Why I was an atheist

When I was in school, I kind of believed in God, but it wasnt a belief I was attached to. It was more as though a cloak of belief had been put onto me, and I hadnt bothered to wrap it close to me or to slough it off. Then I went to college, and went through an intense adolescent phase of examining what God meant to me. I read a lot of philosophy from East and West, met many 'people of God' - amongst others, Swami's in the Ramakrishna mission; a fascinating wandering swamy (Ashish) who had graduated in electrical engineering and explained things to me with beautiful scientific analogies; and towards the end of my quest, Muktananda in Ganeshpuri. Nobody could answer my questions about God to my satisfaction, and I saw feet of clay.
The more I thought about it the more skeptical I got. How could you believe in something that could not be proved? I recognised that it was possible, perhaps even necessary to posit in theory a 'First cause uncaused, Prime mover unmoved' to explain the existence of the universe. However, such a construct was far from what I called 'man made God' , who seemed to be neurotically obsessed with what we humans do - rewarding us for being 'good' and punishing us for being 'bad' without so much as ever bothering to explain the rules. Maybe there was something behind creation, but that 'something' was infinite, and being infinite was by definition beyond the comprehension of finite minds, so why try? Also, something infinite had to be beyond the pettiness of keeping scores on each one of us, which was a key attribute of man made God.

I came to the conclusion that God was really not necessary, except as a human construct to base laws with which to civilise society (if you kill your neighbour for personal gain and nobody knows you did it - God will punish you!). I also saw the devastation being caused by differences between religions, and decided that organised religion is a terrible thing, responsible for some of the worst crimes against humanity. I decided to become an agnostic. As Nabakov wrote:

"My God died young
theolatry I found
degrading, and its premises unsound
no free man needs a God.
But was I free?"
Having arrived at this decision, I felt quite liberated. Unthinking people believe in god. Uneducated people believe in God. Primitive people believed in God. I was educated, well read, modern, a free thinker. Why would a person like me with a scientific education need belief? Belief was just a crutch for the unenlightened, the feeble minded, the frightened, for those who accepted the received orthodoxy without question. I felt pretty good about my renunciation, strong and brave, hip, free thinking, part of an elite club. I was 20.
After some years of calling myself an agnostic, I began to feel a little hypocritical. An agnostic 'doubts'. Did I doubt or did I reject a personal God? I graduated to being an atheist. What a rush! I felt I had finally broken the shackles of superstition of a man-made construct which has held mankind captive since the birth of civilisation. To answer Nabakov's question, I was free! I ignored the need to answer the question of how existence came about, even though I did so as an agnostic. I just focused on the fact that the human concept of God was infirm. I felt highly evolved as an atheist, someone who didnt need to keep a lifeline open through 'doubting' rather than 'negating' the existence of God, someone who wasnt afraid to give up the insurance, the plausible deniability of saying 'oh, I just doubted, I didnt reject' in case I was wrong. I felt infinitely superior to believers, perhaps even a little contemptuous. I thought of Zarathustra in Nietzsche's 'Thus spoke Zarathustra', coming down off the mountain and being told: "God is dead" . I was 30.

However, life has a way of humbling you. By the time I turned 50, I got jolted back into a confused, uncomfortable agnosticism. I still thought atheism was cool, but couldnt in all honestly claim it any longer. Then, by the time I got to 60 belief took root. A belief spiritual not religious, which has melted away embarrassment, discomfort and doubt. How all this happened over 10 years is another story. The question is: what have I learnt from turning full circle?
I have learnt intellectual humility. I have learnt that intellectual arrogance makes you myopic, unable to see things right at the tip of your nose. I have learnt that humans, being the only form of life conscious of itself, able to think, able to create computers, the internet, artificial intelligence and space exploration, tend to believe that we have transcended nature, and are no longer part of it. I have learnt that our attitude towards the universe can be, as someone said like that of the person who finds a watch in the park and thinks it created itself.

I have learnt that the more we learn, the less we realise we know. Just 21 years ago (1988) no less a person than Stephen Hawking wrote that physics was close to answering all the questions about the world. Since then physicists have discovered that visible matter and energy are only 4% of the universe, dark matter and dark energy which we know nothing about are 96%. Who knows what else we dont know? Physicists now also believe there are many more than three dimensions (string theory says a minimum of 7 or 8 dimensions), something Einstein also believed. You can see the huge difference it makes to go from one dimension (a line) to two (a shadow) to three (the whole wide world). You can completely alter two dimensions (a shadow) by operating in a third. Can you imagine what you can do if you master a 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th or 8th dimension? Can you imagine just the change in perspective? I have learnt that there can be a difference between being scientific minded and being knowledgeable, and between being scientific minded and being open minded. I have learnt the wisdom of Socrates who said "Only one thing I know, and that is that I know nothing." I have learnt that if you are open to it, belief will come to you, and when it does, the sheer logicality of it will be stunning, and you will be humbled as you realise how illogical, blind and arrogant you were.
I have also learned that belief cannot be inherited. What you can inherit is religion or superstition masquerading as belief. Real belief grows out of doubt, except for very few really evolved souls who are born with a high spiritual quotient. I am not one of them. To that extent, I am grateful for my atheism. It served a purpose. For someone like me to gain belief, you have to first disbelieve, then to suspend disbelief and have an open mind. A la Tagore:

"Be still my heart
raise not your dust
let love find its way to you."

I have also learnt that belief and lack of belief are not black and white. Both have shades of grey. Belief when it comes to you isnt full blown, it grows with time, like a sapling. And like a sapling, how well it grows depends upon you and how well you nurture it. The belief of a God-realised soul and that of a novice are very different.

Lastly, I have learned that belief opens up a whole new dimension to you, a new way of seeing, of thinking. Its like suddenly discovering that infra-red and ultra-violet truly exist and hold great fascination, whereas earlier you believed only what you could see. I can now make sense of the greatest spiritual writings in the world. The sheer sophistication and purity of thought of the Upanishads and the lofty rarefied intellectual realm in which they exist take your breath away, especially when you realise these are thoughts from a few thousand years ago. Yogananda's 'Autobiography of a yogi' offers you insights into yogic achievements and knowledge which are nothing short of revelations. The Sufi's' understanding of God and creation is similar to Vedanta, and their writings and music can be hauntingly beautiful. What Yogananda says about Christ and various Christians makes you realise that God-realised souls have existed everywhere and had similar insights. The labels of religion do not really apply to them. There is after all, only one God.