by Swami Kriyananda
With Tara Gandhi, daughter of the Mahatma
Who is God?
He is not a person. He is neither He nor She, and He is both He and She. He is everything our souls ever craved: perfect bliss, immortality, complete consciousness — Satchidananda, as He is defined by those who are familiar with the concept of absolute perfection. There is nothing and no one apart from Him. All that we see around us is but a part of a cosmic dream.
Who is God may be paired with another, equal question: Who are we? For in our deepest reality, what is left when we strip away all superficial definitions is that germ of consciousness within. There, as Jesus Christ implied, lies the secret of God’s reality.
What does God give us?
He gives us as our eternal birthright the freedom to seek Him or reject Him. Nothing else is our own — not possessions, not our personalities, not our talents, not our homes and families. When we misuse the gift of free will by running after worldly desires, we lose freedom and commit ourselves to voluntary, but unknowing, slavery.
What does God want of us?
He wants — so my Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, often said — the one thing He doesn’t have: our love. This is the same thing as saying that our true Self will never find fulfillment until it merges in divine love. “Thou has made us for Thyself,” said St. Augustine, “and our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee.”