Am I an Atheist Now? Or Am I Finally Thinking for Myself?

Am I an Atheist Now? Or Am I Finally Thinking for Myself?

For the last couple of days, I have been living like a completely different person from who I was before.

It is not that something suddenly happened and changed everything overnight. This change has been happening inside me for years. But now I am able to see it more clearly.

And it is not only about me.

I can see that people are awakening in different ways. They are searching for the truth. They are questioning the things they were taught to accept without question. They are trying to get closer to reality—even when that reality is uncomfortable.

When I look back, I think this journey started for me around 2018.

I have always been curious.

Why is this happening?

Why is something considered right?

Why is something else considered wrong?

Why should I believe this?

Why should I not question that?

I also used to wonder whether I was the only person thinking like this or whether there were other people like me.

Over time, I began to understand that I was a rational thinker. I could not follow something merely because everyone else was following it. Even when an idea came from people I considered intellectual, I still needed to understand it for myself.

But I did not always trust my own questions.

Something Inside Me Was Not Accepting It

For a long time, I felt that I was missing something.

I wanted clarity because I could not completely connect with the beliefs I was trying to believe.

My mind wanted to accept them, perhaps because the people around me accepted them or because the people I respected presented them as truth.

But something inside me was not accepting them.

Maybe it was my soul. Maybe it was my consciousness. Maybe it was simply my ability to recognize that I was not genuinely convinced.

At that time, I listened to certain people and believed many of their narratives, ideologies, and interpretations. I considered them intellectual, so naturally, their opinions influenced the way I looked at the world.

At the same time, I saw other people standing against those narratives.

They also had millions of followers.

I used to wonder:

Who follows these people?

Why do so many people listen to them?

The people I trusted described them as anti-national, foreign-funded, or people working with some hidden agenda. Because I trusted one side, I never seriously tried to understand the other.

I had already been told what I was supposed to think about them.

But the best thing about me was that I never completely closed the other door.

I always allowed myself to look from the other side.

That is probably why I could never become a bhakt or a permanent follower of any human being.

I used to say, as my guru once said, that if I ever became a bhakt, I would be a bhakt only of God—not of any person.

But now I am unable to say even that.

Am I an Atheist Now?

So, am I an atheist now?

According to religious people and the definitions created by their faith, perhaps I should be considered one.

But wait.

I have not concluded that I know everything about existence. I have not claimed that there is absolutely nothing beyond what human beings currently understand.

Even our birth and death are not decided by us.

There are things happening in existence that I cannot explain. There may be something beyond our present understanding—something I might not even want to believe in but still cannot honestly deny.

What I am questioning is whether that unknown reality should automatically be called God.

I am questioning the personal God created by religions: someone watching everything, controlling everything, rewarding us, punishing us, answering prayers, writing our destiny, and deciding what will happen next.

Maybe I am not rejecting the mystery of existence.

Maybe I am rejecting the stories human beings have placed around that mystery.

And perhaps I do not need to immediately replace one belief with another.

It may be more honest to say:

I don’t know.

What Nietzsche Meant When He Said “God Is Dead”

I now understand Friedrich Nietzsche’s statement differently:

“God is dead.”

He was not simply celebrating the disappearance of God.

He was pointing towards what happens when human beings stop depending on God as the source of morality, meaning, responsibility, and direction.

If there is no God deciding everything, we cannot keep saying that whatever happened was God’s will.

We cannot hand over responsibility for our actions to destiny.

We cannot behave in a particular way only because someone is watching us, rewarding us, or preparing to punish us.

We have to become responsible for our own choices.

We have to decide what kind of human beings we want to become.

That freedom is powerful, but it can also be frightening.

When God is removed, there is no longer anyone else to blame. We have to stand on our own feet. We have to face the consequences of our decisions. We have to create meaning through the way we live.

Perhaps that is why letting go of God can create fear.

Not necessarily because God exists, but because we have spent our entire lives being told that we cannot exist without him.

Returning to Osho

Recently, I returned to Osho.

I had encountered him before. I liked some of his thoughts, but I also questioned him. At that time, the people I considered intellectual had already shaped the way I saw people like Osho.

When I did not feel satisfied, I moved on.

Now, after all these years, I have returned to some of the same people I once left behind.

You can say:

Laut ke buddhu ghar ko aaya.

But I have not returned as the same person.

Earlier, perhaps I was searching for someone I could follow. I wanted someone to give me the truth.

This time, I have returned as an individual thinker.

I am not here to become Osho’s follower. I am here to listen, understand, question, accept what makes sense, and reject what does not.

When I listen to Osho today, I find that many of the questions he raised during his time are still relevant.

The names may have changed. The political parties may have changed. The technology may have changed. But human fear, religious control, blind following, social conditioning, and the desire to surrender our responsibility to someone else are still present.

One statement from Osho came very close to what I am currently experiencing:

“The moment you know yourself, there is no God and there is no need of any God.”

He makes a distinction between God and existence.

God, according to him, is something invented by the human mind. Existence is what is already here.

God has to be believed in.

Existence can be experienced.

God has to be worshipped.

Existence has to be approached through awareness and meditation.

I do not know whether I completely agree with everything he says. I don’t think I should agree with everything.

But this distinction has given language to something I had been feeling for a long time.

I Found a Different World

There is an idea that if God exists and you genuinely try to find him, then perhaps God is also trying to find you. Someday, through some mode, both sides will meet—like two hands coming together to create a clap.

I have heard people claim that they found God.

But I have never personally found proof or evidence that satisfied me.

Something similar did happen to me, though.

I did not find God.

I found people.

It felt like finding a portal to a different world where people with similar questions, concerns, and ways of thinking already existed.

Some of them were people I already knew. I had always respected their intelligence, but I had questioned them because of the opinions of those I trusted at the time.

When I finally tried to understand these people directly, I discovered that they were not necessarily what I had been told.

I had judged them before properly listening to them.

From a distance, I thought they were lost, unnecessary, or simply pushing their own agenda. But when I started exploring their thoughts more deeply, I discovered another side of the conflict taking place around us.

It is a silent war of narratives, beliefs, identities, and ideologies.

The damage caused by it can be deep and painful.

Yet we often ignore it by saying it is normal or not a big issue.

Now I want to understand it—not from one camp or the other, but as independently as I can.

I Don’t Want Another Person to Think for Me

Leaving one group does not automatically make someone independent.

It is easy to leave one ideology and become trapped in another. It is easy to stop worshipping one personality and begin worshipping someone else. It is even possible to reject religion and then treat atheism like another religion.

I do not want to do that.

I do not want to escape from one kind of bhakti only to become a bhakt of Osho, Nietzsche, a political leader, an organization, or another intellectual.

Everyone must be questioned.

Every person.

Every organization.

Every system.

Every government.

Every ideology.

Every agenda.

Even the people I admire.

Even the beliefs I currently hold.

Even myself.

Questioning does not mean automatically rejecting everything. It means refusing to surrender my ability to think.

I can appreciate someone without following them blindly.

I can learn from someone without giving them authority over my mind.

I can agree with one idea and disagree with another.

I no longer need to accept an entire ideology just because one part of it makes sense to me.

Perhaps I Have Not Lost God

Perhaps I have not lost God.

Perhaps I have lost the version of God that was given to me.

The God who watches.

The God who controls.

The God who decides.

The God whose name is used to create fear, demand obedience, protect institutions, justify power, and stop people from asking questions.

Maybe what remains is simply existence.

Life.

Consciousness.

Nature.

The unknown.

I do not yet know what to call it, and perhaps I don’t need to name it.

For now, I would rather live honestly with an unanswered question than force myself to believe an answer my mind and soul can no longer accept.

I don’t know whether I am an atheist.

I don’t know whether I will think exactly the same way years from now.

But I know one thing:

I no longer want anyone else to decide what I should believe.

I have returned to the questions I left behind in 2018.

But I have not returned as a follower.

I have returned as myself.