Thursday, July 23, 2009

Passitheism

Let me first revise my established idea on causality or the rule of karma. Precisely speaking, it says no cause no effect; i.e. all events are preceded by a long chain of cause-n-effect vents starting from the very beginning of time. Tomorrow is determined completely by today and today by yesterday. This means that all the events occurring are predetermined and nothing is out of blue or because of any "free-will". Free will is but an illusion.

Given the above mentioned thesis, what is the role of god in our own life or in this creation? If everything is determined then what is the use of praying a god? Indian scriptures say that even gods are not beyond the rule of karma! So should we pray god? At the outset it may seem that if god is also a follower of he karmic laws and can not change a cause-n-effect chain, then he also is helpless. But there is a very nice catch here. God is helpless if its only your karma that determines your future! I.e. you as an individual do good work, then you get good future and vice-verse. But this is no the case! Karmic rules are applicable for the creation as a whole; its a holistic rule. The creation as a whole follows the cause-n-effect chain. And that's the reason for so many anomalies to he local karmic rule! You never exactly know why you might have a good future tomorrow or a bad future the other day. It surely follows the karmic rule but you can no longer pin-point the cause. Its more or less like the chaos theory! A cat crossing the road in 200BC in Rome might be the reason for which you faced the accident yesterday! Hence, may be, a distant may-be, you had a good luck yesterday because you prayed a certain god a month back. Gods might also have some power. But that's again an illusion as our own supposedly free-will. The bottom line is pray god or whatever power you feel like. But there is no guarantee of any result. And the future is predetermined all the same. This I what to term as passive theism or passitheism. Neither do I deny the existence of god; nor do I accept the same. Its just part of the flow and with no extra power whatsoever to change any predetermined event.

An interesting allegory to this is reading a novel. When you are reading a novel, everyday you come across certain new happenings. To you the reader, its new and fresh. But actually its all written down already. Its just a matter of discovering the event by uncovering the pages of the novel. You may call god as the writer of the novel who has written it and hence knows it all. But once written and passed on to your hands, the writer has no control over the happenings in the novel. Its a god who is passive in our lives, thought he might have created us all!

1 comment:

HARD DISK said...

nice lines sir!

..You may call god as the writer of the novel who has written it and hence knows it all. But once written and passed on to your hands, the writer has no control over the happenings in the novel. Its a god who is passive in our lives, thought he might have created us all!