Quest for God

What is God?

A mind-boggling question that has haunted me for the last ten good years of my life. I've always had this question in my mind since I was a teenager, searching for an answer directly - only to realise there is no direct answer to this question.

There are believers, atheists and agnostics, each with their own point of view. It was hard for me to digest the idea that people do believe in some "being" beyond our senses and call him a saviour or who is watching over us. But whom should I ask? Who could give me the answer? I read books, articles and whatever I could get my hands on, and most importantly I did a fair bit of thinking on my own.

Buddha is known to have remained silent on the issue of God. He once said:

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. 

Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. 

Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. 

Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. 

Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

I like that.

I came to feel that the term "God" is rather obscure and ambiguous. Now I am far less confused about the existence of God than I was a few years ago. We have the entire creation before us. We are part of the creation, everything around us is a creation. So who is the Creator?

The Creator, I believe, is simply various phases of creation - sequences, processes. The Creator is not a single absolute entity, not a master, not a saviour, not a being. It is a process, a concept. Creator is creation itself.

So who started creation?

• I'd say no one did. It sounds like trying to find the peak of the sky. It is a never-ending cycle - no beginning, no end.

What is God? Does God exist?

• God is a manifestation of reality - a personification and deification of a creation. It's a metaphor.

Does God exist?

• Yes, if you look at God as a creation or reality.
• No, if you look at God as a creator. The personified and deified Creator should not be taken literally. It should be taken as a bridge to connect our perception with the creation and reality within and around us.

Is it wrong to deify creation and name it God?

• Not really. However, it becomes problematic when people take this literally and attack others with differing views.

What about believers and non-believers?

• They are two faces of the same coin - fighting like cats and dogs - each desperately trying to prove their point.
• They are both believing and not believing in the same thing.