The Kingdom of God

VI

Coming back to our present theme, all that I say is how the scriptures have put it.

Rumi says:

Don’t be afraid, because you have another body to live in.

Again, He lays much stress on it. He says:

Look here, poor friend. Die while you are alive, if you would like to have the True Profit of a man’s life.

That we also find in the scriptures.

What does it profit a man if he gains the possessions of the whole world and loses his own soul?

I do not mean that you should leave the world and go to the wilderness and lead the life of a recluse.

God has given you physical bodies. Maintain them. These are the temples of God. Maintain your families. Fulfil your duties. God resides in every heart. Others, as members of your family, have come in contact with you as a result of your past karmas about which you are not aware. God brought you together. Maintain your relationships. By Love serve one another. Do all that you can do in that way. This is an essential step.

Earn your livelihood by honest means, by the sweat of your brow. This is also part of the show. You must maintain your physical frame. It is the temple of God, wherein you may discover Him – a rare privilege indeed.

The Masters have said:

You have intellect. Develop it, become intellectual giants. But you are souls. You must know about your own Self as well.

They simply say, out of 24 hours of the day, you should devote some part of it in search of your own Self. Man’s greatest search is man. Just search your Self. When you know your own Self, only then can you know the Overself.

Is there any Reality, other than God, which we can understand, which is defined by the name of God and so many other names? Truly speaking, we are not really theists. How? When we talk of God, we do so on hearsay or from our knowledge of the scriptures. We have no first-hand experience of it.

Unless we see and experience for ourselves, unless we have a first-hand experience of our own Selves, and come in contact with that Reality, unless our Inner Eye is opened and we see the Light of God within us, we cannot be convinced. We may read the scriptures. We may come across a Master and hear His words of wisdom on the subject, yet we will not be really convinced. We may accept what They say, and make it the basis of our search for God. But till we see and experience God within ourselves, we can never be fully convinced, and thus become Real Theists.

But who is to know God? It is our own Selves. Self-knowledge precedes God-Knowledge. Until we know ourselves, how can we see God?

This is why so much stress is laid on self-knowledge. In all the scriptures, ever since the world began, the Masters have always been emphasising know thyself. Unless we know a drop of water, we cannot know the ocean. We may not get full knowledge, but we will have some idea of what the ocean is.

It is the soul that can know God, not intellect, nor physical body, nor sense organs. God is an ocean, a limitless Ocean of All-Consciousness. Our souls are a drop of that ocean. We are conscious entities, conscious beings. Unless we know our Selves, we cannot know God. God will be known only when we know our Selves by a process of self-analysis; who we are and what we are.

Kabir says:

Learn to die at will, a hundred times a day. Transcend body consciousness and enter the Kingdom of God.