In the face of eternity there are two attitudes: that of the Theist,
whether Christian or Jew, Hindu or spirit worshipper; and that of the
Buddhist, the believer in Law. To the believer in God or in gods, what
is the world and what is man? They are playthings in the hands of the
Almighty. God is responsible to no one, He knows no right and wrong, no
necessity beyond Himself, all He does must be right. He is All-powerful.
Man must crouch before Him in fear. If man suffer he must not cry out
against God; he must say in due submissiveness, "Thy will be done." A
man must even be thankful that matters are not worse. If in a shipwreck
many are drowned and few, bereft of all but life, are hardly saved, what
must they do? They must render thanks to God that He didn't drown them
too. Not because they are aware of being punished for any sin, that does
not come to man in calamity. You cannot imagine a common sin that
engulphs men and women, children and babes, from all countries, of all
professions, of many religions, in one common disaster. No! God can be
bribed, not with presents perhaps now, but with reverence. It is the
cringe that deprecates uncontrollable Power. It is the same feeling that
makes the savage lay a fruit or a flower before the Spirit of the Hills
lest he too be killed by the falling rocks.
For what do men imagine God to be? Do you think that each man holds one
wonderful conception of God? Not so. The civilised man's idea of God is
as the savage idea. Each man builds to himself his own God, out of his
ideals, civilised or savage. Truly, if you ask a man to tell you his
idea of God he will answer you vaguely out of his creeds or sacred
books; but if you watch that man's actions towards God, you will soon
discover that his God is but his ideal man glorified.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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