Objects

What a pity! That truly is a pity isn’t it, that the Divine isn’t an object? Consider for a moment: if God’s nature was objective, a thing to be acquired, we’d all be running after it with eagerness. Nothing could stop us from getting it. The path to it would be clear, easy, rehearsed a thousand times, with unmistakable steps. We would all be happy — the shy, lazy ones only in a small measure, but clearly so; and the greedy ones probably piling chunks after chunks of happiness at home, for the bad, chilly days. No doubt that after a while, happiness would be placed in the market place, to be simply bought — a democratic God, available to all. Only, God would then become so pricy, that only the rich amongst us could afford it. The poorest would have to stay unhappy, miserable. After some time, the rich ones would no doubt find God boring, to be replaced by another more exotic good. And happiness would be set aside, discarded as a thing of a time past. Dreadful prospect, isn’t it?

But thank God, the Divine wasn’t made into an object! So none of this could ever have happened. Not to God! To anything else yes, but not to god, not to happiness! The price for God had been set, right from the beginning, as an inestimable one. And the way to acquire true happiness was made into such a subtle, noble pursuit, that no money could ever be of any use for it. We may try, as we did for centuries, to make God’s being into another subtle object, something convenient, setting methods, churches, temples, ashrams, where it could be practised, and happiness made into a precious ornement to be obtained. But none of that was found to be effective, in final analysis. Only a few rare, lofty, unmatchable seekers were able to find God where it truly lived, and make themselves so available to it as to become of it themselves. These rare beings have found there a joy so ineffable as to appear unreachable, and God was downgraded to a celestial being or an exotic state, to be idealised and worshipped. That’s not yet an ideal situation, is it?

So let’s start again and be very clear from the beginning! God has never been, will never be, and could never be found as any kind of object. It is not something to be attained, and its presence is not at a distance from us. The difficulty in recognising its presence lies in God’s utter subjectivity, and in the abundance of it in ourself. So don’t move from where you already are. This place of yourself is the only suitable enough spot for happiness to thrive, and a precious enough container for God’s humble, sublime home. And don’t wait for another time than this present time of now. God is only accessible here and now. You will find it nowhere else. Stay there. In yourself. As yourself. But go to the very heart of it, at the core of what you are and always have been. Who you already are is the secret cabinet where God dwells, and has dwelled all this time, without your noticing.

Now I’ll tell you a secret. Ask yourself the question: What is the only portion of my present experience that is exempt of objects, of things known? Find this place in yourself where you cannot be any thing, where you cannot be located, where you cannot even be named, where you are made no existence at all, where you cannot know anything but your own present being, where you and the whole world can be embraced in one subtle presence that cannot be found but is paradoxically all there is, all that you were, and all you will ever be. Feel this presence in yourself, as yourself. See that you have been in God’s home all along. Gently notice its glory being slowly revealed. Delve in it, and as it, patiently. This is what God’s being feels like — that subtlest presence that you are in fact referring to when saying ‘I’. There! Do you feel it? Rest and live only as that.

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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