67. Acceptance and Perceptions

Every life form is born in a different point in the space-time continuum; they experience the reality at a different time, with a unique perspective and meet an end in a different point in space-time. The end is mostly an uncertain one!

The energy, in the form of life, goes through these unique experiences not for us to compare our lives with others but to grow and evolve to understand ourselves and itself! By going through these experiences, we gain a lot of knowledge about what’s around us. This knowledge shapes our thoughts, which in turn, shapes our minds. It is this mind that slowly shapes our perspectives, and out of our perspectives evolves our personalities!

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Different personalities live together in a society, and it is a natural thing ever since collective human survival began. We see mentally strong people around us, some weak, some intelligent, some wise beyond measure while some others are cunning to the core. This difference is natural and doesn’t depend on people’s genetics. It comes from the experiences every individual has in his or her life. As the saying goes, ‘Some are young at 60, while some are old at 20.’ We think there are people out there like us, who, having the same taste like us, might even look like us. But we are wrong. That is not the point of life.

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In fact, all of us have different characters mixed up inside our minds. We are smart at times, sometimes stupid, sometimes gullible, sometimes arrogant, trusting, wise, cunning, and so on. Out of all these traits, only one of them dominates us at any point in time. The dominant character of the time shapes our thoughts and our minds by limiting our perspectives at that moment. If our thought process is slow, we have a steady mind, and whatever action we involve in, we do it in the most efficient way.

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Emotional disturbances cause a disturbed mind and our efficiency naturally comes down. The thoughts and emotions in our brains have high uncertainty, making it hard for us to have a steady mind all the time. Right now, with all the understanding about human biology and the different fields of researches explaining the universe and its working, we still don’t fully comprehend the uncertainty of the thoughts, emotions, characters, life and even reality! Obviously, it must’ve been really hard for people throught history.

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In the days before religions when man began understanding reality, he wasn’t fully capable of describing the events happening around him. He didn’t know the sun was a giant ball of fire, he didn’t know the stars were similar to the Sun, and he didn’t know the evolution of senses. All the knowledge of those times was limited to a particular group of (spiritual) philosophers who wrote down what they understood then, for the future generations to understand.

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The societies, in general, were weak-minded, with most people not wanting to think about all this. They had no time to think about whom or what created everything around them. All they wanted was a peaceful life with someone else explaining the reason for all their sorrows. The answers to any question about existence, they left it in the hands of God! The situation is the same even today!

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At the individual level, people were not equal in their capacity to work, to think and to contemplate the reality around them. Some were strong-willed and strong-minded, while some were relatively weaker. Some were naturally dependent on others. The diversity of populations is not just about how they thought or their personalities, but about other factors too. Some people were physically challenged, some mentally, some too old to earn a living and some too young and innocent to be working.

When we say weak characters (not weak minds) we don’t mean it in a derogatory sense. We mean the people who deserve help (economically or morally or in any other way) from people around them. Mostly, they perceive the reality around them as a curse, and their notion of God is quite different than that of our own! They always need a God, either to give them hope or to explain to them the reason for their suffering or to constantly curse God (for their suffering) till their death.

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On the other hand, throughout history, civilisations were in a constant struggle for power with their neighbours and the settlements of people were always in a state of fear. At the societal level, the fear of life, fear for the loss of kith and kin in war, fear of property loss and so on, kept people vigilant about their surroundings. So, at this level, they needed a God to give them hope.

When seen from another side, the notion of God acted as a control mechanism on people. Whenever people deviated from the societal norms and values, they were persecuted to set an example for the rest of the society. People were trained to be obedient both consciously and sub-consciously all through their lives. But were these norms, values and hopes revered equally by all personalities of people? Of course not!

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The sub-consciously intelligent people never appreciated an external factor to control their conduct. The strong ones were capable of controlling themselves from deviant behaviours. The wise ones helped formulate these norms and also updated them to maintain an orderly society. For someone to control their behaviours, the extremely deviant and the weak-minded were the ones who needed these norms and values to control their societal level conduct.

Or in other words, some people needed a legal system to maintain their morality, and some didn’t need one. The ones who needed external control of their moral values were and are the weak-minded. So, psychologically speaking, people in the past needed God in one form or the other. Either to provide them their purpose of existence or to give them hopes or to curse forever for the troubles God gave them or to control their behaviour from outside them.

In all such communities, the dominantly cunning characters tried to seize power to control the masses. But, the governance systems employed only intelligent and strong minds in it. A king would only hire obedient, intelligent and strong men and rule a country.

Naturally, the cunning ones were left out. This is when they sought power using the only constant factor that controlled the entire society for all time to come, religions and their Gods.

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