I D Soni
In the tradition of Sanatana Dharma, God is often referred to as antaryami – the omniscient one who knows our innermost thoughts and feelings. Age after, in every tradition that gives God a name, he has made a promise for those who love Him. When they call upon Him, He will always be there. It is a live experience of countless seekers that for them, the divine power manifested itself in much subtler ways – in hearing the unspoken call of a longing heart, in silent acts of healing the body and the mind, in providing simple solutions to bewildering dilemmas. Many devotees have shared their experiences of encountering the nature of God, the hand of God, the inexplicable peace of God.
God is ocean of life or spirit from which all living things derive their being. God is life. God is the creative vitality of the world: in St Thomas’s phrase he is Actus Purus – pure activity. Every profound mind has sensed an inward life even in the stillest of inert things. God is that process of development whereby each phase bursts into an internal contradiction – a mitotic division – that makes for further growth.
Personality is separateness, a special form of will and character. God could not be such a separate and partial self; He is the sum and source of this universal vitality or spirit of which our little egos and personalities are abstracted, fragments and experimental proliferations. Those who fear God find God satisfying, and they are contented. They spend the night content, meaning that God is like a haven for the storm tossed. How is it possible to live life untouched by trouble? Trouble can take anything away from us except God. Therefore, if God to us is a greater safety, a deeper security, and a more powerful hope than anything else in the world, we fear no trouble. Depending on God in trouble is a spiritual skill that can be learned only in trouble. Difficulties take away earthly comforts and then, through prayer and reflection on the Word, we are driven closer to God to get His unique consolations. The process is long and in many parts painful, but the fruit is spiritual poise that no trouble can dislodge.
GOD ON EARTH
There are many, today, who do not believe in God, but they believe in karma. Whatsoever a man soweth, they say, that shall he also reap. And what he is reaping today is the product of what he has sown in earlier existence. And the process goes on: it can have no ending. If this were so, man would be mercilessly bound to an inexorable wheel of birth and death, out of which there would be no escape.
Significant are the words of the Sukhmani – Sagala Srirhta ka raja dukhia: “The king of all the worlds is unhappy!” Karma keeps a man bound and reduces him to the status of a permanent prisoner. As an ancient book says: “What is lotted cannot be blotted. The wise ones have followed it and broken the bonds of karma and entered into the life of fulfilment and freedom. The way is open to everyone of us. It is the way not of sowing the new karma, howsoever good, pure and noble it be – for every action binds us to its “fruit” – but of giving up the thought that we are doing karma. What binds us is not our karma, but the thought that we are doing karma. So long as we continue to think that we are doers, we must reap the “fruit” – good or bad – of our karma, is nothing but false sense of ego which makes us think that we are doing karma. The way out is to renounce the sense of doership. Let us say to ourselves – “we are not doing anything : Things are being done through us. We are but an instrument of the will Divine.”
When man becomes a willing instrument in the Hands of the Supreme will that governs the life of planets and stars and of every individual then, indeed, he is liberated from bondage to karma. And this is possible through self-surrender. When we surrender ourselves to God – or the Supreme will – our false ego vanishes as a mist before the rising sun. Then we know that we are not doing – we cannot do – of our own. The supreme will is working in and through us. Then, what then? Blessed we become who surrender ourselves to God. God looks at us through His eyes : God speaks to us through His lips : God blesses us through His holy hands. Then we become a God on earth.
LET US SEEK GOD IN OUR HEART:-
Our heart should be inspired with Love of God. The yearning of God, which slumbers within our heart should awake up in our heart like anything. We must have a full faith in that God is found by those to whom He reveals Himself. The true approach to God is, therefore, by the way of simplicity. We generally try to seek God without but that is within us. Let us accustom ourselves to seek God in our own heart and we will find Him. We shall feel wounded with a wound whose healing lies in the vision of the Beloved. We shall find wound which is full of delight and love – a wound so sweet that we desired that it might never heal. Lord is within our heart, and we, therefore, are required to return within, in order that we might feel His presence.
The way to God is the way of the Heart. It is the way of longing and love. It is the way of bhakti, devotion, meditation and self surrender. It is the way of shedding tears born of the deep anguish of separation from the Beloved. If we love someone, how intensely do we not long that the dear one may be near us – so near that not a hair’s breath may separate us from each other. How much more intensely should not the heart long for Him who is one and only Beloved! Let us, therefore, meditate and it will ignite within our heart a spark of holy love. The spark grows into a conflagration, consuming everything beside God.
WITH GOD, WE CAN:-
Prepare our mind and heart for this meditation by becoming quiet, relaxing our body, and stilling our thoughts. Try to feel the presence of God right where we are. God is, and His spirit is working in and through us now. Say quietly to ourselves : We have within us all that we need to meet the demands of this day and everyday successfully. For God has placed His own spirit within us. If we are tempted to run away from the demands that are made upon us, we stop now and quietly call upon God’s presence and power within us. He is where we are and He is instantly responsive when we call upon Him.
We have within us all that we need to meet the demands of life successfully. Knowing this, we cease to feel frustrated or bound by circumstances, however hopeless they may appear. There are no circumstances beyond God’s control. God is incharge of all things and He is all-powerful.
We come to know that God’s Unlimited resources are freely offered and we have access to all that we are able to use. Therefore, we should refuse to entertain any thought of limitation : we should refuse to accept any substitute for the good we desire.
When appearance says, “It cannot be done”, we say, “with God’s help it can”. When appearance says, “This disease is incurable”, we reply, “The spirit of God in all men is capable of healing every disease”. When appearance tries to make us believe that we lack the physical substance we need, we declare, “God is our self-sufficiency in all things”. When conditions seem to indicate that there is no solution to the problems at hand, we say to ourselves, “In God there is an answer to everything”.
As we become more conscious of the life of God-mighty within us, as we become aware of the love of God like a mantle about us, as we think, about the light of God shining in and through us, we are filled with assurance and faith. We are showered with those blessings which enable us to live a happy and productive life. We can only warn those who fear their Lord in the unseen, and pray regularly. Anyone who purifies himself will benefit greatly from doing so. To God all of us shall return.
(The author is President Home for the Aged & Infirm, Ambphalla, Jammu).
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