Revelations from an omnipotent and omnipresent (yet unknown) God form the very basic foundation of almost all the religions in this world. If we define religions as paths towards (realization of) God, we find it interesting to note that the paths are as uncertain and vague as the objective itself. The concept of an external God, the reward and punishment variety, is almost completely illogical and dead. We do not need anymore proof for an outright rejection than the ever increasing cases of violence, deaths, injustice and atrocities all around us. The simple fact that such atrocities are much more in the ‘centers of God’ highlights the utter failure of such a custodian of Heaven and Hell. He(?) has proved to be an utter failure and the question remains as to why we need such an external God if there is no net growth in goodness in this world. The only rational and logical thesis about God that remains is one about a God which is all pervasive and utterly indifferent until the individual realizes Him (Advaita).

However, we cannot reject revelations in the same logic as in the case of an external God. It is politically incorrect and hazardous to name the revelations, but most of the revelation material is gibberish. But there are parts which make good a reading if we approach them with an open mind. One should read each of them completely and never attempt any parallel reading or comparisons By the way, the field of ‘comparative religions’ is an unwanted and unnecessary discipline, contributing only to the menace of extremism and consequent terrorism. Experts in comparative religious studies have done maximum damage to the peaceful co-existence of multi religions in many countries. Though revelation literature is mostly made up of incoherent text, occasionally we come across materials that may make sense to each of us depending upon our background. These are the areas where we should be looking for some useful stuff that might help us.
    
Man’s Limitations

Whatever advancements we have made so far, the basic limitations of man remains. Scientifically, Man is designed only for seeing and hearing within a specific range of frequencies. We are blissfully ignorant of so many things happening around us at all times. Past centuries of development have no doubt helped us in extending our indirect reach. With special gadgets and software, we can now reach across millions of kilometers and decipher the earlier unknown signals. Man-made satellites have gone and landed in other planets and through the Hubble telescope we have physically seen much more than our predecessors. Our frontiers of knowledge are ever expanding and a newly born child is much more evolved and adapted to modern environment than the ones earlier. Yet at one end of the complex system of discovery gadgets, we still find the Homo Sapiens whose innate capabilities are limited. Superman and Batman exist only in our imagination.

Very often the useful capability that comes to the help of a ‘limited’ Man is his mind and the power of imagination. Within our minds we can imagine anything, realistic or unrealistic, and human mind is the only tool we have that can claim to be truly unlimited. Depending upon the extent of knowledge we have acquired, our minds can conjure up any amount of possibilities and even impossibilities. Many of human inventions in the past have sprung from impossible imaginations that ultimately proved to be truthful on close scrutiny. And if we go by the recorded experiences of the highly evolved Gurus (especially from India), the power of the sub-conscious mind is even more astounding. Most of the Godly revelations have come to mankind through this route.  The all-pervasive God reaches out to Man through his mind. 

God’s Limitlessness

When Man is of limited capabilities, God has to be of unlimited capabilities. There are several ways to prove it. One of the easiest ways to establish the limitlessness of God is by analyzing the revelations of God. It will not be an exaggeration at all, if such an attempt leads us to the conclusion that some men knew much more (or at least as much) in the past than now. The relevance of revelations comes in here. Revelations in all religions talk about many things which are not spiritual in nature and often much beyond the knowledge of contemporary humans. And when we analyse the revelations now by experts in the field, there are more rocks of truth in them than specks of untruth. References to sun, moon, stars and cosmos in the holybooks of all major religions are examples of this. How did we come to know of such facts thousands of years back when modern scientific discoveries and calculations are only a few centuries old? How is the whole cosmos described in full details in Bhagavatam of Hindu Sanatana Dharma (HSD) when space expeditions started only a few decades back? And how is the speed of light given so precisely in Puranas’?

There can be only one answer to these types of questions. Whatever is logically beyond man’s realm of knowledge in terms of chronology of human development came to our public domain from elsewhere. Revelations containing such details which have been proved true by modern science later on have to be taken seriously. Vedic literature in India contains treatises on almost fields of human knowledge and the extent of revelations contained in many of them is still much beyond the reach of modern science. The four Vedas (of HSD) are considered revelations of God by Hindus and we are yet to analyse fully the more than one hundred thousand mantras contained in them.  Indian Rishis who wrote them had only their minds as their tools when compared to the complexity of our modern rockets, electronic gadgetry and computer software put together. They could have got such advanced knowledge only on the initiative of God through the revelations.

A brief comparison of what knowledge we have gathered in the past one thousand years as against the gist of revelations contained in the various holy books is enough to arrive at the conclusion that the religious revelations cannot be ignored. But what is more important is the next logical step of opening up these holy texts for further studies, interpretations, scrutiny and rigorous analysis. It is here many of the religions have failed. For purely selfish and political reasons, many of the holybooks are kept out of bounds from those who want to study, analyse and criticize. Even the God who had revealed it to mankind would be resenting the suffocating grip maintained by a few on the holybooks. While open books will enlighten and empower the readers, closed books will only kill the natural urge of knowledge. And ultimately all closed books will degenerate and land up in the dustbins of history is a lesson that misses the moronic clergy.