God and Man

IV

When the Masters come what do They tell us?

St John says:

God cannot be seen with thine eyes.

But then you find that some Masters said They saw God.

The question was put to Guru Nanak:

Do you see God?

He replied: 

I see God. He is everywhere.

Christ also said:

Behold the Lord.

He pointed to the Lord, saying: 

There, behold Him.

No reasoning.

The same question was also put by Swami Vivekananda. He was initially an atheist and challenged everybody: Is there a God? Is there any man who has seen God?

In those days, there was a man of realisation, Paramhansa Ramakrishna, and he was asked to go to him. Vivekananda went to him and asked: Master, have you seen God? The sage replied: Yes, my child, I see Him as I see you, even more clearly than that. And he came in time to be a great theist. In the latter days of his life, Vivekananda confessed: Because of that Godman I was saved.

You will find that those who profess to be theists are, truly speaking, not so. We have simply learnt in our scriptures that there is God. We have heard this many times, but we have not seen Him. Unless we see something, we cannot be convinced.

When difficulties arise, the vicissitudes of life come up and we have to pass through them, we are bewildered and ask Is there a God? We become sceptics. But once you have seen, you have had some experience of Reality, you cannot have any doubt.

The Masters say:

We see Him.

But what are those eyes with which He can be seen?

Shamas-i-Tabrez, a Muslim Saint, tells us that we should be able to see God with our own eyes and hear His voice with our own ears.

You find in the Bible:

We have eyes and see not.

What are those eyes? Guru Nanak was asked:

You say You see God everywhere.

He replied:

Those eyes with which you see God are different.

What are those eyes with which you can see God? Those are not outer eyes, but that eye which is within each one of us. That eye is called by Christ the Single Eye. The eye is the Light of the body.

If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of Light.

The Hindu scriptures and sayings of other Masters tell us of the Third Eye, or the Latent Eye. That eye is within each one of us. That one eye is not of the flesh and bone, as those we have outside on our faces.

Guru Nanak defines a blind man as not the one who does not have eyes on his face, but one whose Inner Eye is not open to see the Light of God.

God cannot be expressed. That absolute state can be had only when you rise into that Reality. But when this Supreme Power is the cause of all creation, immanent in all forms, supporting and maintaining them, It expresses itself in two ways – Light and Sound – and that expression of the God-Power is an actual experience of Godmen within. It is said, God is Light. The Mohammedans also say that God is Noor, i.e., Light. They say that one who goes above and beyond the physical body and sees the Light of God within is a True Muslim. The Christian can also be defined in the same way; one who sees the Light within is a True Christian.

The tenth Guru of the Sikhs says the same thing:

Those who see the effulgent Light of God within are True Sikhs, or True Fakirs.

They are pure ones. You will find the same definitions given in all religions, in all the Holy Scriptures:

Have you seen the Light within you?

Again, They have said:

If you shut the doors of the temple of the body, you will see the Light of Heaven. 

It is a possibility.

All the scriptures tell us of the Light of God within. The Voice of God also reverberates in each one of us. There is a way in which we may have an experience of that Reality and its expression. That is the Way back to God. Has our closed Inner Eye been opened or not? That is the question. Unless that Inner Eye be opened, we cannot see the Light of God within us. It is a question of introversion and inversion.

The Ultimate Goal of all religions is God, and that we should be able to see God. Leaving the non-essentials, what do they tell us? They say, Love thy God. This is said by all the religions. When you see and come in contact with God, only then, truly speaking, can you love God. At present, your loving God is practically impossible. Simply on the emotional side, you sometimes say certain things, but you have no contact with that Reality, and True Love does not arise, and does not last.

When the Pharisees and the Sadducees went to Christ they returned in silence, because an intellectual man speaking to a man of realisation cannot stand before Him. While the latter sees certain things and then speaks, the intellectual man simply quotes verses from the Holy Scriptures which he has read, and afterwards he cannot reconcile things. 

Naturally, when they came to Christ, they became quiet. Then they gathered together and came up to Him.

Now, Master, what is the greatest commandment in the law?

What did He say? Jesus said unto them:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy might. This is the first and greatest of all commandments. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

The ultimate teaching of all social religions is just to love God. As God resides in every heart, love all humanity, all creation. For the Love of God, you are to love all humanity. If we have Love for all humanity, all other commandments follow. He whom you love, are you going to kill him? Are you going to rob him of his property? Are you going to bear false witness against him? No, not in the least.

So on these two commandments hang all other commandments. The Sermon on the Mount, the Eightfold Path of the Buddha, the Niyama Yama and Sadachar of the Hindus all speak of the same thing, in their own languages and, of course, in their own ways. 

If we live up to what the scriptures say, there will be peace on earth, and the Kingdom of God will surely come on earth. Then there will be no danger of any war. What a pity: these things are given in our Holy Scriptures, but we follow, if at all, the letter of the law at the cost of the spirit. That is the cause of discord.

All Masters came to unite men, not to separate man from man. They were the lovers of God, and They taught men how to love all humanity. You will see, this is one side of the thing that we have before us. We are to love all humanity because God resides in every heart.