Talking about God in times of COVID Pandemic
In times like these, it may seem like God has abandoned us. Or maybe that God doesn’t exist after all. Many have recently said that there is no God and if there is one, it is our Doctors. No. Not so. The Doctors had teachers, the medical researchers find remedies and cure. Someone built the hospital on the money raised from the wealth-creating work of others. The police and indeed the politicians and bureaucracy have helped keep more people from harm's way than the numbers infected.
No. God is not a person or a set of people or this or that one thing. She-He exists as the strength in us, the inherent capacity we have to heal ourselves, the intelligence, the courage, the compassion in us, the capacity to overcome our fears, the ability to think beyond our own selves.
We may even question why the suffering if there indeed is a benevolent God? It shakes up our beliefs. But, perhaps it is that our idea of what God is is mistaken. As per the Sanatan Dharma, God is all - the creator, the preserver, and the destroyer. She-He is the great force that is responsible for the existence and that which shapes our lives. The forces that we must submit to. The flow of power in which all things move and drift. Lao Tzu and the Zen masters call it - Tao or The Way. The one that we must understand and flow in harmony with. Guru Nanak called it the Will of God that we must live by ( Hukum rajai chalna Nanak likheya naal).
The Avatars - Ram, Krishna, Budhha, all talked about and were bound by immutable laws of nature. Shakti fought and overcame the demons who multiplied and mutated, after a long long battle.
That same force that takes away also gives. All it asks us is to stay attentive to acknowledge it, to make the effort to flow with it.
But, if you think you know it all, that you have or can master it all, that money or power over others frees you to live as you please, go inhale deeply you know where to learn the truth.
