The Utility of God continued...
HH: Ordinarily we are not content with mere freedom from troubles, for we want our desires to be satisfied; and our desires are equally infinite in number. We would therefore like to have some friend who can fulfill all our wants.Our desires are not only infinite in number, but are also unlimited in extent. No rich relative, howsoever wealthy he may be, can undertake to fulfill all our desires; even if he had the will, his wealth would be exhausted in course of time. It will therefore be well if our hypothetical friend had inexhaustible wealth. One of your friends may be very rich,
but he may not have ready cash with him when you want it; in that case he cannot give you instant relief. Our supposed friend must therefore be not only all-rich but he must be so at all times. Further, if your rich friend has to await the arrival of his cashier or has mislaid the key of his safe, he cannot be immediately helpful to you. If you have such a friend at Madura, you cannot have him at Mysore unless you take him there with you. It will certainly be more convenient if your friend could be at any place where you wanted him, without the need for your taking him there. Proceeding on the same line of reasoning, we may say that it would be a great relief to you to feel that there is a friend ever ready to help you, who can be everywhere with you; who can do anything for you, who knows everything, who is himself free from trouble of any kind whatsoever and who has the desire and the ability to satisfy all your wants and to free you from all your troubles.
D: But such a friend is a purely hypothetical one?
HH: So what? To feel, rightly or wrongly, that such a friend exists does give us relief. From the nature of the numberless characteristics which we require in such a friend, we must postulate of him omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience. With our limited intellect, it is difficult for us to conceive of such a friend and impossible to visualise him in actual life. If therefore somebody, who is deeply interested in us and in whom we place full reliance, informs us of the existence of such a friend, we shall feel very greatly relieved. In case we happen to doubt the veracity of the statement of our informant, we will not be able to prove it wrong because with our limited intellect we have no means of doing so. But in case we have complete faith in our informant, we become secure in the resultant feeling of the ever-true presence of that all-powerful friend. He who has or who acquires such intense faith can have no fear of despair, believing as he does that that friend being all-knowing and all-powerful will relieve him of all sorrow when the time comes. Even when he does not get any relief, he would console himself with the thought that perhaps in the all-wise dispensation of that friend, this sorrow is itself the best for him under the circumstances. Therefore, apart from the abstract question whether the existence of such a friend, whom we call God, can be proved or demonstrated, there can be no denying the fact that the belief in such a friend is of great practical benefit.
D: How can we believe in a person of whose existence there is no proof?
HH: Do we believe only in those things whose existence is proved? If we limit our belief to such things it will be impossible to do anything in this world. We have to have faith in the words of everyone that comes into contact with us. As a stranger standing by the road directs you, at your request, to a house you are searching for, you do not embark on an enquiry as to his honesty or as to the correctness of his knowledge; but, placing immediate and implicit reliance on him, you go as directed by him. If then you reach the wrong house, it will be time enough to find fault with him. If, however, before following his directions you want. him to prove to you that he is right, the only thing he can do is to take you by the hand and lead you to the house; even then you must
be prepared to go with him. It will not do if you refuse to move a single step and yet expect him to prove the correctness of his statement. Similarly, when you have absolutely no reason to doubt the good faith of our ancient seers who proclaim God, you must be prepared to place implicit faith in their words. If you follow their dictates and find at the end that they were wrong, it will be time enough then to blame them, but not till then.
D: The seers were as much human beings as ourselves. How did they happen to know of God when we do not? (Shivam-you had raised a similiar doubt-ravi)
continued...