Why Is God so Biased?
Questioner: If God is unbiased, why is there a difference in suffering for each of the life forms on the planet? And if it is Karma , then why do we provide treatment to any patient or stand against any injustice?
Acharya Prashant: No, no, no, you are coming to me with a lot of stories. (Laughs); too many stories. And you are taking your stories as absolute, and you want me to participate in your stories. You are saying “If God is unbiased, why is there so much suffering in the world, and why do people suffer differently? And if somebody is suffering, why should we offer the fellow help at all ?”
First of all, let’s address the fundamental assumption. The fundamental assumption is that there is something called as God which made the world, and that justice or equanimity must be a value with that God. You’re projecting and probably not even realizing that you’re projecting. Or maybe, as I said, you have a stake in that projection.
Why do you think that, first of all, a creating entity, a creator, exists in the same way this world exists? Secondly, why do you think that all values that you hold dear to your chest must be espoused by that God as well? You like somebody to be merciful to you, so you say “Oh, God is merciful.” How do you know God is merciful? Are you bigger than God? Have you penetrated God's head - if there exists somebody called God at all?
Let’s go step-by-step. In this world, we find that everything that stands created has a creator as well. So, we extrapolate. We say, “You know, this mobile phone for example, came from a factory. There was a creating agency. There was a principle involving causation. Similarly, this universe is there, the planets are there, so there has to be a creator.”
Don’t you see what you are doing? You’re taking yourself as the absolute. You are saying, “Because in my world and my experience everything has a creator, therefore, this universe must have a creator.” So, what is at the core of your argument? You are at the center of your argument. You are saying, “It is my experience, and my experience is absolute, therefore the world must have a creator.” If this argument is to hold, then the world has only one creator – that’s you. Because you are the absolute in your own eyes. I hope I am not just running away too fast. I hope we are together in this.
Look at the construction of the argument. These are very juvenile, childish things. Some God sitting somewhere and deciding to create the universe one fine day. And he has nothing better to do than control the strings and pull up someone, punish the other one, reward someone, answer prayers, and this and that. These things are good for five-year-old’s.
The world as you perceive it is your own creation.
Kindly, do not attribute some other creating agency. Therefore, Advait Vedant has no space for God. Atma or Bramh are not God. Truth is not God. In fact, there are only two kinds of people in the world: One, who speak the language of God or absence of God; theists and atheists belong to one bracket. And then there are those who speak the language of Truth.
If you speak the language of God and no God - I believe in God, I don’t believe in God, and there are huge debates - then essentially you are an egoist. Not only are you an egoist, you want to continue being an egoist. Because the God that man talks of is nothing but his ego. And the God that man denies, is again, nothing but his ego. So, I bracket these two together: Theists and atheists.
And then there are those who want to transcend themselves, who want to go beyond the ego; they say the ego is for sure, false. “I want to proceed into the Truth,” - that’s an entirely different category, different dimension. When you start seeing the falseness within, then all this that you call as the creation also starts dissolving for you, starts losing its meaning.
These two stand together and fall together: the experiencer and the experienced object; the seer and the seen. When you want to come to the Truth, then both these suffer dissolution. And that is called spiritual progress. That is called alleviation of suffering.
