The true cause of our misery is identification with thinking. A thought, by nature, is divisive. Human beings say one thing but their actions are mostly the opposite of what they say. For example, many people say they are God-fearing and that they would never act against God’s Will. Such people often begin with the assumption that they know what is God’s Will, which is usually based on their ideas of right and wrong. They do not hesitate to kill another human being in the name of religion, group, sect, and community, claiming to know the right thing.
A true God-fearing (or religious) man cannot claim to know the Will of God for it is beyond our minuscule ideas of righteousness. On the contrary, it is the God-loving man who knows the Truth. Such a man acts spontaneously and intelligently and not out of fear. He does not rely on thought for the action to happen. He acts naturally as the situation in a particular moment demands. Spontaneous action is the right action.
Thought is limited, and so is knowledge, but the insight is complete for it is not a function of time and causation. A man open to insight is a true religious man. The insight is beyond the dualistic concepts of right and wrong, good and evil, virtue and vice, and so on. Thought lives in the domain of mind (time) which divides and bifurcates everything.
Therefore, a God-loving man would not try to change anyone by forcing his views and opinions on others. He would accept them just the way they are because he knows that that’s how God created them. Only God is capable of change and that man is merely a programmed instrument that will never know the basis of God’s programming.
To say, “I know what’s good for you,” is to usurp the subjectivity of pure subject (God). We are always quick to offer opinions and tell others what they should do, how they should live, how they should behave, and what they should or should not follow. We have all of these absurd rules and regulations that are based on conformity and imitation without a hint of originality in them. The Ego’s need to be “right” and avoid being “wrong” is the breeding ground of the greatest evils on earth. It places that need above God’s Will and interferes with his work.
This is why time and again we see violence, wars, genocides, oppression, and brutalities of the highest order. The Ego in a bid to strengthen itself identifies with authority, religious or non-religious. The problem is that no matter how much it expands, by nature it is painful. The more it acquires, the more it wants. Identified with the Ego (sense of separate existence), we live in painful contradictions as our thoughts do not match our actions. We are quick to judge, condemn, hate, resent, and be spiteful towards others.
When the Ego directly faces the fact that it is not and only God is, it is then that the true surrender to God’s Will happens. For then, it is seen that all are One. It is then that the man realizing his illusory existence gives up the sense of separate existence which is the direct experience of unity or God’s unconditional love.
