FACE TO FACE WITH THE ALMIGHTY

G. S. Rastogi

One night when in deep slumber I was suddenly jolted awake. I saw a Light and heard a Voice: “So you want to interview me.” I went cold with fear and remained tongue-tied. The Voice asked me to have no fear. I mustered up courage and mumbled a few inaudible words. At this I felt a gentle touch of a paternal hand on my head. Instantly a current ran through me. It soothed my nerves and instilled enough heart in me to address this benign presence. Instinctively I knew it to be the hand of no one else but the Almighty and humbly requested Him to assume a normal human form to facilitate communication. He, at once, assumed the form of a dignified elderly man and miraculously helped me to be completely at my ease. He asked me to have no fear and put any questions that I wanted to satisfy myself.

What more could I want? I started in a feeble voice asking His forgiveness for being audacious enough to nurse the idea of posing any questions to Him. The Almighty smiled and encouraged me to go ahead with my queries.

I humbly addressed Him, “Kindly allow me to put some questions to you to enlighten myself and others.”

Almighty: Go ahead and put your questions fearlessly,

I: I have a long standing fear that you are an airy nothing. Is it true? Please excuse my impertinence.

Almighty: It is very true!

I: Then, what is your identity?

Almighty: An airy nothing.

I: Then how is it that you are omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent?

Almighty: I have been bestowed with all these powers by the imagination of man, ancient and modern, civilised and uncivilised.

I: They say that nothing in the world can happen without your nod, not even a leaf can sway without your permission.

Almighty: So have men spoken and written about me and my powers. They are a part of my build-up. It stands to reason that there are countless species, animate and inanimate, and as far as the leaves are concerned they are so numerous that to assume that I keep watch over each one of them seems ludicrous.

I: Have you any form or shape?

Almighty: No. Essentially I have no form or shape. But I am supposed to adopt any form or shape or remain an invisible spirit. Ironically, people have been worshipping me in different forms and have often made idols of me.

I: They say that the voice of the conscience is your voice. It is really so?

Almighty: Nonsense. Conscience is manageable. The traditions and the prevalent values of society determine our conscience. But it does help and guide one in life as per his beliefs.

I: From ages immemorial men have prayed to you for security, prosperity, welfare of the family, cure from disease, victory in war and for solutions to all the problems of life that beset them. Can you deny this?

Almighty: If you keep in mind my identity, (whatever it means) then you should know that I am indifferent to all these prayers.

I: They say that Faith can move mountains. What is your response to such a faith in you?

Almighty: To an extent your statement is true. Your sincere prayers give you hope and confidence. You work harder which makes your path to success easier. Let me illustrate it for you with a fable. A farmer had four sons. When he was on deathbed he told his sons that there was gold buried in his land and he bequeathed one quarter of the land to each one of them. Soon after he died. The sons dug the land deep with great labour but to their horror there was no trace of gold. They were truly disappointed and angry with their dead father. Still they sowed and watered the land well. And lo! in time there grew up a very rich crop that fetched them gold and prosperity. The message went home and love and respect for their dead father returned. In the same way if you have faith and work sincerely towards the achievement of your goal, success is more likely to crown you with laurels.

I: They say that Faith is like a blind man’s stick upon which he leans for support. Do you agree with this view?

Almighty: This is true. It helps one to face life with greater elan and vigour. Besides he can bear the misfortunes of life with greater fortitude. In spirit he feels a bit more secure as he has someone to lean upon for support and nurse the hope for a better future.

I: How is it that you are invested with all the powers and benevolence but no evil is attributed to you? If you are the Lord of the universe and brook no rival, then how does the Devil come into the picture? You should have no difficulty in subduing him. But everyone knows that good and evil live side by side. You are supposed to possess all the goodness and the Devil, a source of all evil and suffering. Kindly throw light on this knotty problem.

Almighty: This is a very tricky question. Man attributes all the nobility, virtues, kindness, justice etc. to me, But when his prayers fail and misfortune pursues him like a shadow, he finds solace in thinking that there must be some flaw in him or that fate is unkind to him and resumes his humdrum existence with the hope that times will change and I will ultimately come to his rescue. Hope carries his life forward.

I: Excuse me, Father. You are dodging my question. Is the Devil someone outside of your existence?

Almighty: If you insist then I must tell you that both, the Devil and I reside in man’s imagination. Under uncongenial circumstances or when faced with unbearable hardships or threat to life man often thinks that the Devil holds the reins of his life. Sometimes black magic is used to exercise the man with the evil spirit as the Devil is supposed to have possessed the man. They pray to God as well, who alone, if He wills, can defeat the Devil. Devil is my antithesis. As I am supposed to be the ultimate arbiter of human destiny I alone can overcome the Devil. People think that I am good and the Devil is bad but good cannot survive without evil. Just as we can’t recognise light without darkness. So Devil is a reaction to ‘ God’. They are two sides of a coin.

I: But how does evil or vice come into existence?

Almighty: It is simply a question of faith. Man, from time immemorial has reposed complete faith in me (or gods and goddesses). He thinks that I am all pervasive and all powerful and that I can do no wrong. Man doesn’t want to think that I can be unjust or unkind.

I: Father! my question remains unanswered.

Almighty: You are very persistent. There is nothing good or bad. It is only man’s thinking which is governed by his social laws and traditions that make things and actions good or bad. So many creatures on earth live their lives without thinking of good or bad, moral or immoral. They act according to their need for survival. It is only man who cannot remain content with bare survival. His mind keeps goading him to organise, to invent, to discover, to possess, to dominate and all this leads to conflict and suffering. The trouble lies with man’s ambition and greed. The more progress he makes towards civilisation, the greater is the incidence of conflict and tension.

I: Is there any remedy?

Almighty: There is no remedy. Man’s restless mind, gregarious instinct, love, hate friendliness, enmity, likes and dislikes, greed and jealousy, instinct to possess and dominate etc. can never allow him to live in peace either with himself or with society.

I: How is it that some people can predict the future, astrologers, the oracle, for example. Some saints are known to have foresight into the future.

Almighty: This may be true but it doesn’t prove anything. Coming events cast their shadows. Some people by following certain discipline or austerities develop some sort of powers, difficult to explain rationally, and may predict certain events or trends correctly. At times, rarely though, people get into a trance, e.g. in devotional singing and dancing, and may be able to foresee things clearly. It is clairvoyance. Probably their practices lead to certain undefined chemical and cellular changes in the brain which endow one with such powers. Intuition plays a great part in it. But such powers are of little help in furthering knowledge of life or in alleviating the suffering of mankind on any large scale.

I: Do you play any role in the birth and death of a man?

Almighty: I have no role in it. Its purely a biological arrangement of Nature.

I: Do you, in any way, determine the destiny of man?

Almighty: I have absolutely nothing to do with man’s destiny. There are innumerable factors that determine his destiny. These factors are largely beyond human control but many social conditions are the result of collective social and economic forces.

I: But you must own the reality of your being. Otherwise how does this universe with its numerous species has come into existence? Surely someone must have planned all this creation.

Almighty: You see, even if I am a reality, I don’t possess those immense powers over life and death attributed to me.

I: But we notice that the world and the universe move according to some plan. There must be some sort of intelligence, in whatever garb, that has planned this universe and regulates the life and existence of the smallest and the biggest things. Father! Can you throw some light on this puzzle?

Almighty: It’s a question whose answer I do not know. But, surely, I can say that whoever has created this universe must have been created by someone else and so on ad infinitum. So this question cannot be resolved. What seems likely is, at some unknown point of time an immense mass was somehow hurled (something like the Big Bang theory) or some huge mass formation or formations came into being by the dust in sapce, as is happening even today. These solidified and have been hurtling in space and in the process some broke into smithereens. Still there remain some immensely big pieces either of the original lump or of new formations and these have been hurtling in space without a stop. Now every unit, even the smallest one, contains the secret of its future. Those units which were blessed with life at some stage have all their future codified within them. Every cell, every gene knows its future, even to the smallest detail. So, when people say that not a leaf can flutter without the consent of God, perhaps this God, that people talk about, is present in everything and everywhere.

I: Kindly elaborate. Are you involved directly in controlling each and everything in the universe?

Almighty: No, just as a King governs his empire through his ministeres and governors and an hierarchy of officials etc. in the same way I have my lieutenants everywhere in the universe who oversee their departments through lower officers and other ranks. It is a collective work of which, you may say, I’m the head.

I: Is it something like our human society ? Man has made motor cars, aeroplanes, computers, robots, has found treatment for many diseases etc. but individually most of us can’t make an aeroplane or a rocket or perform a surgical operation. It is the collective effort which has ultimately led to great discoveries and inventions. Most men have contributed in small bits and some have had a major share. Society is daily becoming more and more complex.

Almighty: Yes, In much the same way the world is evolving from simplicity to more and more complexity. If you insist I’m the overlord but, obviously, I do not wield control over everything but the laws of the universe have so evolved that I don’t have to exert at all. Things go on smoothly according to natural laws but sometimes with great upheavals just as it happens in your society.

I: This you have made fairly clear. Still, there must be someone who plans our destiny, who keeps a tab on our joys and sorrows, someone who holds the strings of every actor in the drama of life that is permanently staged on the surface of our planet Earth and may be elsewhere.

Almighty: There lies your mistake. Every creature is born with its own individual instincts and characteristics and behaves accordingly. As far as the human beings are concerned they all have in different proportions emotions of love and hate, joy and sorrow, ambition and contentment, greed and jealousy, kindness and cruelty etc. They live together, their interests often clash and they fight and kill each other but they cannot completely free themselves from their attributes. In spite of Buddha, Confucius, Christ and others who have preached men to abjure violence and to love each other and to live in peace with fellow men but man will remain man and good and bad deeds are for all to see. l have no role to play in all this. Whatever one does he produces some reaction in others, agreeable or disagreeable and the world goes on merrily, God or no God.

I: Lord! You paint a very gloomy picture.

Almighty: I can’t help it. I am powerless. Neither have I the power nor can I take sides. But one thing is sure. If you can walk out of yourself and watch the teeming humanity from outside then you’ll have no reason to complain. Nothing is permanent. Day and night, joy and sorrow pursue each other eternally. There is joy and tenderness of love and soon it is converted into sorrow and the bitterness of jealousy and revenge. There is a constant change of light and shade and therein lies the charm of life. How can I, even if I have the power, change this. If I do there wont be any thrill in life. There would be the monotony of death.

I: They say that every creature has a soul and that it is immortal. How do you explain it?

Almighty: Soul is the seat of human personality which is believed to survive after death. Ancient Egyptians believed that, after its sojourn, one day the soul would return in the same body. Hindus believe in the transmigration of soul. In Christianity, it is the spiritual part of a person capable of redemption from the power of sin through divine grace. It is also believed to be another name of God which explains much of its nature. Soul is immortal in much the same way as our genes perpetuate themselves for thousands of years and contain in some part, howsoever small, the qualities of its ancestor.

I: It is said that some saints possess prophetic gifts and supernatural powers to soothe and comfort others.

Almighty: Your question has already been partly answered, still how does it matter if they possess such powers. They cannot relieve the ills of humanity. In a few cases people may feel benefited by their blessings but the overwhelming mass of humanity lives on as it has lived through the millennia, now rising, now falling, never at peace for any length of time. These, so called, saviours of humanity are mere cogs in the wheel of life. Whenever any natural calamity, like earthquake, cyclonic storm, epidemic, famine etc. takes place all the plethora of moral teaching remains useless and all, virtuous and vicious are crushed under the juggernaut of Nature. Life may be precious but Nature never looks back in its relentless march.

I: Excuse me, Father! You said “life may be precious”. Yes people say that life is precious. How so? Is there any purpose of life? Kindly throw light on this intriguing question.

Almighty: It is rather churlish to think that life has a purpose. Life is just there and has to be lived. One should lead his life as well as one can. No doubt there is an inherent charm in life, no one from the lowest to the highest wants to die. However harsh one’s lot in life might be, people and creatures are prone to save themselves from any impending danger to their life by fighting or just slinking away from danger. Herein lies the secret. Life has visibly no purpose but to preserve itself as long as possible and to live it in a way that gives one maximum satisfaction. It is precious because one can endure any amount of suffering just for the sake of remaining alive.

I: Can you tell me what is meant by enlightenment?

Almighty: Essentially it means one who has shed all his illusions of love, attachments, hopes and ambitions. He rises above these. Life holds no temptations or complications for him. He is free of all encumbrances and attains tranquility of mind.

I: Why do such enlightened ones go out to preach?

Almighty: They want to share their experiences and also to free men from illusions.

I: Such enlightened persons are highly revered. Their words are often taken as gospel truth. In a way it does the work of brain-washing. Perhaps herein lies the catch. The intention is noble but the results are unhealthy. Mind should be free and evolve its own salvation. It limits one’s freedom to think. Some windows of the mind become clogged. Man develops cliches and the ground for conflict with men who think differently, is prepared. Do you agree, Father!

Almighty: Yes, It hardly does any good but one must use one’s own discretion.

I: They say that you are very merciful and kind to the poor and the oppressed. Is it true?

Almighty: They say what suits them. I am always neutral. Everyone’s lot is determined not by me but by one’s birth, environment and circumstances in which one lives. It is the pressure of social forces and one’s personal effort and ingenuity that determine the prosperity and the well being of a person. My name is invoked as a matter of custom or as an excuse.

I: Lord! Can you give any advice, so that we may lead a peaceful life?

Almighty: Celebrate life and never complain. Life is a boon.

I: Lord! Can you tell me something about inspiration?

Almighty: When we say that a man is inspired we mean to say that all one’s faculties are in harmony and poised to give their best in whatever one does. These forces are not always at one’s command. Partly this is the reason why it is nigh impossible to repeat oneself exactly after a lapse of time. Even I, with all the powers supposed to be at my command, can’t produce two things identical in their minutest detail. One’s performance may be good normally but when inspired it is bound to be of a higher order. Besides you know that at times an artist writes a poem or paints a picture and sometime later seeing the same he wonders whether it is his work, so novel it looks to him. It is true in other disciplines also. The likely reason is that everyman is possessed of some quality of which he is totally unaware. Then at some time this quality surfaces, may be for a short time, and the work that one undertakes at such time results in an inspired performance.

I: One last query, Father! How do you explain revelation?

At this his brow twitched a little and frowning He dismissed the meeting with a wave of hand. And lo! He changed into a tower of fire and like a rocket shot into space. The sight took my breathe away and agape with wonder my eyes opened wide. It took me quite a while to gather my wits and to comprehend the situation. I realised that I had overshot my privilege. After all He was not there to let me into all the secrets of the universe and life.

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