Can the mind know God?

Seeker: Can the mind know God? How to get rid of the contrast mind?

Sirshree: God is beyond the mind. The mind can never know God. God reveals only when the mind becomes silent. But the mind can never accept that there can be anything that it does not know.

Can the mind know God?

People often feel shy of admitting ‘I don’t know.’ If we do not know something, we must admit it. Instead, people give absurd answers because they feel embarrassed to accept that they don’t know. For example, a person fails to attain success despite working very hard for it. He seeks a reason for his failure. However, the answer he receives from one individual is, “It is because of your fate, that you do not succeed.” Someone else tells him, “You must have committed certain wrong deeds in your previous birth. Hence success eludes you in this birth.” Thus, instead of saying “I don’t know”, readymade answers are given related to luck, destiny or previous births. Why should one be embarrassed to say, “I don’t know?” Instead, people give wrong answers.

For instance, when a child asks a question to his father and his father does not know the answer, the father should say, “I too do not know the answer to this question. So, come on son, let us look for the answer together.” A person asked his friend, “Why do we find dewdrops on the surface of leaves in the morning?” His friend replied, “The earth perspires a lot as it has to rotate the whole day… this sweat is seen on the leaves.” Here too, instead of saying “I don’t know”, some ridiculous answer is given.

In this way, readymade answers are handed out in the form of destiny, heaven, the result of deeds (karma) from past births, etc. If this birth were the result of deeds in past lives, then what was the cause of the first birth? Due to which deeds would the first birth have taken place? Man is afraid to admit that he does not know and continues to dish out speculative answers. It is due to such answers that various imaginary images and concepts of God have formed. The mind can imagine about God, but cannot experience God. The spectacles cannot see the eyes. The mind is the spectacles of God. Hence the mind can never see God. When the mind becomes silent (no-mind) through contemplation and understanding, it is then that God is revealed.

Seeker: Does the falling silent of the mind imply that we have returned into ourselves? Even if the thoughtless state is attained, it is only for a few moments.

Sirshree: It is true that the mind’s silence means being in the Self Experience. The mind being within, means to become silent, in moun. There is a saying: ‘If your mind is within, then you are Mahavir’ (‘Mahavir’ here implies the one who possesses supreme courage and has thereby mastered the body-mind). The mind has become quiet means that it has surrendered unto the Experience (Self, God). When the mind (ego) realises that it only needs to bow down, then it will surrender due to love and devotion. It is then that the real truth will manifest, bliss will manifest.

If you are in this state even for a short while, understand that this is the right state. Now your tied feet are freed, your ears have opened and your eyes are opening. This is the state of Supreme Silence (moun). It is in the state of supreme silence that thoughts arise and dissolve into. There is no such thing as bringing in a thoughtless state. You will understand through practice that the state of thoughtlessness is already there; it has always been there, right from the beginning. It is in this state that things (imaginations) rise and fall. Hence do not fall into believing that thoughts should not appear. Thoughts will appear at any time, they will come in order to carry out some action through your body. But you are always only witnessing these thoughts. You will remain an onlooker or Witness to your thoughts. You must have the conviction that you are already in a thoughtless state, a state of silence, whether you are still or moving about.

 * To know about how to silence the mind (no-mind), you can read the book ‘The Unshaken Mind’.