KNOWLEDGE SHEET BY SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR

Posted: 15 Dec 2000

ATHEISM IS NOT A REALITY

It is difficult to see God as formless and it is difficult to see God as form. The formless is so abstract and God in a form appears to be too limited. So some people prefer to be atheists.

Atheism is not a reality, it is just a matter of convenience. When you have a spirit of enquiry, or in search of truth, atheism falls apart. With a spirit of enquiry, you cannot deny something which you have not disproved. An atheist denies God without first disproving it. In order to disprove God, you must have enormous knowledge. And when you have enormous knowledge, you cannot disprove it! (laughter!)For one to say that something does not exist, one should know about the whole universe. So you can never be one hundred percent atheist. An atheist is only a believer who is sleeping!

For a person to say, "I don't believe in anything", means he must believe in himself - so he believes in himself about whom he does not even know!

An atheist can never be sincere because sincerity needs depth - and an atheist refuses to go to his depth. Because the deeper he goes, he finds a void, a field of all possibilities - he has to accept that there are many secrets he does not know. He would then need to acknowledge his ignorance, which he refuses to do, because the moment he is sincere, he seriously starts doubting his atheism. A doubt-free atheist is next to impossible! So you can never be a sincere and doubt-free atheist.

When the atheist realizes his ignorance, what does he do? Where does he go? Does he go to a Guru? What does a Guru do to him? (Wait for next week's knowledge!)

Jai Guru Dev