Question: You have written an aphorism which says: "God is at once finite and infinite. He is space. He is beyond space. He is measured. He can be measured. He must needs be measured. He is measureless. He is boundless. He is infinite." Could you please explain this?

Sri Chinmoy: God is finite and God is infinite. You have stressed the word “finite”. It means that you cannot agree with the idea that God can be finite. Omnipotent — this is our feeling about God. God is omnipotent, God is omniscient, God is omnipresent. Now, let us take this divine quality which we call omnipotence. If God can be only as vast as the universe, but not as tiny as the tiniest atom, then where is His omnipotence? When we think of omnipotence, our human mind has a feeling of a power very vast, measureless. But the term “omnipotent” simply means having unlimited power. This means that the Supreme has the power to be immeasurably vast or inconceivably small, at His sweet Will. At our sweet will we can do nothing, but just because God is omnipotent, at His sweet Will He can do anything He wants to. God is infinite because He is omnipotent. Again, God is finite precisely because He is omnipotent. For He who is omnipotent can do and be anything He wants to.

As human beings, we are evolving towards our transcendental Perfection. God is infinite, but He entered into this finite body of ours which lasts for fifty, sixty or seventy years, then dies. God is infinite, but He houses Himself in each tiny child. Here in the finite, He wants to enjoy Himself and play the tune of the Infinite. Only then does He get the greatest joy. It is in the finite that we are aspiring towards the Infinite, aspiring to achieve the Infinite. Again, the Infinite gets the greatest joy by making itself as tiny as possible. Finite and infinite: to our outer eyes they seem opposite to each other, but in God’s Eyes they are one. The finite and the Infinite always want to go together; the one complements the other. The finite wants to reach the absolute Highest, which is the Infinite. The Infinite wants to manifest itself in and through the finite. Then the game is complete. Otherwise it will be only a one-sided game. There will be no joy, no achievement, no fulfilment. In and through the Infinite, the finite is singing its song of realisation. And in and through the finite, the Infinite is singing its song of manifestation.