MY VIEWS ON GOD-- II

I feel that there is nothing in this Universe that is not God. The Universe stretches in an infinite number of dimensions. Humans know only 3-Length, Breadth and Height. Even if we consider Time to be a dimension there are only 4 dimensions known to man. How much may science develop, man would never be able even visualize the ultimate reality because he does not possess the faculties to comprehend it.

I have a great analogy (this is my own idea and I have not taken it from any ones thought) for visualizing the role of man in the universe (which in turn is God or the ultimate). See the human cell, which our scientists have discovered. Cell is a part of the human body. It multiplies and therefore the body grows, it dies and the body dies. It is a part and parcel of our body and is never separate from it. It can never exist separate from the body. Similarly a body can never exist without a cell. The cell unconsciously fulfills all the functions that are required for the human body. It does not know that it is a part of the body because it cannot think like humans do. It does not have a brain. Similarly each particle in the Universe is a part and parcel of the whole. The Universe cannot exist without that particle and the particle cannot exist without the Universe. I call each particle perfect because it fulfills its function perfectly. It cannot be anything else but perfect because if this particle is imperfect, then so is God of whom it is a part. This is the reason why I do not believe in Good and Bad per se. All deeds happen within God and are again perfect by themselves. That is why I do not believe in anything called sin.

But if that is the case, then how to determine what a person should do. Good and bad can be defined in a different way without linking them to God. That is by taking society as a base. Why is the society formed? It is for the mutual benefit of the individuals that are part of it. Man is like any other animal, the only difference being his brain. In the olden times man lived in the open and in caves as animals do today. But that was an insecure life. He had to continuously hunt for food. It may be available one day and not available on another. He had to sometime fight for his food. Similarly, some other man may covet his mate and take her by force if he is stronger. There was chaos and the stronger always prevailed. Even the stronger man was not safe from attack from a still stronger man. Therefore everyone was insecure. Slowly with time man discovered that association with each other protected him from such insecurity. That is how society came into existence. Since society is formed for mutual benefit, anything that threatens to destroy the fabric of society should be termed as bad and that helps the smooth perpetration of the society as good. Seen this way, a murder is bad because it hurts an individual for whose benefit society is formed. A person helping another person is good because it will improve the security of the person who is a part of the society. Good and bad can also change as per the circumstances and are only relative the ultimate aim being the smooth continuation of the society. At the same time none of the concepts set forth by the society should be accepted unquestioningly. Everything should be questioned and inquired into to find whether it helps the smooth existence of the individuals that form its part. It should also be dynamic and adapt itself to the changing environment so that it accepts modern ideas continuously and does not hinder the development of independent thought. There was a time when people were persecuted just because they said that the earth revolved around the sun. Giordano Bruno was burnt at stake for believing in pantheism. I feel that those things are bad because they restrict the freedom of an individual and thereby harm the society as a whole.

I do not believe in a soul. Consciousness and body are never separate. Consciousness arises when certain conditions of the body are fulfilled and ceases when those conditions are extinguished. We can never find the whys and where fore’s of this because this is related to the ultimate reality and we do not have the mental faculties to even comprehend the Ultimate Reality much less find reasons for its operation.

The problem with man is, he thinks that he can understand everything that is happening in the universe. He thinks that because he has a structured way of thinking, everything should come into his thought. It never occurs to him that he is no better than a particle of sand in the universe’s scheme of things. A cell can never comprehend its significance in the body; similarly man can never comprehend his significance in the Universe either.

Man has invented God in his own model to explain away the unexplained. Man feels, so he expects the God to feel, man juxtaposes all the good qualities as defined by him on to God. Since only all the good qualities are appended to God, the concept of God is good for the society. God is in fact the ideal man who is all powerful as per society. This concept of God puts the fear of the other world into man and tempers him to an extent that he moderates his actions and controls himself. That is why I say that religion is a necessary thing for society. But it should not become so rigid as to restrict the progress of the society itself for whose benefit it has been formed.

No religion was founded with a bad intention, and the idea was to bring peace to humans. Unfortunately, religious interpreters twist religion for their own benefit with the result that the original teachings get obscured. An amazing example is Buddhism. Buddhism was founded as a reaction to the idolatry of Hinduism and Buddha was totally against idol worship. Nevertheless, his followers worship Buddha’s image now, which is totally against his own teaching. He was also made into an incarnation of Lord Vishnu.

There may be some parts of this writeup that may be totally against what people believe in general. I thought I would put down to you the way I think about God. I do not claim this to be the only possible explanation for the Universe, but this is how I think. I know that nothing is final in science and philosophy. 

SPINOZA-A PHILOSOPHER WHO THINKS SIMILAR TO ME.

Before I go about writing my own views of God I felt it would only be apt to write down briefly how my favorite philosopher(along with Sankaracharya) lived. I am a great fan of Spinoza (Baruch de Espionoza) and hold him in great regard. When I read about him, I found that he thought in many ways like I do.

Spinoza lived an extremely simple and Spartan life. Although he is not Christian, you would find from Espinoza’s life (which I had given in brief below) that he had followed the sayings of Christ unknowingly and never coveted anything.

Espinoza’s parents came from the Iberian Peninsula in the 17th century and are Portuguese Jews They ran away to Holland as the Jews were being persecuted in all other parts of Europe at that time. Espinoza thoroughly studied the Old Testament as well as the Talmud (Jewish religious literature). He then studied the works of the Jewish philosophers Moses Maimonides, Hasdai Crescas and Ibn Ezra (These are considered to be the most brilliant of Jewish philosophers).

Spinoza lost faith in Jewish orthodoxy when the Jewish community excommunicated a skeptic called Euriel Acosta who questioned the established faith. So humiliated was Acosta that he committed suicide. This event made Espinoza lose faith in religion. When the elders of the Jewish community in Holland came to know that Espinoza was talking against the established faith, they were alarmed. They considered him to be a brilliant mind and a future light of their community. They immediately summoned him and offered him 500 dollars (remember that was a princely sum in the 17th century) if he gave up talking against the faith. Espinoza refused and was excommunicated. He was then just 24 years old. From then onwards he became a loner.

After his fathers death his sister tried to grab the property that should be rightfully Espinoza’s. He filed a suit in the court and won the case. He then gave away the property to his sister saying that he did not want the money but only wanted to prove that he was in the right. For his livelihood he polished lenses. He then contemplated and started writing his philosophical treatises and became famous throughout Europe. Some of the scientists of his time like Henry Oldenburg, Leibnitz and Christian Huygens have become great fans of his. His greatest fan was the rich Dutch businessman Simon Devries. He tried to bring Espinoza back amongst the society, but Espinoza was not willing. Devries felt bad about Espinoza’s poverty and offered 1000 dollars but Espinoza’s reply was no. After that he bequeathed his entire property to Espinoza, which he again declined.

Espinoza’s fame spread to Louis IX of France. He said he would give a handsome pension to Espinoza if he dedicated one of his works to him and as usual Espinoza refused. Heidelberg University (Germany) offered him the chair of philosophy with a rider that he should not criticize religion. Again Espinoza refused. Since he was polishing lenses, due to the dust entering into the lungs he suffered from Tuberculosis and died.

One of the terms that are frequently found in his writings is “God”(which he called substance). A philosopher described Espinoza as a “God intoxicated philosopher”. Despite that many of his contemporaries dubbed him as an atheist.

What are Espinoza’s opinions about God? He said that (God which he called substance) is the only existence and there is nothing that is not God. Its existence is not dependent on anything else. It is the cause and reason of all existence. It is infinite, eternal, self-existent, self-caused. It does not have anything called will. It does not do anything thinking of an end. If it does something thinking of an end it means it has a desire. Desire arises only when something is lacking. When there is nothing else apart from it, when it is complete by itself why would it have a desire or will?

This is just a brief glimpse of the great philosopher and I broadly agree with him on many of the things he said.

There are some things where my thinking is different from Espinoza’s. I would now write my own views about God in a later post as already this has grown too long and would tax anyone who bothers to read it.

PROBLEM OF JAMMU AND KASHMIR

When India was granted independence by the British in 1947, there were some 567(sometimes stated as 562 or 565) independent states headed by Indian Maharajas. They were independent only in name though as they were totally dependent on the British for their defense and did not have any standing armies. A British resident was present in each of these states and the Maharajas had to follow the instructions of the resident. 

When the British gave independence to India they refused to merge the independent states with their Indian territories and insisted that the concerned state has to decide whether to accede to India or to Pakistan.

A ministry for the integration of the Indian states has been set up which was headed by the strongman Sardar Vallabhai Patel. Patel coerced most of the Maharajas into signing an accession with India. There were however. A few maharajas refused initially for the accession but had to fall in line when Patel threatened them. These included the Maharaja of Jodhpur, the Maharaja of Udaipur and the Maharaja of Travancore. Finally 3 states remained, and they were 1) Jammu and Kashmir, 2) Hyderabad and 3) Junagarh in Gujarat.

When India gained Independence, the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir was Hari Singh. He had an ambition of making Jammu and Kashmir into an independent country by not joining either India or Pakistan. Hari Singh then requested for a standstill agreement with both Pakistan and India. Pakistan agreed and signed a standstill agreement with Jammu and Kashmir. India however wanted to negotiate on the issue and invited Hari Singh for talks. This scared Pakistan. As Hari Singh was Hindu they felt that India might persuade him to accede to India. They now panicked and armed a band of 5000 Pashtoon tribals and sent them into Jammu and Kashmir to occupy it. The tribals were clandestinely supported by the Pakistani army. As they were tribals the raiders were very undisciplined and instead of taking over Jammu and Kashmir as per the plan of Pakistan they started indulging in looting and arson.

Jammu and Kashmir, like all other Indian states at that time did not have any army worth the name. Its police were no match for the raiders. The tribals advanced deep into Jammu and Kashmir and were knocking at the gates of Srinagar. The Maharaja now grew desperate and appealed to India for help asking the Indian army to defend Jammu and Kashmir. But now India insisted unless an accession treaty is signed it cannot send in its army into J&K as that would be against international conventions. The Maharaja had no choice and had to sign the instrument of accession but insisted on some conditions which were enshrined in article 370 of the India constitution.

Article 370 of the Indian constitution: This specifies that except for Defence, Foreign Affairs, Finance and Communications,(matters specified in the instrument of accession) the Indian Parliament needs the State Government's concurrence for applying all other laws. Thus the state's residents lived under a separate set of laws, including those related to citizenship, ownership of property, and fundamental rights, as compared to other Indians.

The Indian army then went into Jammu and Kashmir and fought with the raiders. However, before the raiders abetted by the Pakistani army could be pushed back, the Indian government appealed to the United Nations which ordered an immediate ceasefire.

By the time of ceasefire 57% of the area of J&K was in control of the raiders. Later Pakistan ceded 20% of that area to China and retained the remaining 37%. China built the Karakorum highway on the area ceded to it by Pakistan. India now has just 43% of the area of Jammu and Kashmir. As per the UN resolution, the Pakistani army has to immediately withdraw from J&K and thereafter the India army too has to be withdrawn and a plebiscite si to be held in J&K to assess its mood of accession. As the Pakistani army never withdrew from J&K, the Indian army too did not withdraw and the plebiscite never took place till now.

Unless both the armies withdraw from J&K and a plebiscite is conducted there, normalcy is unlikely to return to the valley and the Kashmir problem would persist forever.

PETROL PRICE HIKE......GOVERNMENT CHEATING THE PUBLIC.

Last time when the oil prices were hiked by the Government, a barrel of oil was quoting at 100 US Dollars. The price of petrol at that time was around Rs 70.20 in AP.

 A liter of petrol attracts the following taxes from the Government in my state AP after the price revision on 15.09.11. Prices in other states may differ slightly:

                                                                                               %                 Amount Rs.

1. Basic price including refining-------------------             49.25                  36.20

2. Excise duty 24%----------------------------------                  24.00                  17.64

3. VAT 9%-------------------------------------------                        9.00                    6.61

4. Petrol customs duty 3%-------------------------                  3.00                    2.21

5. Crude oil customs duty 2%---------------------                 2 .00                   1.47

6. Education Tax 0.75%----------------------------                   0.75                    0.55

7. Transportation 10%------------------------------                 10.00                   7.35

8. Dealer commission 2%--------------------------                  2.00                   1.47

                                         TOTAL PRICE                                                 Rs 73.50

As you can see out of the Petrol price being charged from us a large percentage of the cost is on account of taxes which are given in no’s 2,3,4,5 and 6. Together they account for around 38% of the amount being charged from us. There may be some minor variations in taxes in different states.

In the year 2009-10 around 216,000 lakh litres of Petrol is produced/consumed in India. We can assume for comparison that the consumption would be the same for 2011-12 as well. The value of this @ Rs 70 per liter would be Rs 1,51,200 crores. The tax revenue accruing to the Government on this account would be 38% of this or Rs 57,456 crores.

Out of the Rs 3.14 hike now Rs 1.19 would go to the Government coffers by way of taxes. For the whole year this would translate to a tax revenue of Rs 2,570 crores to the Government.

Last time when Petrol price was hiked to Rs 70 (May 2011) the oil price was ruling at around USD 100 per barrel. It has now come down to around USD 88 per barrel. The government should have therefore brought down the prices of Petrol from Rs 70. They have conveniently forgotten that and have actually raised the prices now by Rs 3.14 stating the depreciation of rupee is causing losses to the government. True the rupee has depreciated by around 6% since the last petrol hike in May 11, but this is more than offset by the decrease in crude prices by 12% during the same period. Despite accounting for the depreciation of the rupee the crude price has registered a fall of around 6% since the last hike and hence the prices have to be brought down, but instead they have been increased.

The oil companies have given the amazing logic that they are incurring losses on account of the appreciation of the US Dollar. One wonders whether this is a deliberate ploy by the government to raise its tax revenues by additional taxation without the people actually realizing that they are being taxed. They are using the oil companies as a front to stifle the public outcry.

It is high time the Government switches over from the ad valorem duties on Petroleum products to specific duties as the taxation on them is already too high. They should also avoid resorting to higher taxation in the guise of rise in international prices.