God we cannot be, but godly we can be by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 15

Some spiritualists claim that we, as eternal spiritual beings, are God, or will become God on attaining liberation.

But the Bhagavad-gita (15.07) declares that we are parts of Krishna – eternally. The eternality of our position as parts emphasizes that we don’t become God even after liberation.

Nonetheless, being God’s parts, we are inherently godly. In our pure state, we manifest all good qualities and rejoice eternally in reciprocating pure love with Krishna.

We need to understand the spiritual realm properly – not through the filter of beliefs extrapolated from our material experiences, but through the vision provided by scripture.

However, a part frequently depreciates in value when disconnected from the whole. For example, the same screw that is valuable when in its place in a machine loses much of its value when it falls off the machine and is swept away during cleaning. Similarly, we lose much of our godliness when we become disconnected from Krishna and get swept away by ungodly impurities that misdirect our love from him to matter.

The material realm is characterized by uncontrollable change that threatens our schemes for material happiness. So, we believe that if we could just control things more, we would be happier. When we come in touch with spirituality, we superimpose this belief on the spiritual realm and desire to be the supreme controller. Consequently, we balk at devotional spirituality that rules out the possibility of our becoming God.

To overcome such reservations, we need to understand the spiritual realm properly – not through the filter of beliefs extrapolated from our material experiences, but through the vision provided by scripture. Based on scriptural vision, if we try to love Krishna by practicing bhakti-yoga, we will gradually relish a sublime non-material fulfillment that will convince us that we don’t need to be God to be happy. We just need to become godly and learn to love God purely, because that pure love will fulfill our longing for happiness perfectly and perennially.