Is God Testing You?

 

Photo Credit: Medium|Foundation of Non Duality

Is God Testing You?

We have heard from our childhood days that 'God is testing you' – invariably this was told to us by our parents when we faced tough times. The question I was asked was – if God is within us, if God is present in all creation why would he want to test us? If he is the one who protects you from the thorns and carries you over them when you want to give up and surrender – then why would he want to test you?

We need to be clear on ‘who’ is being tested. When we live in duality it is me and my soul and the ‘me’ is represented by the ego. The ego is a huge part of the conscious mind – the ego creates challenges and problems where none exist.

Life exists through duality. Life needs duality. Everywhere you will find it, till the ultimate arrives. The ultimate, the absolute, or call it God, transcends duality. But then life disappears. Then you become invisible. Then you have no form, no name; then you have gone beyond. That is nirvana.

When we start meditating, one has to eliminate, one has to empty oneself totally. On the path of love, the opposite is true, we have to fill ourself completely. We have to become so full of love that it starts overflowing.

On the path of meditation, one has to become so empty that nothing remains, one becomes pure nothingness. Buddha calls this the ultimate experience, nothing is found; only nothing is found! Nirvana means ‘putting out a candle’ – the ego just disappears as if you have just put out a candle. Nothing remains.

When nothing remains, the observer becomes the observed. There is no difference between the observer and the observed.  Man is like an onion: you go on peeling, layer upon layer, go on peeling, and finally nothing is left. But that's what the search is. When the hands are empty, nothing is left, you have arrived. Now there can be no misery, because there is nobody to be miserable.

Now there can be no pain, because there is nobody to feel pain. Now there is neither knowledge nor ignorance, because there is no knower. Now there is neither bondage nor liberation, because there is nobody to be bound or to be liberated. All is gone, all has disappeared. You have fallen back into the source.

The manifest is there no more; you have become unmanifest. In this state you are neither man nor woman, in this state you are neither happy nor unhappy, because those are all parts of the dual world: happy/unhappy, man/woman, beautiful/ugly, good/bad. That is all gone. You are neither good nor bad. There is no Devil now, and no God - that is part of duality, the same duality. And in duality there is always tension, in duality there is always conflict. In duality there is always the other.