I have Faith in the 'Whatever'
Dear …..‘Whatever!’
Allow me to call you so,
’Cos it wouldn’t be nice if I’m giving you someone else’s privilege
By calling you ‘God’ when I do not know what that means;
I wonder, whether I need to begin like this at all,
’Cos I know not whether ‘God’ exists at all or not;
If I am the author of this work,
If it is I who move the pen,
And if these are my own thoughts that keep overflowing,
Then, why I need your permission at all?
If in case you exist, I do it for courtesy sake,
For I choose to dedicate this work to you;
But, if in case you don’t,
Then, isn’t it absurd
To dedicate something to ‘whatever’ I do not know?
Have you ever written a book?
People say, they read a lot about you;
Have you ever spoken to people?
They say, they heard you;
Have you ever heard people crying?
They say, you found it to be too loud;
Have you ever seen people dying?
They say, you had tears in your eyes;
Have you ever smelled the lilies in the field?
People say, you smiled just like them;
Have you ever tasted the water in the sea?
People say, your face shrank;
Have you ever touched the heated sand in a dessert?
People say, your feet burnt;
Have you ever felt the pain of a mother giving birth to a child?
People say, you felt pity;
Have you ever thought of creeping snails?
People say, you just couldn’t stop.
But, I asked them,
“Who are You?”
People said, they never knew You enough;
“What are You?”
They said, You are beyond their grasp;
“What is Your name?”
They said, You have many;
“Where do You stay?”
They said, they still search for You;
“Do You really exist at all?
People said, they never foundYou;
Oh Gosh! Whatever!
Now I really begin to wonder, are you really ‘He’,
Why not ‘She’ or ‘It’ or ‘a fourth thing’?
Whatever you are,
Don’t you now see
I have enough reasons to call you ‘Whatever’!
Whatever I see around is being created,
And whatever is effected is no foreign to its cause;
A cow effects milk is no foreign to the cow,
And a mother effects a baby is no foreign to the mother;
Then, isn’t it reasonable to say,
Whatever is created in the world should be no foreign to ‘whatever’ created it?
But,
I have heard the cry of a newborn baby,
And seen a mama-cow feeding her boy;
I have felt the pain of a mother being separated from her child,
And wept while reading about her daughter being barbarously raped;
I have smelled the rot of a dead cow,
And tasted her calf slaughtered and drilled in the barbeque parlor;
Now,
If whatever is created is no foreign to ‘whatever’ created them,
And whatever created is so chaotic and bizarre,
How can ‘whatever’, then, be different from whatever is created?
If whatever created is both desirous and repugnant,
How can, then, there be ‘whatever’ at all,
’Cos an orange can’t be both orange and not-orange;
Does this mean that there exists no first ‘whatever’ at all?
I was eating an orange the other day,
And I almost swallowed a maggot inside it;
It is then I realized,
The orange itself would not have created the maggot,
’Cos maggot starred at me as if I had asked for a piece from his stolen orange;
If maggot is completely different from orange,
Then, why not the chaotic and bizarre world also be different from ‘whatever’ created it?
If the fly that created the maggot is so real,
Why not, then, ‘whatever’ created orange also be so real?
But,
I saw only the maggot and not its cause -the fly,
And the orange and not its cause – the ‘whatever’;
Then, how will I dedicate this work to ‘whatever’ I don’t see?
I have seen neither my mom’s dad nor the dads before him;
But, I know for sure,
Without them, I wouldn’t have seen my mom either;
(and of course, ‘me’ out of question)
If I have faith in both the fly and my mom’s dad,
Am I not convincing enough when I say,
“I have faith in the ‘whatever’
That caused both the fly and my mom’s dad?”
It is to that ‘whatever’ I dedicate this work,
And give the name “GOD”
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