Does God exist? The ego’s favourite shield

Does God exist? asks the ego. We take the question seriously. The ego has succeeded. In listening to the question, we have forgotten to listen to what the ego deliberately did not ask. Our response to the ‘God exists?’ question usually is ‘Yes,’ or ‘No,’ or ‘I do not know.’ All three are irrelevant responses. We forget to ask: for whom? For whom does God exist or not? Who is asking this question?

The believer says ‘Exists’ and clutches scripture; the atheist says ‘No’ and clutches logic. In either case, the ego experiences some relief after speaking. In questioning the existence of God, the ego successfully hides its own non-existence.

What does it mean to ‘exist’?

The question was about God. But the important word is not ‘God.’ The important word is ‘exist.’

Before asking whether God exists, ask: what does it mean to say anything exists at all?

Here is the newspaper you are reading. Does this newspaper exist? Yes. How do you know? Your eyes see it. Your hands can hold it. Your senses report it. Your mind arranges these reports into a coherent object called ‘newspaper.’ And behind the mind sits the sense of ‘I,’ the claimant that says, ‘I know, I judge, I conclude.’

Now notice: who is above whom? Is the newspaper above you, or are you above the newspaper?

The newspaper exists because your senses certify it. Close your eyes. The newspaper disappears. Open them. It returns. For you, ‘exists’ is always certification by senses and mind.

Chairs, phones, planets, galaxies-everything that ‘exists’ is something your senses and mind have certified. Everything that ‘is’ sits below you in the hierarchy. You are the judge issuing certificates of existence.

The problem with ‘God’

Now say ‘God exists.’ You say God is the highest, the supreme, the ultimate. Being highest and supreme is the definitional hallmark of ‘Godness.’ But anything that ‘exists’ must be certified by your senses and mind. Anything that ‘is’ becomes your object. If God ‘is,’ then God too is below your senses, your mind and your ego. How can the highest be your object? If God exists the way the newspaper exists, God has become your slave.

You have committed an impertinence while claiming devotion. Now the atheist. He declares, ‘God does not exist.’ Who is the judge? The same senses. The same mind. The same ego on its throne, issuing verdicts. Whether you say ‘is’ or ‘is not,’ you have placed yourself above the thing being judged.

The theist makes God his slave by affirming. The atheist makes Truth his slave by denying. Same arrogance, different vocabulary.Saint Kabir was asked: does God exist? He replied:Hai kahoon to hai nahin, nahin kaha na jaaye.Hai nahin ke beech men sahab raha samaay.‘If I say He is, He is not; and it also cannot be said that He is not.’ Because ‘is’ makes Him my object. ‘Is not’ does the same. Beyond ‘is’ and ‘is not,’ Truth is not an object of debate.Truth is not an object.

The nature of consciousness

Consciousness, as we ordinarily experience it, is not some pure, luminous awareness. It is dualistic. At one end sits the experiencer, the ego. At the other end sits the experienced object. Between them runs a relationship of desire, delusion, and attachment. There is always an ‘I’ experiencing something-always a subject here, an object there. The ‘I’ and the object define each other. Without an object, the ego has nothing to cling to. Without the ego, the object has no one to certify it. They arise together and collapse together.

When you ask ‘Does God exist?’, you are trying to place God as an object, with yourself as the knowing subject. You are trying to bring the ultimate into the same framework where you experience chairs, phones, and newspapers.

The category error

Philosophers call this a category error. What is the colour of a fragrance? What does white light smell like? Light does not belong to the category of things that have smell.

Similarly, ‘exists’ and ‘does not exist’ apply only to objects, to things certified by senses and mind. When you ask whether the ground of existence itself ‘exists,’ you are asking for the smell of light.

The question is not deep. It is malformed.

The moment you say ‘is’ or ‘is not,’ you have objectified. You have made it small. You have made it yours. Sophisticated theologians may say their God is ‘beyond being’ or ‘the ground of existence.’ Very well. Then stop saying ‘God exists.’ Say instead: ‘Existence is.’

The impertinence of naming and framing

Those who understood this refused to give the ultimate a name.Why? Because naming begins objectification. The moment you name something, imagination rushes in.

This is why the Upanishads refused to name the ultimate. They said: you cannot describe it, define it, locate it inside or outside, call it big or small. The Kena Upanishad says: speech goes out to describe it and returns exhausted. The mind goes out to imagine it and falls back, having grasped nothing.

So the sages used only a pointer: Tat. That.And then they said Tat Tvam Asi. That you are-not outside you, not your object.The moment you place God in the heavens, watching and judging, you have objectified Truth.Who are you to certify the Supreme, if the Supreme is beyond you?

The egoic rebuttals

‘But I have experienced God.’ Who experienced? The ego. What was experienced? An object-bliss, peace, light, a sign. If it came and went, it is not the ultimate. The ultimate is not an experience; it is the dissolution of the experiencer.

‘The design of the universe proves a designer.’ Who sees design? The mind, a pattern-seeking machine. And if complexity needs a creator, who created the creator? ‘Without God there is no morality.’ Then your morality is obedience and fear management. Real morality comes from clarity, not threats and rewards. Everything else is the same trick in different costumes: the ego begging for insurance. Need does not create truth. The demand for comfort does not certify reality.

Truth is God

The believer says ‘is’ and feels secure. The atheist says ‘is not’ and feels superior. Both avoid the real question: who is this one demanding verdicts? Not ‘God exists.’ Not ‘God does not exist.’ Silence. People say, ‘God is Truth.’ First you keep your imagined God, then decorate it by calling it Truth. Truth becomes a property of your belief. Truth is not a property.When the ego sees its own falseness, it disappears. The seer cannot survive the seeing.

With the ego gone, what remains is Truth-Advait, non-dual, not describable, because any description requires a describer.If God is defined as that beyond the ego and its world, then only Truth fits the definition of God.So, Truth is God.Not God is true, but Truth is God.Truth does not protect the claimant. Truth burns it.

The question dies when the questioner is seen through. What then is one to do? Nothing dramatic. Simply watch-watch the one who wants to know, watch the one who wants to believe, watch the one who wants to deny. In that watching, the watcher thins. No technique is needed. Honesty is enough.

Acharya Prashant is a Vedanta teacher, author and founder of the PrashantAdvait Foundation; views are personal