Who is God

In the present age most people in this world are confused about God. Those who don’t believe in the existence of God are called atheists. Those who don’t believe in God are called demons. They are all fools and unlucky.

avajananti mam midhad manusim tanum asritam / param bhavam ajananto mama bhita-mahesvaram

Fools deride Me when I descend in human form. They do not know My transcendental nature as the Supreme Lord of all that be.(Bhagavad-gita).

Fools cannot know the Lord. Many times it is seen that some people with great pride say, "We don’t believe God." How can they believe in God? Fools cannot understand or believe in God. They have insufficient intelligence to understand and believe in the Lord.

The Lord says "four kinds of people do not surrender unto Me."

na mam duskrtino madhah prapadyante naradhamah mdayaydapahrta-jnana dsuram bhavam asritah

Those miscreants who are grossly foolish, who are lowest among mankind, whose knowledge is stolen by illusion, and who partake of the atheistic nature of demons do not surrender unto Me. (Bhagavad-gita 7.15)

In her prayer to Lord Sri Krsna, Kunti Devi has mentioned:

maya-javanikacchannam ajnadhoksajam avyayam na laksyase mudha-drsa nato natyadharo yatha

Being beyond the range of limited sense-perceptions the eternal irreproachable factor covered by the curtain of deluding energy, you are invisible to the foolish observer exactly like the artist dressed as a player is not recognised (by the less intelligent person.) (Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.8.19)

Srila Prabhupada explains, "In the Bhagavad Gita the Lord has affirmed that less intelligent persons or the foolish observer mistakes Lord Sri Krishna as an ordinary man like us and thus he derides at Him. The same thing is confirmed herein by Queen Kunti. The less intelligent persons are those who are rebelled souls against the authority of the Lord. Such persons are known as the Asuras. The Asuras cannot recognise the Lord by all means of authority. When the Lord appears Himself amongst us Like Rama, Nrisingha, Varaha, or in His original Form as Krishna, He performs many wonderful acts which are humanly impossible. As we shall find it in the 10th canto of this great literature, Lord Sri Krishna exhibited His humanly impossible activities even from the days of His lying on the lap of His mother. He killed the Putana witch although she smeared her breast with poison just to kill the Lord. The Lord sucked her breast like a natural baby and along with such sucking He sucked her very life also. Similarly He lifted the Govardhan Hill just like a boy picks up the frog’s umbrella and kept Himself standing for several days continually just to give protection to the residents of Vrindaban. These are some of the superhuman activities of the Lord described in the authoritative Vedic literatures like the Puranas, Itihasas (history) Upanishads etc. He has delivered wonderful instructions in the shape of the Bhagvad Gita. He has shown marvellous capacities as a Hero, as a householder as a teacher or as a renouncer. He is accepted as the Supreme personality of Godhead by such authoritative personalities like Vyasa, Devala, Ashita, Narada, Madhya, Shankara, Ramanuja, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Jiva Goswami, Viswanath Chakrabarty, Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati and all other authorities of the line. He has Himself declared as such in many places of the authentic literatures. And yet there is a class of men with demoniac mentality that they are always reluctant to accept the Lord as the Supreme Absolute Truth. This is partially due to their poor fund of knowledge and partially due to their stubborn obstinacy as the result of various misdeeds in the past and present. Such persons could not recognise Lord Sri Krishna even when He was present before them. Another difficulty is that those who depend more on their imperfect senses also cannot realise Him as the Supreme Lord. Such persons are like the modern scientist. They want to know everything by their experimental knowledge. But it is not possible to know the Supreme Person by imperfect experimental knowledge. He is described herein as the Adhokshaja or beyond the range of experimental knowledge. All our senses are imperfect. We claim to observe everything and anything but we must admit that we can observe things under certain material conditions only which are also beyond our control. The Lord is beyond the observation of sense perception..."

The Lord does not manifest Himself to everyone. He keeps Himself covered by His own internal potency.

Bhagavad-gita (7.25) says, naham prakdsah sarvasya / yoga- mdyd-samdavrtah

"I am never manifest to the foolish and unintelligent. For them I am covered by My internal potency, and therefore they do not know that I am unborn and infallible."

Therefore those who do not know God should not be proud of their ignorance: rather they should contemplate their misfortune. Considering themselves to be unfortunate, they should repent, "Alas! I am so unfortunate! Despite attaining a human form of life 1 have not come to know God. My life is useless."

In fact without the mercy of God, one cannot know God. Just like when the sun rises, with the help of sunshine one is able to see the sun, otherwise it is impossible to see. Similarly when the Lord bestows mercy on someone and manifests Himself, then one will be able to understand, obey, and surrender unto Him.