Thinking Hard

I should confess that two things happened today, and this story is about them.


The first is that I read this wonderful article after a long time, "The Self-Thinking Thought." The second is that I talked to a friend of mine, after a long time.


First, the self-thinking thought. It is about Anselm's Ontological Argument, proving the existence of God. Anselm, in 1077 felt extraordinary happiness because he had proof of God.

“The grace of God shone on his heart, the whole matter became clear to his mind, and a great joy and jubilation filled his inmost being,” his friend and biographer Eadmer would later write."

From what I could understand- what made Anselm happy can make you happy, too, because it will show you that God is really there. It goes like this- first, think about something that is greater than anything else. Call it god. Then think of something else, and then something else. Now, since you can think about something, and you have thought of God- the something that is greater than all those somethings, God is proved.


You get it? No?


Then you didn't think hard enough- that is why the something that is greater than anything else- God- is not real to you. Come on, think, think harder, that is the way to do it.


Because, when Anselm got it, Nathan Schneider writes,

“I thank thee, gracious Lord, I thank thee,” he (Anselm) gushed. “Because what I formerly believed by thy bounty, I now so understand by thine illumination.” "

That is the way to do it. If you don't believe in Anselm's proof, Godel made an equation of it- Maths should prove it if words fail:

Now, I can see you wonder where the story is in all this.


The friend that called me, is a doleful kind of person. More or less finished with his life. He wanted me to get him a copy of Avadhutha Gita. His parents were sick, both in their eighties, and he in his forties, unmarried and unloved. He has employed a male nurse to bathe his father, and see to his needs. His mother, in her senility, goes around cursing them all- his life is a misery, and he said he needs something transcendental that would keep him sane.


It is a most unhappy stage of life to a close friend of mine, who once confessed an astonishing experience that happened to him:


He was a boy of seven, who had gone to the Central Railway Station with his father to send off his uncle. As he was walking on the platform, he happened to glance inside a carriage, and what did he see? Tens of foot-length angels flying about the berths! He says they must be angels, because he had seen nothing like that.


This incident left such a strong impression on him, he says, "I could never believe that anything that happens now is real- everything is a dream that will pass away like those angels playing around in the railway carriage".


However much I tried to disabuse him of that notion, I could not convince him otherwise. These things happen- things stick in your head.


So today, to divert him, I asked him of his sister's son, a spiritual maniac, who wed sometime back, and has had a son born to him about a year ago.


"Oh him," my friend snickered dismissively, "He used to advice my mother to live a detached life, like a lotus-leaf in water, wet but not moist, loving without attachment. But this boy, now that he has a child, shouts out in his sleep to watch out for the child-"Stop him! Stop him! Ajinkya is putting that rat-poison in his mouth!", he cries out in sleep and wakes up sweating!"


We both felt happy about that, and I promised to get him the book and that was that.


Now, where was I? Yes, thinking hard.


Seems to me, Anselm did not need proof of God to believe Him- he wanted words to express what he felt. Because, this is the man who wrote,

"I do not seek to understand so that I can believe,

but I believe so that I may understand;

and what is more,

I believe that unless I do believe, I shall not understand."

You understand this?

Meanings are not given, they are made- or is it the other way round?