When I had developed sufficient awareness as a child, certain things, images, impressions remained in my memory.

I remember the family members, my father, mother, my sisters, and neighbors, people who came to the house or passed by, friends. The house, its surroundings, grassy lawns, flowers, plants, bushes, trees, animals, birds, canals and insects, spiders, frogs, snakes and the mysterious world beyond these surroundings and the sometimes gray, sometimes blue, sometimes bright, sometimes clouded canopy of the inverted bowl--the sky. Little beyond started an unknown, mysterious world.

The visit to temples aroused questions as to why we had to fold our hands, why we had to kneel or lie prostrate on the ground, why we were supposed to learn some words or prayers and mumble them or chant in unison with others without knowing the words or their meanings, let alone understand them.

Many people, when asked were unable to tell the words they were supposed to be saying, reciting or mumbling as a prayer. Most did not know the meaning. They were just copying what they had been taught to do by their elders and those who commanded them to behave in a particular way.

I saw images of various Gods and Goddesses, made of stone, metal and other materials. I was confused by so many different places of worship and so many different Gods and Goddesses. I asked questions and did not get satisfactory answers.

Over the years as I grew up I had opportunity to visit so many different places of worship of Jains, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Jews and Parsees, in so many different places in India.

I read about the concepts of religion, theosophy, philosophy, God, Goddesses, Bhagwan, Allah and about Ganesh, Christ, Krishna, Ram, Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh, Siva, Parvati, Hare Krishna, Radhakrishna, Hanuman, Ganpati and so many others like Durga, Saraswati, Laxmi, Mahalaxmi, Bhagwati, Amba, etc. I found they had been given an identity by us (our forefathers or ancestors) human beings according to our imagination of their likeness. I read the books by Sri Aurobindo. I read Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan books. I read books by Dr S. Radhakrishnan.

Reading science, I came to the conclusion that there is only nature and its laws which are in existence along with play of matter and energy in various forms between life and death, living and nonliving.

But when I looked at nature and the way it has been made and is moving I began to wonder that there is some supernatural power above us all human beings in nature, on this earth, in this world, in this universe. We are just nothing, a minuscule speck in the vast universe. We have but a very small lifetime in the eternity of time, past and future. Generations and generations of human beings have come and gone. Born, lived and left after death. Maybe reborn or got liberation or Moksha.

We are only one of many living animals and plants on the earth. We have the same body model with difference in male and female models, which too are meant to form a whole by uniting to result in further production of similar life models.

The blood is divided into few groups like A, B, O, O+. These groups are spread in the human populations and similar blood may be found in a person coming from any country, state, city, community, caste, and religion without such discrimination. This is helping a large number of people who need blood transfusions. The blood group of donor has to match the blood group of the donee. That's all-no question of race, caste, community, religion or any such divisive group.

I found that the same material that is clay is used to make bricks; the same rocks cut from hills and mountains and dug from the same earth are used in human structures. The same materials like wood and plastics, marble and granite, all come from nature, which is one and only one nature. NO one made them, they were present in nature.

I found that persons of so called different countries, different skin color, different languages, different races, different religions, different castes, different communities all inhale the same air with its oxygen; drink the same water with its combination of hydrogen and oxygen; eat food comprised of the same rice, wheat, potatoes, tomatoes, beans, carrots, cabbage etc; non-veg people eat the same fish, goats, chickens. All this is the same as it comes from this one earth only.

Hence, how could there be a separate God for anyone? I could see only one sun, one moon, one earth, the same stars, anywhere I went.

I could feel the same heat and the same cold. Men and women were found to have the same cycle of birth, life and death. The same emotions of love, affection, joy, sadness. The same desire for pleasure and sex. The same nine months for pregnancy and childbirth. The same labor pains. The same morning, the same afternoon, the same evening and the same night. The same joys and same sorrows. The same expectations and desires. The same longings. The same wishes for love, affection, marriage, children, jobs, money, business, houses, cars, travel, enjoyment, savings, insurance from future problems and same problems of pain, suffering, disease and death and bereavement and loneliness, aging and loneliness.

Natural disasters, diseases and accidents did not single out any people on the grounds of man-made divisions.

Human beings prayed for many things like asking for freedom from want, freedom from misery, freedom from poverty, freedom from sins, freedom from fear etc.; the birth of children; marriage partner; long life; healthy life for themselves, their children, their brothers and sisters, their parents, relatives, friends and people in general; good jobs, promotion, posting in a particular place, particular charge; more money and material things; election to some position of power like corporator, MLA, MP, Ministership; power, privileges and pelf. The list of human desires prayed for, for fulfillment is endless and would be long.

By understanding all these facts I began to see and perceive the Unity in Diversity--Of human beings and hence of "God", because God is also a man made concept. I began to think of just one big supernatural power, not divided by name or religion.

So now when I feel the need to be united with that one supernatural power in this universe I humbly join my hands, close my eyes and take my inward eyes and my being towards that superior being in nature which made this universe and keeps it running the way it is according to the laws of nature.

And my prayers in search of God and Goddess, go to each place of worship, everywhere on this earth and in the universe, not confined to any home, place, place of worship, town, village or city; not confined to any particular sect or group; not confined to any stereotype or language; not confined to any custom or ritual.

Because, I know that if there is a God/Goddess he/she is the good God and is one for all of us children of God in God's own world with both the good and the bad in it.