Man is purposeful, God is purposeless || Acharya Prashant (2016)
Question: Has God–the creator, created all this without any purpose? Are we born without any purpose?
Acharya Prashant: When you say God has created the universe, then in our limited sense of using the word creator and creation, we say that just as man creates this (pointing to a nearby object) God too, creates the universe. All that we have known in the name of creation is manufacturing, building. When you say creations then you really do not mean creativity, you mean manufacturing. And, that is our idea of god—some kind of a manufacturer. Who is sitting with some kind of a blueprint and he is creating the earth and the rest of the universe with his hands.
And, it is kind of justified because man’s mind can go only as far as its limits. It sees the world around it and superimposes the idea of this world upon God. Mind says, “I know what is meant by creation. Creation means creating this; creation means all this that we see around us. And, whenever this has been created it has been created with a purpose. So, god too must have created all this with purpose.” No, not really.
What you see around yourself is building; and, building and creativity are different things. Creativity is like kids playing on the beach and building sand castles, they do it for fun. They do it because they love doing it. God is no separate from his creation.
When the creator and creation are very close together, that is called creativity. The more is the distance between the creator and the creation the less is the creativity. The more the act of creation is an act of love; the more is the creator one with the creation.
And the act of god is the act of perfect love, which means He couldn’t be standing separate from what He has created; which means He is nowhere as he is everywhere; which means he doesn’t build something and throw it away; which means he takes the shape of everything. Which means God himself manifests as everything which appears to be created.
When you create then you stand separate from what you have created that is why am not even calling it creation; I am calling it manufacturing, I am calling it construction, I am calling it cultivation. I am not calling it creation in the purest sense of the word.
God is no director of events who stands aloof.
God is Love. And, the act of God is an act of Love. He creates himself and He loves himself so much, that He cannot bear standing apart from the creation even for a second.
Constantly, He is touching every part of the creation. It is as if an artist has painted His masterpiece and in craziness of great love, he is feeling it continuously. Feeling it so continuously that the act of feeling itself becomes the painting. What do you think the river is flowing? No, it’s God flowing as the river. Where is the purpose? He loves flowing as a river, what bigger purpose can you ask for? Because we do not love flowing, hence we ask for a purpose.
When you are sitting with your loved one are you so poor that you would ask for a purpose? Having spent an hour with your beloved would you then pull out your calculator and see how much you obtained and how much you lost. That’s what a purposeful mind does, it calculates.
In love, there is no purpose, no calculation, just intimacy, just a smooth flow, a total togetherness.
A total togetherness that doesn’t keep records, that doesn’t ask for benefits.
