The Kingdom of God

VII

This is a regular way.

All Masters have laid stress on this point, but we have been ignoring it altogether. We think that by observance of the outer forms, rituals and ceremonies we can reach God. They are helping factors, no doubt; but self-knowledge is the Real Road that leads to God. Only then shall we come to know God.

Let me give a concrete example. Once in Lahore, there was a man who loudly proclaimed God, His generosity, His Love and His Infiniteness. However, he had not had any practical experience of God and what he taught was mere hearsay from the scriptures. Then came the partition of the country into India and Pakistan, entailing great hardship on the people.

He lost all his possessions and many of his relations were killed. When he met me again in Delhi, he asked me if there really was a God, after all. And how many of us are like him?

When misfortunes overtake us, we begin to question the existence of God.

But if we have had a first-hand experience of God, then how can we doubt His existence? You see how important it is to have practical experience of Reality, and that you can have only by self-analysis, by knowing your Real Self. Unless you do that, you cannot see nor enter the Kingdom of God.

The question again and again arises:

How can we know the Self?

You have seen the difference in faith born of first-hand knowledge and that arrived at by belief in hearsay. Seeing is believing. Direct perception is far better than inferential knowledge.

That is why the scriptures say: 

Blessed are they that see. You have eyes and see not.

All the scriptures say that there is a Kingdom of God and that it is within you. You can enter the same and see the Light of God if you transcend body consciousness.

The Kingdom of God cannot be had by observation; it can only be had by inversion, by tapping inside,

as Emerson puts it.

But how to tap inside? This experience you will have, as I have said repeatedly, at the feet of a Master – an Adept in the science. He will give you at the time of initiation some experience which you may develop by daily practice. You may learn how to leave your body. Until your Inner Eye is opened, you cannot see and be convinced.

Truly, we have eyes and see not.

Guru Nanak says: 

He is not a blind man who has no eyes on his face, but one whose Inner Eye is not open to see the Light of God within.

How many of us are there who are not blind? We have heard about the Light of God. Have we ever seen it? Can we see the Light of God and how?

Again I refer to the scriptures. Most of the sayings are taken from the Bible, as you are most familiar with it. However, let me tell you that Christ belonged to the East where the people are more conversant with the spirit. If you only learn those scriptures through the eyes of an Easterner you will come nearer the Truth. I do not mean that the West is in any sense opposed to or different from the East. What I mean is that the terminology of the Holy Bible is Eastern.

Therein it is said: 

It is better for thee to enter into life with one eye.

With one eye? We have two eyes. What does Christ mean? He says further:

[…] rather having two eyes and be cast into hell-fire.

When I was on my way from Chicago to Washington, in the plane, some children came to me for autographs, which I gave them. An old lady also came up and said:

Will you please write something for me and give me your autograph?

I simply wrote these words:

It is better for thee to enter into life with one eye,

and signed it.

She read it. She wondered what could it mean? Her son was a bishop. He was also travelling in the same plane. She took it to him and asked if he could explain it. 

He read it exclaiming:

It is from the Bible, of course.

But even he could not understand its meaning. Practical knowledge is different. To ask people to observe certain rules and regulations, rituals and ceremonies, is something else. The bishop asked one of my companions if he could talk with me. He was of course welcome. He came over to me.

The words I quoted are from the scriptures. I am not telling you anything new. They are not given in the Bible only, but in all other scriptures of which you probably know very little. If you are broad-minded and interested in the subject, I would suggest that you undertake a comparative study of different religions to find Truth, but not for finding fault with them for then you will gain nothing. The kite though it soars high in the sky, yet its eyes are fixed on the carrion flesh. If you begin to look for flaws, you will be able to find fault with everything; but you will miss the Truth.

Kabir, a Great Saint of the East says:

It is not the scriptures that are false, but they who do not understand them.

Christ says:

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

The Single or One Eye – in the East they call it the Third Eye, or the Latent Eye – is in each of us, even in the blind who have no outer sight. But the Single Eye is closed. We have to open it. When it is opened, you see the Light of God which is already within you. You do not have to create It.

Some people simply visualise. They light a candle, they look at it, and imagine it within. You need not visualise any such thing when you enter this temple of God – the human body. You will see the Light of Heaven within you. It is already there. You are not to visualise, not to pre-suppose, not to imagine.

These are concrete facts, which are experienced by those who enter this temple of the body, such as you have. The difference is that you are leading an external life and have never known how to invert and tap within.

The fact is as Jesus says: 

But if thine eye be evil, thy body is full of darkness.

The Light is there. It has been there. But do we see It? Have we ever heeded the solemn warning?

Take heed that the Light in you be not darkness.

It does not mean that you will have to create the Light. It exists already. You must see that it is not darkened. How can the Light be darkened? Merely by not paying heed to It, by externalisation, by neglecting the Inner Life, if you could abstract yourself from the outer world, you would see the Light of God, here and now.

God is everywhere. The Light of God is everywhere. The whole world is made of Light, but only for those whose Inner Eye is opened.

How to open that Eye? This is a practical question. These things are explained by others too, besides Christ. Tulsi Das and Guru Nanak tell us that only a True Master can put us on the Way to God. What can He give to us? He opens our Inner Eye. He enables us to see the Light of God.

Take heed, therefore, that the Light which is in thee be not darkness. 

That is what we read in St Luke. But how to find that Light?