Alochana-Deity, God or something more

Dear readers,

God is a hot topic around specially due to the recent burning controversy over the yet to release film "Da Vinci Code".

In this situation I would surely like to add my thoughts on this topic.

And ofcourse, my respect to the complete womankind on "Mother's Day".

Have fun!

Souvik

Who is Shiva? Did he live in flesh and blood on Earth? Was he an invading Alien who like a few other fellow astronauts (Vishnu , Brahma etc.) planned to help humans and then left back to his planet? Or is he God as we the Hindus believe and lives on Kailash mountain? Or is this whole God episode much bigger than this? Or was it the politics of the Aryan to include a Dravidian God?

Much more ideas crossed my mind when I sat to write this article. Some of them will be irrelevant here and some too technical but the conclusion is that the end still remains inconclusive and it will till eternity (or atleast I would think it should).

However, my point here is above all these. My point can co-exist with each of these theories. My point is that there is no need to debate over what history is and whether or not it is true, my point is that to all questions lie just one answer-the answer of faith.

If we believe in something and that belief is strong enough to give us some "miraculous" force in life, then it does not matter if there is truth (I mean historical) in that belief.

I have always said that Shiva is much more than kailash-vasi damrudhari Shiv, much more than Sada Shiva who spoke the vedas.

Shiva is us.

When we talk of deities then we can perceive the same Shiva in different forms-each being a deity-Rudra, Umashankar, Mahakaal, Nilakantha, Sarbeshwar.

When we talk of God-we mean Shiva as God. Shiva as the Almighty.

But in both the cases we separate Shiva from us and thus when any individual says something that shakes the foundation of His (Shiva's) existence, we rage up with anger, become sorrowful or critical of that individual or group.

Now if we remove that separation of Him being separate from us, this whole concept dissapears.

If every Hindu thinks himself to be a God (Hindu deity) then can any such criticism hit us?

If someone claims that there was no historical or archelogical evidence of Rama, the Rama bhakt will have laugh and say "So you mean I donot exist"?

Religion and beliefs can never be fought to defend. They are much superior than any one's claim.

I hope the church realises that Jesus himself said "The temple of God is within".

Regards,

Souvik