Chapter 14: God and the universe

Question: You have written an aphorism which says: "God is at once finite and infinite. He is space. He is beyond space. He is measured. He can be measured. He must needs be measured. He is measureless. He is boundless. He is infinite." Could you please explain this, particularly how God can be called finite?²⁴⁸

Sri Chinmoy: God is finite and God is infinite. You have stressed the word ‘finite’. It means that you find it difficult to see how God can be finite. We normally feel that God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. Let us take this divine quality that we call omnipotence. If God can be as vast as the universe but not as tiny as the tiniest atom, then where is His Omnipotence? When we think of omnipotence, our human mind has the idea of vast and measureless power. But real omnipotence means that the Supreme has the power to be immeasurably vast or inconceivably small, according to His sweet Will. It means the power to be finite or infinite, limited or unlimited.

God is infinite, but He has entered into this finite body of ours which lasts for fifty, sixty or seventy years. God is infinite, but He houses Himself in each tiny child. Here in the finite, He wants to enjoy Himself and play the tune of the Infinite; it gives Him the greatest joy. It is in the finite that the Supreme in us is aspiring towards the Infinite. Finite and infinite: to our outer eyes they seem to be opposites, but in God’s Eyes they are one. The finite and the Infinite always want to go together; the one complements the other. The finite wants to reach the absolute Highest, which is the Infinite. The Infinite wants to manifest itself in and through the finite. Then only is the divine Game complete. Otherwise, it will be only a one-sided game. There will be no joy, no achievement, no fulfilment. In and through the Infinite, the finite is singing its song of realisation. In and through the finite, the Infinite is singing its song of manifestation.