Spirit in us

The ordinary conception of God is that He is Infinite, Omnipresent, Omnipotent and Omniscient. Some call God Personal, others impersonal. Whatever concept we have of God, if it does not influence our daily lives, if we don’t perceive an inspiration from it, perhaps our idea of God is nothing but an intellectual idea and the connection between God and our life is missing. We ought to conceive God as a constant guide in our actions.

If we have the desire to know God, we first experience a craving in our very being to know Him, a passion.

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth within you.

                                                                                      Corinthian 3:16

All of us are reflected spiritual beings of the Universal Spirit – God.

Why, if we are spiritual beings are we not aware of it? The answer is, because we identify with the body and mind.

We fall into distress when our focus is on sense pleasure rather than on bliss, joy. Sense pleasure can never be satisfied, as we always desire more or something new. When we can’t satisfy our desires we become unhappy, we feel a lack in our lives. There is always a restlessness associated with sense pleasure.

In yoga we speak of God as Bliss or Ananda; we also say that God is ever-existent and that He is ever conscious of His blissful existence.

When we wish for Eternal Bliss we also wish for immortal, unchangeable, ever-conscious existence. In other words, we wish for God without knowing it.

It is important to have the right concept of what God is. When we speak of God as being immanent and transcendent we form a mental construct that may not satisfy everyone. The idea that God is within us and above appeals more to the theoretical, rational mind, but it lacks the need for us to know God. It does not change our lives, or influence our conduct, nor make us try to know God.

Sanatana Dharma or Universal Religion says the proof of the existence of God lies within us. It is an inner experience. We all can recall moments in our life when in prayer or worship, where we felt a sense of Oneness, when we were overtaken by pure joy and tranquility and where the experience of duality – pleasure and pain, love and hate etc, vanished.

A similar reference is found in the bible. ‘And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus’. Philippians 4:7.

We need to remember, that even though we can experience the presence of Spirit in our lives, we cannot have full knowledge of God through the limited power of the senses, or the intellect. To view something intellectually is not to see it by being one with.

We need to realize, the Bliss consciousness and God consciousness are the same and when we are in Bliss- consciousness, we feel that our narrow individuality has been transformed and that we have risen above duality.