# Ambrosia of God (Part Two) The question of God's nature strikes at the heart of all metaphysical inquiry. To know God—or more accurately, to know *of* God—is to venture into that vast twilight where reason extends its trembling hand and faith whispers its ancient hymns. Consider first the paradox that has haunted every theology: God is said to be infinite, yet all our conceptions of Him are finite. We speak of His attributes—omnipotence, omniscience, benevolence—as though we were assembling tiles to form a portrait, yet the face remains hidden, the whole forever incomplete. The very act of naming Him fragments Him. Language, that instrument we have forged from our own limited experience, becomes a prison for the Infinite. In the Hindu philosophical tradition, this contradiction resolves itself through a magnificent thought: Brahman is *Nirguna*—without attributes—and *Saguna*—with attributes. The formless and the formed are not opposites but facets of a singular reality. When the Upanishads declare "Neti, neti"—not this, not this—they are not denying God's existence but admitting the bankruptcy of our affirmations. Every statement about Him must be negated, for negation becomes the only honest language available to the finite mind addressing the Infinite. Yet this very difficulty gives rise to a subtler truth: perhaps God's unknowability is not His remoteness but His intimacy. If He were entirely comprehensible, He would be less than ourselves, less than the aspirations He has planted within us. The gap between our knowing and His being may be the distance of love—that space where longing keeps its vigil. The struggle to approach Him is not futile; it is the essence of the spiritual life. Each philosophical argument, each prayer, each meditation is a stone placed in the river, and while it may not dam the flood, it creates a pattern, a temporary stillness through which the light falls differently. This is the paradox and the grace: we cannot know God, yet we are known by Him. And in that asymmetry lies the whole of our search.

Everyone wishes to enjoy the fruits of justice and goodness, yet not all are willing to champion justice and goodness itself. In this world, many strive earnestly to banish injustice and harm from their midst—but only, in truth, when such injustice and harm befall themselves. The moment they escape their own peril, they do nothing to shield others from the same afflictions by the same means. Instead, to serve their own interests, they push the vulnerable deeper into danger. Such conduct is not devotion to God; it is selfishness. The true devotee does not content himself with remedying injustice and harm in some particular way, in some isolated case. Rather, he strives always and everywhere to employ his strength and wisdom for the justice and welfare of all mankind.

What is the heart? The heart is that which contemplates the Divine in the form of love. Love is the sole universal language of this world, binding all its people in a single spiritual harmony. To hold God in the heart means to hold that manifestation of the Divine which is love itself—to make room in the heart for love without calculation, without self-interest, to cherish love for its own sake and not for any particular gain. This is because to all the faculties of the heart, love alone is the object of true delight and peace. Love is devotion; devotion is love.

What has been said of intellect and conscience applies equally to the heart, and so I do not repeat those words again.

To please God through love—this is the supreme mark of the heart's devotion, and this devotion forms the foundation of all the heart's excellence. The intellect and conscience are satisfied when they encounter truth and benevolence. But the heart is not satisfied by idea alone; it seeks not merely sentiment, but a person—and a person alone can truly gladden the heart. To desire love from another for one's own benefit is one thing; to build all the joy of one's life upon another and to wish oneself to be the vessel of all their joy is quite another. Yet since man is finite and incomplete, the heart can never find complete satisfaction through loving and being loved by another human being. The reason is simple: in this world, no person can give or receive love in perfect selflessness; none can follow the heart's true nature—love itself—with complete impartiality.

On the other hand, intellect and conscience, in pursuit of finite truth and goodness, are gradually drawn along the path toward infinite truth and goodness, until at last they come to dwell in the infinite itself. In much the same way, our heart takes its seat in finite human beings, learns slowly to taste infinite love, and eventually finds its own neutral refuge where it comes to rest. Just as the astronomer, through careful observation of the stars in the heavens, arrives at various truths of astronomy; just as the moral philosopher, by examining different and particular events in human history, constructs universal ideals of justice and goodness—so too the person who harbors love in the heart can receive the love of those around him, and can bestow his own heart's love upon them; and through this process, dwelling longer and longer in the infinite refuge of the heart, he comes one day to be immersed in the ocean of love of that great and loving Being.

Whatever the intellect accepts as true in its judgment of truth, whatever conscience grants shelter to as good in its judgment of goodness, whatever the heart contemplates as love in its judgment of love—the soul meditates upon that very thing within itself as the sole foundation of truth, goodness, and love. The soul does not meditate upon truth, goodness, and love as mere abstractions, but rather upon that unique and complete Person in whom these three essences reside—worshipping within itself the Supreme Soul, or God, in that form. This is because this incomparable perfect Being stands established as the self-sufficient object of the soul. He who is truth to the intellect, who is goodness to conscience, who is love to the heart's faculty—to the soul, he is independently and all at once the great Being perfected in truth, goodness, and love; to the soul he is in every consideration enchanting and blissful; the soul, from the very beginning, unknowingly and at the impulse of natural inclination, rushes toward that Supreme Being. Yet in time, consciously and of its own will, it surrenders itself at his feet and becomes heir to peace and liberation.

Love of God becomes complete devotion as it flows through four kinds of human inclination: intellect, conscience, heart, and soul. Without the proper and natural cultivation of these four faculties in man, devotion cannot arise at all. Devotion is the foundation of all human excellence, and the practice of devotion is absolutely necessary for the complete and full development of all human faculties.

Sometimes, without man's knowing it, the sentiment of devotion stirs within him. How does this happen? Man sometimes supposes he is satisfying some particular truth, some particular good, or some person he holds dear. But something else occurs here as well. Man does not realize that a certain universal truth, goodness, and love have awakened in his heart a deep faith and affection—whether consciously or unconsciously. Had they not, he could never have immersed himself in love for any particular truth, any particular good, or any beloved person. The entire process unfolds beneath the surface of awareness. This is why he cannot think deeply about the matter, and this is why the desire to satisfy God does not arise in his mind. And yet, through these small and humble demonstrations of love, he treads the path that leads, in essence, toward that greater love—toward love of God itself.

Man, without knowing it, performs the work of devotion to God. Many learned and esteemed scholars present themselves as irreligious and atheistic, and the world knows them as such. Yet the sentiments they harbor in their hearts and the knowledge they cultivate express themselves in ways that mirror religion itself. Whatever religion prescribes to be done, they do all of it; but they themselves do not know that religion has commanded these deeds, and unknowingly they walk the path of faith. Thus, even as they claim to distance themselves from religion, they in truth enshrine God in their own souls and bear witness to devotion to the Divine. Whoever walks in the fundamental key of religion—he is truly religious, whether he himself acknowledges it or not.

These great men, whom the world knows as atheists, embrace truth as truth disinterestedly; they do not allow falsehood to guide their understanding, but rather follow the path of what is universally acknowledged as truth. Should you ask them whether they follow the path of God, they will at once deny it and say, I do not believe in God; and yet, if you reflect impartially, you will see that they perform all that must be done to walk God's path, and they forsake all that must be forsaken. This proves that the path of religion is fundamentally the path of becoming human. If you cannot walk the path of becoming human, then however much you claim to be religious, you have not grasped religion's essential teaching.

However wise a man may be, he can never fully know or comprehend all the powers and workings of his own complex mind. Many secret powers and treasures of our character often germinate and flourish in the depths of our being, like seeds beneath the earth, without our notice or knowledge. The same happens with love of God. The love and duty that man bears toward God often sprout and ripen in the womb of his heart, hidden from the light of his own self-knowledge, long before they flower and unfold in the illumination of his own spiritual awareness. Those learned persons who live by truth, who do not hesitate to give their lives for the establishment of truth, yet who furrow their brows in contempt and derision at the mention of worshipping God, the very embodiment of truth—it is true that they have discovered and mastered many difficult principles beyond the comprehension of the common mind; but they have never made time to contemplate and meditate upon the innate religious impulse hidden within their own hearts. They show no interest in taking account of their own souls' powers and possibilities; yet they feel no laziness whatsoever in counting the countless stars of the heavens and drawing up their catalogs. Their thought is their religion, their deeds are their religion; such sacred workers are the truly pious. They themselves claim that they do not follow religion, unaware that intellectual devotion is accumulating in their hearts, growing ever higher like a mountain. They deny that they uphold faith, yet in truth, they walk the path of religion far more than any professed believer.