By seeking God, you prevent God from finding you

Following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Questioner: Acharya Ji, what does Rumi mean when he says, “What you seek is seeking you?”

Acharya Prashant: What you are looking for is also looking for you and you are preventing him from looking for you by looking for him. That is what Rumi did not say, let us complete Rumi’s statement, “God is looking for you and you are looking for God and God keeps on looking for you, God cannot find you precisely because — you are looking for God; you stop looking for God and God will immediately find you.”

It’s like this, you tell somebody to meet you at the Madison Square; the other fellow is looking for you and by the time the other fellow comes looking for you to the Madison Square, you have gone to some other place looking for that fellow. How will he ever get you? — You stop looking, your effort is not needed. “God alone is sufficient, your efforts are a barrier.”

When you are looking for God, you are operating from an ego point which says that you are powerful enough to look for God. You look for God only in one way, if you are a real seeker — by letting God look for you. “You can never be an agency of unity.” “You would always be an agent of separation.” You cause separation when you look for separation and you cause separation even when you look for unity. Don’t look for anything and don’t try anything, God’s efforts are absolute and sufficient he does not even need to be effortful. He is so absolute. “Your little efforts can add nothing to the efforts of God.” In fact, your efforts are always a distraction, always a spoiler.

You know how God looks for you? — By making you see that you do not need to look for him. That is his way and Saints have since ancient times pointed out to this central flaw, the central mistake that seekers make. The mistake of searching. In your search, searching is the only mistake that you can make. When you are seeking, seeking is the only mistake that you can make.

If you are seeking, if you are indeed a searcher. Seek small things, search for the little. Go and pick a glass of water that is a rightful object of search. Go and seek some property, some book, some person, some place. That much is alright, but…