What is the truth of existence, and the whole truth?; Belief in divine supernatural power

Last updated on 20th July 2020

These are some thoughts of mine.

What is the truth of existence, and the whole truth?

Yes, feeling the unchanging awareness/consciousness in one, which is ever peaceful, and which one intuitively realizes is our real identity which one ***feels*** will persist even after death of the body, is a great truth, which has been talked about by masters like Ramana Maharishi (of the 20th century and so somebody who is not that far back in time) and many, many others. I think this is what many refer to as self-realization (realizing that our truth is not the changing body & mind which will perish one day but that our truth is the unchanging, ever peaceful awareness/consciousness in us).

But is that the whole truth? Is there more to the reality of human existence?

For me as a Hindu, this is where the core messages of Hindu scripture become important guiding lights. Karma, re-incarnation, Avatars and power of prayer to, sometimes at least, result in divine/miraculous intervention to help the person who prayed, are core messages of Hindu scripture.

But, for vast numbers of people including me, they have to be taken on faith - i.e. one has to believe in them. Most people including me do not have the divine powers of seeing the past beyond their current birth and seeing/identifying the cause-effect of Karma playing out. I have had the great good fortune of direct experience of supernatural power of an Avatar - Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. And I have personally experienced how Bhagavan, in physical form, has responded to fervent prayers I made to him. So for me today, I don't have to go only by belief in power of prayer and in supernatural power of an Avatar. But in early 1990s when I first came to know of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba (as a baby I had his darshan when he had come to Mumbai in 1960s but I don't recall that), I had to go by belief without experience. It is after years of belief in him and prayer to him, that I eventually got direct experience of his (physical form Sathya Sai Baba's) divine/miraculous powers, thereby making it belief & experience when it comes to power of prayer and Avatar's divine/miraculous powers.

But I still do not have any ability to see/identify how cause-effect of Karma plays out. I can conjecture, but that's different from knowing. Neither do I have any ability to see my past births and so have clear experience of re-incarnation. So these two aspects continue to be belief without experience, for me.

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Now let me talk about religion. It has been the reality of history that religion has been used by religious organizations for worldly dominance and material gain. That is a sad aspect of the history of religion. I think this applies to most religions including Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism etc.

But is religion all bad? I don't think that the major religions I have mentioned above are all bad. They have a lot of good as well.

In the context of our early 21st century times, I think that some who have taken the path of self-enquiry and have achieved self-realization (or some level of self-realization), without belief in divine deity/formless divine power and without prayer to a deity, are in a happy position now where they do not need belief in the divine (supernatural power) and do not need to pray to a deity. I congratulate such persons whom I refer to as (no-belief) self-enquiry adepts, on their spiritual achievements.

Note that even among self-enquiry adepts, there would be many who also believe in divine (miraculous/supernatural) power and pray to a deity. In this post, I have focused on those self-enquiry adepts who do not believe in such divine (miraculous/supernatural) power and do not pray to a deity.

But how about most of the large numbers (billions) of people of the world? Would they be in a happy position like the above self-enquiry adepts are in now? In all probability, most of them are so caught up in dealing with the daily struggles of life that they are not in a position to take the path that the self-enquiry adepts took, and enjoy the spiritual achievements that they achieved. Note that by path I do not mean a specific formal/informal spiritual process which the self-enquiry adept took, but I mean the general way in which the self-enquiry adept consciously/unconsciously proceeded or happened to proceed in his/her self-enquiry spiritual journey.

I think the core messages of established religions (Hinduism, Christianity, Islam ...) of power of prayer to result in divine intervention to help those who pray earnestly, in some way, and ***belief*** in ***miraculous*** powers of the divine (nameless, formless) as well as divine figures (deities) in human form like Jesus Christ or Krishna or Sai Baba which are documented in scripture/books, give hope, strength and courage to vast numbers of people.

Let us look at the number of such religious believers today in the world. The wiki page, "List of religious populations", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations includes irreligious people as well, and claims to provide 2020 figures. From its total of 7.79 billion people, "Secular[a]/Nonreligious[b]/Agnostic/Atheist" are 1.1 billion. So the other 6.69 billion people seem to be religious believers! Of this, I think one can presume quite safely that the majority will be believers in divine power that can respond (has the power to respond) to earnest prayer and help the person who made that earnest prayer. Let's say the figure of such believers in divine power that responds to earnest prayer, at least at times and in some manner which may not exactly match what the prayer requested, is around 5 billion now in 2020.

5 billion is a huuuuuge number!

Let us also get some idea of the proportion of self-enquiry adepts who don't believe in divine supernatural power (e.g. Lord Jesus Christ walking on water or miraculously healing people Or the many miracles associated with Lord Krishna), and don't need to for their spiritual path, to religious believers for whom belief in supernatural power which responds to earnest prayer, at least at times, is a vital part of their belief. For that, we need to guess the number of such no-belief self-enquiry adepts worldwide today (excluding self-enquiry adepts who also believe in divine supernatural power that responds (at times) to prayer). I think 50,000 may be a decent ballpark figure. Or should it be 500,000? Note that I am referring to no-belief self-enquiry adepts and not just aspirants or sadhakas who have yet to reach stage of an adept. I think 50,000 may be a fair figure.

50,000 such adepts as against 5 billion (5,000,000,000) religious believers! That makes it a proportion of 1 to 100,000. Even if we presume the number of such adepts is 500,000, we get a proportion of 1 to 10,000.

Now each person is free to go by his/her spiritual path. So even if a no-belief self-enquiry adept is a minority of one in one hundred thousand when it comes to religious believers, the no-belief self-enquiry adept has the full right to go by/practise his/her spiritual path.

But we are all in it together! One world shared by so many, and with so many interdependencies! The self-enquiry adept may be dependent on religious believer farmers who produce the food that sustains the body of such a self-enquiry adept. And so, getting a sense of proportion in terms of people numbers, I think helps in getting a better broader picture.

I should also mention that I think that belief in divine power that responds to earnest prayer, at least at times and in some manner, plays a significant role in giving succour and joy to some societies in the world (e.g. India which has significant number of followers of almost all, if not all, major religions of the world).

About miraculous incidents

Sathya Sai Baba was reported to lose body consciousness quite often in his younger days when his body had to be caught by close servitors to prevent a body fall resulting in injury to the body. He would come back to the body some time later and, on occasion relate what he did while being "outside the body".

One of the stated out-of-body visits by Sathya Sai Baba was when Ramana Maharshi gave up his physical body. Here is a post about it (I don't know how accurate the description is but I would not be surprised if it is largely accurate): https://sathyasaiwithstudents.blogspot.com/2013/04/on-day-sri-ramana-maharishi-attained.html .

The (claimed) virginity of Mother Mary and (claimed) resurrection of Lord Jesus Christ are two important beliefs as taught by many Christian churches. I think whether they are true or not does not matter so much, as in the belief that Lord Jesus Christ had miraculous powers which is mentioned in the canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).

It is belief in divine power and grace that encourages followers of Christian faith to pray to Lord Jesus Christ for peace & joy, or for solutions to the many problems they face in their daily lives. That prayer gives them hope, strength and courage to lead their daily lives even if they have a lot of challenges. Take that belief away, and, among those who face great challenges in their daily lives, you may have hopeless people who are scared about what life holds for them, and turn towards escapist stuff like liquor (in excess), drugs (very unfortunately, many youngsters who lose hope for the future, fall prey to drugs), or indulge in some other crazy stuff which (eventually) makes their lives miserable.

The core/pure messages of religions are about divine figures who promote good community life, whether it is based on Jesus Christ, Veda scripture and Rama, Krishna and other Avatars (of Hinduism), Buddha, Mahavira (Jain figure) etc.

BTW I don't think Jesus Christ said that people who do not believe in him will go to eternal hell. That seems to have been introduced by religious bosses who came later on and wanted to make Christianity the dominant religion. Note that religion and kingdom/empire have been closely related for most of history of humanity, whether it is Asia or Europe (don't know enough about ancient history of other continents to comment; USA is a very new country - I don't know enough about ancient history of native Americans (Red Indians) of USA).

In this early 21st century, at least some people are able to distinguish between the core/pure messages of religions and the domination/control part. In general, I support the core/pure messages part and reject the domination/control part of religions.
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One of the great learnings I had from my stay in Prasanthi Nilayam/Puttaparthi in the divine presence of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba's physical form (Oct. 2002 to April 2011), was Baba's preaching that we are all one. And then he would say, don't desire only your spiritual progress and related peace & joy, desire that the whole world progress spiritually and experience related peace & joy. He ***instructed*** devotees to include in their regular prayers - Samastha Loka Sukhino Bhavantu (Sanskrit words translated to English): May all the worlds be happy! [The mantra has to be chanted 3 times followed by Om Shanti Shanti Shantihi, which is Om Peace Peace Peace.]

The Rig Veda (oldest Veda; the other Vedas - Yajur, Sama & Atharva came after it; btw I am a Sama Veda Brahmin by family lineage) says, "Atmano mokshartham jagat hitaya cha (translation: for the salvation of our individual self and for the well-being of all on earth)", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmano_mokshartham_jagat_hitaya_cha .

Prior to coming under the greatly beneficial influence of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba's teachings in early 1990s, I was focused more on my individual spiritual progress. Especially during and after my stay in Prasanthi Nilayam/Puttaparthi in Bhagavan's physical presence (Oct. 2002 to April 2011, I repeat for clarity), I have changed my approach to a balance between my individual spiritual uplift and contributing my little bit to well being and happiness of society.
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Some self-enquiry adepts who are not into belief in divine supernatural power and in power of prayer to a deity, may not agree with all of my views and I may not agree with all of their views, though I think there are many aspects where our views today would be similar.