We are often reminded that no one is perfect, yet in our offices and homes, we are expected to be flawless. Even though it is said that participation is more important than winning, at the end of the day, we are judged by our achievements, not by our enthusiasm. The pressure to outperform others is weighing heavily on us.
What if I told you that being imperfect and making mistakes repeatedly—even if those mistakes lead to catastrophes of unimaginable scale and profound misery—is absolutely fine? What if I told you that feeling guilt over destroying lives and ruining families is unnecessary? What if I told you that the worse you do to others, the greater respect you gather, and that this brings you closer to the Ultimate, an image of God? What if I claimed that to err is, in fact, divine?
I am sure you won’t believe me. But just look closely at God’s methods. His ways are no different from those of Mr. Mohan Kumar, who repairs my computer. Mr. Mohan removes a wire from the motherboard, cleans it, and fits it back in. It doesn’t work. He removes another wire from the socket, cleans it, and puts it back. He does this with every wire inside the CPU. By evening, as he prepares to leave, my computer finally flickers. Three small LED lights start to twinkle, and the fan begins to hum.
“Ho gaya, sir,” he declares, wiping his hands on a towel.
“What was it?” I ask.
“It was a fault in a wire,” he shrugs nonchalantly.
“Still,” I expect more details.
“Just a wire issue, don’t worry about it. I’m already very late,” he replies and heads off.
Occasionally, Mr. Mohan declares, “Motherboard badalna padega.” I know he doesn’t have all the answers. He knows he doesn’t know. Yet he continues to work on it, striving to make sense of the situation, trying not to repeat old mistakes, yet making the same ones all over again.
This is exactly how God functions. He created Adam in His image. Adam and Eve lived in a place that was brand new, just five days older than they were. Since God had created everything without foresight of what would come, by the time of Noah, everything had become so messed up that He had to, like Mr. Mohan, after many acts of cleaning and reconnecting wires, declare, “Motherboard badalna padega,” and send Noah on a long voyage while He contemplated His next plan.
Just when we thought everything was okay, only after 400 years, things had become so messed up again that He had to send Abraham to shake things up a bit. After Abraham He introduced Moses.
This Moses repair also wasn’t definitive, which is why Jesus, the antivirus, was created. Now Muslims tell us that Jesus didn’t work either, so God sent Prophet Mohammed. Even after the Prophet, things haven’t quite changed, have they?
My purpose in recounting this story, which you already know, is to highlight the main takeaway from our holy books: these texts have countless interpretations, but all past interpretations miss the major point God wants to emphasize: not only does God make mistakes, but He is also obsessed with repeating them again and again.
Today, humanity may be wiser than God because His imagination seems to have reached a dead end. If we still seek His guidance, it likely won’t yield results. It is said that nothing is certain, but one thing is clear: God never had a solution. If we have reached this far, it is not due to God’s will but rather the will of the people who, knowing that the Father is flawed, did their best to survive, occasionally using God’s scriptures to discipline others, fully aware that they are of little use.
So, God is not solving our problems. Involving Him in our issues may only exacerbate them—much like the NGO feminists in India, whose solution to the problems faced by Indian wives is simply to get a divorce. Similarly, if we approach God with our problems, He might just ask one of us to build a boat and leave.
VS
छिमेकी 