What is God? God is a word. The name is used to denote and symbolise a supernatural power which is specified or believed to be:
(1) almighty, omnipotent; (2) one without a second; (3) unique in every way, cannot be compared, contrasted or correlated; (4) eternal - beyond birth, death and decay, existing in everness; (5) changeless; (6) limitless; (7) all pervading, spread out from microcosm to macrocosm, from inside to outside, omnipresent; (8) omniscient, knowing each and everything including our mind and actions; (9) beyond form and having no particular form; (10) beyond attributes, qualifications and quantifications; (11) the creator, sustainer and destroyer; (12) all encompassing, nothing exists without or beyond it; (13) creator of the cosmos out of itself; (14) referee and witness; (15) the harmony and synchronisation abiding in nature and in the universe; (16) maker and wielder of the benign and benevolent cosmic laws that govern and administer the universe; (17) truth; (18) existence and being; (19) consciousness and knowledge; (20) bliss; (21) impersonal as well as personal; (22) responsive to prayers and invocations; (23) absolute love, the ocean of love, mercy, kindness and tolerance; (24) supreme and ultimate; (25) the most subtle.
Now, since God is unique in every way, one without a second, it is obvious that nothing can be like God in any way. From the above premise it can be conclusively argued that if anything exhibits, depicts or possesses any of the attributes of God to the extent of 100%, that thing must be God itself.
Is there anything then akin to God? Yes. Space can be equated with God. The following characteristics of space may be noted:
The works of the physicists (like Fresnel, Maxwell, Lorentz. Minkowski, Einstein, Riemann, Planck, Dirac and others) may be noted.
Now laying aside the debatable issues for the time being, it can be concluded that, from what is meant to be conveyed by the words 'God' and 'Space', the two seem to be synonymous. That is:
In this treatise I am deliberately avoiding the discussion of contradictions and controversies underlying the concept of God, its nature and functions. However, it is generally believed that God has two primary aspects: the unmanifest and the manifest. The unmanifest God may be called Brahman. It is the absolute, primordial, basic situation; the undifferentiated, cosmic cohesion; the impersonal; the formless and the attributeless; the eternal; the changeless. The manifest God may be called Paramatma. Its nature is love. It is the totality of creation. The manifest is reflected in the unmanifest and is pervaded by it. For a crude comparison it may be pointed out that water pervades the iceberg and the ice cream and that brine is unmanifest in plankton and the dolphin; that nothingness exists as surely and certainly as any 'thing'. The zero and the vacuum are as important as the positive and the negative, as the sound waves and the electromagnetic forces, the sky and the rainbow, the mind and its modifications.
The science of the unmanifest has been called spiritometry. God's existence or being is not merely a matter of faith and belief. It is based on scientific data, logical analysis and rational interpretation of observed phenomena. Whether the universe was created by a clever creator, by the devil's design or by sheer chance is beside the point. That concept which is most conducive to the creatures' welfare and which offers the best possible explanations and answers should be preferred and inculcated.
It can be proved that science and spirituality are inter-convertible and that: (1) God exists; (2) God is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient; (3) God is both impersonal and personal; (4) God is truth, consciousness, bliss and love; (5) The cosmic Creation is a fact and a feature of God, the manifest aspect of the unmanifest; (6) God created the universe from and in himself (cf. the kangaroo); (7) God is eternal and changeless, beyond time; (8) God is all pervading, the inter and intra micro cosmic and inter and intra macro cosmic principle; (9) God is the universal 'great glue' or the cosmic 'collagen'; (10) God is the core and the kernel of material wavicles and the essence of existence, its expositions and projections.
Whether space too is or is not endowed with similar qualities, properties and characteristics can be easily surmised. Two different sets of arguments can be brought to bear upon this problem. Firstly, there is an indirect proof. Since the two words 'God' and 'Space' are synonymous (for the previously mentioned reasons), all that is implied, inherent in and symbolised by the concept of God would naturally apply to Space as well. Thus it can be concluded that Space too is consciousness, bliss, truth etc. If Space is conscious and all pervading, it is always aware of all our moods and moves- the 'grand gaze', peeping, prying and spying into our private lives, perhaps interfering and meddling with our affairs, determining our destinies, and torturing, tethering and tormenting us. If that be so, it poses a very serious problem, does it not? But if God is tolerated as the inevitable omniscience, why should we mind Space? We think in Space; we are thought of in Space; all communications take place through Space.
In all these discussions the crux of the problem is to chose between theism and atheism. Agnosticism is honest, but impotent, bewildered and melancholic. It avoids the issue and escapes from the arena. It is a begging ostrich. It does not take up the gauntlet or accept the challenge.
Atheism is anti-theism, anti-God, and therefore, by definition 'of the devil'. It has nothing to offer, not even immortality. What awaits the atheist ultimately, finally and permanently is death and demolition.
The theist, at worst, is a humble megalomaniac, embarked on the perpetuation of his personality as a part and parcel of totality. He marches with hope, courage and confidence from the variegated manifest to the secure cradle of the unmanifest trinity: existence, consciousness and bliss.
Atheism has no goal. Its journey is subject to the mercy and murkiness of other creatures; it can seek for nothing better. It lives individually in a fast, evanescent environment, perched precariously on the paunch of theism.
The theist lives harmoniously in and with the totality, in togetherness and synchronisation beyond the narrow compass and confines of time and individuality. His mind ever soars to the realms of the omnipotent ocean of mercy and love. There is no end ever imminent for the theist because totality exists in eternity.
At this stage it may be asked, what is the point and purpose of deifying Space and in substituting one enigma for another, in ricocheting from vagary to vapour? Well, the obvious compactness of near and far Space makes the comprehension of unmanifest totality more easy than can be grasped through combing the conglomerate of concrete components manifestly strewn helter skelter over and in the imponderable and incomprehensible cosmic void. Moreover, Space fulfils all the requisite criteria and aptly confirms and corroborates the claims made by incarnations, saints, sages, adepts, apostles and gurus about the conundrum.
Space is both unmanifest and manifest. It is manifesting (cf. nebulae) too. It magnificently and adroitly presents a glimpse of God, adumbrating its immanence and effulgence. To utilise Space in substitution for God is not unlike the usual methodology often practiced by scientists. That concept or hypothesis which better explains the phenomena observed is accepted as a handy tool to achieve the objective at hand. (Note the scientists' notions about the structure of the atom.)
In modern physics reality is often represented by mathematical equations beyond the grasp of most people. To quote Maurice Duquesne:
"New ideas often lead to confusion, to an impasse or even to contradictions. Science has to mark time until some hypothesis produces a clarification, until it resolves the contradiction by means of precise definition, no matter if these run counter to current thought, common sense or even apparently to reason."
Great energies, gigantic machines, towers of concrete and steel, fantastic expenditure, manpower and resources are needed and ungrudgingly provided for scientific research.
"Many laboratories have, in fact, been turned into veritable factories, employing a vast number of specialists."
Have we been equally solicitous to spirituality ever?