Question: Once I met a person who said that he did not believe in God because he could not see Him or hear Him. He said he believed in his wife because he could see her and hear her, and his child. What can we do and what can we say to persons who think that way, because we try a lot of arguments but to no avail.

Sri Chinmoy: So your friend does not believe in God, but he believes in his wife because he sees his wife and hears her voice. We can approach this question from various angles. First of all, although he sees his wife’s face and hears her voice, is he satisfied with his wife? Does he feel that his wife is in a position to give him everything that he inwardly wants? No, there are many things his wife cannot do because she does not have enough power. Now the question is: if he does not want to believe in God and wants to believe in his wife, a spiritual person will say, “Fine, let him believe in his wife.” Even though he is actually having faith in someone physical, his faith in itself will immediately take him beyond the boundary of the physical. He will enter into the spiritual realm, the realm of vision. Unconsciously he is having faith in some other world, but he does not know what that other world is. He sees his wife only in the physical world and that is the reason why his wife is all to him, physically, spiritually, inwardly and outwardly.

But we know that the Infinite Truth lies inside us and that Infinite Truth or Reality can only come to the fore when we consciously try to bring it to the fore. Now, in your friend’s case, he does not want to know the Truth or see the Truth, feel the Truth or become the Truth. No harm, as long as he has faith in his wife, but his wife need not be a spiritual person. She may be a spiritual person. Let him give all credit to his wife because for him his wife knows everything and his wife satisfies him. We suppose all this because he does not want to progress beyond the achievements or capacity of his wife. But his wife, I do hope, will feel that the satisfaction that she is giving to her husband is actually coming from some higher or deeper source. And that deeper source is God or God’s Light.

Now if that person deliberately wants to negate the existence of God, it is not advisable on our part to insist to him, or compel him to have faith in God. It is a waste of time. So long as he has faith in something, that is enough. In India, there are people who have great spirituality but who do not actually believe in God. They do believe in something. He says that he does not believe in God, but he does have faith. There is not anybody on earth who does not have a belief in something, even in negation. This man is negating, negating, negating the Truth. That very negation is an affirmation of Truth expressed in a negative way. So let us allow him to continue to negate the Truth, but at the end of the journey he will see that the negation itself is being transformed into something positive.

So I wish to tell you — please do not try to impose your ideas, your immediate feeling about God on this person. It will be a waste of time. Only try to observe what his actual feelings are. If his actual awareness of Truth lies in his wife, then let us not disturb him because God is deeply seated in his wife and it is God who is working through his wife in order to change and transform his mind and heart.