Acharya Prashant (AP): Why is there God? (Smiles) Ask God! Would God ask this? God is alright as he is, right?
Questioner (Q): No sir my question is, why is there God? We have already seen…
AP: So are you asking, “Is there a God? Or, why is there God?” Why is there God? I am asking, would God ask this question? Because God, even by your concepts, is complete hence contented. He won’t ask, “Why do I exist?” So if God won’t ask this and you are asking this, who are you?
Q: I am the centre of this asking.
AP: When you are asking “Why is God there?” Surely you have some idea of God, right? For example, you may ask “Why is this pole here?” So you have an image, an idea of the pole. What is your definition of God? The complete one! What is your idea of God?
So, oneness means no deficiency, no parts. So would oneness ask, “Why am I there?” Go by just your definition, even by your image. Even by your own concept of God, is God likely to ask this question?
Q: Without God, myself is not. I would ask then the same question, so…
AP: It is often more important to see, why this question is arising. Why, when, where, what? All of these are words relevant only to the mind, not to God.
‘Why’ means cause and effect. ‘Why’ means time, ‘why’ means a past, a reason. Whatever you do has a reason! And there is something that has no reason at all. That is God.
So by definition, the word ‘why’ does not apply to God. But you will come to have faith in it only when you find out something in life that is unreasonable. Have you ever loved unreasonably, without thinking of profit, without thinking of the future or hope? When you will love unreasonably then you will know that an unreasonable God can exist, and does exist. Then you will also know that only that unreasonable one has any value at all. But first of all, you’ll have to admit that unreasonableness in your life.
Do you do anything without bothering for profits? Surely you are doing something. We do! That act is God. Now, why does that act exist? Why do you do certain things without bothering for benefits?
Q: At some point, it makes me feel good.
AP: Oh, if it makes you feel good, then you have a profit.
Q: Yes.
AP: So I am asking, is there anything that you do absolutely without profit?
Q: No.
AP: Figure that out. You surely must be familiar with some such thing. That is God. And that alone is beautiful and valuable.
God, most clearly shows up in all that which is crazy about you. God does not show up in your business transactions. Oh! He is there as well, but he doesn’t show up. God doesn’t show up in the way you operate in your social life. God shows up in the way you suddenly fall in love. God shows up in the way you leave everything behind to come to a stranger. God shows up in the way you are prepared to give up even your body for something intangible. That’s where God expresses himself to you. To you! Otherwise, He is expressing himself all the time. Time itself is God’s expression.
Do something without purpose. Act without motive. Give without bothering for returns. Love, without bothering for tomorrow. Learn, without bothering for consequences. And that is God! The uncaused one. The first one. The one beyond reason. And if you cannot enter any of that then observe all your actions done with a reason, for a profit, for a benefit. Even in that, you will be able to detect God. He is not called omnipresent for nothing! Even in all your calculations and manipulations and cleverness, God is present. But there you will have to observe a little more carefully.
God is present not only in selfless love, but even in self-centric attachment. If your life is full of attachments then observe just your attachments. There too, you will find him. But an instantaneous, immediate, royal way is to find God not in attachments but in love.
