We were talking about the debates between rival Indian groups about their ideas on Brahma or God.
While we discuss these things, we should keep in mind that we are talking about a time period when many of the major world religions of today did not even exist. When even the concept of God was not a matter of mere faith but something that had to pass through the rigors of logic and reasoning. The people in those times too had their scriptures, but they did not accept anything with closed eyes. They questioned everything, even the God!
Once there were 5 blind men. They wanted to ‘see’ how an elephant looks like. Being blind they obviously cannot ‘see’ the elephant. But they were inquisitive and they went on their expedition. After ‘seeing’ the elephant one by one, they gathered in a place to exchange notes on their elephantine experience.
In many faith-based religions, this question does not arise at all. It could even be a forbidden question to ask. It is sacrilegious to question the existence of God.
Acceptance of God is the most basic prerequisite. There is no religion if there is no God. But not so in ancient India. India had a completely open system where anyone was free to question anything including God.
Several years ago, I was part of a large institution. This institution used to organize frequent lectures by eminent scholars in various fields.
The Head of this institution used to invite me to attend to all these lectures. The funny thing was that the topics of most of these talks were not directly connected with my field of expertise nor something that was of my interest. That used to puzzle me.
