What is God !

Recently read post by Mukundan on God. http://chennaicentral.blogspot.com/
It brought back some memories from that time in life when the biggest challenge was to find the meaning of life !!
Here's my take on the topic - the issue, as I see it ,is God is being treaed like some local Zamindar - he gest upset with you if you are not willing to acknowledge his powers. He then does a show of power to prove who is stronger. As we have enough problems in life already, we do not want to add on to it by antagonizing one more powerful person. So might as well sing songs in his praise and in return get some favours from him.
God, being God, probably deserves a little better treatment than this. I am not able to believe God ever punishes anyone. Or in other words I dont see any need for God to micro-manage at the individual level - making sure the people get punished for their actions. Here, I agree with Mukundan's post - we are bound by our own Karma - actions. Once we have chosen to act we cannot escape the results or consequences of our actions. The actions will come back and reward us or punish us depending only on those actions.

So, what are the right actions and what are the wrong ones? For our own welfare, any actions that does not come back to hurt us are right . In a broader sense how do we define right ? - We can start with an assumption that life is right and conclude that any action that promotes life is right. Action which do not hinder life will not come back to hurt us and hence will be right for life - our life.

So, where is God now ?

I am thinking God could be involved in starting the whole process - ( was it Big Bang ? ). Once life unfolds, it takes care of itself. A line from the movie Jurassic Park comes to my mind - "Life finds a way" - http://www.garnersclassics.com/qpark.htm -

this is becoming a long one. will post part II on my thoughts on God.


more to come...