Atheism & Krishna

One who is a profound theist is a profound atheist too. It is a skin deep atheist, who fight among themselves. Fight always happens on the surface, there is no fight at the deepest levels of life. Understanding, from whatever source it comes, unites. It always leads to Advaita source- the one without the other. What does a theist say? He says God is. But when theism deepens, there is no God but me, I myself become God. A wise theist says God is here. An atheist claims there is no God. He says, “There is no God than that which is: what is, is.” And he calls it Prakriti, the pre-created, or nature. There is a significant saying in this context of a profound atheist, “If there is God I won’t be able to tolerate him, because then, where will I stand? What will happen to me?” He means to say if God is, he as a man will be reduced to nothing. Then he has no ground to stand on, and he could not tolerate it. He says, “If God has to be, why not me? Why can’t I be that God?” Nietzsche is an atheist, and he says there is no God but existence. That which is, is God. Why think in terms of any additional God? Even a profound theist says the same thing that which is, is God. There is no other God.

In reality, while a theist uses positive terms in his description of reality, an atheist uses negative terms. The difference is just limited to that. That is why positive theists think Buddha and Mahavira to be atheists. But neither Buddha nor Mahavira will agree with this description. To superficial theists, both Sankya and Yoga seem to be atheistic, but they are not. They are not atheistic in the sense they are thought to be. Their fault, if it is a fault, is that they use negative terms. But the difficulty is that there are only two ways of voicing reality- the positive and the negative. There have been people who use both positive and negative together when they explain reality. The seers of Upanishads (Vedanta) have their own special term: neti-neti, which means it is neither this nor that, and that which is cannot be said. In fact, truth is inexpressible. And therefore they remain silent after saying neti-neti. 

Krishna need not pass through any kind of atheism, because he is not interested in superficial theism. Krishna knows and accepts reality at a depth where names don’t matter. Call it God, call it prakriti, or nature, call it non-God, or whatever we like, it makes no difference. What is, is. The trees will continue to grow as ever, the flowers will continue to blossom. Stars will move, life will continue to appear and disappear, waves will rise and fall. Weather God is or not is a debate, in which only fools participate. That which is, is utterly unconcerned about it all. This is what I learned by knowing Krishna and there by understanding Gita. 

Let us understand Krishna to understand Gita!

Wishing you all good health & happiness,

Dr. Dwaraka, Director, Mitran foundation- the stress management people