God?

 Who is God? Does God exist? Is God a He or She? Why are there genocides in the name of God? These questions have intrigued me since childhood. I still have not so many answers for my questions. I don’t think I ever will. I will tell you why in a while.

 I’m lucky to have been born in a family that is quite liberal both my maternal and paternal side. We are allowed to follow whichever religion we want. My great grandfather was a Muslim. My grandfather is a Hindu. My grandma believes in Christianity. My father proudly claims to follow all religions. Me??….I don’t know. I carefully observe everything.

Because of so much diversity within the family we were allowed to freely explore various faiths since childhood. I used to go to church with my mom. I used to visit temple with my grandpa. My father sometimes used to take me to the mosque and the Jain temple. I used to go to Gurudwara when I studied in Delhi. We were brought up to respect different views. We were kept way from all the narrow concepts of religion. For instance, I didn’t know the concept of caste till my 7^th grade. When I read it in the textbook, I came home and asked my father about it. He explained it to me but never disclosed what caste we belonged to. I only got to know about it much later.

I used to learn shlokas from The Gita when I was 10 years old. It had a huge influence on me. As a child it was just another story but gradually as I grew up I understood the essence of the epic. I don’t claim to have much knowledge but whatever little I have has changed me as a person. Besides this my grandma used to narrate to me the tales from The Bible while she put me to sleep. I also used to watch the cartoon series of The Buddha. The plethora of such diverse ideas has perhaps made me and my sister much tolerant human beings. 

I have started this article to write about my views on God but ended up writing a general introduction on my exposure to various faiths since childhood. I will discuss more in the coming days. As of now if there is anything that I need to put out, that is- be tolerant. We need it in today’s times.

 Cheers to being a more tolerant human,

Spurthy