In plain words
When anyone questions you about God, you must give no room to confusion of any kind. He is my God. If someone says, ‘Where is He? He is not there,’ then: in your feeling God is not, in my feeling God is. Who are you, who are you, to say that the God in my feeling is not? Your God may be lost to you, but my God is there for me. Who are you to say my God is not? We must develop faith of this kind. Only then will we find the right answer. This answer need not come into our hands. You can take an example of this. Anil Kumar is here. That means there must be people who have seen Anil Kumar. So the one who says Anil Kumar is here must also have seen Anil Kumar. The one who says Anil Kumar is not here must also have seen Anil Kumar. If he has not seen Anil Kumar, how can he say Anil Kumar is not here? In the same way, the one who says God is, and the one who says God is not: he can say God is not only if he has seen God. How can he say He is not, without seeing God? That one has seen Him, and this one has seen Him. This faith is there in the atheist and in the believer. So this faith is in everyone. The worldly atmosphere leads them, to some extent, onto the wrong path.
Who is an atheist? Who is a believer? The atheist is a flower bud. The believer is the flower that has opened. No fragrance comes from inside the bud. From inside the opened flower fragrance comes. That very fragrance is Bhakti. It is in this bud too, but it has not come into his experience. But without the bud the flower could not have come. Step by step the two have become one. One who cannot understand even his own nature, humanness, cannot understand divinity either. One who has understood himself can understand divinity easily. It is only because he mistakes who he is for a mere man that he mistakes God, too, for a man. In My view, you too are God. When the upādhi is set aside, the two are one. You are deluded by your upādhi. Swami here is free of upādhi. Even though it is there, I do not make the upādhi My aim. A small example. This is how you are to have faith: you are going along the road. We must strengthen the faith that everything is the form of God. As you go along, many people may mock you, saying, ‘Devotee, devotee!’ Or they may criticise you. Then you must not let yourself be hurt. Or you may be troubled at heart. That is not the right mark of a devotee. What should you think then? This too is the body of God. That too is the body of God. It is that same God who, from within that body, is criticising this body. This one has the satisfaction of hearing it. That one has the satisfaction of saying it. O God! This whole world is a stage. All have come as actors. But for all these actors who play their parts, You alone are the director.