CEO, the essence of God and the foundation of humanity.

Muhammad Ali has just passed away, and I want to pay my respects to his remarkable life by starting this post with one of his quotes that aligns perfectly with my message:

“We all have the same God; we just serve Him differently. Rivers, lakes, ponds, streams, oceans all have different names, but they all contain water. So do religions have names, and they all contain truth, expressed in different ways, forms, and times. It doesn’t matter whether you are a Muslim, a Christian, or a Jew. When you believe in God, you should believe that all people are part of one family. If you love God, you can’t love only some of His children.”
— Muhammad Ali

One of my core themes is the importance of belonging to the whole of humanity rather than just a specific group of people.

I often use the human body as a metaphor for humanity. The body functions best when all parts work together. Imagine if the brain told other body parts, “Without me, you can’t function,” and the heart replied, “If I don’t supply oxygen and nutrient-rich blood, you wouldn’t function at all.” The lungs might say, “Wait a minute, I provide the oxygen,” while the liver could claim, “If I don’t clean up your mess, none of you would function.” The kidneys would also argue for their role in cleaning, and the colon might loudly declare, “You’re all full of it! Without me providing nutrients, you’d all be dead.” The body functions best, or at all, only when everyone works together. Despite any chaos, the body needs the efforts of every organ. If even one part doesn’t work properly, the body is diseased. Similarly, humanity is diseased by our stubborn, extreme, and misplaced political sense of belonging.

The foundation of my philosophy rests on humans, God, and the Devil. God and the Devil are parts of the human experience, inseparable from us. If you try to separate them, it doesn’t work logically. Human prayers can’t materialize without humans. Considering God and the Devil as the good and bad sides of humanity, when removed, humanity is neutral but still exists. However, if you remove humanity, both the good and bad disappear. Even if God and the Devil exist beyond humanity, their value or harm depends on human existence. Humans feel the pain of harm and the joy of God’s blessings.

God and the Devil came into existence through human experiences. Awareness of good and bad is the foundation of these entities. Whether God or the Devil came before or after humanity, no one can say for sure. Our understanding is limited, likely for a long time. This limitation explains why there are so many belief systems and why humanity struggles to agree. Politically charged senses of belonging insist on belief systems where the ordinary human is insignificant, allowing easy control. Such thinking empowers governing authorities, turning belief systems into political tools rather than spiritual guides. Compassion, forgiveness, sacrifice, love, and equal human rights should be the top priorities of all belief systems. Yet, belief systems often lead to the killing of innocents in God’s name with fervor.

This is why some atheists say that God’s existence hangs by a thin thread, breakable by new scientific discoveries. Personally, I believe in God because it makes sense to believe in ourselves and our dual nature. Humans commit evil deeds, but they also perform good deeds. It’s a matter of free will and choice, with each person acting as the CEO of their life.

If you believe you are insignificant, you belittle yourself, either due to the politics of your group or deep personal insecurities. You might be unable to question your group’s rules, especially when they are said to be God’s orders. If your group doesn’t accept others as part of humanity and preaches religious politics devoid of spirituality, it’s not a path toward equal human rights. Without equal human rights, it’s just a divisive political system stripping religions of spirituality. We can’t fathom the death toll and individual suffering caused by religious extremism. Throughout history, innocent people have been killed in God’s name. I can’t understand why God would need any kind of sacrifice, let alone human sacrifice, to be pleased. If you are spiritually aware, you wouldn’t want something or someone killed for you.

If education can’t change this, at least you can see yourself as a spiritual being by believing in equal human rights with a personal sense of justice. Educating yourself makes you aware of your direct relationship with God and your duty of reciprocation. Contributing to humanity is actually a duty of reciprocation, not something owed by everyone, including God. From breathing free air to enjoying life’s bounties and feeling good about yourself in your mortal life, these matter most. Doing good deeds out of greed for heaven or fear of hell isn’t right; it’s about responsibility and reciprocation.

If we all start believing that each human is insignificant in the grand scheme, our philosophy is flawed, at least in my view. It may seem that way because there are so many of us, but we are the DNA of the big picture. If all humans were gone, would God or the Devil matter, and to whom? Logically, God and the Devil don’t make sense without humanity.

The holy picture rests on the foundation of spirituality and physicality simultaneously. Choosing one over the other leaves you with an incomplete half. Without physicality, the spiritual world means nothing to humanity because prayers must be realized physically in the living world. If you pray for someone to go to heaven or be saved from hell, you must be there to witness whether your prayers are fulfilled. In living life, you can see when someone chooses to do good; they fulfill someone’s prayers physically. Helping someone in difficult times, assisting a blind person across the street, or giving someone a job—these are practical helps to humanity. Banging your head or bowing down in obedience, wearing a cross or other religious symbols—these actions mean less to God than real, practical help to those in need.

The purpose of a belief system is to help individuals or creatures live better lives. If a belief system can create better individuals, it can help humanity, and thus God. Though I may focus on the individual, my intention is about humanity, one person at a time. Each of us has the ability to use free will and the responsibility for our actions. Our justice systems are founded on individual responsibility, which is complex given the over two hundred countries, each with its justice systems, constitutions, and religions. This diversity creates vast differences, compounded by traditions, customs, and political senses of belonging. These problems have persisted for thousands of years and may continue unless we evolve individually to become CEOs of our lives, belonging to humanity as a whole instead of just a group.

Growing up in divided societies with strong senses of belonging to specific groups breeds chaos and wars. Does God want human suffering? I don’t think so. No one chooses to suffer. I believe God lives through humanity. Am I saying God doesn’t have a choice? No, but the free will granted by God causes troubles. It’s our responsibility to choose not to cause pain and chaos and to take responsibility for our actions, one person at a time, so we can push our groups to adopt and accept humanity and God as a whole.

When I judge a competition, I’ve never been instructed to favor a competitor from my province or to mark down someone based on gender, sexual preferences, or nationality. The best athlete should win, regardless of who they are—that’s my personal justice system. But as humanity, what have we been doing? Our sense of belonging politics has made us lose our personal sense of justice. We favor our race, nations, religions, even our gender and sports teams, wanting to win regardless of merit. The sense of right judgment is lost in the politics of belonging. Just ask a sports fan—they always want their team to win, regardless of performance.

We are not fair individually, let alone as groups, races, nations, or religions. Politicians exploit this, leading to wars and charging individuals to commit spiritual crimes against others with songs and slogans of belonging. This stems from the education we receive. As I said, if the world around you is banging its head against the wall, it doesn’t make it right. You must judge with your personal justice system, which you are born with. Following ancestral patterns won’t change outcomes. You have more responsibility than you might believe. You are the essence of God and the foundation of humanity. If you don’t change and become a CEO, spirituality will continue to suffer under political religions. We’ll all pay the price—just look at our conflicts and the suffering on both sides.

There’s a verse from a poem whose author I don’t remember, so I’ll say Author Unknown:

“Na khudaa he milaa na visallay sunam
Na ither kay rahay na uther kay rahay.”

It translates to: “I did not get God, nor did I get to see my love. I lost from both sides.”

Free will pushes individuals to seek more knowledge to avoid such predicaments. I don’t mean for individuals to lose faith; my writing aims to raise awareness of individual responsibilities, even in matters of faith. These examples are meant to strengthen faith, not weaken it. I use logic but understand that faith begins where logic fails.