small-size front cover of God and Destiny

God and Destiny

The Supreme Knowledge

  by Vivake Pathak small-size photo of Vivake Pathak

first chapter

1

The Age of Ignorance is Over

It happened slowly and steadily:
walls that I felt disappeared;
boundaries that I knew dissolved;
holy light filled the dark.
He guided me to a different world,
situated beyond the edge of time,
abode of unwavering lively peace,
land of never-setting sun divine.
Give me your hand;
let me take you there.

Thousands of years have gone since God was first imagined. Since then the concept of God has been influencing unbelievably large portions of thoughts and activities of humanity. Your mind is full of innumerable stories, notions, and beliefs about him developed through human history, but he himself has remained a mystery for you. Countless people have tried to find him out but all in vain. The time of such ignorance is over. God is not interested in hiding anymore: now I shall let you know him and his true attributes and influence.

In the night of ignorance, some people have been thinking of themselves as closer or dearer to God on the basis of their religion, faith, community, character, and so on. God, whom I shall take you to, is not the God of people of any particular religion, faith, or school of thought. He is not a heritage of only humankind either. He is one and the same for everyone. He is the God of every human being, everyliving being, every living and nonliving being—he is the God of every being. You will know him irrespective of your caste, creed, community, religion, gender, social status, economic status, occupation, nature, character, and behaviour.

Alas! You have been deceived so much in God’s name. He was not known to anyone, yet many people claimed knowing him or realising him; being in contact with him; being his messenger, relative, or representative; or even being his incarnation or embodiment. Since they were ignorant of God, they could not point towards him; so they told people that being a supernatural power, he is generally beyond perception and only those who have paranormal power, sixth sense, or pious soul can realise him. They devised innumerable weird, difficult, impracticable, and thorny paths for people to prepare them by making their souls holy to realise him.

Enough of your deceiving others or being deceived by others in his name! God is not beyond normal perception. He exists and is perceivable to everyone. Prayer, virtuous deed, desirelessness, austerity, penance, and so on are of no use in knowing him. You need not have any paranormal power, sixth sense, or holy soul to realise him. To lead you to the knowledge of the supreme being, neither have I devised any difficult, thorny, or slippery path for you, nor shall I ask you to undergo any type of austerity or penance. To know him, what you have to do is just to listen to what I say with an attentive and open mind.

In the beginning, to let you get a general concept of what the world has believed to be God, I shall present before you short summaries of what eight major theistic religions of the world say about him and the set of the most important epithets added to him by the majority of theists of the world, because he is God not of any particular religion but of all the religions.

I shall show you that God had never been known to anyone and all that had been said, written, and believed about him is hypothetical. To open you up, to decrease your blind faith, to increase your receptivity, and to prepare you further to know him, I shall answer the questions that this raises, such as if he was not known to anyone, why and how did people ever start to imagine his existence? what were the reasons of any person’s claim of knowing him, having a link with him, or being his incarnation? how did our holy books that are seen as containing his orders, words, or will by many come into existence? and how were the epithets that are commonly believed to be describing him (‘almighty’, ‘creator’, ‘eternal’, ‘omnipresent’, ‘omniscient’, ‘all-good’, and so on) added to him?

As I said before, God is not beyond normal perception. He exists in reality and is perceivable to everyone. To take you to him, I shall involve you in a process of search or identification, but I shall not leave you midway with a future promise. Not only shall I let you know him exactly and precisely, but I shall also explain with the help of a number of examples why any other being cannot be God.

In the history of humankind, hardly anything might have been thought, discussed, said, and written about more than God might have. Since he was not known to anyone, people belonging to different religions and residing in different parts of the world added not completely but to notable extents different sets of epithets to him and developed different beliefs, concepts, and stories about him. After I let you know him, I shall take you through an analysis of the key portions of all that has been said, written, and believed about him to let you identify the truth in it.

Since God himself was unknown, the epithets added to him formed the nuclear portion of whatever was believed about him in general. What highlights their importance is that the small unanimity found among people of different faiths is confined mostly to his epithets—the only thing that shows that people all over the world have believed in one and the same God—but in absence of this knowledge, you could have never been sure whether any of his particular epithets was true to him or not. After letting you know him, the first thing I shall do is to show you which of some most significant epithets added to him by the theists, such as ‘almighty’, ‘creator’, ‘eternal’, ‘omnipresent’, ‘omniscient’, and ‘all-good’, describe him correctly and which are absurd to be added to him, and thus I shall reveal the attributes that are truly possessed by him.

Mostly whatever has been said, written, and believed about God lies within the domain of religion. In the age of ignorance, people have been having fierce but inconclusive debates and conflicts on who knows more about him, whose religion is better and deeper, and whose religion is closer to him. I shall let you know not only him and his attributes but also how correct or incorrect the basic concepts of each of the major theistic religions—Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism—about God are. It will also give you an opportunity to compare the correctness of what your religion says about him with what other religions say about him.

There happen to be some beliefs that lie at the core of any religion because they play a vital role in its propagation and sustenance and also because they differentiate it from other religions. For example, many
followers believe about certain person or persons, especially for the propagator or propagators of their religion, that they were close to or in contact with God; were his messenger, relative, or representative; or even were his embodiment or incarnation and about their key religious books that they contain his orders, words, or will. While analysing the correctness of important religious beliefs, I shall let you see how logical or absurd these two beliefs are.

Around the central religious beliefs lie the beliefs about the paths and ways of realising God. I shall show you the reasons of the propagation of some of such beliefs as about prayer, desirelessness, and virtuous deeds and their vainness for his realisation.

The concept of God provides living sap to theistic religions. Lastly, I shall discuss briefly the worth that will be left with these religions after I let you know God, his attributes, the truth behind the claims some persons made about knowing him or being his representative or incarnation, and the futility of the paths and ways proposed by them for realising him.

The main purpose of this book is to let everyone know God. To solve this purpose, the topic ‘destiny’ is also dealt within it to a significant extent.

The concept of destiny, if not as old as, is not much younger than the concept of God. Through human history, different people have believed in destiny to different extents, most people have had a keen desire to know their future, and countless people have been involved in the business of prediction of the future, even if it was not proved that the future is predestined. For the revelation of God, in this book, I shall show that the future is predestined and unchangeable, and thus I shall try to bring destiny out of the ambit of belief and disbelief.

You know that your future is affected by the decisions you make at present, and you think that since you have the capability to change your decisions, you yourself have the authority to change your future too, to the extent it depends on your decisions. No, it may disappoint you but it is not true. Before I present a universal proof of the predestinedness of the future, I shall let you see how destiny comes true in your life through your own will. It is true that it is you who makes the decisions, but it is also true that while doing so you act just like a tool. I shall show you that the decision you make in any particular situation is predestined and unchangeable and so is the future that results from that decision. The authority you think you possess to change your decisions is purely illusory, and so is the capability you feel you possess to change your future. You just cannot change your decisions or your future from what is predestined.

By mentioning that I shall present a universal proof of the predestinedness of the future, I mean I shall prove that whatever has to happen in the universe in the future, whether it is related to living things or nonliving things, including phenomena such as thoughts, ideas, plans, and feelings, is predestined and unchangeable or inevitable. Yes, I shall show you that your future is as unchangeable as your past is—that is, you, anyone, or anything cannot change the number, magnitude, or intensity of successes and failures; achievements and losses; joys and sorrows; and even dreams, thoughts, ideas, and plans of your future life from what is predestined.

I shall proceed to take you through a discussion on the possibility of prediction of the future, and finally at the end of the part related to destiny, I shall introduce you to the potential that the knowledge that the future is predestined and unchangeable possesses to affect the way of your thought and life.

The relation between God and destiny has always been a matter of great discussion. People have been wondering that if God is almighty, what role destiny might have to play in the course of events, and vice versa, that is, if everything is predestined, where does the almighty God fits in. This confusion will end now, as I shall show that it is the almighty, omnipotent, or supreme God who not only governs whatever happens but is the master of destiny of all the living and nonliving things that exist.

In the appendices, I shall present a scientific proof of the predestinedness of the future, show the vainness of the objections that can be raised against the proof on the basis of the principle of indeterminacy, and reveal what poses the ultimate limit to the accuracy with which the future can be predicted. In the process I shall explain the real meaning of the principle of indeterminacy in reference to the corporeal world and unravel how physicists have been misinterpreting and misusing it since its finding.

The task this book has to accomplish is not only to deliver the knowledge about God and destiny, to remove blind faith about them, and to end the conflict and violence going on in the world in his name but to lead everyone to deep and lasting inner mental peace—how much reason will you be left for tension, worry, anger, and so on if you know that whatever happens in the universe, including in your life, is predetermined by God and is inevitable?

Along with the proof of the theorem that the future is predestined and unchangeable, Part 2 contains discussions on other topics related to destiny. Revelation of God and other related topics have been dealt with in Part 3. As I have pointed before, both topics ‘proof of the predestinedness of the future’ and ‘revelation of God’, seemingly entirely independent, are actually deeply interrelated—former being one of the foundation stones for the latter. Therefore, for your thorough understanding of the topic ‘revelation of God’, which has been dealt with in Part 3, you are advised to go through Part 2 first.

 

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