Across centuries, seekers have gazed at the sky and whispered the same question: If God exists, why can’t we see Him? Why does the Divine remain invisible while suffering is so visible? In Sanatan Dharma, this mystery is not a contradiction but a profound spiritual truth. God does not hide out of distance or indifference. He hides because the human mind has forgotten how to see.
The Gita and the Upanishads repeatedly affirm that the Divine pervades everything. God exists within every breath, every atom, every flicker of consciousness. Yet the senses, conditioned only to detect the gross and the external, fail to recognise this subtle presence. The Upanishads describe God as “anoraniyan mahato mahiyan” — smaller than the smallest, greater than the greatest — a reality so subtle that the physical eyes simply cannot hold it.
The lecture explains that the real barrier is not God’s invisibility; it is the heaviness of the human mind. Over lifetimes, desires, fears, anger, attachments, and karmic impressions thicken the consciousness, making it dense and restless. The soul, originally radiant and sensitive enough to perceive the Divine effortlessly, becomes buried under layers of noise. The mind begins to look outward for proof of God, forgetting that the only instrument capable of perceiving Him lies within.
Modern philosophical thought reflects this too. Thinkers like J. L. Searle describe consciousness as a filtered experience. We never see reality as it is; we see it through interpretation. This is why, as the lecture notes, even if God appeared physically, an ordinary mind would fail to recognise Him. Conditioned to see through ego and expectation, it would reduce the Infinite to something familiar, or perhaps even reject it entirely.
In Sanatan vision, seeing God is less about divine visibility and more about inner readiness.
The scriptures give a deeper reason as well: God chooses concealment to preserve free will and inner growth. If the Divine stood before us openly, life would instantly lose its meaning. Karma would be irrelevant, fear would replace authenticity, and devotion would become a transaction. Just as a teacher steps back during an exam, the Divine steps back so the soul can express its own strength, its own awareness, its own awakening.
The concealment is not abandonment; it is compassion. Even Arjuna trembled when Krishna revealed his cosmic form. If that intensity were shown to an ordinary person, loaded with ego and desire, the very mind would collapse under its radiance. The Divine remains unseen because the human vessel is not yet ready to hold that magnitude.
The lecture also highlights that karmic impurities — accumulated reactions, unresolved emotions, and inherited patterns — build a wall between the soul and its source. Ego becomes the thickest barrier of all. It constructs the illusion of separation, and separation breeds blindness. Until the ego softens, the eye that can see God remains closed.
Yet the Divine is never truly hidden. Just as air remains unseen yet sustains every breath, God remains unseen yet sustains every moment of existence. His presence is woven quietly through intuition, synchronicity, inner guidance, unexpected peace, and the mysterious force that pulls a seeker toward truth.
Seeing God is not a visual act. It is a transformation of perception. When the mind becomes still, when the heart becomes pure, when longing deepens beyond fear and desire, the hidden begins to reveal itself — not as an external figure but as a profound inner presence. The seeker discovers that God was never absent. It was the mind that was noisy, the ego that was blind, and the soul that had simply forgotten its own luminosity.
When consciousness becomes clear again, God does not appear; He is recognised.
