Consider three common scenarios:
1. A lady is sick for a long time with a chronic disease. Despite unsparing efforts by her family and best medical expertise, there is no improvement in her condition.
2. A man toils very hard at his work. But his income is meagre and not enough to support his family. Despite his best efforts at finding additional source of income or another job, his financial situation does not improve.
3. Scientists have been struggling to figure out how matter came into existence. Two scientists propose a theoretical particle that gives mass to matter which is named as Higgs boson particle after the theorists who proposed it. Now the scientists are carrying out experiments at Cern laboratory in Geneva to actually verify the existence of such a particle.
The common thread in the above three scenarios is the existence of a certain gap in each of them that is not being breached despite best efforts by the concerned people. In scene 1, there is a gap between the efforts of the patient’s family and doctors on the one hand and the desired well-being of the lady on the other. In scene 2, there is a gap between the man’s financial needs and his efforts. In scene 3, scientists are stumped by the gap between matter and its origin.
We are commonly faced with various kinds of gaps. When we find that we cannot breach the gap despite our best efforts, we tend to take recourse to a concept of God that covers that particular gap. For example, in scene 1, the sick lady and her family members pray to God in the belief that He is the only one now who can cure her. In scene 2, the man starts thinking that it is probably God’s wish that his financial situation be what it is. Yet, he may pray to God whom he regards as Almighty. In scene 3, scientists end up naming that mysterious particle, of all things, “God particle”, though their rational and scientific minds may not accept the concept of God!
People taking recourse to the concept of God are classified into four categories as per the Bhagwad Gita. The lady in scene 1 is an ‘aart’, a sufferer who is desirous of relief from her suffering. The man in scene 2 is an ‘artharthi’ who is desiring some worldly benefit. Most believers may fall into these two categories. They believe God to be someone who is omnipotent and kind enough to respond to prayers. There are two other categories of God-believing people described in the Gita. “Jidnyasu” are those who have quest for knowledge. They believe there is something more than the perceptible world. They are curious to know about it. So, they say God is the Creator. Cern scientists in Geneva say “God particle” gives matter its mass.
Thus, for most people who fall in one of the three categories described above, the realm of the unknown and unattained belongs to God of the gaps.
But there is the fourth category of people. It is called ‘jnani’, the Self-realised. They are those who have understood the real nature of existence and have ceased to see any duality. Hence they perceive no gap any longer. They are in the state of ‘Aham Brahmasmi’. There is no God apart from them. In other words, they themselves have become God!
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