The author describes feeling suffocated by concepts of God that demanded unquestioning surrender and challenged individual freedom. However, through practicing Namasmaran - remembering divine names - the author realized there is no need to believe or disbelieve in God. Namasmaran can be practiced like bathing or brushing without faith or disbelief. It leads to objective changes in individuals and the universe becoming self-evident, removing prejudices about theists and atheists. The author invites the reader to verify if Namasmaran can narrow the gap between human ideals and practices.

1. FREEDOM
FROM
GOD
DR.
SHRINIWAS
KASHALIKAR

2. God and His worship have been a
part of human civilization for
millennia. In fact many
philosophers and seers consider
God to be unanimous with truth,
rather, absolute truth.
However for an ordinary person
like me faith in God appeared to be
paranoid! I never could really
understand or appreciate why an
individual should suffer the burden
of this belief or faith in some other
entity alien from himself or herself.

3. In addition, God and everything
associated with God insisted on
surrender; unquestioning and
unconditioned surrender!
The freedom of an individual and
his or her behavior, emotions,
thoughts and reasoning were
brutally challenged in these “God”
phenomena and stories and
doctrines associated with them.
I observed that suppression of such
reasoning lead to thriving of

4. coercion, oppression and
exploitation.
My urge for freedom, rational
thinking and my conscience thus
felt suffocated in everything
associated with God.
But it was not easy to overthrow
the overwhelming influence of
religious and pious activities and
their deep impressions from the
early childhood. This was also
because, everything sublime,
selfless, subtle, serene and supreme

5. also; was associated with God and
related phenomena.
In the course of time, I came across
the theory and practice of
NAMASMARAN and realized that
there is no necessity to believe or
disbelieve God. What is important
is practicing NAMSMARAN like
we practice bath or brushing. The
objective change common to
individual and the universe become
self evident. The imagery; both
atheist and theist begin to
disappear.

6. The prejudice about theist or
prejudice about atheist disappears.
In fact all prejudices disappear!
You may not believe in anything I
have shared here. It is up to you to
verify if the chasm between ideals
and practices of human beings can
be narrowed through
NAMASMARAN.
DR. SHRINIWAS KASHALIKAR