A very successful man, whose sentences frequently began with the word "I," joked that "God might hear me, but I cannot hear God." That is because God is audible only when "I" is silent. If you don't hear God, it is because you are exerting a will not to turn your ear toward God. Turn to Him the way a sunflower turns to the sun. You are God's flower on earth. Do you want to hear God? Stop saying "I." Say "You." Don't be self-referential. Focus on God. God will hear you and you'll hear God.
A young scientist who fed all his life on the dry husks of facts and was determined to put me in my place asked: "How do you understand God?" I replied with my usual, "You don't get there by your mind; you have to make a quantum leap of faith." Seeing the dissatisfaction in his eyes, I tried a response that would resonate with his field of expertise: "My mind does not even understand a bee, let alone God." He kept quizzing me: "Has God ever spoken to you?" I guess he was wondering if I had ever had any auditory hallucinations. I said, "God speaks not only to me, but to all of us, to things and beings around us." He was relentless. "Have you ever seen God?" I said, "God is coexistent with us. We infer His existence from the existence of the universe."
Now the young scientist was as frustrated with me as I was with him. He asked, "Well, what is God exactly?" "Exactly? God is personified incomprehensibility. God is the ground of existence. He surrounds everything, encloses all, and is enclosed by none. He is the fountainhead of life, to be apprehended, not comprehended." The scientist snickered, "Those are just words. Do you honestly believe in miracles, like Jesus walking on water?" I replied, "The fact that we walk on earth is a miracle, never mind Jesus' walking on water."
It was my turn. I asked if he believed in the existence of creatures. He nodded. "Well then, why don't you believe in the Creator?" He smiled mischievously. "But where is the Creator?" And he quoted Job: "If I go east, he isn't there. If I go west, I can't find him. If I go northward,...I can't observe him. If I turn southward, I can't see him." (Job 23:8-9) I countered, God...I look behind me and you're there, then up ahead and you're there, too." (Ps. 139:5) God asks us: "Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?" (Jer. 23:24)
Our five sensory organs are equipped to receive only their corresponding senses. The eye can see but cannot hear. Likewise, the mind can understand but cannot believe. The Bible says, We don't look for things that can be seen but for things that can't be seen. Things that can be seen are only temporary. But things that can't be seen last forever. (2 Cor. 4:18)
"Can you see love?" I asked the young scientist. "No," he replied. "Well, ‘God is love,' says the Bible." (1 John 4:8)
We assign God the best human (powerful, beautiful) and natural (infinite light to darkness) attributes, but God is beyond attributions. You will not find God as an object to be thought about, understood, or experienced. But you may find God in the laughter of your children; the grief of a friend; the opening of forsythias after a long winter; a covering of snow; the noisy joyfulness of birds and wind; or the quiet testimony of ants and cobwebs. God just is. God's altar is everywhere and in everything. Engage God through immersing yourself in His creations; you'll find that God is self-evident.
We live in a universe where you are both an insignificant particle at the mercy of the unknown and a significant person at the mercy of the unknowable. We perceive this situation as a threat to our existence, and yearn for certainty and control.
To control fate by attempting to know the universe or to know your psyche provides neither security nor freedom from anxiety. If anything, presumption of control generates insecurity and anxiety because life is not cut off from natural and spiritual orders. The only security is mooring in God; only God can anchor you from outside and within.
As you dissolve into God, you'll realize that the Creator and creation are one. There is no separate "I." In God your boundaries no longer exist. Your boundaries-physical body, mind, the things you own, job-are temporary phenomena, meant to serve your present transient existence. You are defined eternally only in communion with God, where there are no distinct beings and where all are one. This boundless communion and unity extends to all other creations of God as well-animals, vegetation, earth, skies, sunlight, morning mist, ocean waves, winds, and silence.
You don't need a reason other than witnessing your own existence in this immense universe to know that you should will what God wills. You are your own witness. Even in your most desperate moment, place your will in unison with God's will.
T. Byram Karasu, M.D. is the author of The Spirit of Happiness
