497. Discovering God

As you are inside, so you are outside.  This is a truism of life. God is Infinite and Eternal, perhaps a ZERO. We are the finite. What we discover as God is not God, but what appears as God to us. The Gita says that one can become anything if only he can aspire for it. Put differently, we are today what we had aspired for earlier, subconsciously. It is very difficult for most of us to accept this. A beggar may ask if he aspired to become a beggar. One who has become bankrupt can ask if he aspired for bankruptcy. Spiritually, it is true. One who wants to understand the true meaning and value of wealth knows subconsciously that he will get that knowledge only when he tastes bankruptcy. That is why he ‘courts' bankruptcy. This is confirmed by the fact that invariably the subsequent generations of a bankrupt person are ushered into wealth. God is different to different people.

For the miser, GOLD is God. The Westerner has cherished his personality, privacy, and the value of being an individual - individuality. As a result, we can now say God for the Westerner is his individuality. Science has usurped the position of God in the West. Chandrasekar, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics, said Man has created the conception of God as a mental occupation, a pastime. He was an Indian born in an orthodox family. He too was infected to that extent by the atmosphere of the West where God is replaced by the knowledge one has arrived at on his own.

The Buddha analysed the Mind and found Mind dissolved and left him in Nirvana. Ego is a product of Mind. So, Mind can dissolve Ego by analysis. The Self was not created by the Mind. Mind was created by the Self. Mind cannot analyse and dissolve the Self. The Self is Self-existent. But Man has the capacity to discover various things as his God. Sri Aurobindo says that the universe comes to us as values. Whatever values we seek is our universe. Our conception of the universe can be widened. Our experience of our universe too can constantly increase. Man who resorts to this Force can widen his universe to overcome the limits of the present society in the world. To the householder, this holds out an opportunity to expand his accomplishment until it is equal to the accomplishment of the world. Accomplishing in this world is discovering God.