Question: Do You Really See God?

I wish to ask you one thing. Do you really see God? If so, please tell me how you see Him. Or do you only see His presence in feelings? It's my humble request.

Hare Krishna!

Answer: Here's How to Make a Proper Discernment.

You have asked me if I see God, and the answer is certainly that I am seeing God at every minute. Because God is omnipresent, everyone is seeing God at every minute. But the God-seeing of the Krishna conscious person and the materially conditioned person are quite different. The conditioned soul sees God in His not so pleasant form of death. That Krishna is death is confirmed as follows in the Bhagavad-gita:

mṛtyuḥ sarva-haraś cāham

"I am all-devouring death."
--Bhagavad-gita 10.34

The conditioned person in the material energy sees God in a very fearful way because when God appears in the form of death He takes away everything that the conditioned person holds to be near and dear.

But the Krishna conscious person sees God within and without in His beautiful all-attractive feature as the all-merciful Supreme Personality of Godhead at every minute. Therefore the Krishna conscious person does not live within the material energy like the materialists. He is living within the Lord's spiritual energy experiencing the Lord's unlimited absolute benevolence at every minute.

You are asking how I am seeing God. Am I seeing him indirectly as a materialist, or am I seeing directly him as a Krishna conscious person? In this regard please understand that many people have claimed that they can see God. But how can we confirm whether they are telling the truth or not? So the real point is that we have to become learned in the science of the Bhagavad-gita to know who is actually Krishna conscious and who is not.

So if we want to know if a particular person can see God or not, we have to carefully study the Bhagavad-gita as it is and carefully study the particular person also. In this way we can know whether he can directly see God or not.

One day in 2006 I was cleaning the altar for Sri-Sri Kishore-Kishori in the Chicago temple and I looked over and there was Krishna's lotus foot. I realized I had a serious conflict in my mind. I thought, "As naraka (hellish) a mentality as I have, that foot really only looks to me like a chunk of marble." At the same time though, I realized that if I had the vision of a pure devotee, I would see, without a doubt, that Krishna Himself was standing right there. Suddenly I also realized that either way I'm in a win win situation. If you could go through all the museums, art galleries, cathedrals and places of beauty throughout the world where could you find anything more beautiful than the archa vigrahah in Radha-Krishna temples now spanning the globe?

Replies

Volunteer

Sarvopama dasa ACBSP February 14, 2010 at 2:51am

If we take even one teeny tiny baby step towards Krishna, He will take unlimited many more back towards us.
sourav February 12, 2010 at 12:15pm

i believe that as we progress in devotion, we first begin to "feel" the presence of God before we reach the state where we can inwardly "see" Him in our minds. And after that probably we'll be able to see Him with our (physical) eyes wide open too.
Volunteer

Sarvopama dasa ACBSP February 11, 2010 at 10:33pm

One day in 2006 I was cleaning the altar for Sri-Sri Kishore-Kishori in the Chicago temple and I looked over and there was Krishna's lotus foot. I realized I had a serious conflict in my mind. I thought, "As naraka (hellish) a mentality as I have, that foot really only looks to me like a chunk of marble." At the same time though, I realized that if I had the vision of a pure devotee, I would see, without a doubt, that Krishna Himself was standing right there. Suddenly I also realized that either way I'm in a win win situation. If you could go through all the museums, art galleries, cathedrals and places of beauty throughout the world where could you find anything more beautiful than the archa vigrahah in Radha-Krishna temples now spanning the globe?

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