What is the Connection Between God and Man?

“What is the connection between God and man? If God is unseen, how can a connection be established between man and something unseen? How can man see the connection? Is the one who sees the connection a man, and is one who does not see the connection also a man? How does the connection come?” A man asked these questions of a Sufi gnani.

The gnani replied, “True indeed. Not everything we see or believe in is God, and not everyone we see is a man. But it is easy for a true man to see the connection between God and man.

“God is beyond mind, desire, and thought. From a place beyond mind, desire, and thought, one who acts with the qualities of God, who does the duty of God, who hands over to Him the responsibility for the diseases of hunger, illness, old age, and death, one who does duty without selfishness and has compassion—he is in the state in which God exists. He is a man, an insan. He is God. In that state he can see the connection between man and God, which is made up of the qualities and actions of God.

“When form is created, the ray of the power of God comes into each form. Thus a connection exists between the power known as God and the ray known as the soul. That ray existed within Him in anathi, the dark time before the beginning. The bodies that were formed with the ray of God’s power inside them will live with that connection.

“There are six kinds of lives. One of them, man, has a connection to God. Man had that connection in anathi, and he maintains it even after he leaves anathi. Just as a fish dies when it is taken out of water, the ray of the soul will die if its connection to God’s power is broken.

“God’s power exists for all time. But if man forgets his connection to it and establishes a connection to the five elements, to earth, fire, water, air, and ether, he will live and die with a connection to hell.

“One who maintains the connection to God is a man, while those who prefer the connection to the elements are pulled by those shakthis, their forces and energies, and disappear into the karma of animals. They become subject to millions of births and to hell. One who is connected to God is pulled by that power and grace and will disappear in God.