Gandhi's Quotations On God

Truth Is God

The Absolute Truth, the Eternal Principle, that is God. There are innumerable definitions of God, because His manifestations are innumerable. They overwhelm me with wonder and awe and for a moment stun me. But I worship God as Truth only.

I have not yet found Him. But I am seeking after Him .... I have had faint glimpses of the Absolute Truth, God, and daily the conviction is growing upon me that He alone is real and all else unreal.

Truth Is Supremely Effulgent

The fleeting glimpses that I have been able to have of Truth can hardly convey an idea of the indescribable luster of Truth, a million times more intense than that of the Sun, we daily see with our eyes. In fact, what I have caught is only the faintest glimmer of that mighty effulgence. I feel the warmth and sun-shine of His presence.

The sun in heavens fills the whole universe with its life-giving warmth. But if one went too near it, it would consume him to ashes. Even so, it is with God-head. We become God-like to the extent we realise non-violence; but we never become wholly God.

God Is Sat-Chit-Anand

The word Satya ( Truth ) is derived from Sat which means 'being'. And nothing is or exists in reality except Truth. That is why Sat or Truth is perhaps the most important name of God. In fact, it is more correct to say that Truth is God than to say that God is Truth.

And where there is Truth, there is also Knowledge, pure Knowledge. Where there is no Truth, there can be no true Knowledge. That is why the word Chit or Knowledge is associated with the name of God. And where there is true Knowledge, there is always Bliss (Anand). Sorrow has no place there. And even as Truth is Eternal, so is the Bliss derived from it. Hence we know God as Sat-Chit-Anand one who combines in Himself, Truth, Knowledge, and Bliss.

The Omnipresent Living Power

There is an indefinable Mysterious Power that pervades everything. I feel it though I do not see it. It is this Unseen Power which makes itself felt and yet defies all proof, because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses. It transcends the senses.

I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever-changing, ever-dying, there is underlying all that change, a Living Power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and re-creates. That this informing Power or spirit is God.

You may say you do not believe in Him. You do not know that but for His will, you could not draw a single breath. Call him Ishwar, Allah, God, Ahura-Mazda. His names are as innumerable as there are men. He is one without a second. He alone is great. There is none greater than He. He is timeless, formless, stainless. Such is my Rama. He alone is my Lord and Master.

The Supreme God

Is this Power benevolent or malevolent? I see it as purely benevolent. For I can see that in the midst of death, life persists, in the midst of untruth, truth persists, in the midst of darkness, light persists. Hence I gather that God is Life, Truth, Light. He is Love. He is the Supreme Good.

God is wholly good. There is no evil in Him. God made man in his own image. Unfortunately for us, man has fashioned Him in his own. This arrogation has landed mankind in a sea of troubles. God is the Supreme Alchemist. In His presence, all iron and dross turn into pure gold. Similarly, does all evil turn into good.

Again God lives, but not as we. His creatures live but to die. But God is Life. Therefore, Goodness and all it connotes is not an attribute. Goodness is God. Goodness conceived as apart from Him, is a lifeless thing and exists only while it is a paying policy. So are all morals. If they are to live in us, they must be considered and cultivated in their relation to God. We try to become good, because we want to reach and realise Cod. All the dry ethics of the world turns to dust because apart from God they are lifeless. Coming from God, they come with life in them. They become part of us and ennoble us.

God Responsible For Both Good And Evil

To say that God permits evil in this world may not be pleasing to the ear. But if He is held responsible for the good, it follows that He has to be responsible for the evil too. Did not God permit Ravana to exhibit unparalleled strength ? Perhaps, the root cause of the perplexity, arises from a lack of the real understanding of what God is, God is not a person. He transcends description. He is the Law- maker, the Law and the Executor.

I cannot account for the existence of evil by any rational method. To want to do so, is to be co-equal with God. I am humble enough to recognise evil as such. And I call God long-suffering and patient, precisely because He permits evil in the world. I know that He has no evil in Him, and yet if there is evil, He is the author of it and yet untouched by it.

Boundless His Love, Infinite His Mercy

God is, even though the whole world, deny Him. God embraces not only this tiny globe ofours but millions and billions of such globes. How can we little crawling creatures, so utterly helpless as He has made us, how could we possibly measure His greatness, His boundless love, His infinite compassion, such that He allows man insolently to deny Him, wrangle about Him and cut the throats of his fellowmen? How can we measure the greatness of God, who is so forgiving, so divine?

God Is The Greatest Democrat

Perfection is the attribute of the Almighty, and yet what a great democrat He is! What an amount of wrong and humbug He suffers on our part! He even suffers us, insignificant creation of His, to question His very existence, though He is in every atom about us, around us and within us. But He has reserved to Himself the right of becoming manifest to whomsoever He chooses. He is a Being without hands and feet and other organs, yet he can see Him to whom He chooses to reveal Himself.

The Hardest Task-Master

God is the hardest task-master, I have known on this earth, and He tries you through and through. And when you find that your faith is failing, or your body is failing you and you are sinking, He comes to your assistance somehow or other and proves to you that you must not lose your faith and that He is always at your beck and call, but on His terms. So I have found. I cannot really recall a single instance, when at the eleventh hour, He has forsaken me.

A Terrible Tyrant

God is long suffering and patient, but He is also terrible. He metes out the same measure to us that we mete out to our neighbours - men and brutes. With Him ignorance is no excuse. And withal He is ever forgiving, for He always gives us the chance to repent. He is the greatest democrat the world knows for, He leaves us 'unfettered' to make our own choice between evil and good.

He is the greatest tyrant ever known, for He often dashes the cup from our lips, and under cover of free will leaves us a margin so wholly inadequate as to provide only mirth for Himself at our expense. Therefore it is that Hinduism calls it all His sport-Leela, or calls it all an illusion- Maya.

He Is All Things To All Men

To me God is Truth and Love. God is fearlessness, God is the source of Light and Life, and yet He is above and beyond all these. God is conscience. He is even the atheism of the atheist. For in His boundless love, God permits the atheist to live. He is the searcher of the hearts. He knows us and our hearts better than we do Ourselves....He is personal God to those who need His personal presence. He is embodied to those who need His touch, He is the purest Essence. He is, to those who have faith. He is all things to all men.

His Eternal Law Governs Everything

God is...Law Himself....He and His Law abide everywhere and govern everything. Therefore, though I do not think that He answers in every detail, every request of ours, there is no doubt that He rules our actions and I literally believe that not a blade of grass grows or moves without His Will.

Nothing Can happen but by His Will, expressed in His eternal, changeless Law which is He. We neither know Him nor His Law save through the glass darkly. But the faint glimpse of the Law is sufficient to fill me with joy, hope and faith in the future.

His Law Cannot Be Intrigued With Impunity

God is Omnipotent. He is the embodiment of perfection. None can set limits to His justice and His mercy. How then can we, who call ourselves His devotees, dare to infringe the obligation of morality. We should not, of course, lead a moral life in the hope of a reward. A life of goodness is enjoined upon us, not because it will bring good to us, but because, it is the Eternal and immutable Law of Nature. Good works are indeed more than food and raiment to us. We should feel more grateful to one, who gives us opportunity of doing a good deed than to him who feeds us in our hunger.

Any breach of His Law carries with it not its vindictive, but its purifying, compelling punishment.

The Inner Voice, The Voice Of God

For me the Voice of God, of Conscience, of Truth, or the Inner Voice, or ' the Still Small Voice', mean one and the same thing. I saw no form, I have never tried, for I have always believed God to be without form. But what I did hear was like a Voice from afar and yet quite near. It was as unmistakable as some human voice, definitely speaking to me, and irresistible. I was not dreaming at the time I heard the Voice. The hearing of the Voice was preceded by a terrific struggle within me. Suddenly the Voice came upon me. I listened, made certain it was the Voice and the struggle eased. I was calm ....

Could I give any further evidence that it was truly the Voice that I heard and that it was not an echo of my own heated imagination ? I have no further evidence to convince the sceptic. He is free to say that it was all self-delusion or hallucination. It may well have been so. I can offer no proof to the contrary. But I can say this that not the unanimous verdict of the whole world against me could shake me from the belief that what I heard was the true Voice of God ....

For me the Voice was more real than my existence. It has never failed me or for that matter, anyone else. And every one who wills can hear the Voice. It is within every one. But like everything else it requires previous and definite preparation.

The Divine Music is incessantly going on within ourselves but the loud senses drown the Delicate Music which is unlike and infinitely superior to any thing we can perceive or hear with our senses.

THE Voice Within Demands Implicit Obedience

There is something within me impelling me to cry out my agony. I have known exactly which it is. That something in me which never deceives me, tells me:

"You have to stand against the whole world although you may have to stand alone. You have to stare the world in the face, although the world may look at you with blood-shot eyes. Do not fear. Trust that little thing in you which resides in the heart and says: ' Forsake friend, wife, all; but testify to that for which you have lived and for which you have to die'.".

God Speaks Through Events

Mankind is notoriously too dense to read the signs that God sends from time to time. We require drums to be beaten into our ears before we should wake from our trance and hear the warning and see that to lose oneself in all, is the only way to find oneself.

I have seen, and believe that God never appears to you in person, but in action, which can only account for your deliverance in your darkest hour.

He does not work directly, He works through His numberless agencies.

God's Expression In All The Acts Of His Votary

God to be God must rule the heart and transform it. He must express Himself in even the smallest act of His votary. This can only be done through a definite realisation more real than the five senses can produce. Sense perceptions can be, often are, false and deceptive, however real they may appear to us. Where there is realisation out-side the senses, it is infallible. It is Proved not by the extraneous evidence but in the transformed conduct and character of those who have felt the real presence of God within.

We are not. He alone is. And if we will be, we must eternally sing His praise and do His will. Let us dance to the tune of His Bansi-lute, and all would be well.

Source: "Light of India" or Message of Mahatmaji by M. S. Deshpande