Professor-Children: God's Reality-Fruits

Dedication

prayerfully and affectionately

bows to the University

Illumination-Suns and Compassion-Moons.

Part I — Professor Charles Johnson

Professor Charles Johnson: Why did God create the different races?

There are a few distinct races, as we all know. To serve our purpose, let us take only black and white. God the Creator is also God the Supreme Artist. An artist, when he paints a picture, can easily use black and white side by side. The two colours are interdependent, adding visible beauty, contrast and harmony to each other to complete the painting to perfect perfection. In exactly the same way, God the Supreme Artist, God the Dispenser of human destiny, wants each individual and each race to grow and glow together, each playing perfectly its individual role for the betterment and enlightenment of humanity. If the races can be inseparable and interdependent, the division-enjoyment in our human nature can be illumined and divinely and supremely transformed into oneness-fulfilment.

Part II — Rev. Dr. David B. Burrell, C.S.C.

Rev. Dr. David B. Burrell: How is it that in prayer people discover that they literally have no distance to traverse between themselves and God?

When we soulfully cry or soulfully smile, inside our cry and smile we discover the very Presence of God. We do not have to travel the length and breadth of the world to discover God's Existence. We can discover God's Existence here and now inside our own heart of love.

Part III — Professor John Berthrong

Professor John Berthrong: Does God change?

On the one hand, God is changeless and deathless. On the other hand, He is in the process of constant change, constant self-creation and self-immolation. Creation and dissolution take their turn in exactly the same way that day and night interchange.

When we ordinary human beings change something, we are not sure that the change is going to be an improvement. Change in and of itself does not necessarily mean improvement. But when God changes something, He changes Himself in and through that thing, always for progress and true satisfaction.

God is not bound by anything, either by what He creates or by what He does. We human beings must have wisdom before we try to change a thing, since human change need not necessarily be for the better. But when we try to change ourselves for the better on the strength of our inner wisdom-light, we succeed.

Part IV — Professor K.R. Sundararajan

Professor KR Sundararajan: The notion of the goodness of God, which all theistic forms of Hinduism affirm, runs contrary to the human experience of evil and of the unmerited suffering that one experiences in life. It may be that the Hindu doctrine of karma enables one to explain them. Even so, how can we explain these experiences, especially when we try to emphasise the Love and forgiving Grace of God?

Hindu philosophy believes in reincarnation. Because of our ignorance and limitation, we do not know what we did in our previous incarnations. It may happen that we are very good, kind and virtuous in this lifetime, but during a previous incarnation we did something very bad, and for that we are paying the penalty now in the form of suffering which appears to be unmerited. If we dive deep into the Hindu philosophy-ocean and go beyond the law of karma (which we may explain on a very mundane level with the phrase "As you sow, so you reap," either today, or in the near or distant future,) we come to realise that it is God who is having all the experiences in and through us. He is at once the action and the Doer.

The human in us always wants to emphasise the idea of God's Love, God's Forgiveness and God's Grace. We want only God the Compassion-Height to act in our life; we do not want God the Justice Light. But if we truly love God, and if we dare to say, "Let Thy Will be done in and through us," then even the suffering that comes to us through God's Justice-Light will make us happy.

Professor K. R. Sundararajan: In terms of teaching, I have often faced problems explaining the Hindu doctrine of _maya_, especially in its understanding of life as "illusory." I have similar problems when I speak of the world as _lila_ (God's Play) and try to emphasise the "purposelessness" of God's created world as a consequence of its being God's Divine Play. How can I best teach these concepts to our students in the United States?

I wish to say that it is the height of our stupidity to say or feel that we have more wisdom or understanding than the Transcendental and Universal God. We are ready to pray to God, we are ready to devote ourselves to our idea of Him, but we are not ready to accept God's creation as something real. If we believe that we are praying to a God who is real, then how can we believe that His creation is unreal? How can we separate God's reality from God?

Maya has another meaning. It means 'fleeting, impermanent, temporary'. The things that we see or we do or we are in the physical world do not last permanently. Therefore, some people describe the physical world as unreal. But the outer reality does not require immortality. Although the highest reality is infinite, eternal and immortal, reality can also be short-lived, just as Infinity can be infinitely tiny as well as infinitely vast. Reality can be short-lived and reality can be long-term. Again, reality can be immortal. A flower that lasts only for a day is not unreal. A human being who lives for 80 years is not unreal. They are temporary; therefore, you might describe them as illusory. They are real, but limited, impermanent.

Some philosophers are of the opinion that only that which lasts forever is real. But if God's Will is to create something permanent or to create something that will last only for a short time that is His choice. Both things are still His creations. He is at once the Creator and the creation, the Player and the play, the impersonal and the personal, the invisible and the visible, the known and the unknown, the real and the unreal.

Part V — Professor Arvind Sharma

Professor Arvind Sharma: What contribution can the study of religion in colleges and universities make to the spiritual life?

What is God? God is Satisfaction in the purest sense of the term. If we do not long for God's sleepless Presence, if we do not bring God's sleepless Presence into our conscious life, then we can never have abiding satisfaction, no matter how much knowledge or how many degrees we get from schools, colleges and universities. True satisfaction will always elude us.

Part VI — Professor Sumner B. Twiss

Professor Sumner B. Twiss: Can we experience God in such a way that we can embrace as equals the authentic spirituality of all the world's religious traditions? Here I am looking for not only a viable theory but also a viable practice.

The life-tree is one, but the branches are many. If a tree has no branches, then we are not inclined to call it a tree. God is the trunk of the world-religion-tree.

The spiritual Masters of the highest order have all come to the same realisation: there is only one true religion, and that religion is love of God in God's own Way to manifest God's Light here on earth for the complete satisfaction of Divinity in humanity and humanity in Divinity.

Part VII — Professor Joan Chatfield, M.M.

Professor Joan Chatfield: God has created us all in the image and likeness of God. But why is there such a discrepancy in the way that we human beings think about ourselves? We like to think of ourselves as so much better than our fellow human beings. Why do we like to foster our blatant elitism?

Professor Joan Chatfield: At what moment does God place the soul into the body? Why does God not reveal to the parents the exact moment?

Similarly, the soul can be away from the body for as long as three days without causing the death of the body. The body can continue to function in its mechanically normal way without the soul's occupancy for short periods of time. Such incidents are very rare, but great occultists and spiritual Masters of the Himalayan heights can testify to the veracity of this fact.

The soul is neither masculine nor feminine. The soul enters into one kind of body or the other, the way one enters into a house. If a soul takes a feminine body that does not mean that the soul itself is feminine. The soul has accepted a feminine type of house. One particular soul prefers a certain type of house. Another soul may prefer a different type of house. With occult power that house can be changed. Science will not believe it.

The soul is like the person who wants to buy a house. He may give the order to the contractors to build the house in a certain way, or he can choose a house that has already been built. In either case, the buyer can decide to enter whenever he wants to, within limits. Like that, the soul is under no obligation to come at a certain time. It can come at any time during the nine months before the birth of the child. It can even come shortly after the birth if it wants to.

Part VIII — Professor Satya Pachori

Professor Satya Pachori: Why does God let virtuous people suffer from sorrow and grief?

The great sage Valmiki, who wrote the Ramayana, belonged to this group. When he was a young man his name was Ratnakar. He was a notorious robber. Destruction was his very nature. But with the grace of Sri Ramachandra he became compassion incarnate and illumination incarnate. His life embodied the transformation of human nature to its ultimate heights.

It also happens that some people, either consciously or unconsciously, take on the sufferings of their dear ones. In the case of spiritual figures of the highest Height, like the Lord Buddha, Sri Krishna, Jesus Christ and others, what kind of bad things did they do that they had to suffer so much? The answer is that they took humanity's suffering as their own, very own.

When virtuous people suffer, it may be because of something they did in their past lives, or, if their past lives were spotless, soulful, spiritual and divine, they may have consciously or unconsciously prayed to God, "O God, people around me are full of suffering. By Your infinite Grace, You have given me wisdom-light, compassion and concern. Please allow me to take their suffering as my own, very own. Let them be free."

The way a mother cries to take away the suffering of her children, some people try to remove the suffering of their dear ones. It may even come to pass that when death threatens their dear ones, they pray to death to summon them instead.

I shall give you an example from our Indian history. Babar was the first of the great Moghul Emperors of India. He had a son named Humayun, which means 'fortunate'. When Humayun was a young man, he fell seriously ill. Day by day his condition grew worse, until his death seemed imminent. Many people prayed to Allah for Humayun's recovery, but to no avail.

Then a saint came to Babar and said, "If you make a great sacrifice, if you sacrifice something most precious to you, only then will your son be cured."

The Emperor Babar asked, "What kind of thing should I sacrifice?"

The saint replied, "Give away the Kohinoor diamond. It is most precious."

But the Emperor said, "The Kohinoor is my son's possession. What kind of sacrifice would that be? I have to sacrifice something of my own. I have so much wealth and such a vast kingdom. But the most precious Kohinoor diamond is not mine. Therefore, I cannot sacrifice it. And even if I did own the Kohinoor, it would not be a real sacrifice to give it away. Even if I were to give away all my wealth and power — my entire kingdom — I do not think this is the most precious sacrifice that I could make. My life alone is most precious. I am ready to give my life."

Then he walked around his son's bed three times, offering this prayer: "Allah, my most precious possession is my own life. If You wish me to sacrifice something most precious, then take my life instead of my son's. Let me die in his place, and let him live on earth. This is my only prayer and my most willing sacrifice."

To Babar's wide surprise, after he had completed three rounds, his son stood up completely well. But immediately Babar fell ill.

Humayun wept with gratitude and love for his father. He said to Allah, "My father is going to die, but I shall eternally treasure my father's fondness for me, and my father's implicit faith in Your Compassion."

Allah listened to the father's prayer, and in three months' time Babar died. This is the kind of love that a human father can have for his son. This kind of love will gladly welcome undeserved suffering.

Part IX — Professor Shawn Wong

Professor Shawn Wong: I often tell my students that acquiring knowledge and learning are about belief. It is from belief that one's passion about one's own education springs. How can a student better understand where knowledge comes from? Is God the Source of this deeper knowledge?

Belief and knowledge are on one side. They are with the mind, in the mind and for the mind. Faith and wisdom are on the other side. They are with the heart, in the heart and are not only for the heart but also for the body, vital and mind. These four concepts are not supposed to enjoy rivalry and contradictions. They are supposed to sing the song of oneness in their ultimate reality. The outer education — belief and knowledge — feeds the mind, and vice versa. The inner education — faith and wisdom — feeds the heart, and vice versa. The outer education can be challenged, contradicted and even replaced. The inner education, which is sleepless and breathless oneness with God's Will, can never be challenged, contradicted or replaced. The outer education at times searches for God, at times does not. The inner education embodies and reveals God spontaneously, unreservedly and self-givingly.

Part X — Professor Genevieve McCoy

Professor Genevieve McCoy: How does one reach Being-in-General?

When we want to invent something, we use the power of our mind to its fullest extent. When we want to discover something, we simply dive deep within, using the power of our heart. In the heart there is no question of distance, and we realise God much sooner than otherwise.

To reach the furthest length, we have to run fast, faster, fastest. To reach the ultimate height, we have to climb up high, higher, highest. But when we want to discover God, we just dive deep within and find our supremely chosen Inner Pilot dwelling inside our hearts.

Part XI — Professor Leanna J. Standish

Professor Leanna J. Standish: Why is it that for you, apparently, the existence of God, the Absolute, the Divine, is known and experienced every day, but for me, a scientist and a physician, there is insufficient evidence to say I know, or even believe, that God exists? I am not at all certain that scientific materialism or material realism is an incorrect assessment of the nature of reality. Why are you certain and I am not?

Those who are devoted to the spirituality-God do not try to authenticate God's Existence. Their own faith in God and love of God enables them to feel God as an omnipresent Reality. They have tasted a most delicious mango, and they are still enjoying the taste of it to their full and complete satisfaction. They do not care whether the rest of the world believes in the mango or not. They are pleased and satisfied with what they have. The inner Presence of God is enough for them. They do not feel it is at all necessary for God to come and stand in front of them face to face. They feel that their inner happiness, peace and satisfaction in life are proof enough for them.

Part XII — Professor Carlo Calabrese

Professor Carlo Calabrese: For one who has not experienced God or a separate consciousness, how would you suggest a fresh approach to the possibility of experiencing God?

There are also two kinds of prayer, which we can categorise as "Give me" and "Take me". An ordinary person who uses the first kind of prayer will say to God, "My Lord, give me money-power, name and fame so that I can be inundated with happiness." A seeker who uses the first kind of prayer will say, "My Lord, give me peace, light and delight so that I can have a life of true satisfaction." A seeker who uses the second kind of prayer will say to God, "My Lord, take me. I want to be all Yours, only Yours. Mould me, shape me and use me in Your own Way."

The second type of prayer is totally different from the first. In the first, we use our desire-hunger to possess the world, or even to possess God. Alas, we are so limited that we do not understand that God cannot be possessed like a material object or even a human being. He can only be realised, revealed and manifested.

Part XIII — Professor Leonard Hudson

Professor Leonard Hudson: Is God judgemental and, if so, is God judgemental of individuals or of society?

When we judge others, we try to take an account of their good deeds and bad deeds, but when we love others, we go far beyond good deeds and bad deeds. The strength of our genuine love devours both their good deeds and their bad deeds at the same time.

The mother showers boundless affection on her child, even when the rest of the world says that he is a scoundrel of the worst dye. Her affection for her son far transcends her son's deeds. In this respect, God is like a mother.

You can also say that God is like a great grandfather. He indulgently feels that by judging someone, we in no way help the person to improve. On the contrary, his fear of us, his reaction to our judgement, only delays his Heaven-bound progress and his achievement of the supreme Reality.

Part XIV — Professor Wes Van Voorhis

Professor Wes Van Voorhis: Why does God allow bad things to happen to people?

Part XV — Professor Zell Kravinsky

Professor Zell Kravinsky: What is the fastest way to know God and feel His special Concern for us?

The way of the heart, on the other hand, is the way of love, devotion and surrender. We love God, we devote ourselves to God and we surrender our will to God's Will. The way of the heart is the way of a child who entirely depends on the mother's unconditional affection and concern.

In the spiritual life, the fastest way to make progress is the way of unconditional surrender. Unconditional surrender means to please God in His own Way. It is easy to say that we shall please God in His own Way, but it takes years of prayer and meditation. Slowly, steadily and unerringly the seeker strives to develop the capacity to surrender his will to God's Will. At every moment he has to practise in thought and deed the supreme prayer that the Saviour Christ taught humanity: "Let Thy Will be done."

Part XVI — Professor Mary Evelyn Tucker

Professor Mary Evelyn Tucker: In the light of the current environmental crisis, how would you see God in Nature?

Nature is God's revelation and manifestation. God is Nature's Source. You can say that Nature is God in His outer Form. When a crisis in the environment takes place, we may lose Nature's beauty but not Nature's divinity. Even when the ocean is polluted at various places, or when a forest is turned into a wasteland, we can never say that God has left the ocean or the forest. God will always remain inside both creation and destruction because He is beyond creation and destruction.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by atom bombs. Beauty left those two cities, but divinity remained. Now that divinity is expressing itself in the most soulful peace shrines that have been built in the ruins. The man-made power that is tempted to destroy the world will definitely be arrested by the Heart-Power of God.

Ignorant people who are destroying Nature will not remain ignorant forever. In this century, warmongers have been successful in their destruction-attempts directed towards some countries. Again, peace-lovers with their superior wisdom are not allowing the war-mongers to succeed as freely as they did in the past.

Part XVII — Professor Savyasachi Dastidar

Professor Savyasachi Dastidar: I am told that God is an all-powerful and merciful Mother. How can She allow the deliberate killing of small children by men in times of war?

Because of our own experiences with fathers and mothers in the physical world, we have formed our own concept of God the Father or God the Mother. We may see God as all Affection, all Love, all Compassion or something else. But when God plays certain other roles in His Cosmic Game, we do not understand. God is not Someone who can be understood. He can only be realised. When we establish our conscious oneness with Him, on the strength of countless years of our sleepless and breathless aspiration, we see that each action of His has a special purpose.

We may see destruction on the physical plane. But from another level of consciousness, that very experience can be seen as the transformation or illumination of certain embodied souls. The true God-lovers will always be able to justify God's Actions because of their constant love for Him. This is not a blind belief in God's Goodness. It is an inseparable oneness with God's Will. The true God-seeker and God-lover knows and feels that God the Creator and God the Destroyer are the selfsame Being.

I can build a house, and I can break it. When I build a house, people congratulate me and say that I am very great. When I break it, they say that I am foolish, arbitrary, destructive. But they do not know my reasons either for building or for breaking. Similarly, God created this body of mine. Has He no right to destroy this body, if so is His Will? If I have the right to build something, do I not also have the right to break it? Perhaps I want to break it in order to build a better house. With your eyes, you see it as an act of random destruction, but if you knew my reason, you would change your opinion. On another plane it is not destruction at all. It is only moulding and remoulding. God moulds us in one way, and then He may want to remould us in another way and give us different experiences and different opportunities.

The one who creates also has the authority to destroy. It is our stupidity to say that when God creates something He is good, and when He destroys it He is bad. We are judging the Almighty God according to our limited, very limited, human understanding. God is beyond our appreciation and deprecation. As human beings, we feel free to build and break our own property at our sweet will. When God creates something, which is His property, why do we feel that He has no right to break it?

If we build something and see that it is not to our satisfaction, then naturally we will break it and build something that is more perfect. Similarly, if God's creation is not to His Satisfaction, He also may try to do better. Why do we want to give Him only the right to build, to create?

Part XVIII — Professor Clara Castoldi

Professor Clara Castoldi: In modern physics we have found that there is a sea of energy pervading the 'empty' space of the universe which can materialise into matter. Can this be called God?

In that sense, definitely God and energy are inseparable. But if you say that God and energy are inseparable to such an extent that energy itself will be able to guide or govern the universe without the direct Will of God, then you are mistaken. Energy and God are one, true, but again, God is beyond everything that He has and that He is. Although God appears to depend on us or on laws of nature to achieve something, He can easily achieve that thing without our assistance, independently.

Part XIX — Professor Gerard Morris

Professor Gerard Morris: In the eternity of time, when God has perfected His present creation, will He start a new creation?

When we look at a flower bud, we see that it is perfect, and we are absolutely satisfied. Later we may see that the bud has opened. The fully blossomed flower has another kind of perfection. Even then the process may not be complete. We may place the flower on our shrine or use it in a particular way. This new situation gives us a unique satisfaction and enhances the flower's perfection in our eyes.

It may happen, however, that our mind will come forward and say that our satisfaction is not enough. Our mind will try to convince us that there can be a bud more perfect, a flower more beautiful, a shrine more spiritual. Then we are no longer satisfied. In our human life, perfection is nothing other than satisfaction. When we are satisfied, we say everything is perfect. When we are dissatisfied, we see imperfection everywhere.

A plant in its seed-form is perfect. When it germinates and becomes a tiny seedling, it is perfect. And when it becomes a huge, full-grown tree, it is perfect. Then it returns to its seed-form perfection once again.

Part XX — Professor Russell Bradshaw

Professor Russell Bradshaw: How can I serve God here on earth when I have to be in the mental world and get so many headaches?

When we have a problem, either we try to conquer the problem or we surrender to the problem and try to live with the problem, helplessly or proudly, consciously or unconsciously.

To a seeker, each problem is a challenge and an opportunity, provided we utilise the problem in a correct and divine way. What is the correct and divine way to tackle a problem? The correct way is to implore — as often as possible and as sincerely as possible — God's Grace to come to our rescue. We human beings want to solve each and every problem in our own way, with our own mental capacity, which is next to nothing, although we do not want to believe it. In spite of repeated failures, we feel that our capacity is stronger than the problem itself.

All the problems of the world have only one source: dissatisfaction. And dissatisfaction also has its source: imperfection. Imperfection also has its source: division. Division also has its source: ignorance. Ignorance also has its source: God in the slow process of evolution.

God the Vision wanted to play the role of God the Involution. God the Involution wants to play the role of God the Evolution. God the Evolution will eventually become God the Total Satisfaction.

A problem is our journey's start. Problems loom large during our journey. The same problems receive light in the course of our journey. But at the end of our journey's close there can be no problems. There we shall find Eternity's Smile in Infinity's Sky.

Part XXI — Professor K. Priscilla Pedersen

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

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.

Part XXII — Professor Lincoln Polissar

Professor Lincoln Polissar: The universe is so vast and complicated. Is there any imaginative way to visualise how God runs the whole thing?

Let us go one step further. Since you can believe that God has created the universe, you can easily believe that He has also created the tiny insects. Now can you believe that a tiny insect embodies and reveals God the omnipotent Power in the same way that His infinite Vastness does? If you can exercise the power of your imagination, you will see that God is not only the Infinite but also the finite. He can be both reality and unreality; He is and He is not at the same time.

Your mind will say, "If He is, how can He not be?" Your imagination also may say the same in the beginning. But you have to learn to use a different kind of imagination. You have to take imagination as a reality that can be within your grasp. Do not think of it as a bird which is flying in the sky far beyond your reach, and then disappears from your sight. Think of it as a kite which is attached to your hand by a string. You can allow the kite to fly with the wind wherever it wants to go. Again, you can bring it down into your hand at any moment. Your imagination has to be allowed to fly and, at the same time, it has to remain under your control so that you can use it whenever you wish. The string that is attached to your imagination is nothing other than your faith in God's Omnipotence. Your faith will tell you that God can be vaster than the vastest or smaller than the smallest.

Before a photographer takes a picture, he selects a particular type of lens. By using a zoom lens, he can bring objects that are far away right in front of his immediate vision. Again, by selecting another type of lens, he can push objects that are nearby to the farthest horizon. It is the same with your imagination. You can bring the Infinite nearer than the nearest using your faith-string, or you can release your imagination and see things at a great distance using the same string.

Unfortunately, when we say that God is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient, we tend to imagine God as Someone who is farther than the farthest and higher than the highest. But that is only one reality. Why can we not imagine that God is right inside us, perhaps in our heart or in our eye?

We have to come to the point where we can feel that God is not only in the infinite Vast, but also inside us, and even inside the smallest thing in His creation. This is what spiritual Masters and spiritual seekers of the highest order do: they use their vision to see the Presence of God in every aspect of God's creation. This vision, like a zoom lens, enables them to see far more things than our ordinary human sight will allow.

If you have the vision to go beyond what your eyes can see, beyond what your mind can understand, then you will see that your vision is nothing other than reality itself. And what is the connecting link between your vision and the farthest distance? It is your faith and nothing else.

Right now you are ready to believe that God is inside the Himalayas, inside the ocean, inside the planets and the stars, but you are not ready to see Him inside something minute. Again, you may be ready to see the Presence of God inside the things that are material and visible, but are you ready to see Him inside the things that are invisible? You can see and touch a flower, but its fragrance is invisible. Your eyes and your mind are telling you that the flower is beautiful. How do you describe beauty? How do you define it? Beauty as such defies description. In order to feel beauty as a reality, you have to experience it. As we can experience material objects which we can see and touch, so we can experience intangible things like beauty, purity, divinity and so forth. This we do on the strength of our oneness-imagination.

What is purity? If it is merely physical cleanliness, then it will be immediately obvious to our outer eyes. But true purity cannot be seen with the outer eyes. Purity is an inner state, in which the mind sees everything as divine. No matter how many times somebody takes a shower, I am sure that person will not see everything around him as divine! When a person is inundated with real purity, that person will see everything as Divinity — the wall, the door, the window, everything. Purity sees everything as the manifestation of Divinity.

Beauty, purity, divinity and so on all have a reality of their own. They do not have to have a physical or material form. If we can identify ourselves with them, then it is possible for us to believe that Divinity is not only omnipresent but that we are that very thing. We are Divinity Itself.

Unfortunately, the human mind only thinks that God can be this but He cannot be that. Our mind imagines Him as God the Compassionate, God the Merciful or God the Just. Our mind simply cannot imagine that God can be indifferent or even cruelty incarnate! But we have to take all aspects of God as one: He can be this, He can be that. In His absence, He is present. In His presence, He is absent. Inside the beauty of the flower, He is the fragrance. Inside the fragrance, He is the beauty of the flower. It is like looking at the obverse and the reverse of a coin simultaneously. On one side is the portrait of the king, on the other side is something else. While looking at the face of the king, you have to immediately, directly, see the other side of the coin. That is the reality — they are absolutely inseparable, the way the fragrance and the flower are inseparable.

Vastness and smallness have to be seen together. For us it is easy to believe that God embodies the Infinite, but hard to believe that God can be tinier than the tiniest. He not only embodies that tiny thing, but He is that tiniest thing. Look at our human bodies. Our chest is very big and we may be able to imagine God is dwelling there. But it is hard for us to imagine that God is inside our smallest toe. We have to come to the point where we can feel that the very toe itself is God.

Let us take the ocean as God. If you separate one drop from the ocean, can you still feel that that one drop is God? You will say that a little drop is so helpless, how can it be God? But God can play the role of helplessness inside a drop of water. With His omnipotent Power He has made Himself helpless.

The best thing is always to imagine that the God who is farther than the farthest, deeper than the deepest, higher than the highest, has the same reality as the God who is being expressed in that which is near, that which is tiny. If you can have the faith that God can be this, and He can be that, then imagination does not remain imagination any longer. Imagination becomes reality. But imagination can become reality only when we exercise our faith that God exists in all His aspects. He can be sleeping; He can be awake. He can be near; He can be far. He can be here; He can be there. Why should God be confined to just one way of being seen or believed in? If you have faith in all His aspects, then imagination becomes real, and you will no longer doubt yourself or doubt God.

We always say God is omnipotent, and we beg Him to grant us a portion of His Power so that we can fulfil our desire to be successful or do something well. But we can also pray to Him in another way. We can say, "God, since You are omnipotent, please use Your omnipotent Power to take away my greed, my desire, my ignorance." How often do human beings pray to God in that way? Most people only pray to God the Omnipotent to fulfil their desires, not to remove them. One out of a million will pray to God, "Let Thy Will be done." The rest will say, "Give me this, give me that."

There are some thieves who go to the temple and pray to God not to be caught. At the same time, the owners of houses are praying to God, "O God, if thieves break into our house, do give us the capacity to catch them." Which prayer is God going to fulfil? One party is saying, "I am doing the wrong thing, but please do not allow them to catch me." The other party is saying, "Please do not allow thieves to come into our house, or allow us to catch them if they do." God is lost in between the two! God may see that the householders need a certain experience to illumine them, so He may allow their things to be stolen. Then again, He may not. God alone knows in which way He will please human beings!

On very rare occasions there will be the kind of person who prays to God, "Let Thy Will be done. If You want a thief to come into my house, if You want him to be caught, or if You want him to go free, it is all up to You."

Once a thief came to rob an Indian spiritual Master. He found nothing inside the room except a mattress and a pillow. While the thief was going away with these things, the Master happened to come into the room. Immediately, the thief dropped the pillow and mattress and started to run away. The Master ran after him calling, "Wait, wait! Please come back and take these belongings of mine. You need them more than I do. That is why you came. During the night I have the moon and during the day I have the sun. I do not need anything else."

You may say that the spiritual Master was showing the height of stupidity, but I wish to say that on the strength of his oneness with God he saw that the thief valued those things more than he did, so he allowed the thief to keep the mattress and pillow. He said, "God's Will operated in and through the thief to steal my things. The same God is now telling me to let him get joy by keeping them. I will get inner satisfaction by offering them to him. I am not an idiot; I am only fulfilling God's own Will in this particular case."

Part XXIII — Professor Ananda W.P. Guruge

Professor Ananda W.P. Guruge: How would you explain to an agnostic why God has hitherto not revealed Itself, Herself or Himself to humanity as a whole? Is knowledge of God a privilege reserved for a few? If so, why?

If somebody takes Reality as unknowable, how can we convince them otherwise? From our inner experiences, we have come to learn that Reality is knowable. When our good friend stands in front of us, we know that he has certain qualities. But another person may say that this same person is unknowable. For us, he is knowable. For someone else, he is unknowable. Who is right and who is wrong?

If I may venture another point of view: why should God have to come and prove to an agnostic that He is? God will honour each theory. If someone says that God is unknowable, God will say, "If you are satisfied by saying or feeling that I am unknowable, that is fine. Satisfaction is our goal." If someone else says, "God is knowable. He is my Father, He is my Mother. I will one day speak with Him face to face. I see Him and feel Him in Nature — in the little flowers, in the trees, in the river. I see and feel Him everywhere," God will say to that person, "My child, be satisfied with your undeniable inner experiences."

Let the one who wants to be satisfied with the unknowable aspect of God be satisfied, and let the one who wants to be satisfied with the knowable aspect of God also be satisfied. There is also a third party who says that God is both known and unknown, knowable and unknowable. He is the finite and the Infinite. The God-lovers who are of this belief take God's unknowable aspect as real, and God's knowable aspect also as real.

When a tiny seed is under the ground, we are not aware of its existence. Only the one who sowed the seed will know that it is there. Everybody else will claim that there is nothing there. In spite of their accusations, is the gardener under any obligation to dig up the ground and bring the seed to the surface? No, he will simply say, "You be satisfied by believing that there is nothing under the ground. I will be satisfied when the seed germinates and becomes a plant and then a tree." Again, there will be someone who will believe from the very beginning, although he did not see the gardener plant it, that the seed is under the ground. Right now the seed is unknown because it is under the ground. But the fact that I do not see it does not mean that it does not exist.

I do not have a telescope, so with my human eyes I cannot see faraway objects. That does not mean they do not exist. Let somebody bring a telescope, and he will be able to prove the existence of those objects. With the help of the telescope, our human eyes will be able to see the stars, the planets and so on. Just because something is beyond your physical senses does not mean that it does not exist. If we can have a high consciousness, an elevated consciousness, that consciousness can take us to the unknown in the same way that a telescope takes us to far distances. When something is clearly visible, our minds take it as reality, but when it is invisible, our limited minds take it as unreality.

The knowledge of God is not a privilege reserved for a few. We are all God's children. But we have to strive for it. Professor, you have spent so many years studying, and you have become a scholar, a philosopher, a theologian, an historian, a cosmopolitan. How did you become all these things? It is because you had the inner urge and the outer dedication to pursue them.

Very often when something is unknown, our mind brings doubt into the picture. If a spiritual Master of the highest order stands in front of a seeker, immediately the seeker will recognise who he is and what he is. But an ordinary person, a desire-bound person who does not care for spirituality, will see the spiritual Master as another ordinary man, in no way different than he is. It is the aspiration of the seeker that knows that the man in front of him is a great spiritual figure.

Spirituality is not the sole monopoly of an individual or a small group of individuals. Inner food is there for all to eat. Those who are hungry will devour it, whereas those who are not hungry will not care to partake of it. But to say that the food is available only to the few who are hungry would be the height of folly. It is available to all.

Professor Ananda W.P. Guruge: Is belief in God or a Supreme Power absolutely essential for a person to lead an ethically sound and fruitful life of devotion and service? When does the belief in such a power become necessary, and for whom?

They may not use the term 'God'; they may not even believe in God, but they believe in goodness. From the spiritual point of view, their choice of an ethically sound and fruitful life and signal service to mankind is an act of faith. In the way they have chosen to live their life, they are representing God in His active and dynamic manifestation.

Professor Ananda WP Guruge: Can you verbalise your spiritual experience of encountering the force or power to which you submit as "the Supreme"? How does an interactive relationship develop, and in what plane? Is it a purely psychological experience taking place in your consciousness only?

There are two kinds of personal God-encounters. One is merely a God-experience. The other is God-realisation. When you experience God, you climb up God the Tree. When you realise God, you eat God the Fruit. And once you are completely satisfied with the fruit, God may ask you to climb down the tree and tell the world how delicious the fruit tastes. God also gives you a very large quantity of fruit to bring down and share with your earthly brothers and sisters who are really hungry for this particular fruit.

God-experience was my journey's infallible start. God-realisation is my journey's sleepless flow. God-manifestation is my journey's breathless glow.

Dealing with another part of your question, mine is not a psychological experience. Far from it! Please allow me to elaborate.

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Spirituality's child is religion.

Philosophy's child is psychology.

Yoga lives in the illumining soul and in the aspiring heart. Yoga is a Sanskrit word which means 'union'. It is the union of earth's aspiration-cries and Heaven's Compassion-Smiles, of man the ascending cry and God the descending Smile.

Spirituality lives in the heart and the soul. Religion lives in the heart, in the mind and in the vital. Philosophy unfolds and spreads the mind-mattress. Psychology folds the mind-mattress and offers its density and intensity to the needy.

Professor Ananda WP Guruge: Are the Upanishadic and Advaita Vedanta concepts of _paramatman_ and _brahman_ compatible with the concept of God?

When I use the term 'God', I am referring to the broadest possible concept of deity. 'God' is the Creator and the creation. He is at once cosmic Silence and cosmic Sound. 'God' is within us, all around us, far beyond us and, at the same time, He is us.

When we use the term 'God', our feeling is that He is on the top of the Himalayas, in the middle of the Himalayas and at the foot of the Himalayas. He is both inside the creation and beyond the creation. God is everywhere. But when we use the terms brahman, paramatman or purusha, unfortunately we feel that God is only stationed at the summit of the Himalayas. These aspects of God are for us, but we do not feel that they are within us or from us. It is the same God, but at the summit we feel He should have a separate Name. Here God is the witness, '/sakshi purusha". Like an individual who acts in various capacities, each time He plays a different role, He is given a different name.