God knows Himself by His manifestation. Manifestation is a self of God, but a self which is limited, a self which makes Him know that He is perfect when He compares His own being with this limited self which we call nature. Therefore, the purpose of the whole creation is the realization that God Himself gains by discovering His own perfection through his manifestation.
Has God a consciousness of the whole creation beside the consciousness He has of separate being? This may be explained in this way: Every part of one’s body is conscious of the pain that it has; it suffers through that pain — through pain from a sting, for example — but at the same time it is not that particular part only which is conscious of it. So if God is all and in all, then He does not only experience life through all forms and through all entities separately, but also collectively, as the pain of one organ is experienced by the whole body.
This is what I mean when I say that you are so much in connection with all beings that you experience the suffering and the joy of all beings. And that is when you are in tune with the consciousness of the Messenger, or the Prophet. What can be said is that in creation God manifests Himself. In suffering He Himself suffers; He Himself is puzzled in His creation. And one day He Himself realizes His perfection. God alone exists, no one else.
"The one whom I have called God, whose personality I have recognized, and whose pleasure or displeasure I have sought, has been seeing His life through my eyes, has been hearing through my ears. It was His breath that came through my breathing, His impulse which I felt. And therefore I know that this body which I had thought to be my own is really the true temple of God. I did not realize that this body was the shrine of God. Not knowing that God experiences his life through man, one is seeking for Him somewhere else, in some person aloof and apart from the world, whereas all the time He is in oneself."*
Man, if you try to earmark what is your purpose in life, you will find that you are continually seeking to know yourself.
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*Pir Vilayat is quoting Hazrat Inayat Khan in In an Eastern Rose Garden (Vol. VII in the Message Volume series). - Ed.
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