Chance V/s Belief

When a child is born in this finite world of infinite possibilities, the primal human emotion that she comes across besides hunger and sleep is belief. She believes only in an individual or a set of so. This belief comes from her daily experiences and encounters with that individual or the set. She is not taught to grasp the fingers of the person. She is never taught but she gathers from her instincts anyways. The child, a product of chance, doesn't know if she would ever make it to the big world, if the individuals whom she puts her faith in, would not ever hurt her if the big world would fit her right in the myriad of jigsaws. But she thrives anyways. She takes her chances.

 Therefore, belief comes naturally to us from a very fundamental point A person who is a believer of God believes in His existence and a person who doesn't subscribe to God also believes in His non-existence. In any case and anyhow you tend to believe in one or the other ideology

 And what we do with our belief?

We systematize it, institutionalize it, shape it to the extent of building consciousness and instilling similar belief in others. In one word we try and gather as many 'likes' and 'subscribers' as we can for our ideologies. Such belief is often glamorized to attract the followers, often preached to reach to more and more people, often held conventions and sermons to produce disciples, used brawn and brute force to further the cause of forceful conversion from one belief to another. In one word one system of belief makes as many replicated DNA copies as possible and more the subscribers more the durability and credibility and more the earning from it that in turn satiates your hunger and promise you a good night's sleep. Back to the fundamentals.

 But this time you are not a child anymore. You are an adult. And adults, as Neil Gaiman writes, follow the same path again and again whereas the child explores.

Adults are stubborn, fixated by their visions, shallowed by their belief, protected by their ego and limited by their age and possibilities.

They know, unlike the child, that a supernova within 500 light-years of us may wipe away our chance of survival, their nurtured belief, and their existential triumph... Or a meteor, a famine, a viral pandemic, an underwater earthquake, or even an economic recession at that. But still, they pull the curtain of disbelief before them and ignores millions of such cataclysmic changes that might end their romantic rendezvous with individual life and belief in a blink of an eye. But I again believe that none of such millions of chance factors would cross my path and I would continue to do just as fine...! Adults don't learn from History but History still stands to prove that a zillion times.

 World's oldest monotheistic religion Zoroastrianism has a handful of subscribers now... 200000 at most in Iran and India. Zoroastrianism gave birth to three Abrahamic faiths: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. 1500 yrs ago Christianity and Islam could make it big...again out of pure chance. Christianity, the faith of peace, branched and fought among themselves (Protestants and Catholics). Islam propagated their content at a breakneck speed but remained at constant loggerheads with its brother Christianity... Both from the same mother and subscribing to the same theism. Crusade is that silly battle of History where those two adult brothers fought just to garner more 'Likes' and 'Views' to their respective beliefs. But what none remembered is that when there is a rise, there ought to be a fall. The world is dynamic and so are our belief systems. It changes!

The rule of Akhenaten of Egypt gave way to monotheism and the God Aten rose to its popularity during his reign... Huge structures and entirely new cities were built with different architecture only to bring back the Polytheism after his death. Cities were forgotten, House of God abandoned. None cared. None remembered.

Buddhism evolved 2500 years ago and with the death of Buddha, we forgot the basic tenets of His religion that urged us to disengage with the worldly attachments and the moment he died we fought over his tooth, his remnants to build Stupas over it and institutionalise our belief. The prime country of its prominence India now has a minuscule number of Buddhists and fewer subscribers... No matter how many stupas were built and how many kings backed the faith, how magnificent Asokan edicts were, the chance of faith to last forever is nil.

India runs on Polytheism. Here varied faiths coexist. Our modern state sponsors "Secularism" and aspires lord Rama in its rulers. The irony is people of Rama believed in Him but the people of modern India hardly put their faith in its rulers anymore and every decision of the rulers here is taken with a pinch of salt.

Ram never build himself a statue in his lifetime, never even claimed his kingship or the pleasure of his palace for 14 years of his exile. Never complained or cringed for it. What he stood for was pure modesty and ideal pattern of relationship between the rulers and the ruled--- what we call the 'RamRajya' and in the endeavour of reinstating the same, the first thing we did is ended a long-drawn dispute, democratically endorsed by the highest court of the Land, battled it out with our fellow believers of the same secular state and promised to gift our revered Rama a 'Vabya Mandir' (large and elegant palatial temple for Him to reside). Thus we sought to begin our Ram Rajya (Kingdom of Rama)! 

Belief is good. It is even necessary. Even if you give less regard to it, close all doors n windows determined not letting it in, it will sneak in at every cost. Because we are humans and we are born with certain instincts. And those instincts make us dream, dream big and bigger. We socialise with our beliefs. We make our own groups and team up with like-minded people underpinning our beliefs. But before it grows monstrous with its natural propensity and starts feeding off our imagination and we declare 'Jihad', we must constantly keep reminding ourselves of the innumerable 'chance factors' all around us that can change the scenario any moment and we might be left with nothing to brag about. It is like the Dark matter, pervasive all around but can not be seen! Chance is that constant in an equation without which the belief becomes unaccountable and unruly. Recognition of Chance would make us modest and shed optimum light on belief, never giving belief the center stage, the heart that the belief craves like the 'hunger birds', like the child craving for the taste of the dirt unaware of its consequences.