Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7

ON SPIRITUALITY

Where is God?

GOD you do not find? No God – not at all? But why should He be found? And to own Him, what right have you? How much of yourself have you offered to Him? Every moment, every limb of yours, how far have you consecrated?

Your call is merely lip-deep. You have called on Him in a slight difficulty or out of sheer curiosity, and forthwith is He to appear before you in person?

Perhaps He does come down. But where is your eye to see?

Seated in an abysmal, pitch-dark cave, tightly closing your eyes in addition, you cry out in a fit of restive passion and with a stupendous laugh of disdain "Where is the Sun, where is the lamp of Phoebus? No Sun, none."

No question of freedom for one who is subdued and trampled under the feet of others. If one really wants to have a glimpse of freedom, it is not possible through mere ire, spite, disbelief, despair or at easy ease. Fitness for freedom has to be acquired. The essential requisite is yoga, arduous yoga.

Fear not – the first step towards freedom is the consciousness of and revolt against subjection. If the ordinary life of the world is felt as the domain of a Non-God – if there be a God He cannot remain inside the wheel of this creation – if there be a Lord of this world-machine, then He must be a satanic god, a crippled god – this is the first realisation.

Whenever you say, "Where is God? Where is He? Nowhere," that shows the commencement of your soul's awakening,

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however insignificant it may be. For you feel a sense of want and dissatisfaction in everything including God.

Your denial of God is the first step towards God-realisation. One who finds fulfilment in the ordinary life and is content with and enamoured of it, one who needs nothing over and above life, is no better than a tree, a stone, an animal, a gorilla or a chimpanzee.

Sulking, spite, denial, disrespect, constitute the first step. The second step is a calm expectation, a persistent faith, one-pointed love and devotion and a complete reliance.

Who has bound me with fetters? Have I immersed myself in the infernal region of my own fancy?

At the very outset you yourself agreed and gave your consent to enter into this region and then perhaps you were overpowered by all others conjointly.

You wanted to exercise your freedom at your sweet will. The ultimate result thereof has been your slavery.

The human soul has this freedom because it is a portion of God, who is but the absolute Freedom. If He wants, He can drag Himself down to bondage. Likewise, He has the capacity to free Himself from and rise above bondage.

Man has the capacity to unravel the ravelled skein of life of which he himself is the cause. And that is the aim of his life's discipline.

However, that knot was not woven in a day. Through aeons, owing to the pressure of the consequences of man's actions, it has become solidified and hard; it appears to be unbreakable and adamant. It is quite natural that a great period of time should be necessary to untie the knot.

But as a matter of fact it is not so. Here the Grace of God intervenes. Within this creation, in this domain oblivious of God, there is a power of Compassion that comes into close contact with the soul which is open and really wakeful. With the firm consent of the soul, Compassion liberates it from its entanglements and bondages of millennia. If not quicker than at once, it brings about liberation before long.

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If you can take a step forward toward God with your own effort, you will find that He has already advanced a hundred steps toward you.

God accepts you with all your dirt and filth on account of which alone you fail to realise that He has accepted you. He has been leading you slowly and steadily through these murky elements.

When the receptacle becomes hallowed and serene, then alone will the Being and the Will of God be reflected therein. At that very moment they will dawn on you and you will possess something of His Knowledge, Power and Bliss.

Man is at bottom a portion of God and of God alone. Toward God Himself is his irresistible march.

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