My Relationship with God
I've been through a host of ventures finding god.
Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, yet, I found home where I was born.
Hinduism.
For me, Hinduism isn't just a religion. It's philosophy, it's art, it's science, it's guidance, it's Bhakti personified.
I discovered Maa in 2024, but she's been with me since I've been a toddler. I've struggled, but with her love, I've persevered. And the discovery led me to ask, what's my relationship with her?
I've explored most of India's temples, prayed at Brihadeshwara, bowed to Maa at Calcutta, offered my hair at Tirumala. Yet, what was my relationship with her?
Was she my cosmic mother? A incomparable peer? A teacher? A wife?
What was my relationship to her?
And unusually, I found my relationship to her, very different to that of a Shakta. A Shakta tends to find himself presenting a maternal relationship with Maa. Someone who can coddle and spoil him.
Yet, with me, it's been a hybrid. When I cry, I know she's there to comfort me. When I celebrate, I know it's because of her guidance and hand-holding.
But at the temple, and whenever I offer her prayers, I'm a servant. I fall to her feet. I ask a place just next to her feet, where I can serve her. To serve her and have her with me, is all I ask of her. Yet, I ask her to let me face my battles. Let me suffer, but just suffer enough for the soul to grow.
It's an interesting combination of the shaivite, vaishnavite, and shakta means of Bhakti. And rather than try something else, I know this is the one for me. For in all songs, I see her, in all hymns, I worship her, in all deities, I see her.
Yet, the more important question.
What does this lead to?
Maa Kali is my ishta-devata, yes. But where does it lead to?
What is moksha?
As i tried to figure this out, I think, I return to Adi Shankara.
For me, my bhakti always had a blot. It seemed fake, fradulent. Because Shankara argued for the existence of a Brahman. Sat-Chit-Ananda. That was the true universe. True bliss.
And the gods, didn't have a place there. So where did my love go?
But, I think I found myself an answer. And to explain it best, I could just try with an analogy.
An ishta-devata and bhakt's relationship is akin to a droplet of water to the ocean.
The calls, cries and wails of an individual is but just an attempt by the Atman to return to the Bramhan. The devatas are personified Bramhan, and our attempt at love, is but a attempt for us to just join in with Bramhan.
You are drawn by that entity of the Bramhan, because that element of the Bramhan is the journey you find yourself relating the most with. It is the strength that would allow you to break through Maya. It is what guides you to Bramhan.
That is, why people pray. That is why, Hinduism has so many deities.