One who has discovered God becomes close to God even in this world. His spirit is bathed in the light of God. If even the sight of flowers arouses finer feelings in a person, how can one discover God and not be moved to a state of sublime ecstasy?

Many people claim to be close to God, but are still in fact a long way from Him. They speak of God, but their actions show that they have not even recognized their Lord.

They take God’s name, but have not tasted the sweetness of the name which they utter. They claim to have found God, but have not experienced the fragrance of His garden. They display religious fervour in public, but there are no signs of their souls being illuminated with the light of God. They consider that God’s Paradise is reserved exclusively for them, but their lives are not touched by a heavenly breeze.

A strange God it must be who does not cause any vibration in one’s thoughts. A strange heaven it must be to which people who show no reflection of the heavenly in their words and deeds will be automatically admitted. A strange hereafter it must be which will be inherited for all eternity by people who did not seek life-everlasting and were interested only in ephemeral pleasures.

It is regrettable that there are people who claim to have found God while in truth they have not found Him at all.

Source: Paradise: God's Neighbourhood