Is there God?

Is there God? Before we answer this question, I think we have to ask: Who is asking the question? You would say, I, I so and so, am asking this question. You will probably also ask, am I meant to ask this question before asking any question at all? I would say, yes. The basic question to ask is: Who or what or why is the questioner. Before the question, seek the questioner. Because when you get to know the questioner, you might no longer have any questions.

There are questions and questions. There is no end to questions. Why are we questioning at all? Is it to get answers to help us along the way? If it is help that we want, why don’t we get such a help that we would never again need any help? Isn’t that what we want? Never to have any problems, to ever live a blissful life? Of course, there is the person who gets his very thrill in living by confronting problems. For the time being we shall leave such a person alone. We shall just say that he is so conditioned that he has become addicted to his conditioning.

So the basic question is, can we have an answer after which we would no longer have any questions? Dead people have no questions, but we are here not talking about dead people. We are talking about being most alive.

I say that the basic question we ought to pose ourselves is, who or what am I? Posing the question is easy enough. But what answers can we expect? Are we, ordinary folks, competent enough to expect the correct answer? Even if we are smug about our capability, how would we know that our answer is correct? Not just for ourselves, but universally. An answer is no answer unless it is an universal answer, universal in principle at least.

There is in human tradition something called ‘authority’. Traditionally ‘authorities’ (in the realm of knowledge) have been the scriptures, acknowledged masters and science. It is they who can give any semblance of finality of acceptance to the great answers of mankind. But in the matter of knowing one’s own self, is an external authority required?