It is sheer ignorance about the uniqueness of God’s existence that lets men and women fall into the trap of malicious people who claim to be God themselves and misguide others, says AJIT KUMAR BISHNOI
Because God is unique and His position is not up for grabs. God cannot be replaced nor can He be duplicated. In short, there is no place for another God now or ever. Still, many, especially in India declare themselves to be gods, and some sycophants looking for cheap gains become their followers. How can any sane person imagine that the reality of God is so frivolous? Do these people, ie those who claim to be gods and their supporters realise what God actually is like. It is impossible for a human brain to even conceive what God is like let alone become one. We can have some idea but to know God to the full extent is impossible. He is omnipotent. Do we realise what this means? That God can do anything, I mean anything, and He is infallible; He cannot make mistakes like we do all the time. Then, God is omnipresent at all the places we can imagine and also where we cannot imagine. Actually, whatever there is in God. He has created countless universes, of which our earth is an infinitesimal part. Then He is omniscient; God knows everything. Can anyone imagine that God can attend to billions all at the same time if they want to connect with Him? He does.
The problem with fake gods begins with the fact of God’s incarnations. They pretend to be one such incarnation. Are God’s incarnations such frequent occurrences? Lord Krishna states in The Gita, “For the welfare of good people, for the punishment of the wicked and for the re-establishment of religious principles. I incarnate in different yugas.” (4.8) What does this statement imply? That there are different purposes of God’s incarnations, and it is certainly not to gather a lot of followers. Such incarnations happen once in hundreds of thousands of years, not every day as some of these gods will make us believe.
Let us go further. Let me compare God’s qualities with ours. We are small souls. Yes, we are parts of God (15.17), but infinitesimal parts. Our bodies or destroyed upon death — the inevitable end of a material body. God is immortal and His body whenever He incarnates in super special. It may appear like ours, but it is not. It neither gets sick nor dies. God disappears when His mission is over. We depend upon so many just to be able to exist; God is not so helpless. Rather, He makes available what we need for our maintenance. When we link with God, we do very well, whereas God needs nothing from us. When we are able to create something, we feel very special, whereas God has created unlimited number of universes.
Why does such an unintelligent feeling come over some? The biggest enemy — our egos are the main culprits. Thinking oneself to be God is the worst manifestation of a super-inflated ego.
This generally happens when one is able to collect a few gullible followers. These people claim to know religious principles but still choose to ignore them. The leader feels good by being called ‘Bhagavan’ and his followers hope to get something special from him like liberation, though without any basis. The word ‘Bhagavan’ is also used for very special respectable persons but both the speaker and the person addressed know what it implies, ie one is giving a lot of respect, not making someone God. Such a mindset distances one from God, who is the ultimate arbiter of our destinies. Those who are cognizant of the reality are punished heavily for their deception. This is rebelling against our master — God, and this does not endear one to God.
Bishnoi is a spiritual writer and can be reached at spiritual@ajitbishnoi.com
