# Life and God When we say "life," we do not always mean the same thing. Sometimes we mean the biological fact of living—the movement of blood, the breath in the lungs, the electrical impulses of the brain. Sometimes we mean something else entirely: the spark of consciousness, the capacity to feel, to desire, to know. And sometimes we mean something still more subtle—the very principle by which all things cohere, by which separate particles become a being. Similarly, when we speak of "God," we speak in many tongues. For some, He is a person—a being who thinks, wills, and acts in history. For others, He is an impersonal force, a ground of being, the sum of all laws and relationships. For still others, He is a name we give to the mystery that lies beyond all naming. The question that has haunted philosophy for centuries asks: what is the relationship between these two concepts? Are they separate? Are they one? Can life exist without God, or does God require life to be actualized? One answer, beloved by the rational mind, is that they are wholly separate. Life is a mechanical thing—molecules and forces obeying laws that need no lawgiver. God, if He exists at all, is a metaphysical abstraction, hovering beyond the reach of observation. This view offers clarity and a kind of austere peace. It frees us from the burden of divine judgment and places all responsibility upon ourselves. But there is a disquiet that lingers in this separation. If life is merely mechanism, why does it feel like something? Why does the experience of a sunset, of love, of beauty, seem to point toward something beyond mere matter in motion? Why do we speak of being *moved* by art, as though we are touched by a hand not entirely our own? Another answer, older and perhaps deeper, suggests that the division is an illusion born of language itself. This view holds that life and God are not two things but one reality perceived from two different angles. God is not *outside* life, imposing order upon it like a carpenter upon wood. Rather, God *is* the life within all things—the consciousness that animates, the being that underlies becoming. In this understanding, to know oneself truly is to recognize God within oneself. To love another is to love God. To act with virtue is to align oneself with the divine nature that is one's own deepest nature. This view, too, has its difficulties. It seems to deny the personality of God, to make Him too abstract, too indifferent to the sufferings of individual creatures. And yet, there is in it a consoling truth: that we are never truly alone, that even in our deepest isolation, we partake of something infinite and eternal. Perhaps the deepest wisdom lies not in choosing between these views but in recognizing that both point to a truth that escapes perfect formulation. Life *is* the experience of being, and that experience is, at its core, an encounter with something that transcends itself—with meaning, with goodness, with a reality that cannot be fully captured in concepts. The question of God and life is, finally, not a question to be answered once and for all, but a question to be *lived*. It is lived in each moment of genuine awareness, each act of authentic love, each humbling recognition of our own finitude in the face of the infinite. In these moments, the distinction between life and God, between the finite and the infinite, grows thin. And we touch, however briefly, the truth that encompasses both.

I am tormented by the world's deprivation and complaint, oppressed by sorrow and poverty, worn down by illness and grief, wounded and battered by blow and counter-blow—I seek peace; you alone are peace's only refuge; since seeking peace is seeking you, Lord, I seek you.

I came to the garden, and counting leaves, counting leaves, I lost my way—I never got to taste the mango. Nothing but reckoning on all sides! I cast away the diamond and lean toward worthless glass shards. I know this accounting will yield nothing, yet still my gaze turns only toward the ledger. I have learned to rejoice only in counting!

Sometimes so many questions stir—where was I, how did I come here; where shall I go, who are you, did you bring me into this world, what is my bond with you…the questions have no end. Different people answer these questions differently, and different scriptures say different things! Some I believe—some I do not. Doubt seems never to settle. Whom should I ask about all this—where should I go to find true answers? Why did you create this beautiful world of living things, moon and sun, planets and stars—who will answer that? If anyone can answer it, it is you alone!

I have no urge to dispute your existence or non-existence. My faith is: you are—as much within me as within everyone else. You are the inner dweller! Those who think you do not exist, and find peace in that thought—I think you let them think as they do, and it is well. This is your play, so I never offer judgment on their thinking. Let them be content as they are—as you have willed them to be!

You are detached, unmoved, eternal. Upon the sinful and the virtuous, the cultivated and the base, the holy and the unholy, the rich and the poor—upon all you bestow equal, causeless grace. In every land, every age, every circumstance, all are entitled to your compassion. The world teems with competition, cruelty, violence, transgression, injustice—for this you are not responsible. This inequality and diversity—its cause is we ourselves, the fruit of our deeds. Your light, your air are open to all.

O Merciful One, your wind of grace keeps blowing—whoever sets sail will understand. I cannot set sail; buffeted by waves in the ocean of the world, I am wounded again and again. The power of your grace…I cannot even comprehend it!

You are the essence of taste, the very form of supreme joy, love beyond utterance. I am thirsty for taste; to savor you is my blessing. I do not wish to be sugar—I love to eat it. I want to taste you—in form and flavor, rhythm and color, fragrance and song. Small as an ant am I—one grain of sugar fills me; what use have I for mountains of it?

Why have you sealed the inner door from within me? For my pride—my ego's sake? Because I forgot myself playing with the colored toys you gave me? Because I do not seek you, will you not break through the fence of my delusion and attachment? Without earnestness, without singularity of longing, will I never see you?

My pride? That belongs to you! Annihilate that pride utterly and make me wholly yours. Wipe clean the stains from my mind and consecrate my body as your temple.

You are formless, without anchor—and yet embodied, the ground of all. But I desire you in form. How I long to see your enchanting face, radiant with love. Grant me divine sight that I may behold your sacred form everywhere—see you in every living creature and bathe in the waters of bliss.

You hear the tinkling anklets on an ant's feet—does the anguished cry from my heart not reach your ears?

That you hold me—I cannot fathom it; that you guard me ceaselessly—this awareness eludes me. So I reach for you, yet cannot find you. Grasping at empty air, I stumble and fall. In calamity and grief I lose my way. When prosperity comes—wealth, learning, honor—I imagine it my own strength that brought it, and I blame you in times of trouble. That I am but a plaything in the hands of your invisible power—this I forget. At every step, through fortune and misfortune, you sustain me; if only you would hold me consciously, I would never fear to fall.

When I eat, I tell myself I am offering to you, that you dwell within me—yet mere remembrance is all I achieve. I do not feel you receiving. At twilight I sing your sweet hymns, my lips speak the sacred mantras of your worship—but they do not touch my heart at all. Day and night I hear so many words—are they all your voice? You pervade the universe; does my journey not circumambulate you? Why do I remain drowning in such doubt?

I rush from temple to temple thinking I will find you; I waste my days in bathing in the Ganges, in worship and chanting, in meditation and ritual work—all to feel your touch—yet every hope dissolves into illusion. Your radiance does not illuminate the depths of my heart.

I have studied the scriptures, engaged in endless reasoning—yet where is the direct experience? Is it all in vain then? The fullness of a life of faith lies in such experience! This feeling depends wholly on your grace. Annihilate every trace of my pride and make me worthy of you.

I am become like a barren wasteland—will you not make me green and fertile with your tender touch? You are nectar, and I am the child of nectar. Yet why does my fear persist? I am bound by the illusion of life, while you are God—master of illusion. You are both witness and revealer of illusion; therefore illusion bends to your will. This inscrutable illusion is your power. I have two forms—manifest and unmanifest. I know only my manifest form. All that I feel and perceive in waking life is bound to this visible shape alone.

In that slumber of unknowing, when all things of the world lie unmanifest, you alone are the witness and master of that ignorance gathered in the form of impressions. From you the world becomes manifest; pervading all equally, you unfold the seed-state, subtle state, and gross state of creation. Because you know all worlds simultaneously, you are omniscient. I am a creature—my attention is fixed on this fragment, and so I know little. Enslaved by pride in this limited body, I lament and cry out in anguish.

This world is your creation, your will, your play. You needed no material from outside to create it—you did not wait upon any external substance. What could exist outside of you? If you had to depend upon something external for creation, had to gather materials from without, then you would not be the creator. Therefore creation flows from your simple will.

Before creation, the power of illusion rests dissolved in you. From beginningless impressions you have created this world. In the great dissolution, living beings remain submerged in ignorance, bearing their karmic desires. When the deeds of all creatures ripen and strain toward their fruits, your desire to create arises; then you turn your gaze upon your own power of illusion. Like the radiance of a jewel, your glance is natural—it does not depend upon senses, mind, intellect, or any other instrument.

That my individual consciousness awakens from the state of slumber owes its root to your grace. Your undifferentiated vision remains eternally unobstructed. Your knowledge of your own nature is your constant companion, like the warmth of fire; your power of knowledge and its action are true and natural to you.

As a playwright composes a drama from his own imagination, and intimately threads himself through each character, object, and event in it, holding them all together, so too do you remain intimately woven through each person and circumstance in the world-drama of your making, sustaining all things. As the playwright knows all that is in the play, remains aware of his oneness with all its elements, so too you know all in the world, remain conscious of your identity with all that you have created. As the playwright is free in the creation, continuance, and dissolution of the drama, so too are you free in the creation, continuance, and dissolution of the world—the world's existence, sustenance, and dissolution all depend upon your will.

Just as all the characters in a play, absorbed in their individual roles and enchanted, cannot see the playwright who pervades every corner of the drama, nor perceive the whole of it, nor know one another's inner feelings—exactly so does a single creature, I, caught in the play of the world in my individual role and spell-bound, fail to see you who pervade every part of the world-drama, fail to perceive the whole of your creation, and remain ignorant of the inner nature of other beings.

Apart from you, I and no living being have any separate existence; clinging to ego, we imagine ourselves separate and thereby suffer countless sorrows. By your grace, may the fragmented sense of self, born of ignorance, be swept away from me forever.

At the root of cause and effect lies your will, your maya. You are both the deed and the doer. This play of your power—your maya—spreads across space and time, yet you transcend all space and time. In your creation, where is room for cause and effect? Your will is not thwarted by alternatives, for you are free. Apart from you, the wielder of will, your will itself has no separate existence. Though you remain many through your will, commanding your maya-power to create, you stay undivided; your fullness is never diminished.

When I gaze steadily at water, I see waves of countless shapes, yet I know truly—these waves are nothing but water. If you would grant me the divine eye, then I could understand—everything that appears before my sight in your creation is nothing but you, the Eternal, the Conscious, the Blissful Supreme God. Just as the radiant rays of the sun appear as darkness to the owl, so your maya-power stands as ignorance before me, and thus I cannot perceive the unity within multiplicity—cannot apprehend your being.

You are eternally imperishable, ever-active, forever awake. When the world and its affairs sink into sleep, your two eyes remain unwearied. You labor on ceaselessly, without fatigue or rest. All change and growth in the world—all of it is your work. Though the world may perish, you remain indestructible, the eternal, supreme being.

Your power is infinite, infinite your majesty and love. Master of all sovereignty, strength, glory, beauty, knowledge, and renunciation—you know the origin of all beings, their destruction, their passage to the world beyond, their coming and dwelling in this world, knowledge and ignorance alike. Therefore you are God. I am a doll of salt; you are the ocean. How can I measure you?

You are infinite, pure, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient; I possess little power, know little. You are ever-present in all three times—past, present, and future. You are self-luminous—it is by your light that I shine, that I am made manifest.