HOW GOD-REALIZATION IMPACTS ONE’S LIFE

HOW GOD-REALIZATION IMPACTS ONE’S LIFE JOURNEY TOWARDS GOD-REALIZATION Those who accept but one half of the truth without realizing that the other half must be accepted will inevitably find themselves guilty of moral inadequacy. N ONE other than God is great. This is an obvious truth. But strange as it may seem, this truth can be turned into evil. This happens when it has only been half understood. That God, and only God, is great, is an indisputable reality. However, the obverse side of the picture—that man is small and insignificant must also be grasped and appreciated. In this unfathomably vast universe, man is an insignificant being and it is only when he has learnt both of these truths that he will be imbued with appropriate feelings of humility. If he knows only the first truth, but not the second, it will breed in him an attitude of rebellion. Satan understood God’s greatness but could not grasp his own insignificance. He became, therefore, the continuing root cause of all evil. In the same way, Hitler too recognized the omnipotence of God but failed to grasp that he has no power over the consequences of his actions. This resulted in his going down in history as the worst aggressor and evildoer the world had ever seen. To utter the words, ‘God is great’ is to acknowledge an outward reality, and to say, as a corollary, “I am small,” indicates one’s willingness to mould oneself to this outer reality. Some people do accept God as a supreme outer reality, without ever actually adapting their lives to this fact. As a result, they begin to regard themselves as God. For themselves, they become God and expect others to bow to them. They then enter in conflict with others, although the first prerequisite for acknowledging the greatness of God is to subdue all aggressive instincts completely. They take it upon themselves to abuse their fellow men, whereas whoever genuinely experiences God’s omnipresence falls silent in reverence to Him. He who bows to God becomes incapable of making others a target for his invective. Every truth is but a half-truth