The Parable of God
Three incidents or what you may call readings, largely separated in time and occasion constitute the reason of this piece.
I and my son have a habit of discussions on anything we have recently read and some of them tend to address that eternal question as to whether God exists and if so in what form, shape and size. It is sometimes when I and my son were alone in Nagpur, when my wife was holding another frontier at Ghaziabad in being with my daughter, to be precise sometimes in ’09 that I happened to read the ‘Speaking Tree’ one day (The middle page centre spread of Times Of India is a regular feature). Now I do not remember the writer of that day’s piece or the title of the article, but one sentence had an enormous impact. I shared it with my son and asked his opinion on the subject. The sentence in between the religious musings went like this,
‘What do you think; God has created the man or man created the God.’
My son read the article and looked at me. We exchanged meaningful glances and Lo, Viola’ immense possibilities opened up before us besides realization of the intense profoundness of the statement. Then and there we came to conclusion after long discussion that God lays within us as per our own realizations though IT is as obvious in its various manifestations around us also.
My other daughter is passing through a difficult phase of life. Full of life, chirpy and full of ideas, she is resourceful and a courageous girl. Now forlorn and deserted, she feels cheated upon but has not given her hope or the honorable battle she is engaged in right now. Any amount of negative feeding has not deterred her and any assurance is taken on the face value, perhaps steeling her determination all the more. The other day she gave me the following sms on my cell-phone;
‘When we realize, we have nothing left but God, we discover God is enough’
I do not know where she got this quote from or who said it but it remarkably introduced me to her mental state. While the initial part of the statement shows her loneliness, the latter part shows her grit and determination that whatever she is left with is enough. It showed her growing realization that she has to depend upon her own self and her resourcefulness to wage the battle and ‘Come what may’ girl that she is, I regret the one who is at the other end of the battle. Now he will be fighting with the God.
The last is the movie ‘Evan Almighty’ where in the concluding part God in the human form of Morgan Freeman (his presence and the poise and frequency is such that now I have almost started believing that he is God) and the hero converse with each other. Here God tells him that he must believe in himself, that if he prays for courage that what God does? The God gives you opportunities to be courageous! This one sentence completed the parable. After all what are the tools of God if he has to answer the prayers of someone? Human beings! God will only afford you opportunities and it is for you to achieve what you have prayed for and worked for and your prayer gets answered.
Therefore friends, God is within us and will always be with us, so long we believe in ourselves.
So be it
15–4–2013 As God
Ghaziabad Wills Pankaj Gupta
