Experiencing God: Beyond Understanding, Into Presence
Reason is a powerful gift, but it has limits. The mind can trace the contours of an idea, but it cannot hold the ocean in its hands. The attempt to fully understand God is like trying to capture the wind in a jar. The Qur’an reminds us of this when it says:
" No vision can grasp Him, but His grasp is over all vision: He is above all comprehension, yet is acquainted with all things." - Qur’an 6:103
In philosophy, Wittgenstein suggested that some things are beyond the grasp of language, saying,
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
Similarly, the Tao Te Ching opens with a profound truth:
"The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name." - Tao Te Ching 1:1
God cannot be reduced to words or concepts. And yet, while God may be beyond comprehension, God is not beyond experience.
God in Experience: Love as the Ultimate Knowing
If God is love, as so many traditions affirm, then God is not a concept to be studied but an experience to be lived. The Bible states:
"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." -1 John 4:8
Love is not something we define; it is something we surrender to. It is not a theorem to be proven; it is an event that overtakes us. It is in loving that we come closest to understanding God—not intellectually, but existentially. This is why Rumi says:
"Step out of the circle of time and into the circle of love."
When we stop trying to define love and instead become consumed by it, we come to know God in the most intimate way.
Encountering the Divine in Creation and Events
God does not exist in isolation. The entire cosmos is a manifestation of the Divine. The Baha’i Writings state:
"Every created thing in the whole universe is but a door leading into His knowledge."-Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh
When we stop analyzing and start being present, we begin to encounter God everywhere. A moment of kindness, a sunrise over the mountains, the stillness after rain—each of these is an invitation into the experience of God.
Even suffering and hardship become means of divine encounter. The Buddhist tradition teaches that suffering (dukkha) is not an obstacle to enlightenment but a path to it. Similarly, the Bible declares:
"Be still, and know that I am God." - Psalm 46:10
God is not found in relentless searching but in stillness, in surrender, in being wholly present in the moment.
The Immensity of God and the Surrender to Experience
The vastness of God is incomprehensible, yet that should not be a cause for frustration—it is an invitation into awe. The Upanishads capture this paradox beautifully:
"If you think that you know Brahman well, you know but little. If you realize that you cannot comprehend it, then you truly know." - Kena Upanishad 2:3
There is freedom in letting go of the need to understand. When we release ourselves from intellectual striving and instead abandon ourselves to the experience of love, a deeper meaning is revealed. This is why Rilke advised:
"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves"
Living in the Experience of God
To experience God, we must live in love, in awareness, and in surrender. Every moment is an opportunity to encounter the Divine—not by grasping it with the mind, but by being fully present in the unfolding mystery.
As Bahá’u’lláh writes:
"O Son of Man! Write all that We have revealed unto thee with the ink of light upon the tablet of thy spirit… that thy words may attract the hearts of them that are receptive to the divine inspiration."
God is not a puzzle to be solved but a Presence to be experienced. And in that experience, we come to know—not with the mind, but with the soul.
Let us, then, cease striving to understand, and instead be consumed by the experience of God.
Zaziel Azahr
Comments
Post a Comment