Part XXI — Professor K. Priscilla Pedersen

PCG 23. Chair, Department of Religious Studies, St. Francis College, Brooklyn, NY

Professor Kusumita Priscilla Pedersen: What is the best way to see God in all beings?

Sri Chinmoy: My dear Professor, in order to see God in all beings, we must first learn to see God the Creator and God the creation as one. We must consciously convince ourselves that God is not only inside a living being, but that that living being is God Himself. We must love God the immanent and God the manifest as one.

The best way to see God in all human beings is to love God devotedly, faithfully, self-givingly, consciously, spontaneously, sleeplessly and breathlessly in all of His creation. We do not have to enter into a temple and stand in front of the shrine to feel the Presence of God. If we can feel that the temple itself is also God, and that the temple and the shrine are inseparable, then the moment we approach the temple we are bound to feel the Presence of God. Long before we enter into the temple and stand in front of the shrine, we will feel the Presence of God.

On another level, if by virtue of one's spiritual practices one can become a sincerity-heart and a humility-life, singing the song of self-giving without any expectation of return, either from mankind or from God Himself, that is absolutely the best way to see God in all beings. The heart is like our Indian lotus. When you can consciously open the heart-lotus petal by petal and invoke God's constant Presence and constant Guidance, then you will without fail see God in all beings. A fully-blossomed lotus-heart is the esoteric significance of your spiritual name, Kusumita.