Discovering God

becomes unbearable. He cannot have any knowledge of anything with conviction. Man at all times is in need of external resources. Any part of man’s being (e.g., some major organs) can stop functioning. Man knows neither the reality of life nor the reality of death. Man desires many things but he has no power over anything. Man is apparently free but except for exerting his own will he has no freedom to control factors outside of him. Another name for the consciousness of these aspects of human existence is self-negation, and it is this selfnegation which is the greatest means of attaining realization of God. In one respect, self-negation means discovering God the Almighty and, in other respect, it means discovering oneself as a totally helpless creature. Making the Discovery of God One’s Personal Interest Realization of God is unrelated to any romantic love for God. It relates to the deeper feeling in a person that his future depends solely on one God. He can have his beloved Paradise only when God gives it to him. Similarly, one can save oneself from the dreaded hell only when God saves him. It is only when this kind of deep consciousness develops in one that the door to realization of God opens to him.