Know God through acceptance

For time immemorial we human beings seek to better ourselves through knowledge. We respect knowledge in ourselves and others. This quest for knowledge extends to God too. We constantly seek to enhance our knowledge about God. We read various scriptures and listen to discourses to know more about God. Knowledge about God becomes a source of pride for a person. 

Let me give you a profoundly simple metaphor to understand the reality of knowledge. A person is taught about an orange; it’s benefits to health, that it is a source of Vitamin C, it has a sour-sweet taste etc. He now knows everything about the orange. This is knowledge, and anyone who wishes can acquire it. A second person is told nothing about an orange but has been offered an orange to eat. Which of the two do you think has a better experience of the orange? 

You may know all you want, but to experience the taste, or rather the only way to experience the taste of the orange is to have it in you, within you. 

The orange outside of you is still an orange, with all its benefits intact but you can get neither the taste nor the benefits from it. The only way to taste and experience the benefits of the orange is to have it inside you. 

And so it goes with God. Anyone can have knowledge about God. You can read, discuss and debate about God. You may accept that there is a God, know everything about God and know that he is omnipresent. But to transcend from knowing about God to experiencing Godliness, like all else, it has to be in you and within you. Knowledge can give you imagination of what God can be. 

Ritualistic practices will give you the temporary satisfaction of having done some action for God. However, neither can ever give one the true experience of Godliness. Reading and knowing about God and Theology can never give the true experience of Godliness. With knowledge, you can only know ‘about’ God but never ‘know’ God. 

To experience God, one should take the effort to look within. He might be omnipresent but the only place to connect with God is within one’s own self. And Atma-Dhyna is the divine path to experience the Godliness within yourself. Wishing you a life of peace and Godliness. 

Aham Brahmasmi!!