All of us in one way or another, are in search of God without our knowing it. On our journey towards a better life, some of us consciously search for truth, others for love, and still others for beauty. If these three aspects - love, truth and beauty - were offered as those, which most summarize God's qualities, there would be few willing to argue. Unfortunately, just as the word God has been so much used and abused out of context, love – truth - beauty have all but lost their deeper meanings. The love that exists today between two persons is often conditional, selfish, and not lasting. What I feel to be the truth today is discredited tomorrow. And beauty has come to be associated with the temporary, often bodily beauty, which is easily disfigured. If I have been searching for a love that never lets me down, a truth that is unshakeable and a beauty that goes beyond the superficial, I have indeed been searching for GOD - perhaps without even being aware of it.
It is not too difficult to understand that out of all the billions of souls, there is ONE who could be designed as the Supreme, because of His constant perfect divine Love, total Truth and absolute Beauty.
Anything that exists must have a form. God's qualities are formless but He, the Source, has a form, God is not love but the Source of Love; God is not truth but the Source of Truth… and so on. As explained earlier the soul is a point of light, of conscious energy, surrounded by an oval-shaped aura, similarly the Supreme Soul, the Parent, is also that. But the difference is in the degree and intensity of purity, qualities, powers…..
How do I use this knowledge about God in meditation? Knowing His form, I can bring that image onto the screen of my mind, and begin immediately to experience powers and qualities by associating them with That beautiful form. There is so much importance in meditating on God's form and attributes. In all cultures and religions there is some special memorial or ritual, in which LIGHT is always allied to what is Holy or Sacred. It is a reminder of the form of God as Light. Candles, flames, and other light sources have always had importance in religious practices.
The ‘near-death’ experience, in which the soul (the conscious entity) leaves the body, usually due to some traumatic happening, lends meaning to this point. The individuals relate how they passed through a long tunnel at the end of which they perceived a light, which is self-luminous and conscient. The light gave them a sense of relationship and warmth, possessed of non-judgmental love and compassion. The interesting thing about all these reports on ‘near-death’ experiences is that, irrespective of their background - religious or even non-religious - their experiences of this Being of Light and Love have always been identical.
Anything that has a form has a name, so too God has a name. There are as many names for God as there are languages, and each name highlights one of God's specialties… whether it be Jehovah, Allah, Shiva… But Shiva perhaps describes God best, as it literally means “World Benefactor” (Compare Mark 10:18), the one who recreates heaven again on earth destroying the hell that is staging on this earth presently. This he does every time the heaven deteriorates to its maximum level! Hence he is also portrayed as Lingam (Lin denotes destruction and gam denotes recreation), a perfect symbol that reminds his two main roles!
