What does God do all Day?

An instructive story
Just before going to India for the rst time in 1962, I had the great good fortune to
meet and hear Sri A. B. Purani, the administrator of the renowned Aurobindo Ashram
of Pondicherry, India. From his lips I heard the most brilliant expositions of Vedic
philosophy; nothing in my subsequent experience has equaled them. In one talk he
told the following story:
In ancient India there lived a most virtuous Brahmin who was considered by all to
be the best authority on philosophy. One day the local king ordered him to appear
before him. When he did so, the king said: I have three questions that puzzleeven
tormentme: Where is God? Why dont I see Him? And what does he do all day? If you
cant answer these three questions I will have your head cut off. The Brahmin was
appalled and terried, because the answers to these questions were not just complex,
they were impossible to formulate. In other words: he did not know the answers. So his
execution date was set.
On the morning of that day the Brahmins young son appeared and asked the king
if he would release his father if hethe sonwould answer the questions. The king
agreed, and the son asked that a container of milk be brought to him. It was done.
Then the boy asked that the milk be churned into butter. That, too, was done.
The rst two of your questions are now answered, he told the king.
The king objected that he had been given no answers, so the son asked: Where
was the butter before it was churned?
In the milk, replied the king.
In what part of the milk? asked the boy.
In all of it.
Just so, agreed the boy, and in the same way God is within all things and
pervades all things.
Why dont I see Him, then, pressed the king.
Because you do not churn your mind and rene your perceptions through
meditation. If you do that, you will see God. But not otherwise. Now let my father go.
Not at all, insisted the king. You have not told me what God does all day.
To answer that, said the boy, we will have to change places. You come stand here
and let me sit on the throne.
The request was so audacious the king complied, and in a moment he was standing
before the enthroned Brahmin boy who told him: This is the answer. One moment
you were here and I was there. Now things are reversed. God perpetually lifts up and
casts down every one of us. In one life we are exalted and in another we are brought
lowoftentimes in a single life this occurs, and even more than once. Our lives are
completely in His hand, and He does with us as He wills (He hath put down the