It was a decent day at Office. A decent Tuesday.
I got home and felt this urgent need to write it all down. So I told Mr Dinner to go on stand by.
You see this picture? I was handed over a pamphlet by a random guy (I used GIMP to quickly replicate the cover page). He never really cared to introduce himself but I decided to stay… weighing its potential to turn out as a nice experience. So I stood there listening and asked him, what I believe are, one the most difficult questions man has ever asked.
Why?
As we shook hands and left him standing there waiting for bachelors like me who would not mind a little tête-à-tête, I asked him — “Why? Why do you do this?“. He said — “We do this every Tuesday. One hour! Just to spread the love of God. To help people make the right choice!“
The Booklet says (excerpts):
“Have you ever thought about LIFE AFTER DEATH?”
[NL] So I will quickly summarize what I learned from the conversations I had (I actually spoke to three guys). All humans are born with a tendency to commit sin (assertion: Who teaches us to Lie? We are born with it.). And God has this great rule that there should be Justice and all the sinisters are thus going to hell. So eventually everyone is. But then came Jesus. And he paid for our sins; and now that our sins are paid for, we have earned our ticket to Heaven. But OUR eternity depends on whether or not we choose to accept His free gift of salvation.
[NL] Then he got creative and gave me a fine example to support this. Pointing to the Sony World Junction he said – “Lets say you jump a red light and ‘the perfect cop’ catches you. What if you do not have the money? Would the cop let you go? But if you have a friend who can pay for you then he definitely would. So Jesus is that friend and he came to earth just to deliver us from evil. Now that the sin is out of the picture, all we have to do is to Thank God for his mercy and Pray —
“Dear Jesus, I know I am a sinner. I receive You as my personal Saviour. Thank You for loving me so much that you died for my sins so that I can have eternal life with You. Amen”
“By attending a local assembly and studying the Word of God, you develop your relationship with God. If you don’t have a local assembly, we welcome you to visit our Church.”
Things I asked them/Thought to myself:
#1
Why do you believe in Bible? Why do you believe that what it says is true? Why do you believe what Jesus has told us is the Truth? Why do you believe there is heaven and hell? Why do you believe in a life after death? Aren’t these just ‘tools’ employed by the people who are either rich or powerful to make the poor and uneducated fall prey to their arrangement and strategically place them to derive benefits from it.
Think: 72 virgins
Think: Pundits
Think: Votes .. Politicians
Think: Man from Earth
#2
Reminds me of “Who will cry when you die?” — By Robin Sharma
It’s a beautiful book; Helps you beautify your life as well. But is that something you would be concerned of after you have died? Would you even remember all this after moving on? Would you even remember your own Death? I mean there is no guarantee. Look at it backwards… What if we had another stop before we got here — this life — and what do we remember of it? Not even a word. And who says that there is a “Soul” in every living being?? — Well maybe the Demons who trade in them… But we cannot scientifically prove that.
And Isn’t there an irony? Post death you are supposed to leave the materialistic world behind and move on right..? Why would you still want to look back to see who loved you the most? Funny!
Then there are dreams! Why do we see them? What is their significance?
There are just so many things that we do not know the answer to. And we have accepted this life with so many variables in it that even if God Himself comes down and gives these ideas a concrete shape, we still might not consider it to be as the “final” verdict. Maybe The Bible and everything they say is real but there would always be naysayers.
#3
I never asked God to send me to earth. I don’t know about other people, but in my right mind I would have never done that. But if I was banished from heaven (of course if that even exists) and just to make things interesting (maybe just to run a practical joke on me) God made me forget everything as well (to make it easy or maybe hard for me to live here)… then right now, I do not even realize the true reality (if at all there is) and thus whatever I am doing is just something I am doing the way I would have done naturally.
So the point is, if he created me and made me take birth in that very family then isn’t there ‘destiny’ in play? Did He not know already how I would turn out to be? Isn’t He the one to be blamed (if not the situation) for my sins?? (Don’t bother answering that. I mean.. I come from Haridwar and that explains it all. And makes it a hypothetical situation right?)
#4
What happened to the people who were born before the Christ came down to help the folks who lived in the next 2012 years? Did they all go to hell? I mean there is no other way out is it? And if souls are not recycled (they have one life on Earth and then depending upon how they perform here they are sent to Hell or Heaven?) then why is God still sending his own on Earth? Or maybe it’s since the time of Adam and Eve, and the souls collaborate and form new as people conceive.
#5
Do no evil is something that is not to be taught. It should come from inside.
Now that belief system shouldn’t change just because you like Heaven more than the way Hell tempts you. Frankly I do not really care if there is a Heaven. I see it as pointless… as this world is. What’s the point of anything? Why do we have poverty? Why there are people who make it their life to help the impoverished? Why do we have people who cause it in the first place. Why the circumstances? Why the choice? Why? Just because one day God felt lonely and he created the whole world in 7 days? Amazing! (btw on the 7th day he took rest. Cool right?)
#6
What’s the proof of anything? I mean what if we all are in a Matrix? Would there be Heaven? (I so want to write a big LOL along but it’s a serious question). What if in this ‘little’ good universe we find out each and everything that is there to be found and we keep living here like we do, would it bother us to not know that there were things beyond our comprehension? Or maybe this ‘little’ universe of ours is a very lucid dream that someone is having right now? Are we ever going to find out the reality? Are we comfortable with that notion of inability?
#7
If we only have one life (unlike what is claimed in Hinduism), how and why is the population increasing?
I mean if we go by the Hindu mythology then we can say that Oh there are so many species which are getting extinct and their souls are taking human vessels but then it would be even more counter intuitive as there are 84,00,000 other life forms your soul has to go through.. before you even get a Human form. And given the increase in collective sins of mankind it is funny thought.
Trivia:
(I haven’t verified all this myself. Just quoting them!)
Bible has been written by 40+ people.
Bible was initially written in Greek and Hebrew.
There were things that were told about Jesus
even before he was born. And then there are things told about Jesus after he took birth. And everything is in perfect symmetry.
The Bible has been studied and interpreted for more than 1500 years.
Contact the Church
There was a beautiful map with directions at the back as well. Only if I had that kind of time to draw it as well. Good that I do not have to look at the keyboard to type all this.
Greater Grace Fellowship
#317, 10th Main, HRBR Layout
Kalyannagar, Bangalore 560 043
Phone: 42084393
Email: ggfblr@gmail.com
Church Services:
Sunday Morning: 10:00 AM
Sunday Evening: 06:30 PM
Wednesday Evening: 07:10 PM
If going there helps in any way then you definitely should give it a shot (that’s the whole purpose of writing it down anyway. Everything is relative!).
My Opinion:
The Good:
If all this was really what it looked like — the community service — then it definitely is praise-worthy. Not just doing something like that has to be very driven but believing that your thoughts can change someone’s life so strongly (both the Life and Belief) is really commendable.
Talking to random individuals and answering their questions… I mean look at me, with all due respect.. I gave them a hard time and left from there giving them an impression that I would never join their Church but still they were standing right there.. waiting for their next brother who they think… should think about “Heaven” before it really gets very very late for him. (Oh! That was a really long sentence. Poor me!)
Also I appreciate the idea that God isn’t interested in your offerings — Sweets/Food/Gold/etc but instead He wants you to recognize his work and appreciate his creation (by not causing any harm to anyone and live with humility).
The Bad?
He wanted me to believe that “There is only one God! Jesus!” !?. Being a Hindu I suddenly felt a void. I mean I don’t even know that figure myself. Countless Gods. Countless Avatars. Countless Choices man. You cannot take it all away from me! And today was Hanuman Ji’s day. He is pretty awesome btw! (Please don’t ask me to prove that for you!)
So I told him that I believed in the existence of a supreme being, but suddenly calling him as ‘Jesus’ would be doing something I am not sure about.
While there are so many religions in this world, most of these are not insensitive to another. I mean it doesn’t matter to me if you call your God — Allah or Krishna. And it shouldn’t! If you are God fearing creature then you would “do no evil“. And God fearing doesn’t mean that post death… because of your Sins God will make you burn in hell. I guess it’s more about giving equal opportunities for everyone just because every life is equally valuable.
By the by all this is so pointless! o.O (I mean going by what I have written so far it’s pretty clear how I feel about this whole institution anyway but if it was so pointless then why did I even start writing about it? Makes sense? I tell this to friends at times that when you are saying that “You don’t give a damn”, you actually have cared enough to have said that… True liberation comes when you don’t even have to say that anymore!)
Having seen “Oh My God” recently makes me abhor all this even more. God is your friend!
OffKey:
#Dedication
… to my Whatsapp clan. We call us Raptors.
#Tumblr
Dear Tumblr. You are facing the wrath of Sandy or whatever and you have missed the chance of publishing a Holy blog @ http://blog.nikunjlahoti.com. Worry not! God is great! I’ll be back.
For the same reasons I tell my friends to have saving bank-accounts in different Banks — “What if their website is experiencing a downtime? You are *essentially* broke!”.
Be secular. Buy secular!
Btw I am starving and so before even proof-reading it I am hitting “publish”. You can always point out something for clarification or a debate is always welcome.
Update (November Day): I fixed a few things.
[No Shiney Mentions here please.. I’ll get touchy]
MrDigerati 
