April 21, 2025 • 47 mins
Let me know your thoughts on the show and what topic you would like me to discuss next.
What happens when a scientifically trained mind confronts the evidence for God's existence? Ganesh Venkataramanan, a chemical engineer and technology executive raised in a world of analytical thinking, shares his remarkable journey from atheism to faith—not through emotional experience, but through following scientific evidence to its logical conclusion.
Growing up surrounded by scientists and engineers (his father was a nuclear engineer), Ganesh naturally drifted toward atheism in college, assuming it was the proper stance for an analytical person. The irony? Ten years later, the same evidence-seeking mindset that led him away from faith ultimately brought him back when he confronted three areas where materialistic explanations fell short: the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and the origin of information.
Einstein's theories pointed toward a universe with a beginning—a moment when nothing, not even time itself, existed. This raised the profound question: what caused everything to begin? Similarly, the extraordinary complexity of even the simplest cell defies random formation, with degradation rates of biological components making time an enemy, not an ally, of chance-based origin theories. And the information-packed language of DNA—functioning like complex computer code—points unmistakably toward an intelligent author.
Ganesh walks us through how these scientific realities transformed his understanding of God from an abstract concept to a personal, intelligent Creator who designed with purpose. "It's not about what is my purpose that God can bless, but what is God's purpose that I can participate in."
For those wrestling with questions at the intersection of science and faith, this conversation offers fresh perspective without demanding blind belief. Whether you're a skeptic seeking evidence or a believer looking to strengthen your faith's intellectual foundations, Ganesh's story demonstrates that following evidence honestly can lead to unexpected—and life-altering—conclusions.
Key moments in this episode:
04:24 Ganesh's Journey: From Hinduism to Atheism to Christianity
24:12 Discussing Ganesh's Book: Let Me Into Heaven
30:21 The Journey of Faith and Struggles
34:46 The Adventure of Life and Faith
38:05 The Importance of God's Word
44:12 Call to Action: Engaging with God's Word
How to Reach Ganesh:
Website: https://www.letmeintoheaven.com/
Thanks for listening to the Revolutionary Man Podcast. If you want more information about our programs, use the links below to check us out. It could be the step that changes your life.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do we continue the path towards turning away from
that whole God thing, maybe evenbecoming atheists?
As technology has increased,our lives appear to be improving
by so much, and yet there'seven less need for us to have
this higher power.
So we think this is especiallytrue if you're an analytical
thinker, and until we ask thequestion for the proof of God,
(00:23):
only to be given such a profoundanswer, so it will shatter us.
It shatters everything webelieve in up until the moment
that we've asked that question.
And so today I have a gentlemanwho's going to explore this,
his hero's journey from hisposition into faith.
Now, before we get into today'sepisode, let's come to grips
about one thing, and that isinevitably.
(00:45):
There will come a time in yourlife when you will hit a wall.
You know whether it's amarriage that's not working, a
career or business that'sstagnated, or your personal life
is completely flatlined.
So if you're dealing with anyof these, or a combination of
them, and are finally fed upwith where your life is at, I'm
going to ask you to allow me tohelp you get clear on what needs
to be done and how to do that,so you can get on to living the
(01:08):
life you were meant to live.
Just go to theawakenmannet anddownload a free setting the
compass exercise to help you getstarted today.
And with that, let's get onwith today's episode.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
The average man today is sleepwalking through life,
many never reaching their truepotential, let alone ever
crossing the finish line toliving a purposeful life.
Yet the hunger still exists,albeit buried amidst his
cluttered mind, misguidedbeliefs and values that no
longer serve him.
It's time to align yourself forgreatness.
(01:44):
It's time to become arevolutionary man.
Stay strong, my brother.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Welcome everyone to the Revolutionary man podcast.
I'm the founder of the Awakenedman Movement and your host,
alan DeMonso.
Allow me to get started to askyou a couple of questions as you
listen to today's episode.
Reflect on your own journeywith faith and science.
How do you reconcile yourscientific understanding with
(02:13):
your beliefs and what questionsstill linger for you about that
intersection between these tworealms?
I want you to consider yourlife after death and the
existence of a higher power.
How do these beliefs influenceyour daily decisions and your
long-term goals?
So what evidence or experienceshave shaped your perspective
(02:37):
for you to come up with these?
As I think about these questionsin my life, I'm recognized that
many times when I felt that Iwalked alone.
This occurs most of the timewhen I falsely believe that life
, that my life is only becauseof my efforts, that there is no
longer a power guiding me, thatit's all me.
With this, as the analyticalmind at work, it's natural for
(03:02):
us to fall into these traps, andso when God places before me
the most perfect situation thatawakes me to this smallness that
I truly am, then I know thatthere are things for me to work
on.
So, just as I believe it didfor my guest today.
So allow me to introduce myguest, ganesh.
Let's see if I can get thislast name.
(03:22):
Ganesh, lets me see if I canget this last name.
Venkara Ramanan, whose pen nameis Jeeves, is a vice president
of pre-sales at a softwaretechnology company.
His background is in chemicalengineering and is the author of
the book Let Me Into Heaven.
Three computer scientists findtheir way to life.
Ganesh loves us to presentscientific evidence for God to
(03:47):
analytical audiences, and sowelcome to the show today,
ganesh.
How are things?
My?
Speaker 3 (03:49):
friend.
Thank you, Alan.
I was really happy to see youstumble over your own name, so I
know usually people stumbleover my name.
It's great to see that I'm notthe only one.
Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
As we were saying getting onto the conversation
today, there's not too manyfolks that I interview.
That last name has more lettersthan mine and it's always a
challenge when folks have longnames with lots of syllables.
But, Ganesh, I was so impressedwith reading your work and
having you come on today's showbecause it's something that
we've touched on faith before.
But I don't think we've touchedon this faith, the science
(04:23):
piece and so my opening questionfor you is tell us about that
time in your life when you knewthings weren't great, and what
did you do about that experienceand how did it shape you, the
man you are today?
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Yeah, so growing up, I grew up in a Hindu family and
I was surrounded by analyticalpeople, lots of engineers, lots
of people with PhD degrees.
My dad is a nuclear engineerand there was a whole team of
people doing research in thearea of nuclear fusion and so on
.
So I grew up very analyticaland then went to college,
(04:57):
started getting a degree inchemical engineering and I was
surrounded by people who werevery smart and who were all
atheists, and so I drifted outof religion into atheism in
college, not because I found anyevidence for atheism, but
because everyone around me wasan atheist.
(05:17):
I assumed part of being anengineer and a scientist was to
be an atheist and that there areno overlaps between religious
belief and scientific belief.
But it taught me to look forevidence, evidence for things.
And ironically, 10 years later,just looking for evidence got me
(05:37):
out of atheism and into being aChristian, and so I didn't jump
into Christianity or faith.
From a saying that this is whatI want to believe.
I went in there saying there isso much evidence, I can no
longer deny the evidence, andthe next natural step of
following the evidence was totake a step of faith.
(05:59):
So I moved forward, actuallyvery reluctantly towards it, not
because of any great desire todo it, but I just couldn't deny
the evidence.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
That's interesting that you talk about the evidence
coming through, and you hadmade a statement about wisdom
was for the illiterateindividual and you're taking
higher education that then youstarted to find this evidence
(06:30):
that there is that God doesexist, and so I want to talk a
little bit about that, becauseyou mentioned there's three
areas that a rational person isusing to seek the understanding
of truth about God, and tell usa little bit about what you mean
by that.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
yeah, so, you know, one of the first things which
really struck me was CS Lewis'sstatement right, it says men
became scientific because theyexpected law and nature.
And they expected law andnature because they believed in
a lawgiver.
So the foundations of science,actually, it comes from a belief
in a divine lawgiver.
(07:02):
And as I started looking at it,there were three areas that I
found that the best explanationwas a divine lawgiver.
The first one was the origin ofthe universe.
Right, people had alwaysthought that the universe had
just been around forever.
Certainly, growing up, as I did, I thought the universe was
(07:22):
around forever.
It looks like it's been aroundforever.
Right, you look outside aroundforever.
It looks like it's been aroundforever.
Right, we look outside and saythis looks like it's been there
forever.
Who thinks that there wasactually a beginning to this?
Right, but it wasn't Einstein'sgeneral theory of relativity
that he proposed, which actuallyrethought how gravity worked.
And because, growing up, wethink of gravity as there's two
(07:44):
masses and this attractionbetween the two masses.
This is all I remember and it'sactually a good approximation,
and this is how Newton thoughtof gravity.
But Einstein thought of gravityas saying the big masses curve
space and the small masses fallinto the space caused by the
curvature caused by the bigmasses.
So mass tells space how tocurve and space tells mass how
(08:08):
to move.
And the ironic thing out of allof this and Einstein didn't
intend it, but it led to thisconclusion that the universe is
actually expanding, and hehimself tried to fudge his way
out of it and later called ithis biggest mistake.
But it actually talks to thescientific pressure, or the
pressure within the scientificcommunity that scientists face
(08:30):
to follow a narrative, and thatnarrative is generally atheistic
or at least agnostic.
Right, einstein felt that too.
The thing with scientifictheory is it is not only the
person proposing the theory whocan dig into it, but all the
people who read their papers canalso ask questions and dig into
it.
And so it was the others whostarted asking questions and
(08:50):
pointing out that this wasreally pointing to an expanding
universe, and why that matteredis yesterday the universe was
smaller than today.
And then you go back and longenough in time you say the
universe had to have been asingle point, a singularity with
no dimensions, which means itwas.
It had a beginning.
Right, the name given to it wasa Big Bang, and it was a joke.
(09:13):
It was not that they thought itwas a great discovery.
They said so you're telling methere's a Big Bang, that's how
everything started off.
So it was mockery, it was thetrolling.
That's how the name Big Bangcame along.
But mockery, they were trolling.
That's how the name Big Bangcame along.
But as soon as you say there isa Big Bang, you have to ask the
question why was there a BigBang?
There was no matter before it.
There was no energy before it.
(09:33):
In fact, einstein coined a termcalled space time.
So there wasn't even timebefore it.
There is no before.
That was the whole problem.
So then you say then, sincenothing existed, including time,
what happened in that instantthat things came into existence?
Why did it happen?
And I realized in this, duringthis analysis, that scientists
(09:57):
and engineers are very good atanswering the question how did
things happen?
And they can explain whathappens in power minus 38
seconds after the Big Bang, butthey're not very good at asking
the question why did it happen?
And they can explain whathappens 10 power minus 38
seconds after the big bang, butthey're not very good at asking
the question why did it happen?
And it was such an organizedprocess.
It's not like the fireworks onjuly 4th where you just blow up
stuff.
It was a super organizedprocess.
(10:17):
And it says things don't happenin an organized fashion just by
mistake.
As an example, if I take a coilof rope and leave it in the
corner of my garage and comeback a year later, it somehow
gets tangled.
But if I leave a tangled pieceof rope in my garage, it never
gets untangled and becomes, goesback into the original
(10:39):
packaging.
Things only go one way, wherethere's greater chaos and
greater disorder, unless anintelligent mind steps in and
uncoils the rope.
So then you get organizationfrom minds and you get ideas
from minds and you get startingthings of the creation from
minds.
And so that was the first thingthat struck me was that if the
(10:59):
universe was created, we had toask the question who created the
universe creator?
We had to ask the question whocreated the universe?
Right, we give the plot away onverse one of the Bible In the
beginning, god created theheavens and the earth.
Right and shocking statement.
Right, until we came across thescientific proof.
So that's the first thing thatstruck me.
The second one was the originof life.
(11:20):
Right, one of the first rulesof biology I remember learning
in, maybe in junior high or highschool, was all life comes from
pre-existing life.
Okay, great.
Now where does the first lifecome from then?
It's a fairly obvious question,and somehow we've all
hypnotized ourselves into notasking their very obvious
(11:42):
question, which is where did thefirst life come from?
And I've had the opportunity totalk to experts like Dr James
Stewart of Rice University andothers, and it's the evidence
simply isn't there on where thefirst cell came from.
The cell itself is so complex.
If you take a city I don't knowwhere you live, but I live in
(12:04):
Houston and you take a city withhighways, with waste
departments, with electricitydepartments, with water
departments, and let's say wehave a well-functioning city you
could argue most of our citiesare not well-functioning.
But let's say this is awell-functioning city, that
things do work right.
They don't happen without someplanning and without a whole
(12:28):
bunch of brains going intosolving problems.
And you take all of that andthat doesn't hold a candle to
the first cell.
And so ask ourselves thequestion where did this first
cell come from?
It could not have come fromevolution, because evolution
assumes that there was already aliving cell and then somehow it
(12:48):
replicates, and then maybe,with some random changes, you
can get more complicated things,but it doesn't tell you where
the first cell came from.
That's the challenge, and sothere seems to be no method by
which it could have come.
It's not even that we cannotprove things, we don't even have
any ideas to prove right.
We're so far away.
So the thing which hasgenerally been thought of as the
(13:10):
strength of what Darwin saidwas if you had a whole bunch of
chemicals and a bunch of saltsand so on and lightning goes
through this thing and boom,maybe something happened.
Right, you give yourselfbillions of years.
Virtually anything can happen,right, the problem is is and I
have to thank dr james stewartfor leading me in this direction
(13:31):
is time is not your friend.
When it comes to the formationof the first cell, time is their
enemy.
Okay, because all of these, eventhe simplest stuff, whether
you're talking about proteins ordna or rna or any of these
things, they have half-lifeperiods and they degrade very
fast.
In some cases they degrade in afew hours.
In some cases they degrade in afew days.
(13:52):
You don't have billion years,you have a few days at the most.
So now you say I got to buildthis whole city, all of the size
of a, like a nanotechnologistin this, the size of a, like a
nanotechnologist in this, micronsize cells, all of it working,
all of it.
We have a few days to do it.
(14:15):
Well, we have scientistsworking, doing PhDs for years
and years and they can makeintermediates, but they can go
from start to finish to create aliving cell.
So how did this happen?
Randomly?
It seems hard for me to believethis is possible.
That was the second one.
Then you come to the third one,which is the origin of
information.
If you think of DNA, it's a.
There's a whole library ofbooks behind me here and it is
(14:38):
this library, right, it has allthis information.
No matter what enzyme orprotein or other things you want
to create that information.
To create it is within thesebooks and this is coded in the
dna.
And in english we use a 26letter alphabet, but in the dna
code we use a four letteralphabet.
But this four letter alphabethas meaning and has and is very
(15:03):
specific, and so how did thatinformation get in there?
So if you look at a book and sayI see a book, I have not met
the author.
I don't know if there is anauthor, but every book I have
seen there has been an author,right, so I can infer that there
(15:27):
is an author, whether or not Ican see the author.
And just the fact that intoday's world we have generative
AI and chat GPT can write stuffdoesn't mean you don't need an
author, because somebody has gotto train a chat GPT.
It doesn't happen randomly,right.
It is consuming every possiblebook written and then using that
as a basis to write new things,right.
(15:49):
But in the absence of all thatinformation up front, it's not
like chat GPT is going to domagic either.
So who's this author?
And so the thing that struck meis whoever this author is,
whether it's the origin of theuniverse, origin of life or
origin of information.
This author is very smart, andthat's the first thing which
(16:10):
struck me about god is he'spretty smart.
And but it also leads to someobvious conclusion
scientifically, besides the factthat he's smart, the other is
his personal.
Okay, because somebody chose tostart off the universe.
Somebody, billions of yearslater, chose to start off life,
(16:34):
and so they could have chosennot to start off life, maybe
just had a universe, but no liferight.
And so I said, oh, now I'mdealing with a personal god,
somebody who's chosen atdifferent points in time to say
I'm going to start off differentthings at this point.
That was very different.
First of all, I didn't havemuch of a concept of God, but I
certainly didn't have a conceptof a God who's personal.
(16:56):
And so when you read biblically, he knows every hair on our
head and it's becoming easierfor him to know every hair on my
head as the hair falls offright.
But it's literally true.
The dna information which goesto create the hair, that
information came from him.
He's encoded that informationin human beings and in animals
(17:19):
and in plants and so on right.
And his knit us in our mother'swomb that they think of a DNA
and a double helix.
And he says when he knit us inour mother's womb, there is some
symbology here between reallyhow a DNA double helix looks
like versus a knitting processto knit that together.
(17:40):
So it's really remarkable whenyou start looking at it and say
at first I wonder how I missedit the first time around.
So I do think it takes.
Perhaps the Holy Spirit,opening our hearts up to the
evidence, is there.
That's the good news.
It is asking those questionsand not settling for stock
answers, but saying there's morethan perhaps what I thought
(18:01):
about the first time around.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, absolutely.
What a great explanation,ganesh.
Thank you so much for sharingthat with us today.
And what I was writing downhere was lots of little notes,
but really there was three orfour questions that you were
asking yourself and you'reasking us to ask as well in our
exploration and understanding ofGod or this greater being.
And the first one was like whocreated the universe, who?
(18:26):
And then you asked where did wecome from?
Where was the origin of life?
And then you just, and then youalso asked how does this, how
did this come to be?
Then you go back to you knowthe who question again, and then
who is the author?
And I think all of thosequestions all point to the same
answer that there is something,no matter how we call it,
(18:49):
whether it's God, somethinglarger, greater than I.
Am it, depending on where wecome from a faith perspective,
that it is true that there issomething far greater than who
we are, and the moment that wefall into ourselves and we feel
that we are the creators, now weare take some action and help
(19:09):
in moving the process, our life,a lot forward.
But it's not us doing this work, it's something else in us that
is driving this through, and soI want to talk a little bit now
about how we've got theframework about these questions
and we think about the differenttypes of religions around the
world and really how they'vecome to be, and I would almost
(19:30):
see them as so cultural.
So more so, in the West herewe're very much from a Christian
background.
Out in the East there's're verymuch from a Christian
background.
Out in the East there'sHinduism and Buddhism and Taoism
.
What is your?
And all of them point to thisgreater being, but in a slightly
different way, and so let'stalk a little bit about your
understanding of the culturaleffect that religion has had on
(19:52):
our lives.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
It's a great question If you see, culturally,
virtually every society over thecenturies or millennia that we
have any documentation on, allhave a tendency to worship
something which begs thequestion why is that the case,
right?
So I think worship is embeddedin our hearts in some way.
(20:15):
Now we usually then define whatwe want to worship right, and
this is where the differencesstart.
But the fact is that everybodydoes worship, and if they don't
worship other things, they endup worshiping themselves, which
is probably the most dangerousof the lot.
And actually, if you look at it, that was Adam's and Eve's
original sin, right?
They wanted to eat of the treeof knowledge of good and evil,
(20:41):
so they wanted to learn.
This is a tree of knowledge,but specifically of good and
evil, so they wanted to becomethe moral decision makers of
saying what is right and what iswrong.
And that continues today.
Even now we say I thinksomething is right, hence it
must be right.
So in a sense, I am thestandard, and that's really what
(21:03):
christianity flips around andsays we are not the standards,
right, we have the free will tochoose to follow the standards
or not, but we are not thestandards right.
In fact, we've all fallen shortof the standard, and so the?
If you look at all thereligions, though, they come up
with a lot of rules to say hereare the rules to follow and here
(21:23):
are the standards.
But it does beg the questionwho came up with those standards
?
If it's simply my ancestors andother people who came up with
the standards, then why don't Ijust make up my own right?
If it's just another person whomade it up, I'll just make up
my own right.
What is different between themand me?
Right?
I think these standards have tobe absolute for society to
function.
(21:44):
So, for example, if we decidestealing is wrong, right.
And I say Alan, that's yourstandard.
My standard is not thatstealing is wrong.
In fact, let me just steal yourwallet.
So then you can't argue with me, because we've agreed that the
standards are relative.
There's no absolute standards,unless somebody steals my wallet
(22:05):
and now I say, oh, wait, aminute.
Stealing is wrong for allpeople at all times.
So we move to an absolutestandard.
So if it is an absolute standard, it begs the question where did
it come from?
An absolute standard?
So that, if it is an absolutestandard, it begs the question
where did it come from.
It's just society and culturalthat these standards are, then
okay, we can change them asculture changes, right?
Even people like richarddawkins now are starting to say
(22:28):
I like the cultural side ofchristianity.
I can see why because the beastthat they've created is now
threatening to consume them.
So now they're like thecultural standards of
christianity, but the culturalstandard of christianity comes
with the person of christ again,split the two up.
They see one without the other.
We see both.
(22:48):
But we see both becauseobviously we were blind before
as well and our eyes were openat some point to say you can't
have one without the other.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Did I answer your question?
Yeah, absolutely Love that.
I wasn't sure if you're goingto continue there.
I liked how you talked aboutthat.
It is true that standards areabsolute, and I think that's
part of the challenge that we'refacing today is that it seems
like the standards are shaped bywhat's good for me, especially
as we look at you're in the US,I'm up in Canada, but we aren't
(23:23):
quite as much into identitypolitics, although we're very
close.
Much like your challenge thatyou guys are living right now,
especially with a pendingelection here, I think it's
really a challenge for all of usto work through and understand
that we need to have standardsthat are absolute right, and
that means somebody is.
(23:45):
That means someone isn't goingto be happy about a standard.
That could be me at some time,because I didn't, I don't care
for the standard right, but ifwe need some set of guidelines
to help us, some guideposts tohelp us move our lives forward,
and so I think it's interestingthat your journey from say you
were atheist before and becauseof that, from a scientific
(24:08):
background, but when youcouldn't find, when science
couldn't provide the answers,you needed to look elsewhere,
and your book let me into heavenreally touches on this, a whole
idea, so let's talk.
And your book, let Me IntoHeaven really touches on this
whole idea.
So let's talk about your bookand how that came to be and what
your approach you're using andhow you're using your
engineering influence to reallytalk to people about
(24:29):
spirituality.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
If I created a video or wrote another book, I would
probably call it how to createyour own religion.
Right, and four questions Ithink everybody has to answer if
they're coming up with theirown religion.
Right, and we talked about theorigin, right Origin of life,
origin of the universe and so on.
But it's not the only questionto answer.
There's also what gives lifepurpose, what is morality and
(24:56):
who creates morality, which iswhat we were discussing earlier
with the absolute standards andso on.
And then there's the questionof destiny what happens after we
die.
And so I was trying tounderstand the destiny side of
things and say, as a Christian,there is a lot of data
biblically about what heaven islike.
(25:16):
Yet if you ask most Christianswhat is heaven, they cannot
think past the church serviceand say we're going to have
music.
Okay, great, I like music, butfor 10 minutes, right, not for
an hour, not for 10 hours.
And eternity of music to me isnot heaven, it's hell, it's too
much music, I want to dosomething else.
But what is something else?
(25:37):
What do we do?
Do we even have bodies inheaven?
Will they recognize alan inheaven?
Does ganesh exist in heaven?
So I was curious about that.
And so the paths to heaven fromour lives today at some point
assuming we're alive at thatpoint it goes through
tribulation, the millennium andlots of things, the end times,
(25:59):
which is referred to biblically.
And I struggled to understandwhat happened first, what
happened second, what happenedthird and so on.
And as an engineer, I want tosay I want to understand how
these things actually work,because I think there's a lot of
symbology but there's lots ofalso literalism.
When it says Jesus is comingback, it means Jesus is coming
back.
That's not a symbolic thing,that's a real thing, right?
(26:21):
So what has to happen before hecomes back?
Every time I studied this topic, I would have to start from
scratch, because I couldn'tremember what happened first and
what happens second.
So I said I'm going to actuallymake a chart of timelines and
okay, what happens in eachtimeline, and so on.
So when I finished that up, Isaid I'm sure I'm not the only
one who struggles through this.
(26:42):
So I will write a book about it.
But most books are very likereference books and for theology
students, most of us are nottheology students and don't care
to dive deep into it.
So I wanted to make it aconversation and said if
somebody is watching tribulationfrom heaven, what will it look
like to them?
And if somebody is on earthwhile tribulation is taking
(27:05):
place, they're not a Christian,they're observing tribulation
around them.
How will they interpret what ishappening?
So I wanted to have that as aconversation between these two
parties.
So I came up with three peoplewho are having these
conversations.
It was almost set up for eithercollege student or somebody who
(27:26):
just graduated.
They're together askingquestions.
I remember in college we wouldsit and discuss these things,
usually over a lot of alcohol,sadly.
But we would discuss thesequestions, deep questions of
life.
Right, because just doingthermodynamics wasn't enough and
there's more meaning to lifethan this, right?
So it's a conversation to saywhat is heaven, what is
(27:48):
tribulation going to be like,what does the rapture look like,
what does the millennium looklike, and so on.
Right?
Do we have bodies?
Do we eat food?
We all love to eat food.
Right, do we have bodies?
Do we eat food.
We all love to eat food, right.
I hope it's tasty, whateverfood we have in heaven, right?
But actually you know what isit like and trying to visualize
and picturize it, but not frommy imagination, but from
(28:11):
information we have biblically.
So Jesus talks about the feastof Abrahamraham, isaac and jacob
.
Okay, great, that means thereis a feast, that means there's
food, right, because otherwiseit's not a feast.
It talks about abraham, isaacand jacob.
So in some way the originallibrary, abraham, isaac and
jacob exist.
(28:32):
The bodies may be different,because we have a different kind
of body which doesn't perish,the imperishable body, but they
are recognizable as Abraham,isaac and Jacob, which means
Alan and Ganesh will berecognizable in heaven as well.
Hopefully the body doesn't acheas much because it's an
(28:54):
imperishable body, but as peoplewe exist.
The essence of who we are passesthrough.
So it's not as though earth isone life, heaven is another life
.
It's just a continuum.
I think that's the eternal hope, right, that it doesn't matter
what ups and downs we go through.
We'll all go through it, but weexist for eternity.
(29:15):
We never die.
So that's something I wanted tobring out We'll all go through
it, but we exist for eternity.
We never die.
So that's something I wanted tobring out.
But I wanted to bring it outconversationally and as you or I
would observe it, not as somedeep theological subject.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I like that you're using the idea of a conversation
, because it does bring draw usinto the book more.
It gives us an opportunity tofit into one of those roles, or
maybe just being the observer ofthat conversation.
But and I like that you'retalking about things like
tribulation, because I it.
I think for a long time Istruggled with understanding
(29:49):
what tribulation actually meantand how it was impacting my life
.
And once you start to graspthat these small decisions that
we make today may not show animpact, but at some point they
do, whether that's positive ornot, it does show up in our
lives.
And so how we really base ourchallenges the challenges are
(30:11):
there, I think, for us to growand shape ourselves and really
understand more deeply what itis that we're truly made of and
that we can become better menand when I?
What I was really intriguedabout with your story is that as
you transition from when youstarted in university and then
doing your work, and then reallyand in your professional life,
(30:33):
and then really moving to afaith, having a strong faith now
associated with it, it musthave had some, there must have
been some struggles for yourselfand for some of your
relationships, and that.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhat that was like, because I
think all of us have this fearabout if I, if I believe
something or if I change toomuch, then I'm going to lose
(30:54):
something, and sometimes we'reafraid of losing that, but it
could be much better on theother side.
So let's talk a little bitabout that journey.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
So I'll start with Luke 9, 23,.
Right, jesus says if you wantto be my follower, deny yourself
, carry a cross daily and thenfollow me.
And it led me to thisunderstanding that the purpose
and the calling is not mine,it's not what is my purpose that
(31:21):
I can then ask god to bless,right, but what is his purpose
that I can now play my part in.
And it totally flippedeverything that life meant at
that point.
Right, if I truly do it on thatbasis, right, then it totally
changes everything because it'snot no longer my purpose.
(31:43):
But that's exactly what he'ssaying.
He said deny yourself, sayingit's not my purpose, carry your
cross daily.
Lacrosse is something he'sgiving me, right, his purpose.
And he's not saying it's a bedof roses.
The very fact that it's a crossmeans it's hard.
It's going to be trials andtribulations.
(32:03):
That's the promise he makes.
He doesn't promise, sadly.
He doesn't promise money andwealth and health.
He promises trials andtribulations.
That's right, and but we'recalled to embrace that.
Embrace it.
Maybe that's where we findourselves is in those trials and
tribulations.
Now, we as men are likeadventures, we like conquering
(32:25):
things, we like accomplishingthings and so on.
Right, and that's the cross.
He's given us that cross and hepromises persecution.
And he's saying don't run awayfrom the persecution, embr,
embrace it.
And the things we complain aboutas persecution are so trivial,
right?
What are we complaining about?
(32:45):
Somebody may make fun of me.
Right, I struggled with thatmyself.
That's why I wrote my bookunder another name.
Right under another name.
Right, if I come out and sayI'm a Christian, what impact
does it have with my from, whereI came from, most of who are
Hindus or atheists, and whatimpact does it have on my career
(33:08):
, for example?
Right, this is what peopleworry about.
I worried about it.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
And then it was about a year or so after the book was
out.
I'm thinking to myself here.
We are called to go preach thegospel to the whole world and we
are trying our best to hide ourfaces.
So in a sense, I had to comeout of the closet and I realized
there was nobody else in thecloset.
Everybody else had come out.
The only ones in the closet areChristians hiding because
(33:39):
they're worried that somebodymay not like who we are and we
may get persecuted.
But what if we think ofourselves as being chosen for
this battle?
We're called for this battle,we are chosen for this battle.
It is going to havepersecutions.
That's actually exciting.
For this battle, it is going tohave persecutions.
(34:02):
That's actually exciting, right?
What is the worst thing theycan do to me?
Right, today's world, we thinkof jobs, income loss, etc.
Right, the early Christians,the Christians right after the
apostles, the church fathers, aswe call them, they had the
saying saying you can kill me,but you can't hurt me.
(34:22):
So I think it's how we look atit, how we embrace that, how we
follow.
We use our free will to say doI submit it to God's purpose and
am I willing to go down thatpath and it's a process I think
the Holy Spirit prepares us forit changes our heart.
We don't have to jump from oneend to the other and in one shot
, but we grow in that and everystep we take enables us to take
(34:44):
one more step Today.
So I thought of it as anadventure For most people, an
adventure most men, especiallytoday.
An adventure is playingpickleball on Mondays and
Wednesdays, but this is a muchbigger adventure, adventure of
life.
I think, if you look at it thatway, it puts things in a
different perspective.
But more than that, I thinkthat's what we're called to do.
(35:05):
We're called to stand up, we'recalled to have this fight.
We're not called to sit andwatch, whether it's in the US or
Canada or anywhere else.
Just, things change in wayswhich we know are not godly.
In fact, you can see thissatanic fingerprints behind a
lot of things.
Right?
What do we do except complainand come up with conspiracy
(35:27):
theories?
Right?
I think we all understand forthings, and so that's how people
stand for it, what they shoulddo.
I think the Holy Spirit leadseach person in their own
adventure and in their ownjourney, as far as that goes, in
the hero's journey there.
Right, everybody doesn't havethe same one, but I think
there's certainly a call forthat purpose.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Yeah, I completely agree and we talk a lot about
all my work here at the Awakenedman is really on helping men
find and reclaim what theirlife's mission and purpose is,
and I like how you framed it asthat it's not about my purpose,
but what am I being called to do?
And it's really about thatdeeper understanding and, yes,
and those of us that deeperunderstanding and yes, as though
(36:11):
, and those of us that that areconsider ourselves to be
Christians, we know what thework is.
That we need to do is and thatis to stand up and, as you say,
to come out of the closet and tostand up for what we believe in
and the more that we do that.
I think we help like theoriginal Christians after they
said, like the founding fathers,and you think about how they
(36:32):
were persecuted in in the bigcoliseum and that's what really
changed Rome was seeingChristians.
As you said, you may be able tokill me, I you can't take away
my faith, right, and what Ibelieve.
And so when people wouldrecognize that I think there's a
story of a lion not justrefusing to do to harm this
(36:58):
individual who was praying andsitting there, and I think, when
you read stories like that,whether you believe it to be a,
to be literal, or it's anallegory, however you want to
interpret it, it still has thesame meaning to me is that
somebody resolute in who theyare and what they believe, and I
(37:18):
think that's what we're lackingso much today, as men
especially, is that we're seento be lost about understanding
about who we are and what we aremeant to be on this world to do
or in this world to do.
And you've already mentioned alittle bit about a bit of
prophecy there and how in yourexploration of christianity, how
that has really influenced yourbeliefs and how we need to
(37:39):
maybe pay more attention to thatexactly and so I think you
talked about life would bebetter if we took up these
challenges.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Absolutely, I think we lack.
If we don't, then we tend tolack meaning in our lives.
We don't know what to do withourselves.
Our wives hope we will stand upand become men.
Our families hope that we'llstand up and become men.
All of society is looking forus to stand up, but we don't
always know how.
And?
But I think it starts withknowing God's word First of all.
(38:13):
It's not what I feel and here'swhat I should go do.
It may be, but I think itstarts with knowing God's word
first of all.
It's not what I feel and here'swhat I should go do.
It may be, but I think itstarts with if it's his purpose,
it's growing in his word.
Right To me, that started offwith saying I'm going to spend
15 minutes a day in his word.
At one point I said I'm goingto spend two hours a day in his
word, and then I found out Ididn't have two hours.
After the third day I stoppedspending time in his word.
(38:36):
So it's better to do 15 minutesa day and be consistent with it
than two hours a day and thenquitting after two days.
It's like going to the gym andI say I'm going to go to the gym
and work out two hours and soarafter two days and so that's
the end of that adventure.
But I think it's getting intohis word on a daily basis
because it's a remarkable word,even though the last book, the
book of Revelation, was writtensomewhere in 1980.
Right so, almost 2000 years ago.
(38:58):
It's a word relevant to today,for you and me, in our daily
lives.
Right so it is.
It is going in there with somequestions saying God, what is
the purpose?
Do you want me to go in thisdirection?
Do you want me to go in thisdirection?
Do you want me to wait till Ihear more from you?
He leads us through his wordbecause that word is relevant
(39:21):
today and multiple times I'vehad okay, should I go, start up
this business?
I have an opportunity here.
Should I do this, should I dothat?
So, with the real questions oflife where I've gone in and said
I want to hear from you, lord,I don't want to make a decision
and ask you to bless it.
I want to hear yours.
What direction are you takingme?
And it's not that I just wentto my favorite verse, jeremiah
(39:45):
29, 11,.
I have plans to prosper you.
That might have been true forJeremiah at that point in time.
Whether it's true for me todayis a different question.
He may not want me to go down acertain path right.
And what I found is, as Ilooked for that in his word, the
Holy Spirit illuminated versesfor me which I don't even
(40:09):
remember having read before, butilluminated this like putting a
flashlight onto words, becausethat's the job of the Holy
Spirit.
Jesus said I'll send the HolySpirit and he'll remind you of
the things that I taught you.
And the Holy Spirit was leadingme into saying here's how to
look at things and here's how todo certain things.
(40:30):
Was it in every bit of detail,to the nth degree?
No, but it gave me thedirection to go in right, and as
I grew in that, I became betterat making decisions based on
that, as now a pillar in my life.
And so I think god leads us on adaily basis.
He's a personal god.
He's not just an impersonal godwho created a bunch of stuff
(40:50):
and that's the end of it, buthe's a a personal God.
So I think we hear from himdaily.
We are called to carry ourcross.
We should know what that crossis, but God will lead us through
that process.
It is important just that webegin that journey and follow
his guidance.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Oh, I love that.
I really appreciate thatframework that you put forward,
ganesh, because I think thatsometimes we think and this is
what I have to always remindmyself of is I don't need to
know the entire plan, I don'tneed to know every step of the
process, I just need to knowenough to take that first step
and then something will comeforward after that and then to
(41:28):
trust and be guided.
But it's that battle between II use the word battle again
speaking for myself it's thatbattle between ego, mind and
allowing the holy spirit toguide and direct me into doing
things.
And I think, when we're in themessy part of our lives, if we
can just calm down a minute andI like how I talked about, yes,
(41:48):
five, ten, fifteen minutes a dayin reading the word and getting
closer to to it, you might notunderstand anything like.
I was raised Catholic and, truthbe told, I didn't truly open a
bible and read it until I waswell into my 30s, because that's
just not the way in myexperience with it is.
That's what father, the frontof the, at the pulpit, would
(42:12):
tell us everything, and so itwasn't something that was around
, taught in our, in our home, inour home.
But I find now that I havegreat comfort when I get an
opportunity to open the book andto and just open it to wherever
it lands and just to startreading, to gain some extra
knowledge, some comfort in thatthings will be okay and it does
(42:35):
seem to have just the rightpassage seems to show up, and so
I think that's great advice forall of us.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
And if someone's not used to reading or wants to know
where should I start becauseI've never read it, I would say
don't start with Revelation,right, Because it is a complex
and you need a lot of contextbefore you can start following
it.
But a great, depending on whatyou're looking for.
I found Proverbs to be verygood at just providing wisdom,
(43:02):
right, it's like getting an MBAand not having to pay $100,000
to get it right, and so it's.
And the good thing aboutproverbs is it's got 31 chapters
.
Today is the 16th and go readproverbs 16 and that way it's
easy to know where one is rightnow in terms of knowing the
person of god.
(43:23):
Because I there was a time whereI didn't want to know just
words of wisdom.
I wanted to know who is god andI wanted to know him as a
person.
I didn't even.
It was a major step for me torealize God as a person, and
actually he's three persons,right, but at least he's one
person right.
So knowing that person, John,is a great starting point, and
(43:44):
because he starts to reveal thatwhat is the person of Jesus,
and so you know the Gospels, thefour Gospels are a great place
to know Jesus, know about Jesusand also know Jesus.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
Completely agree.
Completely agree with that.
You know, Ganesh, of everythingthat we spoke about today,
maybe there was something wedidn't get a chance to touch on.
What would be the one takeawayyou'd want our listeners to have
?
Speaker 3 (44:10):
I think it's important.
My background now is in sales,so there's always a call to
action right, you heard all youheard.
Right, you have an audiencewho's heard you frequently.
Right, it's an audience who'shopefully heard this discussion,
this talk we've had.
What do you do with it?
At some point it's a call toaction to do something, and the
(44:34):
good thing about we as men is wewant to do something.
Right, we may not know what todo, but we always want to do
something.
I would say the first thing todo is to get into God's word.
Okay, if you can do it with agroup of men, I put together a
group of men that I meet with ona weekly basis At least five
men.
We go between three to six men,but none of whom is impressed
(44:57):
by me.
If I'm off on the wrong path,they're so unimpressed that
they're ready to challenge me.
But that's what I need.
I don't need people who say I'mawesome.
I need people to say what areyou thinking?
This is not how somebody whofollows Christ behaves.
That's the guy I want in mylife.
But it's not just a group ofmen.
It's a group of men who arealso walking with Christ, and so
(45:20):
I think it's getting into thatword and getting with a
community of men who will havethose hard talks if needed.
It's not always going to behard talks.
There may be from time to time,but a lot of times it's us
pushing each other sadly as men,sharpening each other as I and
sharpens iron right.
I think that's critical tocontinue to grow in christ love
(45:41):
that.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
What a great way to put us to wrap up our
conversation today and bring usto a close.
I just want to say, ganes,thank you so much for spending
time with us today and no matterwhere or how we perceive this
disconnection that we think wehave with God, that we're always
connected to him if we're justwilling to look, to listen and
to feel his presence.
And so if men are interested ingetting a hold of you,
(46:04):
participating in your work andgetting your book, what's the
best way for them to do that?
Speaker 3 (46:08):
So my website is called letmeintoheavencom and
the book's available on Amazon.
But they can come to thewebsite and there's all the
social media handles and so on.
I'm on YouTube with my pen name, which is GVS, g-e-e-v-e-s.
Gvs Official is the name of it.
Same on Instagram, so peopleare welcome to do that.
(46:30):
But if they can't remember allthat, just go to the website
letmeintoheavencom and you'llsee all the social media handles
over there.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Excellent.
I'll make sure all of thatinformation is in today's show
notes so they have opportunityas well as a link to your book
and they can get a chance topick it up.
I want to say once again,ganesh, thank you so much,
really enjoyed our conversationtoday.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
Yeah, thank you, alan .
I appreciate the opportunity tospeak with you as well as your
audience, and again, I'm here asa resource really for anyone.
To me it's not about the book,it's about if I can.
We can both help someone growand I can grow and they'll grow.
Then I see that as the purposeGod has for me.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
You betcha Amen brother.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Thank you for listening to the Revolutionary
man podcast.
Are you ready to own yourdestiny, to become more the man
(47:34):
you are destined to be?
Join the brotherhood that isthe awakened man at
theawakendmannet and startforging a new destiny today.
Do we continue the path towards turning away from
that whole God thing, maybe evenbecoming atheists?
As technology has increased,our lives appear to be improving
by so much, and yet there'seven less need for us to have
this higher power.
So we think this is especiallytrue if you're an analytical
thinker, and until we ask thequestion for the proof of God,
(00:23):
only to be given such a profoundanswer, so it will shatter us.
It shatters everything webelieve in up until the moment
that we've asked that question.
And so today I have a gentlemanwho's going to explore this,
his hero's journey from hisposition into faith.
Now, before we get into today'sepisode, let's come to grips
about one thing, and that isinevitably.
(00:45):
There will come a time in yourlife when you will hit a wall.
You know whether it's amarriage that's not working, a
career or business that'sstagnated, or your personal life
is completely flatlined.
So if you're dealing with anyof these, or a combination of
them, and are finally fed upwith where your life is at, I'm
going to ask you to allow me tohelp you get clear on what needs
to be done and how to do that,so you can get on to living the
(01:08):
life you were meant to live.
Just go to theawakenmannet anddownload a free setting the
compass exercise to help you getstarted today.
And with that, let's get onwith today's episode.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
The average man today is sleepwalking through life,
many never reaching their truepotential, let alone ever
crossing the finish line toliving a purposeful life.
Yet the hunger still exists,albeit buried amidst his
cluttered mind, misguidedbeliefs and values that no
longer serve him.
It's time to align yourself forgreatness.
(01:44):
It's time to become arevolutionary man.
Stay strong, my brother.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Welcome everyone to the Revolutionary man podcast.
I'm the founder of the Awakenedman Movement and your host,
alan DeMonso.
Allow me to get started to askyou a couple of questions as you
listen to today's episode.
Reflect on your own journeywith faith and science.
How do you reconcile yourscientific understanding with
(02:13):
your beliefs and what questionsstill linger for you about that
intersection between these tworealms?
I want you to consider yourlife after death and the
existence of a higher power.
How do these beliefs influenceyour daily decisions and your
long-term goals?
So what evidence or experienceshave shaped your perspective
(02:37):
for you to come up with these?
As I think about these questionsin my life, I'm recognized that
many times when I felt that Iwalked alone.
This occurs most of the timewhen I falsely believe that life
, that my life is only becauseof my efforts, that there is no
longer a power guiding me, thatit's all me.
With this, as the analyticalmind at work, it's natural for
(03:02):
us to fall into these traps, andso when God places before me
the most perfect situation thatawakes me to this smallness that
I truly am, then I know thatthere are things for me to work
on.
So, just as I believe it didfor my guest today.
So allow me to introduce myguest, ganesh.
Let's see if I can get thislast name.
(03:22):
Ganesh, lets me see if I canget this last name.
Venkara Ramanan, whose pen nameis Jeeves, is a vice president
of pre-sales at a softwaretechnology company.
His background is in chemicalengineering and is the author of
the book Let Me Into Heaven.
Three computer scientists findtheir way to life.
Ganesh loves us to presentscientific evidence for God to
(03:47):
analytical audiences, and sowelcome to the show today,
ganesh.
How are things?
My?
Speaker 3 (03:49):
friend.
Thank you, Alan.
I was really happy to see youstumble over your own name, so I
know usually people stumbleover my name.
It's great to see that I'm notthe only one.
Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
As we were saying getting onto the conversation
today, there's not too manyfolks that I interview.
That last name has more lettersthan mine and it's always a
challenge when folks have longnames with lots of syllables.
But, Ganesh, I was so impressedwith reading your work and
having you come on today's showbecause it's something that
we've touched on faith before.
But I don't think we've touchedon this faith, the science
(04:23):
piece and so my opening questionfor you is tell us about that
time in your life when you knewthings weren't great, and what
did you do about that experienceand how did it shape you, the
man you are today?
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Yeah, so growing up, I grew up in a Hindu family and
I was surrounded by analyticalpeople, lots of engineers, lots
of people with PhD degrees.
My dad is a nuclear engineerand there was a whole team of
people doing research in thearea of nuclear fusion and so on
.
So I grew up very analyticaland then went to college,
(04:57):
started getting a degree inchemical engineering and I was
surrounded by people who werevery smart and who were all
atheists, and so I drifted outof religion into atheism in
college, not because I found anyevidence for atheism, but
because everyone around me wasan atheist.
(05:17):
I assumed part of being anengineer and a scientist was to
be an atheist and that there areno overlaps between religious
belief and scientific belief.
But it taught me to look forevidence, evidence for things.
And ironically, 10 years later,just looking for evidence got me
(05:37):
out of atheism and into being aChristian, and so I didn't jump
into Christianity or faith.
From a saying that this is whatI want to believe.
I went in there saying there isso much evidence, I can no
longer deny the evidence, andthe next natural step of
following the evidence was totake a step of faith.
(05:59):
So I moved forward, actuallyvery reluctantly towards it, not
because of any great desire todo it, but I just couldn't deny
the evidence.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
That's interesting that you talk about the evidence
coming through, and you hadmade a statement about wisdom
was for the illiterateindividual and you're taking
higher education that then youstarted to find this evidence
(06:30):
that there is that God doesexist, and so I want to talk a
little bit about that, becauseyou mentioned there's three
areas that a rational person isusing to seek the understanding
of truth about God, and tell usa little bit about what you mean
by that.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
yeah, so, you know, one of the first things which
really struck me was CS Lewis'sstatement right, it says men
became scientific because theyexpected law and nature.
And they expected law andnature because they believed in
a lawgiver.
So the foundations of science,actually, it comes from a belief
in a divine lawgiver.
(07:02):
And as I started looking at it,there were three areas that I
found that the best explanationwas a divine lawgiver.
The first one was the origin ofthe universe.
Right, people had alwaysthought that the universe had
just been around forever.
Certainly, growing up, as I did, I thought the universe was
(07:22):
around forever.
It looks like it's been aroundforever.
Right, you look outside aroundforever.
It looks like it's been aroundforever.
Right, we look outside and saythis looks like it's been there
forever.
Who thinks that there wasactually a beginning to this?
Right, but it wasn't Einstein'sgeneral theory of relativity
that he proposed, which actuallyrethought how gravity worked.
And because, growing up, wethink of gravity as there's two
(07:44):
masses and this attractionbetween the two masses.
This is all I remember and it'sactually a good approximation,
and this is how Newton thoughtof gravity.
But Einstein thought of gravityas saying the big masses curve
space and the small masses fallinto the space caused by the
curvature caused by the bigmasses.
So mass tells space how tocurve and space tells mass how
(08:08):
to move.
And the ironic thing out of allof this and Einstein didn't
intend it, but it led to thisconclusion that the universe is
actually expanding, and hehimself tried to fudge his way
out of it and later called ithis biggest mistake.
But it actually talks to thescientific pressure, or the
pressure within the scientificcommunity that scientists face
(08:30):
to follow a narrative, and thatnarrative is generally atheistic
or at least agnostic.
Right, einstein felt that too.
The thing with scientifictheory is it is not only the
person proposing the theory whocan dig into it, but all the
people who read their papers canalso ask questions and dig into
it.
And so it was the others whostarted asking questions and
(08:50):
pointing out that this wasreally pointing to an expanding
universe, and why that matteredis yesterday the universe was
smaller than today.
And then you go back and longenough in time you say the
universe had to have been asingle point, a singularity with
no dimensions, which means itwas.
It had a beginning.
Right, the name given to it wasa Big Bang, and it was a joke.
(09:13):
It was not that they thought itwas a great discovery.
They said so you're telling methere's a Big Bang, that's how
everything started off.
So it was mockery, it was thetrolling.
That's how the name Big Bangcame along.
But mockery, they were trolling.
That's how the name Big Bangcame along.
But as soon as you say there isa Big Bang, you have to ask the
question why was there a BigBang?
There was no matter before it.
There was no energy before it.
(09:33):
In fact, einstein coined a termcalled space time.
So there wasn't even timebefore it.
There is no before.
That was the whole problem.
So then you say then, sincenothing existed, including time,
what happened in that instantthat things came into existence?
Why did it happen?
And I realized in this, duringthis analysis, that scientists
(09:57):
and engineers are very good atanswering the question how did
things happen?
And they can explain whathappens in power minus 38
seconds after the Big Bang, butthey're not very good at asking
the question why did it happen?
And they can explain whathappens 10 power minus 38
seconds after the big bang, butthey're not very good at asking
the question why did it happen?
And it was such an organizedprocess.
It's not like the fireworks onjuly 4th where you just blow up
stuff.
It was a super organizedprocess.
(10:17):
And it says things don't happenin an organized fashion just by
mistake.
As an example, if I take a coilof rope and leave it in the
corner of my garage and comeback a year later, it somehow
gets tangled.
But if I leave a tangled pieceof rope in my garage, it never
gets untangled and becomes, goesback into the original
(10:39):
packaging.
Things only go one way, wherethere's greater chaos and
greater disorder, unless anintelligent mind steps in and
uncoils the rope.
So then you get organizationfrom minds and you get ideas
from minds and you get startingthings of the creation from
minds.
And so that was the first thingthat struck me was that if the
(10:59):
universe was created, we had toask the question who created the
universe creator?
We had to ask the question whocreated the universe?
Right, we give the plot away onverse one of the Bible In the
beginning, god created theheavens and the earth.
Right and shocking statement.
Right, until we came across thescientific proof.
So that's the first thing thatstruck me.
The second one was the originof life.
(11:20):
Right, one of the first rulesof biology I remember learning
in, maybe in junior high or highschool, was all life comes from
pre-existing life.
Okay, great.
Now where does the first lifecome from then?
It's a fairly obvious question,and somehow we've all
hypnotized ourselves into notasking their very obvious
(11:42):
question, which is where did thefirst life come from?
And I've had the opportunity totalk to experts like Dr James
Stewart of Rice University andothers, and it's the evidence
simply isn't there on where thefirst cell came from.
The cell itself is so complex.
If you take a city I don't knowwhere you live, but I live in
(12:04):
Houston and you take a city withhighways, with waste
departments, with electricitydepartments, with water
departments, and let's say wehave a well-functioning city you
could argue most of our citiesare not well-functioning.
But let's say this is awell-functioning city, that
things do work right.
They don't happen without someplanning and without a whole
(12:28):
bunch of brains going intosolving problems.
And you take all of that andthat doesn't hold a candle to
the first cell.
And so ask ourselves thequestion where did this first
cell come from?
It could not have come fromevolution, because evolution
assumes that there was already aliving cell and then somehow it
(12:48):
replicates, and then maybe,with some random changes, you
can get more complicated things,but it doesn't tell you where
the first cell came from.
That's the challenge, and sothere seems to be no method by
which it could have come.
It's not even that we cannotprove things, we don't even have
any ideas to prove right.
We're so far away.
So the thing which hasgenerally been thought of as the
(13:10):
strength of what Darwin saidwas if you had a whole bunch of
chemicals and a bunch of saltsand so on and lightning goes
through this thing and boom,maybe something happened.
Right, you give yourselfbillions of years.
Virtually anything can happen,right, the problem is is and I
have to thank dr james stewartfor leading me in this direction
(13:31):
is time is not your friend.
When it comes to the formationof the first cell, time is their
enemy.
Okay, because all of these, eventhe simplest stuff, whether
you're talking about proteins ordna or rna or any of these
things, they have half-lifeperiods and they degrade very
fast.
In some cases they degrade in afew hours.
In some cases they degrade in afew days.
(13:52):
You don't have billion years,you have a few days at the most.
So now you say I got to buildthis whole city, all of the size
of a, like a nanotechnologistin this, the size of a, like a
nanotechnologist in this, micronsize cells, all of it working,
all of it.
We have a few days to do it.
(14:15):
Well, we have scientistsworking, doing PhDs for years
and years and they can makeintermediates, but they can go
from start to finish to create aliving cell.
So how did this happen?
Randomly?
It seems hard for me to believethis is possible.
That was the second one.
Then you come to the third one,which is the origin of
information.
If you think of DNA, it's a.
There's a whole library ofbooks behind me here and it is
(14:38):
this library, right, it has allthis information.
No matter what enzyme orprotein or other things you want
to create that information.
To create it is within thesebooks and this is coded in the
dna.
And in english we use a 26letter alphabet, but in the dna
code we use a four letteralphabet.
But this four letter alphabethas meaning and has and is very
(15:03):
specific, and so how did thatinformation get in there?
So if you look at a book and sayI see a book, I have not met
the author.
I don't know if there is anauthor, but every book I have
seen there has been an author,right, so I can infer that there
(15:27):
is an author, whether or not Ican see the author.
And just the fact that intoday's world we have generative
AI and chat GPT can write stuffdoesn't mean you don't need an
author, because somebody has gotto train a chat GPT.
It doesn't happen randomly,right.
It is consuming every possiblebook written and then using that
as a basis to write new things,right.
(15:49):
But in the absence of all thatinformation up front, it's not
like chat GPT is going to domagic either.
So who's this author?
And so the thing that struck meis whoever this author is,
whether it's the origin of theuniverse, origin of life or
origin of information.
This author is very smart, andthat's the first thing which
(16:10):
struck me about god is he'spretty smart.
And but it also leads to someobvious conclusion
scientifically, besides the factthat he's smart, the other is
his personal.
Okay, because somebody chose tostart off the universe.
Somebody, billions of yearslater, chose to start off life,
(16:34):
and so they could have chosennot to start off life, maybe
just had a universe, but no liferight.
And so I said, oh, now I'mdealing with a personal god,
somebody who's chosen atdifferent points in time to say
I'm going to start off differentthings at this point.
That was very different.
First of all, I didn't havemuch of a concept of God, but I
certainly didn't have a conceptof a God who's personal.
(16:56):
And so when you read biblically, he knows every hair on our
head and it's becoming easierfor him to know every hair on my
head as the hair falls offright.
But it's literally true.
The dna information which goesto create the hair, that
information came from him.
He's encoded that informationin human beings and in animals
(17:19):
and in plants and so on right.
And his knit us in our mother'swomb that they think of a DNA
and a double helix.
And he says when he knit us inour mother's womb, there is some
symbology here between reallyhow a DNA double helix looks
like versus a knitting processto knit that together.
(17:40):
So it's really remarkable whenyou start looking at it and say
at first I wonder how I missedit the first time around.
So I do think it takes.
Perhaps the Holy Spirit,opening our hearts up to the
evidence, is there.
That's the good news.
It is asking those questionsand not settling for stock
answers, but saying there's morethan perhaps what I thought
(18:01):
about the first time around.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, absolutely.
What a great explanation,ganesh.
Thank you so much for sharingthat with us today.
And what I was writing downhere was lots of little notes,
but really there was three orfour questions that you were
asking yourself and you'reasking us to ask as well in our
exploration and understanding ofGod or this greater being.
And the first one was like whocreated the universe, who?
(18:26):
And then you asked where did wecome from?
Where was the origin of life?
And then you just, and then youalso asked how does this, how
did this come to be?
Then you go back to you knowthe who question again, and then
who is the author?
And I think all of thosequestions all point to the same
answer that there is something,no matter how we call it,
(18:49):
whether it's God, somethinglarger, greater than I.
Am it, depending on where wecome from a faith perspective,
that it is true that there issomething far greater than who
we are, and the moment that wefall into ourselves and we feel
that we are the creators, now weare take some action and help
(19:09):
in moving the process, our life,a lot forward.
But it's not us doing this work, it's something else in us that
is driving this through, and soI want to talk a little bit now
about how we've got theframework about these questions
and we think about the differenttypes of religions around the
world and really how they'vecome to be, and I would almost
(19:30):
see them as so cultural.
So more so, in the West herewe're very much from a Christian
background.
Out in the East there's're verymuch from a Christian
background.
Out in the East there'sHinduism and Buddhism and Taoism
.
What is your?
And all of them point to thisgreater being, but in a slightly
different way, and so let'stalk a little bit about your
understanding of the culturaleffect that religion has had on
(19:52):
our lives.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
It's a great question If you see, culturally,
virtually every society over thecenturies or millennia that we
have any documentation on, allhave a tendency to worship
something which begs thequestion why is that the case,
right?
So I think worship is embeddedin our hearts in some way.
(20:15):
Now we usually then define whatwe want to worship right, and
this is where the differencesstart.
But the fact is that everybodydoes worship, and if they don't
worship other things, they endup worshiping themselves, which
is probably the most dangerousof the lot.
And actually, if you look at it, that was Adam's and Eve's
original sin, right?
They wanted to eat of the treeof knowledge of good and evil,
(20:41):
so they wanted to learn.
This is a tree of knowledge,but specifically of good and
evil, so they wanted to becomethe moral decision makers of
saying what is right and what iswrong.
And that continues today.
Even now we say I thinksomething is right, hence it
must be right.
So in a sense, I am thestandard, and that's really what
(21:03):
christianity flips around andsays we are not the standards,
right, we have the free will tochoose to follow the standards
or not, but we are not thestandards right.
In fact, we've all fallen shortof the standard, and so the?
If you look at all thereligions, though, they come up
with a lot of rules to say hereare the rules to follow and here
(21:23):
are the standards.
But it does beg the questionwho came up with those standards
?
If it's simply my ancestors andother people who came up with
the standards, then why don't Ijust make up my own right?
If it's just another person whomade it up, I'll just make up
my own right.
What is different between themand me?
Right?
I think these standards have tobe absolute for society to
function.
(21:44):
So, for example, if we decidestealing is wrong, right.
And I say Alan, that's yourstandard.
My standard is not thatstealing is wrong.
In fact, let me just steal yourwallet.
So then you can't argue with me, because we've agreed that the
standards are relative.
There's no absolute standards,unless somebody steals my wallet
(22:05):
and now I say, oh, wait, aminute.
Stealing is wrong for allpeople at all times.
So we move to an absolutestandard.
So if it is an absolute standard, it begs the question where did
it come from?
An absolute standard?
So that, if it is an absolutestandard, it begs the question
where did it come from.
It's just society and culturalthat these standards are, then
okay, we can change them asculture changes, right?
Even people like richarddawkins now are starting to say
(22:28):
I like the cultural side ofchristianity.
I can see why because the beastthat they've created is now
threatening to consume them.
So now they're like thecultural standards of
christianity, but the culturalstandard of christianity comes
with the person of christ again,split the two up.
They see one without the other.
We see both.
(22:48):
But we see both becauseobviously we were blind before
as well and our eyes were openat some point to say you can't
have one without the other.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Did I answer your question?
Yeah, absolutely Love that.
I wasn't sure if you're goingto continue there.
I liked how you talked aboutthat.
It is true that standards areabsolute, and I think that's
part of the challenge that we'refacing today is that it seems
like the standards are shaped bywhat's good for me, especially
as we look at you're in the US,I'm up in Canada, but we aren't
(23:23):
quite as much into identitypolitics, although we're very
close.
Much like your challenge thatyou guys are living right now,
especially with a pendingelection here, I think it's
really a challenge for all of usto work through and understand
that we need to have standardsthat are absolute right, and
that means somebody is.
(23:45):
That means someone isn't goingto be happy about a standard.
That could be me at some time,because I didn't, I don't care
for the standard right, but ifwe need some set of guidelines
to help us, some guideposts tohelp us move our lives forward,
and so I think it's interestingthat your journey from say you
were atheist before and becauseof that, from a scientific
(24:08):
background, but when youcouldn't find, when science
couldn't provide the answers,you needed to look elsewhere,
and your book let me into heavenreally touches on this, a whole
idea, so let's talk.
And your book, let Me IntoHeaven really touches on this
whole idea.
So let's talk about your bookand how that came to be and what
your approach you're using andhow you're using your
engineering influence to reallytalk to people about
(24:29):
spirituality.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
If I created a video or wrote another book, I would
probably call it how to createyour own religion.
Right, and four questions Ithink everybody has to answer if
they're coming up with theirown religion.
Right, and we talked about theorigin, right Origin of life,
origin of the universe and so on.
But it's not the only questionto answer.
There's also what gives lifepurpose, what is morality and
(24:56):
who creates morality, which iswhat we were discussing earlier
with the absolute standards andso on.
And then there's the questionof destiny what happens after we
die.
And so I was trying tounderstand the destiny side of
things and say, as a Christian,there is a lot of data
biblically about what heaven islike.
(25:16):
Yet if you ask most Christianswhat is heaven, they cannot
think past the church serviceand say we're going to have
music.
Okay, great, I like music, butfor 10 minutes, right, not for
an hour, not for 10 hours.
And eternity of music to me isnot heaven, it's hell, it's too
much music, I want to dosomething else.
But what is something else?
(25:37):
What do we do?
Do we even have bodies inheaven?
Will they recognize alan inheaven?
Does ganesh exist in heaven?
So I was curious about that.
And so the paths to heaven fromour lives today at some point
assuming we're alive at thatpoint it goes through
tribulation, the millennium andlots of things, the end times,
(25:59):
which is referred to biblically.
And I struggled to understandwhat happened first, what
happened second, what happenedthird and so on.
And as an engineer, I want tosay I want to understand how
these things actually work,because I think there's a lot of
symbology but there's lots ofalso literalism.
When it says Jesus is comingback, it means Jesus is coming
back.
That's not a symbolic thing,that's a real thing, right?
(26:21):
So what has to happen before hecomes back?
Every time I studied this topic, I would have to start from
scratch, because I couldn'tremember what happened first and
what happens second.
So I said I'm going to actuallymake a chart of timelines and
okay, what happens in eachtimeline, and so on.
So when I finished that up, Isaid I'm sure I'm not the only
one who struggles through this.
(26:42):
So I will write a book about it.
But most books are very likereference books and for theology
students, most of us are nottheology students and don't care
to dive deep into it.
So I wanted to make it aconversation and said if
somebody is watching tribulationfrom heaven, what will it look
like to them?
And if somebody is on earthwhile tribulation is taking
(27:05):
place, they're not a Christian,they're observing tribulation
around them.
How will they interpret what ishappening?
So I wanted to have that as aconversation between these two
parties.
So I came up with three peoplewho are having these
conversations.
It was almost set up for eithercollege student or somebody who
(27:26):
just graduated.
They're together askingquestions.
I remember in college we wouldsit and discuss these things,
usually over a lot of alcohol,sadly.
But we would discuss thesequestions, deep questions of
life.
Right, because just doingthermodynamics wasn't enough and
there's more meaning to lifethan this, right?
So it's a conversation to saywhat is heaven, what is
(27:48):
tribulation going to be like,what does the rapture look like,
what does the millennium looklike, and so on.
Right?
Do we have bodies?
Do we eat food?
We all love to eat food.
Right, do we have bodies?
Do we eat food.
We all love to eat food, right.
I hope it's tasty, whateverfood we have in heaven, right?
But actually you know what isit like and trying to visualize
and picturize it, but not frommy imagination, but from
(28:11):
information we have biblically.
So Jesus talks about the feastof Abrahamraham, isaac and jacob
.
Okay, great, that means thereis a feast, that means there's
food, right, because otherwiseit's not a feast.
It talks about abraham, isaacand jacob.
So in some way the originallibrary, abraham, isaac and
jacob exist.
(28:32):
The bodies may be different,because we have a different kind
of body which doesn't perish,the imperishable body, but they
are recognizable as Abraham,isaac and Jacob, which means
Alan and Ganesh will berecognizable in heaven as well.
Hopefully the body doesn't acheas much because it's an
(28:54):
imperishable body, but as peoplewe exist.
The essence of who we are passesthrough.
So it's not as though earth isone life, heaven is another life
.
It's just a continuum.
I think that's the eternal hope, right, that it doesn't matter
what ups and downs we go through.
We'll all go through it, but weexist for eternity.
(29:15):
We never die.
So that's something I wanted tobring out We'll all go through
it, but we exist for eternity.
We never die.
So that's something I wanted tobring out.
But I wanted to bring it outconversationally and as you or I
would observe it, not as somedeep theological subject.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I like that you're using the idea of a conversation
, because it does bring draw usinto the book more.
It gives us an opportunity tofit into one of those roles, or
maybe just being the observer ofthat conversation.
But and I like that you'retalking about things like
tribulation, because I it.
I think for a long time Istruggled with understanding
(29:49):
what tribulation actually meantand how it was impacting my life
.
And once you start to graspthat these small decisions that
we make today may not show animpact, but at some point they
do, whether that's positive ornot, it does show up in our
lives.
And so how we really base ourchallenges the challenges are
(30:11):
there, I think, for us to growand shape ourselves and really
understand more deeply what itis that we're truly made of and
that we can become better menand when I?
What I was really intriguedabout with your story is that as
you transition from when youstarted in university and then
doing your work, and then reallyand in your professional life,
(30:33):
and then really moving to afaith, having a strong faith now
associated with it, it musthave had some, there must have
been some struggles for yourselfand for some of your
relationships, and that.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhat that was like, because I
think all of us have this fearabout if I, if I believe
something or if I change toomuch, then I'm going to lose
(30:54):
something, and sometimes we'reafraid of losing that, but it
could be much better on theother side.
So let's talk a little bitabout that journey.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
So I'll start with Luke 9, 23,.
Right, jesus says if you wantto be my follower, deny yourself
, carry a cross daily and thenfollow me.
And it led me to thisunderstanding that the purpose
and the calling is not mine,it's not what is my purpose that
(31:21):
I can then ask god to bless,right, but what is his purpose
that I can now play my part in.
And it totally flippedeverything that life meant at
that point.
Right, if I truly do it on thatbasis, right, then it totally
changes everything because it'snot no longer my purpose.
(31:43):
But that's exactly what he'ssaying.
He said deny yourself, sayingit's not my purpose, carry your
cross daily.
Lacrosse is something he'sgiving me, right, his purpose.
And he's not saying it's a bedof roses.
The very fact that it's a crossmeans it's hard.
It's going to be trials andtribulations.
(32:03):
That's the promise he makes.
He doesn't promise, sadly.
He doesn't promise money andwealth and health.
He promises trials andtribulations.
That's right, and but we'recalled to embrace that.
Embrace it.
Maybe that's where we findourselves is in those trials and
tribulations.
Now, we as men are likeadventures, we like conquering
(32:25):
things, we like accomplishingthings and so on.
Right, and that's the cross.
He's given us that cross and hepromises persecution.
And he's saying don't run awayfrom the persecution, embr,
embrace it.
And the things we complain aboutas persecution are so trivial,
right?
What are we complaining about?
(32:45):
Somebody may make fun of me.
Right, I struggled with thatmyself.
That's why I wrote my bookunder another name.
Right under another name.
Right, if I come out and sayI'm a Christian, what impact
does it have with my from, whereI came from, most of who are
Hindus or atheists, and whatimpact does it have on my career
(33:08):
, for example?
Right, this is what peopleworry about.
I worried about it.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
And then it was about a year or so after the book was
out.
I'm thinking to myself here.
We are called to go preach thegospel to the whole world and we
are trying our best to hide ourfaces.
So in a sense, I had to comeout of the closet and I realized
there was nobody else in thecloset.
Everybody else had come out.
The only ones in the closet areChristians hiding because
(33:39):
they're worried that somebodymay not like who we are and we
may get persecuted.
But what if we think ofourselves as being chosen for
this battle?
We're called for this battle,we are chosen for this battle.
It is going to havepersecutions.
That's actually exciting.
For this battle, it is going tohave persecutions.
(34:02):
That's actually exciting, right?
What is the worst thing theycan do to me?
Right, today's world, we thinkof jobs, income loss, etc.
Right, the early Christians,the Christians right after the
apostles, the church fathers, aswe call them, they had the
saying saying you can kill me,but you can't hurt me.
(34:22):
So I think it's how we look atit, how we embrace that, how we
follow.
We use our free will to say doI submit it to God's purpose and
am I willing to go down thatpath and it's a process I think
the Holy Spirit prepares us forit changes our heart.
We don't have to jump from oneend to the other and in one shot
, but we grow in that and everystep we take enables us to take
(34:44):
one more step Today.
So I thought of it as anadventure For most people, an
adventure most men, especiallytoday.
An adventure is playingpickleball on Mondays and
Wednesdays, but this is a muchbigger adventure, adventure of
life.
I think, if you look at it thatway, it puts things in a
different perspective.
But more than that, I thinkthat's what we're called to do.
(35:05):
We're called to stand up, we'recalled to have this fight.
We're not called to sit andwatch, whether it's in the US or
Canada or anywhere else.
Just, things change in wayswhich we know are not godly.
In fact, you can see thissatanic fingerprints behind a
lot of things.
Right?
What do we do except complainand come up with conspiracy
(35:27):
theories?
Right?
I think we all understand forthings, and so that's how people
stand for it, what they shoulddo.
I think the Holy Spirit leadseach person in their own
adventure and in their ownjourney, as far as that goes, in
the hero's journey there.
Right, everybody doesn't havethe same one, but I think
there's certainly a call forthat purpose.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Yeah, I completely agree and we talk a lot about
all my work here at the Awakenedman is really on helping men
find and reclaim what theirlife's mission and purpose is,
and I like how you framed it asthat it's not about my purpose,
but what am I being called to do?
And it's really about thatdeeper understanding and, yes,
and those of us that deeperunderstanding and yes, as though
(36:11):
, and those of us that that areconsider ourselves to be
Christians, we know what thework is.
That we need to do is and thatis to stand up and, as you say,
to come out of the closet and tostand up for what we believe in
and the more that we do that.
I think we help like theoriginal Christians after they
said, like the founding fathers,and you think about how they
(36:32):
were persecuted in in the bigcoliseum and that's what really
changed Rome was seeingChristians.
As you said, you may be able tokill me, I you can't take away
my faith, right, and what Ibelieve.
And so when people wouldrecognize that I think there's a
story of a lion not justrefusing to do to harm this
(36:58):
individual who was praying andsitting there, and I think, when
you read stories like that,whether you believe it to be a,
to be literal, or it's anallegory, however you want to
interpret it, it still has thesame meaning to me is that
somebody resolute in who theyare and what they believe, and I
(37:18):
think that's what we're lackingso much today, as men
especially, is that we're seento be lost about understanding
about who we are and what we aremeant to be on this world to do
or in this world to do.
And you've already mentioned alittle bit about a bit of
prophecy there and how in yourexploration of christianity, how
that has really influenced yourbeliefs and how we need to
(37:39):
maybe pay more attention to thatexactly and so I think you
talked about life would bebetter if we took up these
challenges.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Absolutely, I think we lack.
If we don't, then we tend tolack meaning in our lives.
We don't know what to do withourselves.
Our wives hope we will stand upand become men.
Our families hope that we'llstand up and become men.
All of society is looking forus to stand up, but we don't
always know how.
And?
But I think it starts withknowing God's word First of all.
(38:13):
It's not what I feel and here'swhat I should go do.
It may be, but I think itstarts with knowing God's word
first of all.
It's not what I feel and here'swhat I should go do.
It may be, but I think itstarts with if it's his purpose,
it's growing in his word.
Right To me, that started offwith saying I'm going to spend
15 minutes a day in his word.
At one point I said I'm goingto spend two hours a day in his
word, and then I found out Ididn't have two hours.
After the third day I stoppedspending time in his word.
(38:36):
So it's better to do 15 minutesa day and be consistent with it
than two hours a day and thenquitting after two days.
It's like going to the gym andI say I'm going to go to the gym
and work out two hours and soarafter two days and so that's
the end of that adventure.
But I think it's getting intohis word on a daily basis
because it's a remarkable word,even though the last book, the
book of Revelation, was writtensomewhere in 1980.
Right so, almost 2000 years ago.
(38:58):
It's a word relevant to today,for you and me, in our daily
lives.
Right so it is.
It is going in there with somequestions saying God, what is
the purpose?
Do you want me to go in thisdirection?
Do you want me to go in thisdirection?
Do you want me to wait till Ihear more from you?
He leads us through his wordbecause that word is relevant
(39:21):
today and multiple times I'vehad okay, should I go, start up
this business?
I have an opportunity here.
Should I do this, should I dothat?
So, with the real questions oflife where I've gone in and said
I want to hear from you, lord,I don't want to make a decision
and ask you to bless it.
I want to hear yours.
What direction are you takingme?
And it's not that I just wentto my favorite verse, jeremiah
(39:45):
29, 11,.
I have plans to prosper you.
That might have been true forJeremiah at that point in time.
Whether it's true for me todayis a different question.
He may not want me to go down acertain path right.
And what I found is, as Ilooked for that in his word, the
Holy Spirit illuminated versesfor me which I don't even
(40:09):
remember having read before, butilluminated this like putting a
flashlight onto words, becausethat's the job of the Holy
Spirit.
Jesus said I'll send the HolySpirit and he'll remind you of
the things that I taught you.
And the Holy Spirit was leadingme into saying here's how to
look at things and here's how todo certain things.
(40:30):
Was it in every bit of detail,to the nth degree?
No, but it gave me thedirection to go in right, and as
I grew in that, I became betterat making decisions based on
that, as now a pillar in my life.
And so I think god leads us on adaily basis.
He's a personal god.
He's not just an impersonal godwho created a bunch of stuff
(40:50):
and that's the end of it, buthe's a a personal God.
So I think we hear from himdaily.
We are called to carry ourcross.
We should know what that crossis, but God will lead us through
that process.
It is important just that webegin that journey and follow
his guidance.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Oh, I love that.
I really appreciate thatframework that you put forward,
ganesh, because I think thatsometimes we think and this is
what I have to always remindmyself of is I don't need to
know the entire plan, I don'tneed to know every step of the
process, I just need to knowenough to take that first step
and then something will comeforward after that and then to
(41:28):
trust and be guided.
But it's that battle between II use the word battle again
speaking for myself it's thatbattle between ego, mind and
allowing the holy spirit toguide and direct me into doing
things.
And I think, when we're in themessy part of our lives, if we
can just calm down a minute andI like how I talked about, yes,
(41:48):
five, ten, fifteen minutes a dayin reading the word and getting
closer to to it, you might notunderstand anything like.
I was raised Catholic and, truthbe told, I didn't truly open a
bible and read it until I waswell into my 30s, because that's
just not the way in myexperience with it is.
That's what father, the frontof the, at the pulpit, would
(42:12):
tell us everything, and so itwasn't something that was around
, taught in our, in our home, inour home.
But I find now that I havegreat comfort when I get an
opportunity to open the book andto and just open it to wherever
it lands and just to startreading, to gain some extra
knowledge, some comfort in thatthings will be okay and it does
(42:35):
seem to have just the rightpassage seems to show up, and so
I think that's great advice forall of us.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
And if someone's not used to reading or wants to know
where should I start becauseI've never read it, I would say
don't start with Revelation,right, Because it is a complex
and you need a lot of contextbefore you can start following
it.
But a great, depending on whatyou're looking for.
I found Proverbs to be verygood at just providing wisdom,
(43:02):
right, it's like getting an MBAand not having to pay $100,000
to get it right, and so it's.
And the good thing aboutproverbs is it's got 31 chapters
.
Today is the 16th and go readproverbs 16 and that way it's
easy to know where one is rightnow in terms of knowing the
person of god.
(43:23):
Because I there was a time whereI didn't want to know just
words of wisdom.
I wanted to know who is god andI wanted to know him as a
person.
I didn't even.
It was a major step for me torealize God as a person, and
actually he's three persons,right, but at least he's one
person right.
So knowing that person, John,is a great starting point, and
(43:44):
because he starts to reveal thatwhat is the person of Jesus,
and so you know the Gospels, thefour Gospels are a great place
to know Jesus, know about Jesusand also know Jesus.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
Completely agree.
Completely agree with that.
You know, Ganesh, of everythingthat we spoke about today,
maybe there was something wedidn't get a chance to touch on.
What would be the one takeawayyou'd want our listeners to have
?
Speaker 3 (44:10):
I think it's important.
My background now is in sales,so there's always a call to
action right, you heard all youheard.
Right, you have an audiencewho's heard you frequently.
Right, it's an audience who'shopefully heard this discussion,
this talk we've had.
What do you do with it?
At some point it's a call toaction to do something, and the
(44:34):
good thing about we as men is wewant to do something.
Right, we may not know what todo, but we always want to do
something.
I would say the first thing todo is to get into God's word.
Okay, if you can do it with agroup of men, I put together a
group of men that I meet with ona weekly basis At least five
men.
We go between three to six men,but none of whom is impressed
(44:57):
by me.
If I'm off on the wrong path,they're so unimpressed that
they're ready to challenge me.
But that's what I need.
I don't need people who say I'mawesome.
I need people to say what areyou thinking?
This is not how somebody whofollows Christ behaves.
That's the guy I want in mylife.
But it's not just a group ofmen.
It's a group of men who arealso walking with Christ, and so
(45:20):
I think it's getting into thatword and getting with a
community of men who will havethose hard talks if needed.
It's not always going to behard talks.
There may be from time to time,but a lot of times it's us
pushing each other sadly as men,sharpening each other as I and
sharpens iron right.
I think that's critical tocontinue to grow in christ love
(45:41):
that.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
What a great way to put us to wrap up our
conversation today and bring usto a close.
I just want to say, ganes,thank you so much for spending
time with us today and no matterwhere or how we perceive this
disconnection that we think wehave with God, that we're always
connected to him if we're justwilling to look, to listen and
to feel his presence.
And so if men are interested ingetting a hold of you,
(46:04):
participating in your work andgetting your book, what's the
best way for them to do that?
Speaker 3 (46:08):
So my website is called letmeintoheavencom and
the book's available on Amazon.
But they can come to thewebsite and there's all the
social media handles and so on.
I'm on YouTube with my pen name, which is GVS, g-e-e-v-e-s.
Gvs Official is the name of it.
Same on Instagram, so peopleare welcome to do that.
(46:30):
But if they can't remember allthat, just go to the website
letmeintoheavencom and you'llsee all the social media handles
over there.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Excellent.
I'll make sure all of thatinformation is in today's show
notes so they have opportunityas well as a link to your book
and they can get a chance topick it up.
I want to say once again,ganesh, thank you so much,
really enjoyed our conversationtoday.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
Yeah, thank you, alan .
I appreciate the opportunity tospeak with you as well as your
audience, and again, I'm here asa resource really for anyone.
To me it's not about the book,it's about if I can.
We can both help someone growand I can grow and they'll grow.
Then I see that as the purposeGod has for me.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
You betcha Amen brother.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Thank you for listening to the Revolutionary
man podcast.
Are you ready to own yourdestiny, to become more the man
(47:34):
you are destined to be?
Join the brotherhood that isthe awakened man at
theawakendmannet and startforging a new destiny today.
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