The author of this satsang was a Christian pastor in the deep south who was led to Vedanta by the Lord. When he realized that faith without knowledge causes ignorance to flower, he resigned his post. His eloquent document is a testimony to the fierce and courageous integrity that Got instills in us when the time is right. It should be especially meaningful for those inquirers who lack the courage to apply karma yoga to their daily life.
What isn’t God! God is everywhere. It is omnipresent. Everywhere means everywhere, all pervasive is the word. Permeates is another. God is the very fabric of our DNA. It fills the spaces between the molecules and atoms of the body. This is what Paul pointed to when he said, “For in Him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28).
God spoke Creation into existence. This means He is the cause of Creation. If there is only God, His words are not different from Him. He is the intelligence that creates the words and the words themselves and the Omnipotent Power that shapes all the names and forms we see here. We…our bodies, minds and spirit…are created in God’s image. (Genesis 1:27)
When the Bible says God breathed life into Adam, the First Person, it wasn’t talking about oxygen. It means that God breathed Himself into Adam. If Adam is inseparable from God and Adam is the first person, all humanity is inseparable from God. God and life are one too. That we value life more than anything shows that we value God above everything.
Christ and God are not two different beings. About Christ, Paul wrote. “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:17 NIV). Everything, including you, is held together in Him. Colossians 3:11 reads, “Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or freeman, but Christ IS ALL and IS IN ALL. That’s Scripture.
Doership
If this is true (and it is), then God is All Knowing and All Powerful. If God is all and in all, then he knows all there is to know and is the first to know whenever anything happens. Also, since He is all pervasive, every law and principle governing the cosmos is God. Nothing happens without His knowledge, will or grace. If this is true (and it is) you are not a doer God is the only doer.
If you believe you are a doer, you are claiming for yourself what only belongs to God.
God created “your” body and mind from His body and mind. So, every action, thought, and feeling belongs to God, not to you. How can you take responsibility for its own actions, thoughts, and feelings? All you can do is love God for looking after you in every way.
Ownership
You claim ownership due to ignorance of your inseparable oneness with God. Honest analysis shows the most actions aren’t volitional but are due to conditioning. Do you think before you think? Act before you act? Remember before you remember or forget before you forget? The answer is NO.
The only place you are separate from God is in your imagination, in what you choose to believe. But in reality, you’re not even separate from Him in your imagination. How can you imagine unless God gave you the ability to imagine?
Religion lies when it says you are separate from God. Yes, I said it. It is a lie. You can’t be alive and be separate from God. You can’t be conceived be and separate from God. God conceives you out of God.
Scripture says, “For all (who) have sinned fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The word separate is nowhere to be seen in that sentence. Read it again without the lens of the lie you’ve been taught your whole life. The greatest sin is to believe you are separate from God. Jesus was willing to die to expose that lie. When you believe you are separate from God, you think you can live without Him. When you believe you are separate from God, you act in ways contrary to Him. When you think you are separate from God, you fall short of His glory.
However, when you know you are inseparable you depend on Him completely for your getting and keeping. You turn to Him. You think of Him. You want to please and cater to Him. No matter how sinful you think you are, you are good because God is good. You are Him and He is you. It is arrogance to think otherwise. Sleeping and waking, do you cause your heart to beat, your lungs to breathe, your digestion to work, and your brain to function? Of course, you don’t.
Satan is not a person. It is ignorance of your non-separation from God. God is your constant companion, your best friend. Don’t blame your ignorance on someone else. Stand tall in God and take responsibility for the only thing that doesn’t belong to Him. This is the great and powerful truth that truly frees.
Now, let’s hear from Isaiah. “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” (Isaiah 59:2 NIV).
What has caused this seeming separation? It says, “your iniquities, your sins.” However, this is not a real, actual separation. It’s only an apparent separation. From your perspective, you are separate from God because your heart feels ashamed and guilty due to sin and iniquity. You don’t like yourself. You don’t feel good about your actions. So, you think God doesn’t like you. You think God has turned away from you. From God’s perspective, there is no separation. If there were a real separation, there would be no sinner to feel bad about himself because the sinner couldn’t be alive to sin if the sinner was truly separate from God.
From love’s point of view – and remember, God is love – there is no abandonment by God of the so-called sinner. This would be totally against the nature of love; however, God does not hear, not because he doesn’t actually hear, but because the sinner believes God doesn’t hear. Since the sinner is lost in his own belief system, disliking himself, and feeling unworthy, he believes God doesn’t hear and unknowingly cuts himself off from God, but it’s not a real separation or hiddenness. From God’s perspective, God is continually showing love, grace, and mercy to saints and sinners alike by giving life and sustenance every second.
Read the words of Jesus again, “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:45 NIV).
You can believe the truth or not, but your belief doesn’t change the truth. The truth remains untouched and unblemished. May you believe the truth. Even more important, may you Know the truth. Amen.
