• "We all are seeking enlightenment. It does not matter whether it is going to happen or not, simply living with the vision itself is a very elevating, liberating, and joyous process. When we have a vision and we give our life towards it, it becomes the easiest way to attain the highest. It is a spiritual process by itself." ~ Swadesh
  
  
• “I searched for God and found only myself. I searched for myself and found only God”. ~ Rumi.
  
  
• “Where can we go to find God, if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living being”. ~ Swadesh.

All the religions believe that God created the world and also mankind. But if we are created by someone then we don't have our own soul. All the strings of life are in his hands. Then there is no question of any enlightenment, of there being any Buddha, because there is no freedom at all. He pulls the strings, we dance; we cry; we start murders, suicide, war. Then there is no question of sin or virtue and of sinners and saints. Nothing is good and nothing is bad. Responsibility belongs to someone who has the freedom to act. If we accept God as the creator, we are destroying the whole dignity of consciousness, of freedom, of love. We are reducing the whole of existence to just the whim of a strange fellow called God. God is nothing but a search for security and safety. We believe in God because we feel helpless without that belief. Even if there is no God, we will go on inventing. The temptation comes from our weakness. It is a projection. Man feels very limited, very helpless, almost a victim of circumstances -- not knowing from where he comes, where he is going and why he is here. The ordinary mind will go berserk without God. God is a prop -- it helps us, it consoles us, it comforts us. The very idea of God gives us a sense of relief -- that we are not alone, that somebody is looking after us; that this cosmos is not just a chaos; that there is a system behind it; Somebody rules it; the sovereign King is there looking after each small detail. Everything is planned. We are part of a great destiny. Maybe the meaning is not known to us, but the meaning is there -- because God is there. God brings a tremendous relief. One starts feeling that life is not accidental; there is a certain undercurrent of significance, meaning, destiny. Man has created God in his own image. God is not a discovery. The truth is that man's God and religions are man's inventions. We need someone to hang on to, because everything we see is changing and we need a father-figure. All religions say "Believe!" Only Buddha has said "Doubt!" Doubt is the very methodology -- DOUBT to the very core, to the very end. And when we have doubted everything, and dropped everything out of doubt, then reality arises in our vision. It has nothing to do with our beliefs about God. Then arises reality: absolutely unfamiliar and unknown. But that possibility exists only when all the beliefs have been dropped and the mind has come to a state of maturity, understanding, acceptance that whatsoever is IS, and we don't desire otherwise. If there is no God, there is no God, and we don't have any desire to project a God. This is what maturity is: to accept the fact and not to create a fiction around it; to accept the reality as it is, without trying to decorate it, without trying to make it more acceptable to our hearts. We need to become more aware, more conscious, and more courageous and not hide behind beliefs and masks and theologies and start to take our life into our own hands. We need to burn bright our inner light and see whatsoever is. No belief is needed. All belief systems are poisonous; all belief systems are barriers. A few people believe that there is God and a few people believe that there is no God, but both are believers. Our mind remains childish, and immature. We continue to search for a father figure: someone somewhere who can become the ultimate explanation. The mature mind is one who can remain without any search even if there is no ultimate explanation of things. We need to live our life so consciously, so full of light and awareness, that OUR life is solved. Our heaven, our paradise, is nothing but our unfulfilled desires and instincts, being projected into the other life, the life after death. Man is unfulfilled in life and he goes on trying to fulfill it, still, he finds it cannot be fulfilled, so he has to project in the future. All heavens and paradises are nothing but unfulfilled projected desires, repressed desires, and frustrated desires. Of course, they console man very much: People believe that sooner or later we will reach to God; the only thing we have to do is go on praying to Him, go on bowing down before some image or some idea or some ideal, and keep Him happy, and then we are going to reap a great crop of pleasures and gratifications. That will be His gift to us -- for our prayers, our appreciation, for continuous surrender, for again and again touching His feet, for our obedience -- that is going to be the reward. Man never comes to fulfillment through desire; but by transcending desire. Desire is a great opportunity to understand the functioning of our own mind. In that very understanding is transformation.

When we desire less, we are fulfilled. NOT that desire is fulfilled, but when desire is transcended there is fulfillment. Desire always goes ahead of us, is in the future, and is a hope. Desire cannot be fulfilled because its very nature is to remain unfulfilled and projected in the future. The distance between us and the horizon remains absolutely the same. It is the desire that is deceiving us. All worship is desire-oriented. GOD is not a person but ENERGY. Energy has no considerations for individuals; whatsoever happens to each individual happens impartially. So whenever we deal with energy as if it is a person, we are bound to go off track. If we deal with energy the results will be entirely different. ”God is energy.” God does not think about how to behave with us; it has its own eternal law. Religion means the laws of behavior of the energy that is God. If we behave with understanding and in conformity with this energy, it becomes grace for us – not on its own, but because of us. If we do the opposite, it becomes non-grace-yielding towards us. In this case God is not ungraceful; it is so because of us. If we wish that this divine energy becomes a blessing, grace for us, then we have to do something to our own self; hence spiritual practice has meaning. Meditation has meaning. In prayer we beg, we insist, we expect, we demand. In meditation, we are working upon our own self. In worship we are doing something with God; in spiritual endeavor, we are doing something on ourselves. 

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