To be really into existence and into God, one needs this proportion. I bring this proportion to you! That’s why I am not against the body, because the body is your soil. I am not against sexuality, because that is where your roots have to grow and become strong. It is there where your roots have to get nourishment, the waters of life. But to stop there is to commit suicide. Take the nourishment from the soil, take the vitality from the body, from sexuality, and then use it for higher purposes, for higher rhythms, for higher harmony. Then bloom. Bloom in meditation, in love, in ecstasy. Then let there be a great rejoicing and a dance.

Only then are you a total man. A total man is a balanced man; he is not extremist. So to look for God upwards does not mean that God is overhead, it simply means that if we grow upwards we will have closer contacts with God. Not that God is upwards, God is downwards too. But you will not have a closer contact with God unless you are fulfilled. In your fulfillment is the experience of God.

Don’t seek God. Seek fulfillment and you will find God. Seek God, forget fulfillment, and you will not find God. God cannot come like an accident, God can come as an inner growth. It is something that happens in your innermost core. But in the old days this metaphor of looking overhead, praying to the sky, became very rigid. People took it literally. They started thinking God is overhead. That is a natural fallacy.

But times have changed; man has come of age. Man is more alert, man is no more childish. Humanity has come a long way since the Vedas and the Talmud: humanity has passed through many stages. It is no more needed to take God and the metaphors associated with him literally. Take them metaphorically. They are metaphors.

If you ask me “Where is God – overhead?” I would like to tell you that the metaphor has become a little bit rotten. Too much used, misused – the associations have gone wrong. That has to be dropped. Instead of saying “God is overhead” it would be better to say “God is alongside.” Let God become your “alongsidedness.” Rather than thinking of God as a father-figure, think of him as a beloved, as a friend, and you will find the approach easier, you will find yourself more open.

Yes, one day it was so – to call God “the Father” was to bring him very close. When Jesus called him abba he was speaking the language of his day. The father was immensely respected, the father was very deeply rooted in the child, in the psyche of the child. To call God “Father” was valuable: it meant much. Now things have changed, utterly changed. Father is not a respectable word anymore. It smells of authority, authoritarianism. It smells of institutionality. It smells of a power structure. And the moment you say God is the Father, you fall apart rather than being joined by it. Father is no more a hyphen between you and God. The word has fallen, because the institution of fatherhood has deteriorated. You will have to find new words and new metaphors – new language to relate. Let God be your beloved, let God be your friend.

If you are a woman, think of God as your lover. If you are a man, think of God as your beloved.