Is God Sensitive?

The discussion of the movie OMG over at my Facebook page got a bit more heated than it did here. I noticed a trend among people who found the movie distasteful and offensive. People are bothered by a lack of respect to our rituals. Perhaps even a lack of respect to our Gods.

There’s confusion over why God would help and support the character who disrupts tradition, insults the Gods, and takes advantage of people of faith.

It seems to me that some people are very quick to get offended on God’s behalf. I think that is represented in the movie by the main character’s wife and neighbors. They don’t want God to get upset with them, so they distance themselves from someone who is questioning God. But questioning is good. God has never asked us to be sheep. We have a powerful brain and vast consciousness and we have them for a reason.

I think the message of the movie was God wants our friendship more than he wants our offerings.

Is that true? I don’t know. A filmmaker has no more claim on Truth than anyone else.

But it’s a claim that is worth considering.

I do think our rituals have a place. I’m not about to stop going to the temple, throw out my traditions, pack away my murtis. At the same time, I will work on expanding where and how I see God. Because He doesn’t just live in a temple; He is everywhere.

Does God care if we don’t believe in Him? I doubt it. I think, in my worldview, He smiles affectionately and waits for us to find Him. He knows He exists. He doesn’t need us to prove it for Him.

So then why do I show respect to God?

Because He is my friend and I love and respect my friends. Once the main character in the movie realizes that God is his friend, his attitude is different. Even if he doesn’t show respect to a murti, he does show respect to God in person.

It reminds me of a great story I was told as a child…

There is a wise man who cares for a temple in the South. He decides to take a pilgrimage to the mouth of the Ganga to collect water for offering to the temple’s murti. He walks the entire way, days and weeks, collects the water in a pot and continues back towards his temple. While he is walking back he comes upon a donkey dying on the side of the road. It’s hot and dusty and the donkey is clearly in need of water. So the wise man kneels by the donkey and gives him the holy water from the pot. When he returns empty handed to his temple, people question why he did this! His answer was “God was kind enough to meet me half way.”

There’s a tendency for us to get worked up when we think someone isn’t showing proper respect to our rituals or images of God. I think it’s good to defend God’s image, but not to the point of screaming or violence. We show respect to our Gods and we encourage others to do so as well. If they choose not to, that’s their loss.

There are people who use powerful religious imagery to make a point, make a statement, create art that we might not like or agree with. Hindus are not singled out in this. Believe me, there are some shocking things done to the image of Jesus.

And God does have a sense of humor. Stories of young Krishna, for example, are full of playfulness and teasing. He knows how to take a joke, do we?