Finding God

By looking low enough

I came across a beautiful quote today that is as powerful as it is uncomfortable: “Man doesn’t find God because he doesn’t look low enough!”. It’s really a remarkable statement if we contemplate upon it.

It’s very comforting to think that we can find God by looking “high” enough, i.e., read great scriptures, have meditation practices, visit holy places etc. While they all are very useful in their own way if done with sincerity and earnestness, it seems that unless we are also ready to look “low” enough, these practices will only fragment our lives. Low enough means looking honestly at all that is ugly and dark within us, bring them into the light of our own awareness, confront and transcend them. It seems to me this process is far more important than looking high. Because our main task is not to “find” God, but only to remove all the dust which obscures. And that which obscures is all the low enough things.

This includes among many things our tendency to:

pretend — acting out a persona to please the world, being different privately and publicly
be deceitful — toward others and worse oneself causing deep contradictions between what our inner voice tells us and how we organize our outer lives
be immature — shirking responsibility for oneself and our social surroundings, instead blaming others or the “system”
act impulsively — living hedonistically for pleasure and not ready to sacrifice things that are pleasing but not good for us
group identify — being strongly attached to ideology, nation, gender etc and negatively react toward groups that we dis-identify with
be narcissistic — always looking for praise or pity
be comparative — with others living or dead and either wanting to become like them or feeling envious toward them

If we don’t look at all these honestly and instead want to talk of enlightenment or God, we are only kidding ourselves. And this takes true earnestness and courage because it ain’t pretty. It may be very useful to look into these things and also share any other such tendencies we are susceptible to.

One last thing on this process of looking within. If someone says that I am in the path of devotion to God and not interested in doing any of this self-inquiry, then that’s very well and good. But a true devotee filled with divine love cannot possibly have even any one of these tendencies. Love of God is such that if it has truly flowered, it will wipe away all the dark spots and clear off all the dust that obscures one’s being as seen in the sublime life stories of the true devotees. So to the extent that one is still having any of these tendencies (and it’s all too common for these tendencies to be seen among those who claim to be devotees), it can be safely said that the devotion has not ripened. So sincere devotees can do themselves a great favor by honestly confronting all the ugliness lurking within and consciously surrendering it to God.