Does God need us?

For the consideration of both believers and unbelievers alike, my most recent post raised a personal question - do you have need of God? - that sparked an interesting exchange of views on the subject in a newspaper where it was also published. Although there were many fair comments on both 'sides', 30% of the religious people and 25% of the atheist ones used scathing phrases to refer to their 'opponents'.

"Any hybrid blend can come out from a hypocritical man who claims to believe in a God simply because he lacks any level of self-confidence," wrote a non believer. Faithful to Jesus ("He who is not with me is against me" Luke 11:23), various religious readers labeled this writer as atheist. "So much nonsense that you write now will soon be history ... While God will live forever," said a fervent reader.

The reciprocal question comes to my mind now, as a complementary subject: Does God need us? To answer this we must turn to the sacred texts that, by definition, are divinely inspired: The Torah, the Gospels and the Koran clearly describe a Higher Being that demands allegiance and exclusivity of their faithful, that is, He seems to need us.

“I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God,” says the Lord in Exodus 20. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind," Jesus commands in Matthew 22:37. “Truly it is only associating others with Allah in His divinity that Allah does not forgive; he who associates others with Allah has certainly gone far astray”, establishes Sura An-Nisa 4:116.

For Judaism, the Torah contains the divine revelation to the people of Israel; for Catholicism, "Sacred Scripture is the word of God as it is put down in writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit" (Paul VI); for Islam, the Quran is the word of Allah revealed to Muhammad through Archangel Gabriel.

Unlike the sacred books of monotheistic religions, the teachings of the Buddha are not of heavenly origin. The discourses of the Sage were preserved by oral transmission through thousands of monks over four centuries, with a reasonable degree of reliability, until when they were first written in monasteries of what is now Sri Lanka.

There are no gods in the teachings. References to deities who appear in the original discourses are allegories 'borrowed' from Hinduism. In his purpose to eliminating anxiety and stress, the only goal of his doctrine, the Buddha was agnostic millennia before that word was coined. The thought of the Buddha has been the 'inspiration' of my agnosticism.

We, agnostics, do not know whether the omnipresence and eternity of an Almighty Being are true or not; God may well exist or not exist, depending on how you define the word. Despite such duality, my answer to the question of this note is negative. The God that the sacred texts of the monotheistic religions describe, a God who punishes and rewards, and that demands worship and homage, is meaningless for any unbiased mind, whether religious or not; since such a god does not exist, there is no entity to need us.

An alternate approximation - God as the Supreme principle of which all laws depend on - has a growing acceptance in the contemporary world. The yet unfinished theory of everything, whose math I doubt scientific geniuses will ever be able to complete, is the preamble of this different 'unmythological' interpretation.

The super-theory of everything - the eternal and omnipresent Principle that, according to Einstein, "does not play dice" - must contain all the math (most likely unreachable to the human brain) that would explain the hundred billion galaxies, the Milky Way, the Solar System, Earth, life, the evolution of species and consciousness. Of course, this 'God', the permanent macro and micro ruler of everything, does not demand devotion or allegiance or adherence... And this principle, the silent doer and ruler of all law, obviously does not need us. Nevertheless, it is impossible not to marvel at 'Him'.

Gustavo Estrada
Author of ‘Inner Harmony through Mindfulness Meditation’
www.harmonypresent.com
Atlanta, May 29, 2015

Do you Have Need for God?

Many years ago I met in Budapest a bright socialist young man with whom I interacted for only six days. His vast culture, unaltered balance and impeccable Spanish opened up space for pleasant conversations. This lucky encounter occurred during the Christian Holy Week, so the dialogue with such special character inevitably had to go through the intricacies of faith and disbelief.

-Do you believe in God? –I asked him when the opportunity arose.
-Your curiosity about 'my beliefs' is misconceived - he calmly replied. The proper question should address 'my need'.
-Do you have need for God? - I insisted then, adjusting my question to his format.
-No, I do not - my ephemeral friend responded displaying an equanimity that I have rarely seen in devout believers answering similar questions. 

Do we have need for God? The answer would be ‘yes’ for the vast majority of devotees, and negative for all the non-affiliated people. Although smaller than the huge mass of believers, the non-affiliated group, around one billion people, is large enough to assert that religious inclination is a discretionary feature in humans with no genetic roots whatsoever.

For our inquisitive nature, we, humans, invariably demand answers, and we often accept them even when they are not reasonable enough. 'God' is the simplest explanation for all incomprehensible phenomena. Divine intervention will always be easier to 'understand' than the big bang theory, the workings of genetic selection, or the initial formation of the basic cells in complex organisms (eukaryotes) that occurred about two billion years ago.

Unlike religiousness, the quality of being religious, which is personal, religion is cultural. As physical traits are transmitted by genes, behaviors are passed by memes, a word coined by the biologist Richard Dawkins to refer to the 'genes' of social groups. Like genes, although in a different way, memes also 'struggle' for survival and rely to propagate on human predispositions and conditionings with much help from the media and advertising. The influence of memes in a group is as powerful as the genes in an individual. This is particularly true in the propagation and maintenance of the memes of religion. According to American philosopher Daniel C. Dennett, "religions themselves are extremely well designed cultural phenomena that have evolved to survive”.

Many scholars argue that, with the growing understanding of matter, life and the universe, religions are in the way to extinction. They are wrong. Religious participation in most countries remains very high, Western Europe being the major geographic exception, and Muslim and Christian countries, as well as India, the strongest confirmations of the trend.
Neither government actions, whether scorn, prohibition or persecution, nor do the developments of science and technology seem to alter religious fervor. Long periods of ‘spiritual abstinence' enforced by totalitarian regimes, as it happened in Communist societies under the tutelage of Moscow, have failed to put out the flames of faith. In the community of nations, United States is simultaneously the leading country in application of technology (with the consequent material progress) and the second in religious participation.

According to the 'Pew Research Center', a think tank based in Washington, by 2050 there will be 2,920 million Christians, 2,760 million Muslims, and 1,380 million adherents to Hinduism, with respective growths of 34.6%, 72.5% and 34.0% compared to 2010. Non-affiliates will reach by the middle of the century 1,230 million people with a modest increase of 25.2% over the same period.

Consequently, the question at the beginning of this note shall remain appropriate for many decades. Which group do you belong to, dear reader? To the overwhelming religious majority that faithfully believes in God, Allah or Brahman? Or, do you follow the dissidents of that majority who, due to scientific logic, defiance or indifference, do not believe in metaphysical entities? Or, perhaps, are you part of the 'huge' minority which, with no much time for faith or reason, as my friend from Budapest, has no need for God at all?

Gustavo Estrada
Author of 'INNER HARMONY through MINDFULNESS MEDITATION'www.harmonypresent.com 
gustrada1@gmail.com

Why do we want enduring remembrance?

According to American psychologist Abraham Maslow, humans seek the satisfaction of their needs according to a hierarchy whose four first levels are known as deficiency needs. For example, we eat food to meet physiological demands, we seek roof for safety reasons, we have friends to satisfy our need of belonging, and we excel in our activities to meet the need for esteem.

Why do we want enduring remembrance for some of our actions? The need for esteem, the fourth in the scale, is the need to find us comfortable with our existence, from both our perspective (self esteem: how do I see myself?) and from the others’ perception (recognition: How do others see me?) Self-esteem depends from us and will disappear with us. The curious desire to be remembered postmortem is an irregular extrapolation of the normal need of recognition while we are still alive. Thinking that our works are enduring generates an imaginary sense of eternity as if we were to exist for ever.

We certainly know we are going to die but we cannot imagine ourselves extinct; the sentence 'I am dead' cannot be told in its literal sense. Some poets, who often penetrate into the human mind with more understanding than psychologists, are at odds with such artificial eternity and even scoff at the need to be remembered; their life and their works are sufficient for them. Here follow some literary quotes on the subject, the first one with an attached story.

In 1957, Colombian writer Gonzalo Arango founded an extreme nonconformist movement he called ‘nothing-ism’ (nadaísmo). According to its initial manifesto, the group aimed to "not let any faith intact or any idol on its place”. The rebellious ‘nadaistas’ perpetrated all sorts of irreverence, from incineration of books to sacrilege of sacred wafers, which got them big headlines that would ensure lasting memory to Arango. In 1970 something changed in the head of the poet and he abandoned his own movement; the radical atheist became then an unrecognizable spiritualist.

In the very same year, writer Orlando Restrepo Jaramillo published “Beyond the Words", a collection of his poems which he sent to Gonzalo Arango. He replied with a warm note that Orlando recently shared with this columnist. From this letter I copy the following line of detachment to memories: "Living is no more than walking into oblivion carrying a lot of shattered dreams and broken baggage".

Jorge Luis Borges could well have signed such touching line; his own verses on forgetting and detachment abound. In his poem 'We are oblivion’ the great Argentinean poet writes: "We are already the oblivion we will become... We are already, start and end, the two dates in the tomb... I am not the fool that clings to the magic sound of a name..."  In ‘I am', the poet describes himself as "I am the one who is nobody, who was not a sword in battle. I am echo, oblivion, nothing." And 'Limits' ends with "At dawn I seem to hear the busy sound of crowds that move away; they are those who loved me and me they have forgotten; space and time and Borges, are now leaving me behind."

Twenty five hundred years earlier, the Buddha states, with crystal clarity, that we are transitory beings and that nothing of us will remain after death. The denial of our impermanence and our fear to disappear create the illusion that something intangible will survive us. In his poem 'Chess', Omar Khayyám (1048-1131), Persian astronomer and philosopher, shares the Buddha’s thought:  "Life is a chessboard with nights and days, where Destiny plays with us, Men, as pieces; here and there, moves us, and mates, and slays, to finally throw us, one by one, into the box of Nothingness."

So, let us keep up to date our earthly affairs, the now. As for eternity, we are to forget of imperishable memories, not even the universe is permanent, and we would rather accept the reality of death and, if relaxed enough, have a laugh at the grim reaper while we recite another poem by Omar Khayyám: "Be happy today, as you don't know what tomorrow will bring. Take some wine, sit down in the light of the moon, and say to yourself that tomorrow the moon might look for you in vain."

So, let us keep up to date our earthly affairs, the now. As for eternity, we are to forget of imperishable memories, not even the universe is permanent. We would rather accept the reality of death, and make fun of the grim reaper while we recite another poem by Omar Khayyám: "Be happy today, as you don't know what tomorrow will bring. Take some wine, sit down in the light of the moon, and say to yourself that tomorrow the moon might look for you in vain."

Gustavo Estrada
Author of 'Inner Harmony through Mindfulness Meditation'

Reprogramming versus deprogramming

Reprogramming is the restructuring of our daily living (job, belongings, relationships, hobbies...) in search of personal fulfillment. What a great intention! In practice, unfortunately, things more 'happen to us' than 'we do them', and the course of action of our goals and aspirations almost always comes from the outside. Who sets it?

Without us noticing, our 'program' is defined by individuals (idols, models, parents, teachers, partners...), on one hand, and the media and advertising, on the other. The media set what should delight or bore us; advertising tells us what we must purchase to be happy, successful, athletic, beautiful and influential. Furthermore, media and advertising together, tell us how to reprogram ourselves, through seminars, books, teachers or techniques, to attain a winning pleasant life: "Our approach will change your life as it has done already for five million people".

Good reprogramming examples are the Insight seminars (the Californian transformational workshops that have been famous over the last three decades), in which I participated with much enthusiasm. Among Insight I (Awakening the Heart), Insight II (Opening the Heart) and Insight III (Centering in the Heart), I was cloistered, for nearly 200 hours, letting me be manipulated, on purpose, by the workshop facilitators.

It was in Insight II, after a 14-hour session, that I discovered my 'life purpose' -my 'affirmation' in the vocabulary of Insight - in twelve words: “I am... this and that", where "this and that" are the empowering expressions (intelligent, good-humored, persistent in my goals...) of our reprogrammed personality. During the following months, I mentally recited my affirmation thousands of times; reviewing its wording now it sounds like the adulations of somebody who is looking for some gain: “You are intelligent, etc.)

As mine, the affirmations of other participants almost always started with 'I am'. The emphasis of these workshops in both individuality and territoriality (I, me, my, mine) as well as the weight assigned to material goods, supposedly without getting attached to them, would bring tears to any Eastern spiritualist.

However my mocking tone, the experiences of the three Insights were interesting then. The seminars did not fulfill my expectancies. A temporarily successful goal I accomplished: I suspended my drinking proclivity (zero alcohol) for eighteen months; a failed one: I never managed to play video games, a personal intention to get closer to my children (who enjoyed them so much). I did learn, by exclusion, what should be avoided in an honest openness towards creative evolution.

The experiential workshops as Insight (there are many ‘copies’ and variations) aim to reprogramming our redundant ego around what we aspire to be. This desire, however, is not authentic since it does not come from within; instead it is fabricated outside and subtly planted in our brain. The dynamics used in the sessions are just new paint on the same old furniture.

Of course and fortunately, there are workable alternatives. We should delete all harmful instructions from our neuronal 'computer', i.e., deprogram it from what is detrimental in order to make room for the essential self to take over. With the essential self in charge, our existence will flow into what we were ‘born to do', as opposed to what 'we must do' because something or someone has ordered it to us.

In reprogramming we rewrite the redundant ego instructions but we do not change the outcome. Deprogramming, on the other hand, disables the conditionings, where the cravings, aversions, and biased views that generate suffering, anguish and stress, are coded, allowing so our inner nature to manifest. How does such disabling happen?  This disabling occurs when the neuronal inhibitory mechanisms return to work. Inhibitory mechanisms are inherent to the essential self but our 'bad behavior' breaks them down through our continued complacency with cravings, our silent tolerance with aversions and our irrational affiliations. How do we deprogram? Mindfulness is the path and mindfulness meditation is the vehicle.

When conditionings are turned off, the mind becomes quiet, inner harmony flourishes, the redundant ego extinguishes and the essential self, as a benevolent emperor, takes the reins of the runaway horse in our head. Then, at the end of 'our rough way', we may recite with Amado Nervo, "that I was the architect of my own destiny ". Is the 'I' in this verse the essential self? I believe so because the great Mexican poet also wrote: "Anguish comes to us of desire; Eden is about not craving; whoever does not want anything, will be fine anywhere"

Gustavo Estrada
Author of ‘Inner Harmony through Mindfulness Meditation’