Once a Devotee asked Swami Saradananda the real meaning of God vision, or realization: Is it seeing something with the physical eyes externally or feeling something inside our inner self? He replied: “It is the realization, feeling something inside our inner self, but you know when we see something with our eyes or hear something with our ears, we become firmly convinced about its existence. But inner realization gives us an even greater conviction of the true eternal reality. That is realization — God vision.”
Swami Vivekananda asked Sri Ramakrishna: “Sir, have you seen God?” Without a moment’s hesitation Ramakrishna replied: “Yes, I have seen God. I see Him as I see you here, only more clearly. God can be seen. One can talk to Him. But who cares for God? People shed torrents of tears for their wives, children, wealth, and property, but who weeps for the vision of God? If one cries sincerely for God, one can surely see Him.” “That impressed me at once,” said Narendra later. “For the first time I found a man who dared to say that he had seen God, that religion was a reality to be felt, to be sensed in an infinitely more intense way than we can sense the world.” Narendra felt that Ramakrishna’s words were uttered from the depths of his inner experience. Still, he could not comprehend the Master’s words and conduct. Bewildered, he bowed down to the Master and returned to Calcutta.
Just before Yogananda’s death, Shivananda had asked him, “Jogin, do you remember the Master?” Yogananda replied, “Yes, I remember the Master more — even more — much more.”
Swami Subodhananda’s spiritual life was as marked by his directness as much as his external life was marked by its simplicity. He had no philosophical problems of his own to solve. The Ultimate Reality was a fact to him. Whenever he would speak of God, one felt that here was a man to whom God was a greater reality than one’s own earthly relatives. He once said, “God can be realized much more tangibly than one feels the presence of a companion with whom one is walking.”
MASTER: “God alone is the Master, and again, He is the Servant. This attitude indicates Perfect Knowledge. At first one discriminates, ‘Not this, not this’, and feels that God alone is real and all else is illusory. Afterwards the same person finds that it is God Himself who has become all this — the universe, maya, and the living beings. First negation and then affirmation. This is the view held by the Puranas. A vilwa-fruit, for instance, includes flesh, seeds, and shell. You get the flesh by discarding the shell and seeds. But if you want to know the weight of the fruit, you cannot find it if you discard the shell and seeds. Just so, one should attain Satchidananda by negating the universe and its living beings. But after the attainment of Satchidananda one finds that Satchidananda. Itself has become the universe and the living beings. It is of one substance that the flesh and the shell and seeds are made, just like butter and buttermilk.
“It may be asked, ‘How has Satchidananda become so hard?’ This earth does indeed feel very hard to the touch. The answer is that blood and semen are thin liquids, and yet out of them comes such a big creature as man. Everything is possible for God. First of all reach the indivisible Satchidananda, and then, coming down, look at the universe. You will then find that everything is Its manifestation. It is God alone who has become everything. The world by no means exists apart from Him.
“All elements finally merge in akasa. Again, at the time of creation, akasa evolves into mahat and mahat into ahamkara. In this way the whole world-system is evolved. It is the process of involution and evolution. A devotee of God accepts everything. He accepts the universe and its created beings as well as the indivisible Satchidananda.
“But the yogi’s path is different. He does not come back after reaching the Paramatman, the Supreme Soul. He becomes united with It.
“The ‘partial knower’ limits God to one object only. He thinks that God cannot exist in anything beyond that.
“There are three classes of devotees. The lowest one says, ‘God is up there.’ That is, he points to heaven. The mediocre devotee says that God dwells in the heart as the ‘Inner Controller’. But the highest devotee says: ‘God alone has become everything. All that we perceive is so many forms of God.’ Narendra used to make fun of me and say: ‘Yes, God has become all! Then a pot is God, a cup is God!’ (Laughter.)
“All doubts disappear when one sees God. It is one thing to hear of God, but quite a different thing to see Him. A man cannot have one hundred per cent conviction through mere hearing. But if he beholds God face to face, then he is wholly convinced. (Source: Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna)
If these truths have been told to a high-minded person who feels the highest devotion for God and for his guru as for God, then they will surely shine forth as inner experiences-then, indeed, they will shine forth. (Svatasvatara Upanishad 6.23)