Kartikey Sehgal

“Happiness will not come from happiness; but only from pain. We know the value of standing in shade only after roaming in the hot day sun.”
–Atharva Veda

Pain is fun. Pain is natural. Pain is the word given to describe a feeling that is not like happiness. Humans crave pain. Often they are not able to understand the true nature of pain and hence they give in to drugs and sadism. To know pain is to understand a simple duality.

You know about night because of the day. In summers you think of winters and in winters you think of warmth.

Happiness is different from pain but pain can be a happy experience. It can heal you and make you stronger. And I say again, humans crave pain.

When you walk barefoot on hard and cold rocks you feel pain. When you walk alone on a lonesome night and cry you feel pain. This is the nature of pain. It exists to remind you of the times you didn’t remember it. So the next time you are happy you remember it and be prepared for it. Pain is a reminder of individuality. Of the uniqueness of an individual that lives and functions in a community. So that the next time you are in a group, you will remember your individuality.

Some people are scared of pain so they give themselves pain. Better I control pain than the other way around, they feel. They wait for pain and they shy away from happiness because it would be followed by pain. They become unhealthy masochists. Such people confuse fear with pain. Pain becomes fear for them. Separation from a friend for them is not pain but fear.

There is pain in the open green meadows for once an army lay dead in it. For farmers were moved or killed by governments. For lovers were separated here.

There is pain in nature for it is destructible. For you will not be by its side forever. For you wish your child would be here to see it.

The passing of sunrise and sunset reminds you of your time on earth. With the pleasure, there is the pain.

Kartikey Sehgal

If nature is not god, and it is to be controlled by a god, then its destruction is not akin to god’s destruction.

Nature is then secondary; it comes after god. Nature is not god but since it is important for survival it is to be protected. If you don’t protect nature, then god will punish you. Never mind that without nature you will die in the first place. And how will you then think of god?

Transference of Power

If you commit sins, then god will punish you through floods, fires and landslides. It is god’s will that you die a terrible death. This implies that nature by itself is not powerful but under the control of god. If you are good, then god blesses you with white roses in your garden. If you are good–the one with the white roses–but die in a terrible accident then you must have committed some sin. Since you are dead you will never know. It is god’s will.

But Nature is a Living Force

Nature is self protecting. So while you think it is punishing you, it is actually living its life. Water flows from a mountain. The trees take some water and the rest reaches you. If the trees are absent then all the water will reach you and cause havoc.

The tree is living its life. You are living your life. But the tree is also a resource. You eat apple from the tree and discover gravity laws. Nature, perhaps, learns from you but it doesn’t show it.
So you live your life and the tree lives its life. Then civilization happens.

Your dressing and language is changed and the trees are cut to make buildings. Floods happen and it is decided that god has made this happen through nature. Nature wreathed havoc but on the orders of god. It is understood that trees were chopped and hence floods were inevitable; so god seems like an extra here.

Is God an Extra

Or consider this statement: ‘man paid for his sins’. Yes, nature took ‘its own course’ but man has been made to pay for his sins. God has been introduced again. As if nature’s ‘own course’ is not scary enough for man. Floods, earthquakes, tsunamis can wipe us out but that doesn’t seem terrible enough for man. There must be a god who must me included in the scheme of things. God is an extra here. We know for sure that the water that touches our skin and breaks through our homes and destroys our crops is real and is disturbing our existence. But we don’t know if god is doing it because we cannot see him. But we ascribe the events to god, not nature.

The Invention

Is religion the invention of a weak man. Who couldn’t face nature and devised a person/system that lords over nature. The person then assumed rights of communicating with that ‘God’. This way he became powerful and he ensured that he would be remembered for a long time to come.

Is nature god’s enemy. We pray to god and then die in a landslide. Or we are hungry and find a papaya plant. Is the plant, which we can see and touch, responsible for the fruit or is it god. Is it the same to worship the plant and the god. Or is it… paganism.

Paganism is not Religion

Pagans worship stones and plants and what not. Religion asks you to pray to specific people (or the ‘unpeople’ or the super-people). They are the top people and the only ones who can make you happy and dance-like. If stones and plants make you dance-like then it is the devil playing with you. Anything other than the gods that makes you happy must be devilish and if you are happy then you should praise god for it.
If you pray to nature, you bad bad pagan, then you are not praying to god. You are undermining his importance. You are praying to things that are supposed to be under god’s control. This is not acceptable to the religion. So you must pay for your sins. And the sin-remover will be that person we talked about, the religion inventor, who has communication with god.

As nature perpetuates, so does religion.