far as objectivity is concerned. One cannot have any rubbish pass off under the name of God. "Obeying your inner voice" cannot become an excuse for laissez faire. The murderer or the rapist cannot say "I was obeying my inner voice when I commited that act." Nor can "obeying your inner voice" become an avenue for sliding into all kinds of subjectivity. The hallmark of truth is objectivity (see Truth and Religion); and as in the physical realm, so in the spiritual realm. If truth alone triumphs in the end (see Truth and Religion), both in the physical and the spiritual realms, then seeking the objective truth in the spiritual realm becomes a crucial activity.
But how does one do that? Perhaps the most important part of arriving at objective spiritual truth is to let your beliefs come in conflict with ones which contradict them! (again see Truth and Religion) And see what happens. (This website is doing precisely that.) You do it as gracefully as possible, and you do it in love; but you do it. Else you are in danger of sliding into the "frog in the well who thought that the things in the well are all there is in the world" kind of subjectivity. As you "let your beliefs come in conflict with ones which contradict them, if your beliefs are the truth, they will stand. It may take time, and you may go through a struggle because this world and its religions are full of lies which exert a continuous pressure on you to conform to it. But finally it will stand, and actually triumph in the end (see Truth and Religion). Because "triumphing" is not the characteristic of some namby-pamby set of beliefs which have to be protected from any assaults on it. It is the characteristic of truth.
This process of "letting my beliefs come on conflict with contradictory ones and seeing what happens" has brought me here. After passing through Hinduism, Atheism, Agnosticism, Buddhism, and Christianity, today I believe that Jesus was the person who knew God best. As in all other walks of life, if you are interested in making progress in "knowing God better," you have to learn from the masters, not start off with the arrogant attitude that "you know it all." We do it in all other walks of life - if we are interested in making progress in stock market investing, we first read Warren Buffet's views, try to understand them, follow them, even put them into practice blindly. Because "he knows best." We may also read the views of others who disagree with Buffet (like Nassim Taleb!), but in the contradiction, we give more importance to Buffet's views. Because Warren Buffet has objective results to show for it, and is considered a master of stock market investing. So also in the area of "knowing God better." Seeing his life, I consider Jesus to be the absolute master of "knowing God better." You may disagree with me on that, and I have no problems with your disagreement. His words, found in the four gospels and the book of Revelation in the Bible, are to me what Warren Buffet's words are to people who want to make money at the stock market.
Is my belief about Jesus likely to change? Is there likely to be a more successful person than Warren Buffet in stock market investing? Sure, but for that to happen, this person has to actually make more money at the stock market than Buffet has! For my views to change from here, I have to come across a person who is better than Jesus! Not just in talk, but in actual life.
This process has brought me in conflict with many, most notably in the church! If Jesus' words are absolute, then everyone else's have to be compared with his words. The words of Paul and some of the traditional beliefs of the church such as the Trinity, seem to contradict Jesus' words, as can be seen from some of the stuff on other pages on this site. Hence I cannot subscribe to them. More about that in the other writings, where they are appropriate and handled in detail.
But we are jumping ahead. We will deal with objectivity and the tests of it when we come to it (see for example Objectively arriving at "What the Bible says".). Here we are talking about myself. The fourth phase of my life – from December 1990 to end-2004, was a period of increasingly overcoming the first five obstacles and getting to know God better. During this period, God for me was Jesus, and the church had a big role in guiding me during this phase. I attended meetings on Sundays and one day mid-week. Sunday meetings consisted of a time of worship, a time of preaching and teaching from the Bible, sometimes a time of testimonies, and a time of fellowship with other Christians. The number of people used to be generally about 100-150. The week-day meetings were in smaller groups of 10-15, and for a time, I was leading one of them. In addition there were periodic camps in which we would go off for 3-4 days of concentrated time of worship-word-fellowship.
I am indebted to a number of Christians for bringing my beliefs and life more in line with the Bible’s during this period. I cannot name everybody for space-and-time constraints, but I would like to specially mention three of them – David Fernandes, Sydney Nevis, and Martin Malkaney. David was my pastor during most of this period. As pastor, he naturally "talked" to me many times, bringing correction in my life where and when necessary. But far more than his talk, it was his walk which was more impressive – he stubbornly follows God in spite of great personal physical pain due to his skin disease. "If he can follow God in spite of what he goes through, then I can surely follow God with my much better health" has been a constant and big factor which has prodded me to lay aside my own comforts and conveniences in following God. Sydney, for a period of about a year, was the overseer appointed by David above me. He has the capability of drowning anybody in a sea of love and affection and provided me the same during a period when I most needed it, with of course the necessary "corrections." Martin was the person who introduced me to Christianity in the first place as I have mentioned before. When he came back from Goa from his year’s training, he joined me as business partner, an association which was to last for more than ten years. Before my marriage in 1997, I stayed at his home many a times, and it would be true to say that I learnt far more from staying at his home than anywhere else! His home was a picture of hospitality, having an open-door policy where everybody was welcome anytime! And his mother, Auntie Myrtle, was like a mother not only to me, but to many others who have had the privilege of knowing her.
The general pattern of life lasted till about August 2004. Around this time, I was to do a study on "Justification by faith." As I was searching on the Internet for material, I came across articles which showed how Paul contradicted Jesus in the area of salvation and how Paul misused the OT Scriptures to make his points. There seemed to be some substance to them and I shared them with some Christians whose understanding I respected. I continued doing so over the next two years, but unfortunately, could not get much help. I had already stepped down from church responsibilities in December 2004. I wanted to spend more time in intensive study digging deeper for the truth - I was now once again hell-bent on finding out the truth. I have put the results of some of this study in the section "Of Special interest to Christians." The end-result of this study is a change in belief in three foundational pillars of Christianity –
So that’s where I am now. During the period 1995 to 2004, to me, the Bible was the Word-of-God. Now, it’s Jesus’ words in the four gospels and the book of Revelation which are authoritative (plus the Old Testament because it was authenticated by Jesus as the Word-of-God). Earlier "Knowing God better" was the same as "Knowing the God of the Bible better." That is what objectivity meant. Now, "Knowing God better" is the same as "Knowing the God of Jesus better." Jesus was the person who knew God best and who communicated the important truths about God in the most effective manner, in a manner that even illiterate farmers and fishermen – the hearers of his day – could understand easily.
What about the hundreds of other gurus and religions of today claiming to speak about God? They all may have a measure of truth in them, but for me, there was and is no one comparable to Jesus in terms of either purity of character or power of actions. Ultimately your relationship with God has to affect your life, and that difference has to be seen by others. Talking about God is easy, quoting verses from the Bible or Geeta or Quran is easy. Having your life do the talking is not easy and is the real test of how well you know God. I have already gone through other "gods" and religions and gurus and found nothing in them comparable to Jesus.
Isn’t this a "subjective" opinion? Sure it is, and all opinions of who (Jesus/ Krishna/ Muhammad) gives a more accurate picture of what God is like are bound to be subjective. I recognize that and have no problems with people who hold a view different from mine.
What about the big questions of life – what happens after death etc? These things are to be believed by faith. There is no proof about these things, nor can there be. No one has come back from death, and a few who have had near-death experiences have reported mutually contradictory experiences, experiences which seem to be more in line with their religious beliefs and training. It looks like their religious beliefs and training have had a hand in the way they have experienced life-after-death. If these things are to be believed by faith anyway, then I would rather have faith in the person of higher moral and ethical character, which to me is Jesus.
During these years, I have had many conversations and interactions with many people of differing religious faiths. Even though I have kept an open mind, with each interaction my conviction has only strengthened. Some were very good at arguing and presenting their case. But since I look more for practical results than book-knowledge (as Jesus said, "By their fruit you will recognize them" Matt 7:16-20), I have not been swayed by arguments.
I have found the "right race," the "right ladder". It is to "know God better." This race is different from the world's rat-races in one very fundaemntal aspect. To win this race, you don't have to see others lose! Everybody can be a winner here! In fact after a time, your own victory lies in seeing others victorious in their own races. That takes away all sense of competition with other people; in fact you find yourself helping others to win their own races, since God wants everyone to win their respective races. Although the goal is the same, each person has got his own "race marked out for him," a race against his circumstances, against own thoughts and emotions, which tend to pull him down and away from God. As the Bible puts it beautifully in Hebrews 12:1, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." The race "marked out for us!" Everybody has a "race marked out for him." The wealthy have a race which is different than the person who is struggling just to make ends meet. The healthy have a race which is different than the person who is struggling with a physical disease. Everybody has a different race, and he can win it without wanting to see others lose.
A Process and not a Destination
By its very nature and definition "knowing God better" is a process and not a destination. There is no end to it, no-one can say that he knows God so well that there is nothing more worthwhile left to know. It’s a process that continues till the end of our lives. There is no retirement here. Only an ever-open field of wondrous exploration never exhausting itself, providing the ultimate satisfaction which nothing in this world can match. All other areas of life are subject to the three-stage cycle:
Only this area does not have the last (decline and death) stage! You can go on forever building on previous gains, without experiencing any sense of futility about it. Furthermore, its gains carry on into whatever happens after death; they are never lost. As Jesus put it in Mat 6:19-20, the treasures on earth, moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal, but the treasures in heaven, moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. And if that doesn’t happen, we have to leave behind the treasures on earth anyway. Elementary logic dictates which kind of treasures we are better off putting our efforts for.
Thankfully, like in other areas, in this area too, we don't have to re-invent the wheel. "Knowing God better" as a life-objective is nothing new or novel. Many others have felt the same as I have, and have made developing their relationship with God their life-objective. Some have gone far, far ahead of others and have left a lasting impact on the world. And like in other areas, if we are interested in developing our capability in this area, we start off by hearing out these masters, taking their words seriously, and trying to put them into practice.
According to me, Jesus was the person who had the most well-developed relationship with God. (He got into plenty of trouble with the religionists of his day because of that, but he kept his priorities clear right to the end.) If you differ with me on my belief that Jesus was the person who had the most well-developed relationship with God, I have no problems with you. But if you consider developing your relationship with God to be the most important thing in life, I would highly recommend spending a few hours reading his words and deeds as found in the four books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the Bible. Sure, read about other masters too, but do not give Jesus a miss. His words and deeds take up just about a hundred-odd pages of a usual Bible. Which is nothing when you compare the amount of time you spend reading many other (ultimately irrelevant) stuff.
That does not mean I recommend following Christianity. There is a lot of rubbish which goes on in Christianity, some of which you will find written about in other pages on this site. But that also does not mean that I am berating Christianity either. With all its faults, I still consider Christianity to be the best religion in the world! And if that is what I think of Christianity after all that I have written in some of the pages on this site, you can imagine what I think of the other religions!
Things in these pages may "hurt some feelings". So at the outset let me state that the hurting of these feelings is not done purposely. I have no intention of purposely hurting anyone's feelings and have tried my best to put things in an acceptable manner. But obeying God may lead at times to the hurting of others' feelings, especially those of your near and dear ones who can't understand why you are behaving the way you are, or those of people who want you to behave in a certain way! I don't fit. I have never fit the world, I don't fit the world now, and I don't want to fit the world ever. My ideal is Jesus, and he too never fit the world! He wanted to fit only God, and I too want to fit only God. I have no obligation to fit anyone else's ideas of how I should be, or of how I should be living my life. My obligation is to God and God alone. When I say that I still consider bowing before an idol the stupidest, most foolish, most idiotic thing a person can do, or when I say that the Trinity is a lie of Christianity, or when I say that the Quran simply lacks the richness of the Bible and the Geeta, I am aware that I may be hurting some feelings. For me, the important thing is that I do not say it with the intention of purposely hurting others' feelings. My intention is only to be the real me and avoid any hypocrisy, something that I know for sure that God does not want in me. And secondly, although my stand may bring some grief to some people, it is equally possible that it may encourage others to stand for the truth! Since I do not know what effect it will have on others, and the possibilities of the good and bad effects neutralize each other, I can only state the truth as I see it, and hope for the best.
And yes, since the stuff on this site is serious business and deals with important matters, it may give you an impression that I am a morose kind of a person with a straight-face and nary a smile, pontificating on various issues and quoting the Bible or the Geeta at the drop of a hat! Such an impression would be totally false and out of character. I am a fun-loving guy, in fact I find myself more fun-loving and more fun-having than most people caught in the trap of this world. In fact according to me, one of the clearest tests of true spirituality is how much fun a person is having in his life, how much he is enjoying his life. According to Krishna, this life is a game (God's "Leela") which God has created for his children to enjoy. According to Jesus (Matthew 18:3), "unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." I agree whole-heartedly with both! The fun they both had (and which I believe in having) was of a different kind than the fun which people of the world know of, and have. Choose whom you will of the two, but have that kind of fun!
Happy reading!