By: Manda Patel
Source: The Daily Guardian https://epaper.thedailyguardian.com/view/1838/the-daily-guardian/15
Dated: December 28th, 2024

Despite the fact that I have been meditating for over 43 years, in my early teens, I never thought I would be looking for God. As I approached adulthood, some pressure was put on me to make some decisions and choices about how I wanted to live my life. I began to seriously considering the options. Being of Indian origin, though born and raised in the UK, one of the options was to have an arranged marriage and bring up a family of my own. There was some part of me that did not find that particularly appealing, and I felt that life had more to give, and I had more to give to life, than creating a small world that would be very confining, emotionally, physically and spiritually. It just so happened that my mother embarked on a spiritual path at that very time I was to consider my future. I went along to the Brahma Kumaris with her, and it was there that so many things were clarified for me, not least of which was, who and what is God. I discovered through my own deep experiences, what an amazing and incredible personality that Supreme Being is. The trajectory of my life became crystal clear, and I embarked on the spiritual quest to deepen my understanding of, and develop an intimate relationship with, God.

Technically, my religion was Hindu and the notion of God within that religion is not a singular one, but that there are many gods. Growing up, I did not delve very deeply into those multiple gods, but always had the sense that there IS a God, but not who or what it was. It was with the Brahma Kumaris that I learned of God as a Spiritual Being, an immense energy with a personality of unconditional love, profound peace, compassion and mercy. I cannot claim after all this time that I completely understand this Being. But I know it to be true for me, that whenever or wherever I need to experience the love of the Divine, that holds me in an unconditional embrace, I only have to turn my mind to the Being I have spent over 40 years refining my relationship with. This truth of God is available to me at any time or in any place – just a thought away. All I have to do is hold that energy in my heart and in such a way that I become that. Then I must reflect that through the quality of my actions, interactions, thoughts and feelings.

The whole journey really is to remove all that gets in the way of my experiencing God’s energy. To remain untainted by the physical world around me and to be truly present with my spiritual self that is, in a way, identical to that of God. To allow nothing to divert me from that, even though I may continue to have vestiges of the acquired self, that is, my personality. That acquired personality is not really who I am. I am that pure life force, that consciousness that resides inside this physical body. God does not have an acquired personality, because He is always peace, always unconditional love and never takes ownership of anything physical.

This most beautiful journey is to recognise what happens to my consciousness, when I engage with that eternally unchanging, Spiritual Force of love and light.

Manda Patel is a Rajayoga teacher 
based at the Brahma Kumaris Global Retreat centre, 
Oxford UK