My 5 year-old grandson once asked me, “Thatha, do you believe in God?” I said, “Yes, I do. Why are you asking me this question?” Sporting an innocent face, he responded, “I asked because my friend Nathan said he does not believe in God. Thatha, is there really a God? Is it possible to see him?” As with most children, it was a frank question deserving an equally frank answer. I told him, “There are many things we believe in but cannot see. For example, you see the table there. Do we know who made it? No, but we believe that somebody must have made it. Likewise, we believe some super power must have created the world with all living and non-living beings but we cannot see him. Can we call that super power as God? Every creation is God’s creation and He is in all of us” He seemed to agree.

Relevant to this topic and confirming the basic concept of Hinduism is a very nice article written by my good friend Gurvinder Singh in his blog ‘Guru Wonders.” Following are excerpts from his brilliant article:

We spend our whole lives, desperately seeking God. In our quest the first great blunder we make is, we ask, ‘Who is God?’. This question conjures up an image of God which is very human like, powerful individual being. So powerful and very distant that He is reachable only after traversing a very difficult and complicated path. This makes it impossible to reach this God.

The answer to the question, ‘Who is God’ tends to be misleading and even toxic at times. It can only be conveyed only by ‘Religious education’ which is mostly indoctrination. It cannot awaken the being, all it can do is create stubborn, arrogant people called ‘followers’, who claim exclusive ownership of their God and thus devolution of power to themselves.

Followers tend to crowd, and crowds are more readily convinced than individuals to turn man against man, and man against nature. The followers of this type of God tend to be intolerant, who viciously attack, oppress and destroy anyone who dares to be different. This quest for domination of all else on the basis of religion is the root cause of all human misery.

Its better we ask, ‘What is God?’ Each one of us has a unique perspective of life, creation and even death. This is based on what we sense and experience and how the manifestations of the energy of creation impacts each one of us.

Each individual has his or her own description of this awesome energy. The confusion begins because each one of us experiences something different, from others and at great variance with what we have been taught by priests. The priests justify their position by quoting ‘holy books’. We have to remember that, most holy books are written by a group of men seeking to capture the message of great masters as they liked, long after the Masters have departed from this world. They are now interpreted by another set of men and and imposed on us by yet another set of mortal men and very often the State.

What then is, God?

God is not a superhuman individual as the priests and preachers tell us. God is not to be found in books, idols, symbols, shrines etc. God is the experience and realisation of being one with the universe and creation. God is this powerful, omnipresent energy that envelops and permeates creation, and flows through everything and every creature unifying all of us as ‘One’.

Creation is one but God is different for each one of us, based upon our experiences. Imagine its a moonlit night, with the beauty of the moon reflected in various water bodies. Its reflection can be observed in the ocean, river, well, lake, pond, bucket and even a puddle.

The moon’s beauty will be observed and experienced differently by each individual being. The only commonality is that there is a moon and there is moonlight. This is how we experience God but differently.

Unlike the preachings which belong to others and given to or thrust upon us, our experiences and realisation emerge from within us, and are ours.

Creation is infinitely vast and so magnificent that man’s mind cannot comprehend more than a very, very tiny fragment of it. This truth which we call as ‘God’ cannot be seen, heard, nor learnt. This truth cannot be obtained by purchase nor theft, it can only be discovered, experienced and imbibed.

We are this God in every being and every one of us. It can only be discovered when we meditate to break down the barrier between the ‘I’ and our universe of which each one of us is an integral part.

God is one and all pervasive across the universe. God is manifested in all things and all beings and in each one of us. We can only be one, and in harmony with God, which is but Creation. All true spiritual effort is directed to find and embrace God, that is within us. This is what it means when we say, ‘The light merges with the light’ or ‘the drop returns to the ocean’, indicating ‘I am God and God is within me’.

How will we know when we have discovered ‘God’? God is nothing more than the individual’s realisation of the truth.
When we have no enemies, just friends and when we are open and giving not demanding. When we become egoless, loving, respectful, friendly, contented, compassionate, and so fearless that even death does not frighten us. When we are all these and much more not because we wish to project ourselves in that way. Its because this is naturally who and what we really are, then we will know we have found ‘God’.

Any time is a good time to start on this journey of ‘The discovery of God’.