People wonder, “If God is omnipresent, why are we not experiencing Him?”
It comes back to that question. We cleared up the question that the soul is not God, okay? Soul is soul, God is God. So the soul has to attain God in order to become perfectly happy. But is the soul not already attaining God? Because God is omnipresent.
पुरुष एवेदं सर्वं यद्भूतं यच्च भव्यम् । …
Puruṣh evedaṃ sarvaṃ yad bhūtaṃ yach-cha bhavyam.
- Purush Sukta 2
“God is everywhere. He pervades everything.”
ईशावास्यमिदं सर्वं यत्किञ्च जगत्यां जगत् । …
Īśhāvāsyam idaṁ sarvaṁ yat kiṇch jagatyāṁ jagat.
- Īśāvāsya Upaniṣad 1 (partial)वासुदेवः सर्वमिति ।
Vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti.- Bhagavad Gita 7.19 (partial)
सर्वं खल्विदं ब्रह्म …
Sarvaṁ khalvidaṁ brahma…
- Chandogya Upanishad 3.14.1 (partial)
Everything is pervaded by God. There’s not an atom or a particle of this universe that is separate from God. Then why are we not experiencing God?
आनंद सिंधु मध्य तव बासा, बिनु जाने कत मरसि पिवासा।
Ānand sindhu madhya tav bāsā, binu jāne kat marasi pivāsā.
- Goswami Tulsidas
We’re dying of thirst, yet we’re swimming in the ocean of nectar-like water. How are we dying of thirst when we’re swimming in the ocean of nectar-like water? We’re desiring happiness, yet we’re swimming in the ocean of bliss because God is everywhere. So why are we not experiencing that bliss? Because our lips are sealed tight. You’re swimming in the ocean of bliss, but your lips are sealed tight. That means we’re not surrendered to God. We’re not letting that bliss in.
Or another way to understand would be with an analogy. Like if you stuff a lump of salt in the cheek of a tiny little ant, and then you have a big mound of sugar, and you put that little ant on that mound of sugar and let the ant walk around on that mound all day. When she gets back at the end of the day and talks to her companions, who are also wandering around and eating the sugar on that mound, they talk about their day. The others are all talking about how they spent the whole day on that mound of sugar and how sweet it was. And this one with the lump of salt in her mouth is saying,
“What are you all talking about? That was a mountain of salt. Why are you calling a mountain of salt a mountain of sugar?”
And everybody else is saying, “Why are you calling a mountain of sugar a mountain of salt?”
That’s what the Saints say to us.
“What’s the matter with you? God is everywhere. Can’t you experience Him? Can’t you see Him? I’m seeing Him. I’m experiencing the Divine bliss.”
And we say, “What’s the matter with you? What are you talking about? God is everywhere. I have eyes. I don’t see Him.”
So the little ant is saying, “I have taste buds, and all I tasted was salt. You cannot tell me that was a mountain of sugar.”
But it’s because her taste buds were spoiled by the salt she already had in her mouth. So she could only taste the salt, even though she was eating sugar all day. Similarly, God is omnipresent in this world, and we’re enjoying the things of the world that constantly give us disappointment and pain. Yet God is in those things. So we’re not experiencing God. We’ve got maya (God’s material energy) inside of us. We’ve let maya inside of us, and we’re not surrendered to God. So even though God is present in everything we enjoy in this world, we’ve never experienced Him because we’re not surrendered to Him. Our senses, mind, and intellect are made of maya. So how can we experience Divine God? We can’t.
So even though He’s omnipresent, we can’t experience Him. We haven’t experienced Him. But we will experience Him if, through practicing bhakti (loving devotion), we purify our heart, we become surrendered to Him, and we receive His grace. Through His grace, we’ll receive swaroop-śhakti (God’s Divine personal power), which enters our senses, mind, and intellect and makes them Divine. Then we experience what the Saints experience.
