God is the creator of all that exists. The Rig Veda describes how God created the world; the Upanishads and the Puranas supplement this description and provide more details. This creation is cyclic – it arises, runs its course, comes to an end, and then God creates it again.
The complete cycle lasts for a long time. Compared to it, the time that God spends in creating the world is very short.
‘What does God do when He is not creating?’
A commonly-held view is that “He remains busy in running the world”, and it may come with a short explanation, “The world is vast and complex, and managing such a huge system ought to demand all of his time.”
This comment is rhetorical and comes out of the concept that God is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. It does not give reasons or provides any basis for the observation and thus it is not a complete reply. For a better understanding, we ought to look into what other knowledge is available to us on how the world operates as a system as it moves on its day to day journey.
Today our general perception of the world goes beyond the ancient documents of scripture and mythology and takes into account explanations provided by science, which is based on empirical evidence.
At macrocosmic level are the galaxies, stars, planets and other heavenly bodies, all engaged in an endless journey. Physics explains their movement with mathematical precision with the help of the Laws of Motion and that does not call for control or interference by God. Coming down to our planet earth, there is a cycle of seasons that follows its own course. Crops are dependent on seasons and are accordingly sown; they grow, ripen and are harvested. The phenomena broadly follow a pattern, though the underlying laws are not understood as clearly as the movement of the heavenly bodies.
Biological laws explain how each living organism grows, dies, and replicates itself in between. The Theory of Evolution explains how the species on the Earth originated, grew, mutated and gave rise to new species which were better suited to endure the changing physical conditions or environment.
This list can be expanded to include more and more earthly phenomena, all of which appear to follow natural laws and most are explained satisfactorily by science.
Thus, there is ample evidence on how the world is controlled by its own laws and this observation relieves God from the duty of running the world from minute to minute. Calling them divine laws does not change the argument. Maybe God made these laws. Newton believed that it was so. Einstein possibly hinted at it when he, confronted by the probabilistic solutions of certain phenomena proposed by Quantum Mechanics, famously said, “God does not play dice”.
But it is a fact that God does not divulge these laws; we humans have to find them out. We do not know all of them yet and there are gaps in our knowledge. But that does not support the argument that the phenomena which we are unable to explain today are being controlled by God directly.
Seen in this worldview, God does not seem to be engaged, or should I say, involved, in running the world; if an asteroid appears to be running amok in the galactic void, God does not have to calculate its speed and plot its trajectory, physics can take care of it.
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The other view of what keeps God busy speaks of the demands that human beings make on Him– they implore Him to fulfill their desires, beseech Him to remove their hardships and miseries and generally plead to Him all the time for what they may covet.
There are billions of human beings and many are unhappy. Even if they ask for nothing tangible from him, they ask for peace and happiness. If God listens to all of these entreaties and grants what he finds justified, he would certainly be more than busy.
But it is not so according to Hindu philosophy. It says that one shall be accountable for every act he commits. This is the Law of Karma. One shall have to receive the fruit of his actions – a good action shall beget good results and cause happiness, while a bad action shall bring retribution and unhappiness. So our present miseries or happy situations are our own doings which we cannot escape. The Law of Karma is inviolable and even gods are not beyond its reach. Each action is assessed by the Law of Karma, a view taken and a suitable decision is made; God does not have to consider the petitions submitted to him by human beings.
Then why do people approach God for favors? Does mythology not give instances when God granted favors?
Yes, there are stories, and in fact, miracles have been reported during modern times too. Mythology does say that God can waive the operation of the Law of Karma, but such instances are very rare; the favor obviously is not available for asking.
Does God have a mechanism that filters the prayers?
The Lord says in the Gita, “You may surrender to me and me alone, forsaking all duties and abandoning all beliefs. I shall release you from all of your accumulated sins”. So deliverance is a possibility but the conditions have been laid down and those are severe -total surrender and absolute devotion.
And this is a path to salvation, not a way to make God grant you a favor in your search for a job or a favorable court order in a property dispute. The Law of Karma takes care of these.
So, we are back to square one. God does not seem to have much to do.
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