Well, you talk about Sikhs worshiping Gurus as inhuman Deities, I would say it’s not only restricted to Sikhs but this practice is followed by every one in general. Gautam Buddha preached not to worship statues (stone), but in entire history you will find his statues the most in number. How I look this is as follows
Why was the concept of God came into the picture, well I guess in the early time (at ape mans time may be), there were many things in nature which man was not able to conquer, like fire, violent rivers, continuous rains turning to flood. All these developed sense of fear in him. The curious nature of man produced different questions like, why was all that happening. Man was not intelligent enough to look things globally. Being a self centric in nature he started believing that all this is conspiracy against him, but who the hell is conspiring and what’s the reason behind this conspiracy. In that period it was very vulnerable that Man started to believe in some hypothetical powers controlling his surrounding. He was afraid of those powers, and constantly felt that there might be some rescue. So what else it could have been than another power superior to the previous one. They started calling the superior one God. To feel secure they associated themselves to the superior powers and thus the concept like “we are the children of God” came into existence. I will come back to it latter.
Now what is religion? I see it as discipline. Why was it introduced? I see it as follows. Human was emerging in the nature as a creatures with Varity of skills. The capability to use those skills also varied from an individual to another. One can observe in nature that the creature of every species has emerged with an independent control system. (You remember Charls Darvin theory survival of the fittest.) We see the design of independent individuals in all the life forms because that is the best. In accordance to this design every individual has a tendency to use the skills it has for its own betterment, we call this tendency selfishness. There is another parallel pattern in nature to be observed; that individuals in all the life form live in groups. In this Dynamic and grievous nature, it was easier for those species to exist longer who adopted to live in clusters. This adaptation of living together led to the development of different modes of communication in different species. So the individuals started to broaden the spectrum of there concern to other individuals they were associated with, we call this act as loving others. There could be logical explanation for all the feelings and emotions we do have, but let us concentrate on these two.
Human have been living in the society with constant internal struggle between the two forces or rather two mechanism inherent in him. Sometimes the individual interest dominates the society’s interest or sometimes the vice versa. In the earlier period of human existence there was no law and order to monitor the usage of the skills possessed by the individuals. In that era for the benefit of the society and for the benefit of individuals (or rather for the continuation of the existence of humans) some thing was required to monitor each and very individual. What else it could have been than the concept of God which was already developed in the humans by observing the powers of nature. The very first intellectuals who realized the need of observance in the society conceptualized God as an omnipresent observer and prepared the guidelines to lead a disciplined life. Those set of rules is nothing but religion.
I don’t claim whatever written above is the absolute derivation, it is something cooked my mind with the understanding I do have in today’s world, I agree that it might be completely ridiculous. But the point I want to make is that I strongly believe or rather feel that, we or for that matter our surrounding was not created but has emerged with time. (Don’t ask what time is??) There is logical reason for each and every thing that exists in this nature, it includes the human emotions, human feelings, concept of God, and of course the religious practices. This whole universe is dynamic in nature; nothing could exist for ever, that doesn’t mean that there has to be a destroyer, and he will destroy things at his own will.
Let’s come back to my hypothetical story. Assume that the intellectuals had written down the set of rules which I call religion was definitely for the betterment of the mankind. Why the people, who didn’t know the logic behind those rules, started following it? I guess answer can be obtained if we study the human nature a little more. Humans have been getting inspiration from various sources in his surroundings and this inspiration is one of the reasons behind the achievements of human. These sources could be any thing, it may be some object, some other creature, or as most of the time some other individual from the society. This inspiration latter turns into desire, and it forces him to perform actions to fulfill the motive of his inspiration. There are hundreds of parameters involved and all of them are never in his control. If the involved parameters somehow turn into the favor accomplishing his task, he gets satisfaction followed by another inspiration from some other source and then the same thing goes on. But in case out of those hundred parameters even if one parameter turns against, ruining his desires, lets him fall into the depression. From hear another quest starts, that’s the search of the cause of failure. In most of the cases he cannot figure out the reason behind. That’s because he cannot dictate all the involved parameters. There fore he starts believing that if he is not controlling them, then somebody surely does, who else it could be than the supreme power so called God. At this point of understanding, the question which arises in the human mind is that what so ever it is, why it has turned against him and what should he do to make it in his flavor.
In such a state of desperation to turn the odds into the favor, when the “intellectuals” presented their theory of discipline life to impress the supreme power, the poor human was bound to at least try that out. When he started to follow the shown path, that is adaptation of disciplined lifestyle, he observed that some of the unfavorable parameters have turned around. This happened not because somebody was “impressed” but coz those parameters were failing due to his indiscipline nature. This let him discover that since he has started to follow those rules in life there has been an increase in the probability to achieve the tasks he desire to. I see this increase in probability as nothing but increase in “faith”. A simpler way to understand this is that future is nothing but the resultant of present and past deeds; one cannot turn around the past but surely can improve the present. Every thing happening around is the consequence of some other thing in the past, this universe is functioning is the consequence of Big bang. It’s another philosophy and I don’t intend to get into that. Coming back to the story, the majority of the junta started following the concept without knowing the logics just because of the fear factor. This fear is of annoying the Supreme Being, one who has the powers to turn anyone’s life hell. The purpose of religion was definitely not this but, it turned out this way because most of the beings were not compatible to digest the logics.
Hear I want to express that I strongly feel that the concept of religion has been one of the most important causes of human existence. Without this the so called intelligent species would have destroyed itself ages back. No matter what for the intellectuals have formulates these concepts and no matter what means they have acquired to make the society follow these concepts practically, the fact is that we will get extinct if we stop following this.
Coming back to the fear factor, I do agree that following the religion brought lot more achievements like pleasure, happiness, satisfaction, love and what not. But these achievements were never the incentives for most of the men to continue the religious path; it’s the fear factor which has constraint him. For example ask a layman to perform as irreligious act; he will most definitely not do so, not because doing so would abstain him from the benefits of being religious, but because of the fear that the God may punish him in near future. A basic human tendency: You are not getting something positive its fine, but never fetch negative.
Now when the people realized the benefits of following the religious hypothesis, as per the inquisitive nature of human, he tried to explore more about the nature of God. At this point when the intellectuals tried to explain that its shapeless, matter less, it does exist but not in usual form and blab blab blab… It was really impossible for the most of the people with relatively less intellect to digest the explanation. At this point of time they introduced symbols, Medium, Acts, and hell lots of stuff to remind him constantly about the existence of some power. Since the most of the people were not clear about God and they were in dispread need of something that would make them feel secure, they started seeing those symbols as God.
Why was the concept of God came into the picture, well I guess in the early time (at ape mans time may be), there were many things in nature which man was not able to conquer, like fire, violent rivers, continuous rains turning to flood. All these developed sense of fear in him. The curious nature of man produced different questions like, why was all that happening. Man was not intelligent enough to look things globally. Being a self centric in nature he started believing that all this is conspiracy against him, but who the hell is conspiring and what’s the reason behind this conspiracy. In that period it was very vulnerable that Man started to believe in some hypothetical powers controlling his surrounding. He was afraid of those powers, and constantly felt that there might be some rescue. So what else it could have been than another power superior to the previous one. They started calling the superior one God. To feel secure they associated themselves to the superior powers and thus the concept like “we are the children of God” came into existence. I will come back to it latter.
Now what is religion? I see it as discipline. Why was it introduced? I see it as follows. Human was emerging in the nature as a creatures with Varity of skills. The capability to use those skills also varied from an individual to another. One can observe in nature that the creature of every species has emerged with an independent control system. (You remember Charls Darvin theory survival of the fittest.) We see the design of independent individuals in all the life forms because that is the best. In accordance to this design every individual has a tendency to use the skills it has for its own betterment, we call this tendency selfishness. There is another parallel pattern in nature to be observed; that individuals in all the life form live in groups. In this Dynamic and grievous nature, it was easier for those species to exist longer who adopted to live in clusters. This adaptation of living together led to the development of different modes of communication in different species. So the individuals started to broaden the spectrum of there concern to other individuals they were associated with, we call this act as loving others. There could be logical explanation for all the feelings and emotions we do have, but let us concentrate on these two.
Human have been living in the society with constant internal struggle between the two forces or rather two mechanism inherent in him. Sometimes the individual interest dominates the society’s interest or sometimes the vice versa. In the earlier period of human existence there was no law and order to monitor the usage of the skills possessed by the individuals. In that era for the benefit of the society and for the benefit of individuals (or rather for the continuation of the existence of humans) some thing was required to monitor each and very individual. What else it could have been than the concept of God which was already developed in the humans by observing the powers of nature. The very first intellectuals who realized the need of observance in the society conceptualized God as an omnipresent observer and prepared the guidelines to lead a disciplined life. Those set of rules is nothing but religion.
I don’t claim whatever written above is the absolute derivation, it is something cooked my mind with the understanding I do have in today’s world, I agree that it might be completely ridiculous. But the point I want to make is that I strongly believe or rather feel that, we or for that matter our surrounding was not created but has emerged with time. (Don’t ask what time is??) There is logical reason for each and every thing that exists in this nature, it includes the human emotions, human feelings, concept of God, and of course the religious practices. This whole universe is dynamic in nature; nothing could exist for ever, that doesn’t mean that there has to be a destroyer, and he will destroy things at his own will.
Let’s come back to my hypothetical story. Assume that the intellectuals had written down the set of rules which I call religion was definitely for the betterment of the mankind. Why the people, who didn’t know the logic behind those rules, started following it? I guess answer can be obtained if we study the human nature a little more. Humans have been getting inspiration from various sources in his surroundings and this inspiration is one of the reasons behind the achievements of human. These sources could be any thing, it may be some object, some other creature, or as most of the time some other individual from the society. This inspiration latter turns into desire, and it forces him to perform actions to fulfill the motive of his inspiration. There are hundreds of parameters involved and all of them are never in his control. If the involved parameters somehow turn into the favor accomplishing his task, he gets satisfaction followed by another inspiration from some other source and then the same thing goes on. But in case out of those hundred parameters even if one parameter turns against, ruining his desires, lets him fall into the depression. From hear another quest starts, that’s the search of the cause of failure. In most of the cases he cannot figure out the reason behind. That’s because he cannot dictate all the involved parameters. There fore he starts believing that if he is not controlling them, then somebody surely does, who else it could be than the supreme power so called God. At this point of understanding, the question which arises in the human mind is that what so ever it is, why it has turned against him and what should he do to make it in his flavor.
In such a state of desperation to turn the odds into the favor, when the “intellectuals” presented their theory of discipline life to impress the supreme power, the poor human was bound to at least try that out. When he started to follow the shown path, that is adaptation of disciplined lifestyle, he observed that some of the unfavorable parameters have turned around. This happened not because somebody was “impressed” but coz those parameters were failing due to his indiscipline nature. This let him discover that since he has started to follow those rules in life there has been an increase in the probability to achieve the tasks he desire to. I see this increase in probability as nothing but increase in “faith”. A simpler way to understand this is that future is nothing but the resultant of present and past deeds; one cannot turn around the past but surely can improve the present. Every thing happening around is the consequence of some other thing in the past, this universe is functioning is the consequence of Big bang. It’s another philosophy and I don’t intend to get into that. Coming back to the story, the majority of the junta started following the concept without knowing the logics just because of the fear factor. This fear is of annoying the Supreme Being, one who has the powers to turn anyone’s life hell. The purpose of religion was definitely not this but, it turned out this way because most of the beings were not compatible to digest the logics.
Hear I want to express that I strongly feel that the concept of religion has been one of the most important causes of human existence. Without this the so called intelligent species would have destroyed itself ages back. No matter what for the intellectuals have formulates these concepts and no matter what means they have acquired to make the society follow these concepts practically, the fact is that we will get extinct if we stop following this.
Coming back to the fear factor, I do agree that following the religion brought lot more achievements like pleasure, happiness, satisfaction, love and what not. But these achievements were never the incentives for most of the men to continue the religious path; it’s the fear factor which has constraint him. For example ask a layman to perform as irreligious act; he will most definitely not do so, not because doing so would abstain him from the benefits of being religious, but because of the fear that the God may punish him in near future. A basic human tendency: You are not getting something positive its fine, but never fetch negative.
Now when the people realized the benefits of following the religious hypothesis, as per the inquisitive nature of human, he tried to explore more about the nature of God. At this point when the intellectuals tried to explain that its shapeless, matter less, it does exist but not in usual form and blab blab blab… It was really impossible for the most of the people with relatively less intellect to digest the explanation. At this point of time they introduced symbols, Medium, Acts, and hell lots of stuff to remind him constantly about the existence of some power. Since the most of the people were not clear about God and they were in dispread need of something that would make them feel secure, they started seeing those symbols as God.
Let’s come to today’s world. Situation is not in a much different state. People do need a medium, to have faith on. On the name of this medium there has been and there is lot of exploitation, that’s another story. Point is that you can never explain masses the need of religion without concept of God, and to digest the concept of God they need medium. What Sikh gurus tried to explain was (I guess) the concept involved (Concept of God, Concept of Religion) without medium. In there life period they might have succeeded in enlightening the people of that era, But today that enlightment has lost and today’s world is back to square one. Most of people are not in the state to know the concepts and do need the God factor in life, so they do look for a medium. In Gurudwaras they find it in the holly book, in the photographs of gurus, weapons of gurus, and in hundreds of other things. Living in the Influential Hindu culture which believes in millions of inhuman deities, what is the harm in ten more of them, if it is solving the purpose of keeping the masses under constant fear factor, so that they may lead a disciplined life.
