In plain words
Where are you to search for God, who is there wherever you look? They are making a great mistake. We must recognise this: ‘Are the sādhakas searching for God, or is God Himself searching for the sādhaka?’ You need not try to search for God, who is everywhere. But a true devotee is nowhere to be seen. A devotee who has surrendered completely is not to be seen in this world. It is God who is searching for the true devotee; the devotees need not search. ‘Sarvataḥ pāṇipādaṃ tat sarvato’kṣi śiromukhaṃ.’ Wherever you look, He is there. In the home, at one's side, before one's eyes, He is there, guarding as the eyelid guards the eye. If you recognise this vast principle, you will not try in the least to search for God. In this world there is no place where He is not, no form that is not His. We must strengthen this faith. This is the mark of true Bhakti. We may count doing some dhyāna, pūjās and yogas as good karma. All these are just karmas that make time sacred! But to recognise the Creator there is no other path but expansive Prema. So: ‘Prema is God, God is Prema.’ If we develop such Prema and keep meditating on Divinity with the faith that He is wherever we look, He appears right where we are.
‘Yad bhāvaṃ tad bhavati’
In the Bhāgavatam, in the story of Prahlāda, the wicked father searched everywhere for God. Hiraṇyakaśipu was a great scientist. He was far greater than all the scientists. He searched the ocean. He roamed the sky like a bird. Even in every atom he went on making his tests. At every step too he went on enquiring. Nowhere did Divinity appear to him. The reason: because he searched with the feeling within him, ‘God is not, is not’, He appeared to him as not there. Because of his faith that God is there wherever he looked, He appeared to Prahlāda as God alone wherever he looked.