# God's Nectar (Part: 16) The question of whether God exists or not has occupied human minds for countless ages. Some have sought to prove His existence through reason and logic; others have attempted to disprove it through the same means. But the truth is, this question cannot be settled by argument alone. It is a question that touches the deepest recesses of the human heart, where reason dare not always venture. Consider the man who has experienced the presence of God in his soul. No argument can shake his conviction. He has felt it—a presence more real than the ground beneath his feet, more intimate than his own breath. To him, all the logic in the world poured forth against God's existence would sound like the hollow rattling of dry leaves in an autumn wind. Yet consider also the man who has sought God everywhere and found nothing—no sign, no whisper, no touch. He too speaks from experience. He has knocked on the doors of temples and mosques, has read the scriptures, has listened to the words of the wise. And still, silence. Can we say he is wrong? Can we call him faithless, when his very hunger for God is itself a kind of faith? The truth, perhaps, lies not in proving or disproving, but in understanding. God is not an object to be discovered like a stone hidden beneath the earth, waiting to be unearthed. God—if He exists—is closer to us than our own shadow. He is in the space between our thoughts, in the pause between our heartbeats, in the longing itself. The ancient sages understood this. They did not ask, "Does God exist?" Rather, they asked, "Who am I?" And in seeking to answer that question, they found themselves standing at the threshold of the infinite. The question of God's existence became meaningless—not because they stopped believing, but because they transcended the need for belief itself. In the end, perhaps the only honest answer is this: God exists in the measure that you allow Him to exist within your heart. He is neither provable nor disprovable, for He belongs to a realm beyond the reach of proof. Yet He is the most real thing there is—more real than all our arguments about His reality. This is the paradox at the heart of spiritual life. We spend our lives seeking what we already possess. We knock on doors that are already open. We ask for bread when we are already fed. The only question worth asking is not whether God exists, but whether we have the eyes to see Him, the ears to hear Him, the heart to feel Him. And that, dear reader, depends entirely on you.

Truth that arises from the understanding dwelling within the human heart is deeply bound to the inner nature of humankind. So long as human society endures, this truth can never be uprooted or destroyed. This truth is merely a sentiment, a thought, a philosophy. It has neither hands nor feet, and yet those who first established this truth in the world had to live amidst unspeakable suffering. In spreading this truth, they fell victim to the cruelty of earthly mankind. People trust far more in the fabricated lies of an illiterate grocer living next door than in the novel truths proclaimed by great souls; yet the power of a single wise person far exceeds that of millions of fools. A wise person may be slain, but their truth cannot be murdered. All truth is part of God's celestial order. Whenever someone connects this truth to some noble work in any corner of human society, then the grace of the Almighty God comes and easily brings that work to completion. When God Himself takes up a matter, who has the power to resist Him?

In the servant of God who believes in this truth, a radiance of truth seems to bloom upon his face, and upon his broad brow all the marks of intellectual devotion to the Divine seem to shine forth; as he fulfills the various duties of his life, catching glimpses of this truth, he seems to quicken his life's pace, directing all the strength of body and mind toward his own soul, and strives to grasp this inner truth ever more firmly. Alas, like lightning from the sky, this heavenly light seems reluctant to fall into human hands! And so the truth that once came to the seeker's heart, showing him the blessed freedom of its grace, in the very next moment seems to vanish into nowhere. A smile plays upon the seeker's lips for one instant, and in the next he finds himself drowning in profound doubt.

Entranced by the beauty of truth and coming into its presence, the seeker floats in joy imagining what wondrous splendor spreads and blossoms all around in this world; yet gradually this smile becomes shrouded in the shadow of sorrow, and the duty of witnessing truth awakens once more in his heart. Without nourishing this journey of truth with one's own life and blood, just as a tree cannot live in the parched earth of this world, so too truth cannot remain awakened in the seeker's soul without sincere effort. This understanding comes to lodge in the seeker's heart, and the thought of how much sweat and blood will be spent, how much discipline required, how much labor demanded, how much self-sacrifice necessary to establish a new truth—all these reflections trouble the seeker ever more. Thus in the face of the truth-servant, hope's light sometimes recedes into the distance, and a deep darkness of sorrow descends. He wishes to gradually reveal to others the truth he has found in his heart, and his beginning comes from within the circle of his own family and loved ones. Thus the days pass, and the age of truth grows slowly, advancing step by step to establish its natural place in society.

Truth's first struggle is against those communities who have placed personal truth above universal truth. They wield truth arbitrarily—to serve selfish interests, to gain material advantage, to oppress the common people, and to secure their own comfort and ease. It is because of them that society bears deep wounds. The only medicine to heal these wounds is truth itself. Thus, throughout the ages, truth has endeavored to dethrone powerful kings in different corners of the earth and lead the common people of a nation toward the path of light. Through this, the world has prospered, humanity has advanced, and civilization has flourished. In this way, people have been initiated into the religion of great truth, walking the path of peace, welfare, and affection—and have committed themselves, generation after generation, to the search within their own souls.

Yet mankind has not been entirely freed from the hand of oppression wielded in the name of religion. People have still not beheld the most exquisite form of truth. Many believe that the world shall never escape this infinite darkness. Among them are two groups: one cries out against superstition, the other is submerged in helplessness. But among them, the number of the learned and the wise is small. Those who can wield their own intellect and conscience find little difficulty in embracing the simple form of truth. From literature and politics to economics, medicine, and all manner of physical and biological science—truth governs all. In human progress, spiritual and material truth hold the highest place. Though ignorance, deceit, and invented self-interest may blind the human eye, people do not remain forever blind and deluded. Sooner or later—if not for their own sake, then for the sake of their family or their community—they will inevitably accept the light of truth as ordained by God.

Truth is the subject and goal of all human intellect. Through human knowledge, we learn God's nature and are inspired by His wisdom. Yet truth, though of the same form and weight for all, is not attained by all in the same manner. There are many paths and methods for gaining truth. Each person becomes a follower of truth through the aid of their own inborn, God-given power. Unbiased and dispassionate love for truth is the mark of intellectual devotion in humanity. Knowledge is essential for the perfection of human dharma, and this knowledge must be honored and held in the heart dispassionately, for its own intrinsic worth. Even now, people honor or cast aside knowledge depending on whether they think it has external utility. But those who are progressive, thoughtful, and gifted honor knowledge solely for knowledge's own distinctive nature.

Observance of physical laws yields health, strength, and beauty. Yet the mind stands in a higher place than the senses. Therefore, adherence to the laws of mental development brings forth mental health, strength, and beauty—far superior to those of the body alone. Through the mind's discipline, a person can govern the senses. From the rightful ordering of the human mind flows truth, which across the ages has wrought the world's great welfare. Thousands of years hence, when the civilized nations of our time have vanished into oblivion's depths, only their names will remain. Yet the truths they follow today, the truths they proclaim, the truths by which they have risen to greatness—these very truths shall be woven into the spiritual treasury of future generations. Just as the sublime words of the Upanishads, created six or seven thousand years ago, remain eternally relevant today, so too shall the truths we have discovered and established speak to the human heart with equal clarity for ages to come, bringing joy and illuminating the path. In this world, strength and beauty have always held dominion over weakness and falsehood. The spiritual power we cultivate in mind today shall endure in the world even after our death, even after our nation or society has passed away.

Knowledge acquired in the spiritual life never perishes; rather, it is enriched day by day as new truths come to illuminate it. Though the great path upon which humanity walks may seem trivial to some, it is in truth the very thing that guides people toward self-knowledge. It cannot be destroyed. Whatever truth humanity discovers is forever preserved in the world's infinite treasury of knowledge. All have the right to seek and partake of this truth. No individual or family can claim ownership over it. Rather, the moment one is born human, one inherits an inviolable right to its pursuit. Age after age, the world's peoples draw upon this universal inheritance, using new truths to develop old ones, to reach the aims of their lives, and thus—for eternity—passing forward their enriched wisdom for the benefit of generations yet unborn.

Some person first discovered grain, subdued wild beasts, harnessed the horse, created language and script, turned water and fire to human use, harnessed electricity for human welfare, carved stone into wondrous statues—all these are fruits of learning and discipline. Just as the great have bequeathed their strength and skill, their labor and craft, to all humanity, so too does one who proclaims a new truth, who discovers and develops a novel power of knowledge, enlarge the spiritual wealth and glory of mankind. A person who cannot even turn a single hair from white to black can nonetheless aid all humanity's spiritual growth through the power of truth. 

All the worldly wealth we have inherited from our ancestors, or earned through our own labor—our homes and fields, our roads and railways, our factories and streets—we are laying these up as a store for the countless generations yet to come. Through what we have gained, the lives of our children will be made easier, the fields of their labor vastly expanded, their joy and contentment increased, and they will be spared from many of the troubles we have endured. The spiritual truths we are learning, the intellectual devotion we are acquiring, the instruments of practice that we are mastering through reflection and putting to use in life—all of this will flow onward through the succession of men and become the inheritance of those who come after. Others will enter and possess the spiritual field we have labored in. The ladder we are building, they will climb; and then they too will construct new rungs upon it, and reaching toward truths still loftier and closer to the ultimate, they will attain to higher and deeper spiritual stations than we have known. This procession shall continue without end.

There exists within the spiritual life of mankind an indissoluble and profound continuity. The thought of primordial man has kindled the awakening of knowledge even in the last person of human society, and shall do so always. This process of hereditary cooperation in the expansion of knowledge shall never be interrupted. Before us, thousands upon thousands of great souls have brought forth truths and wisdom into our presence; we have received these into our hearts, developed them further, and now we leave them for the generations to come to develop still more.

This world is exceedingly ancient. The existence of mankind is nothing new; through long ages and arduous labor, humanity has gathered vast experience. And yet, compared to what the longings of our hearts and the stirrings of our nature cry out for, even this immense chronicle of human achievement seems but meager. The knowledge that has been discovered in ages past appears unable to satisfy our hunger for complete understanding, or to quench the deep thirst that lies within us. In physics, in ethics, in politics, in economics, and in metaphysics—in all these domains and many others still await the discovery of new and greater truths.

When these truths were first proclaimed, we did not welcome them; yet those who discerned them with certainty in that age did not shrink from the hostility of the world around them, but devoted themselves instead to spreading these truths. Through truth, the spiritual power and earthly well-being of mankind shall surely increase.

The person who deposits into society's treasury some great universal truth has done humanity a service that no mighty king or general in all of history could equal. One who labors for the spiritual advancement of mankind, who takes some novel stirring in the human heart and gives it shape and directs it toward the service of humanity—such a one performs the work of the world's spiritual teachers. In such a one occurs a certain communion of knowledge with the All-knowing. Justly is he honored as worthy of reverence, for he is an agent of the Divine. There is no greater gift we can bestow upon humanity than the cultivation of human dignity itself. Let us remember this: in the annals of history, it is those we honor most reverently and recall with the deepest gratitude—those who sought not to give mankind the comforts and conveniences of this world, but rather showed them the path to spiritual solace and the blessedness of the soul.