It has been the fashion to teach children, that, peace and happiness that we seek can come only by acquiring increasing wealth or power. In due course of time we discover that this advice is useless.
We mistake happiness with temporary excitement from our possessions and our escape to various indulgences be it intoxicants, politics, violence, gambling etc.
Most people claim they want to meet and be with God. What the vast majority really want is to be at peace and happy. For them God could possibly be just the best way to achieve that. Therefore believer, agnostic or atheist everyone is curious about God.
Who then or what is God?
This is a good question, but what is the answer?
Like most people I talked and listened about God for most of my life. Talk unfortunately is rather cheap, so we indulge in lots of it. The more we talk the more confused we get. Parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, teachers,priests, media and God-men, all just talk and talk of God. Yak, yak, yak, is all we get and more confusion.
It is extremely rare for anyone to be satisfied with the answers that we are doled out. Most people merely accept the situation not daring to believe that the majority could be wrong, so they accept what is told and move on. It seems that the effort required for comprehending God is so significant that the vast majority simply give up.
Many sincerely hope to find the God, but that will have to wait for another time as most of them have more pressing matters to attend to.
The challenge is even greater when God is sought to be explained within the boundaries of a religion. All organized religions great and small have been converted into nothing more than social institutions and serve no purpose other than to increase their power and reach.
Our entire society and world is driven by these religious zealots who have enormous political, economical, legal and self authorized moral clout. They tell us that we can do business with God. So being the self centered fools that many of us are we try to bribe Him or His agents in the hope that our dreams and desires will be fulfilled. The more we go down this route the more cheated we feel.
No wonder it is rare for us to speak with so called religious leaders, because they often do not inspire us much about God. In fact they have ambitious targets and incentives to increase their headcount. They are like farmers, but who harvest souls and bodies.
The self appointed agents of God serve only themselves, but we happily oblige them. What is the harm in offering a bribe if He grants me a favour for a minuscule fraction of my wealth?.
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Does this mean we should give upon God.
On the contrary we must embrace Him, but how?
Our curiosity often turns to confusion, not because the search for God is wrong but the way we seek to find the answer.
Mere utterances by us or outsourced to priests, rituals, pilgrimages etc. is not of much use except for fooling ourselves.
Knowing that we do not know is the first step in fulfilling our thirst to find God. This search is an individual journey and I share mine with you.
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The first thing about God is that He can never be understood only experienced.
God can be experienced both from within and outside of our beings.
God can be experienced by us all the time but we do not realize it because we have lost touch with ourselves.
Experiencing God from the outside.
Just look around us and see the wonder of His creation. We struggle to build minuscule things and manage a few relationships. Just admire the magnificence of creation and life. Only when in awe can we begin to search for the Creator.
The more we connect with nature the closer we will feel ourselves near to God. Unfortunately we live in synthetic worlds and increasingly toxic environment.
Rarer it is becoming for us to experience the clean air and water, the birds and the creatures that share our world. If we want to experience God on the outside we MUST start with respecting creation and live in harmony with our environment.
Comforts are required and we should attempt to be comfortable, healthy and safe, but must it be at the cost to the emotional and physical well being of ourselves and with whom we share this world?
Experiencing God from within our beings.
The greatest confusion is caused by the mind because we try to logically understand God. God can never be analyzed but He can only be experienced. In addition to Gurus, messiahs, prophets a number of people have experienced God. Their experiences is sometimes outlined in stories, prayers, hymns and their works.
However everyone's experience is different. So great is God and so diverse is his many forms and manifestations that each person who experiences Him has a different perspective. When we talk to, or read about or hear about those that have experienced Him we are enthralled and blindly try to copy them.
It is useless, because copying is like trying to merely fill a vessel. There is no awakening nor is their any enlightenment.
No wonder the atheist and the agnostic ridicule the believer and unfortunately their numbers grow especially among the young.
Those that seek Him must do so not with their eyes, ears or tongues but with their hearts. Find a master who will open your own heart to Him and you will discover and meet God.
From my experience I can share with you the following;
- Respect and connect with nature and our surroundings.
- Seek harmony with nature, our fellow beings and ourselves.
- Pause and still the mind by meditating.
- Only the stillness we can discover ourselves and connect to the cosmos and God.
- Only the one who meditates can reach beyond themselves and seek God. It is said; "When we pray we talk to God, but when we meditate God converses with us."When the person is dominated by greed, anger, lust, ego and attachments to worldly things we distance ourselves from God. All these things are transient and only God is permanent.
- When we free ourselves of attachments our being is free to search for God.
- Be sure we will experience Him.
I should know for I have experienced Him at the height of my joy and in the depths of despair.
As Dada JP Vaswani the great spiritual soul said "Religion lets talk about it less and practice it more."
Clinging to our puny egos and our material wealth we fail to realise that God is waiting for us to open the door of our beings to let Him in. It is useful to keep in mind that unlike us humans He is not swayed by mere talk.
Wish you all a happy Diwali and a spiritual new year.
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