how do we get closer to God?

A seeker once asked God, “how do we get closer to God?”, instead of answering directly, God smiled and shared this parable.

Satyanvesh gupta was a middle-class man drowning in life’s burdens. Bills piled high, responsibilities weighed heavy, and bankruptcy loomed like a dark cloud. One desperate afternoon, while rummaging through his attic for anything valuable to sell, he discovered an old, yellowed map tucked inside his great-grandfather’s trunk.

His hands trembled as he unfolded it. Written in faded ink was a riddle:

Beside the river where silence flows,
i am sure that nobody knows,
Behind the garden of blood roses red,
the lanes which you have to carefully tread.,
Beneath the banyan tree so old and wise,
openly available but is in disguise,
Is buried the wealth no eye can see—
The treasure of what we’re meant to be.

The poem continued, speaking of peace like morning dew, of wisdom born from suffering, of being whole. But Satyanvesh’s eyes saw only one thing: treasure. Real, tangible wealth that would solve all his problems.

“A river, a rose garden, and a banyan tree,” he whispered excitedly. “Find these three together, and all my sorrows end!”

He began his secret quest immediately. For weeks, he traveled from village to village, asking subtle questions, investigating every river bank, every garden, every ancient tree. He walked until his feet bled, searched until his eyes burned, hoped until his heart ached.

But nowhere could he find the deadly combination—a river flowing beside blood-red roses with a banyan tree standing sentinel over both.

Exhausted and defeated, Satyanvesh finally trudged home. “Just an abstract poem,” he muttered bitterly. “A cruel joke from a dead ancestor. Nothing substantial. Nothing real.”

Reaching home parched and broken, he walked to the river that had always flowed behind his modest house—the same river he’d ignored for years while fetching water mechanically. This time, as he cupped the cool water to his lips, something made him pause.

The evening light danced on the surface. The gentle gurgling soothed something deep within him. For the first time in months, he truly saw the river’s beauty.

Cursing his foolish imagination, he laughed sarcastically at himself—and that’s when his eyes fell upon his own backyard. There, in the garden his wife tended, bloomed the most magnificent blood-red roses he’d ever seen. How had he never noticed their beauty? Their fragrance filled the air like a prayer.

Mesmerized, he wandered among the roses, feeling an unfamiliar peace settle over his worried mind. The weight he’d carried for so long seemed to lighten. Tired but strangely content, he sat down to rest.

Above him spread the wide, sheltering branches of the old banyan tree—the same tree under which he’d played as a child, the same tree he passed every single day without truly seeing.

Satyanvesh leaned against its ancient trunk and closed his eyes. For the first time in years, he slept deeply, dreamlessly, peacefully.

When he awoke, dawn was breaking. And with the light came sudden, brilliant understanding.

He laughed—not with sarcasm this time, but with pure joy. “How silly I was! I searched the world for what was always in my own backyard. I walked past this beauty every day, blind to the treasure before my eyes.”

“And this,” said God to the seeker, “is humanity’s condition. You search the world for Me—in temples and mountains, in pilgrimages and rituals, in distant lands and ancient texts. You exhaust yourselves seeking peace, happiness, and divine presence everywhere except where I truly dwell.

“The river of life flows within you. The garden of experiences—beautiful and thorned—blooms in your own heart. The sheltering wisdom stands rooted in your own soul. The wealth you seek, the peace you crave, the God you search for—all rest in the sacred ground of your being.

“Stop wandering. Look within. The treasure was never buried in some distant land. It was always here, waiting to be recognized, in the backyard of your own consciousness.”

The seeker bowed silently, finally understanding that the longest journey is the one that leads back home, to oneself.

Kabir writes in his famous poem that God asks , “Where are you searching for me? I am right beside you—not in temples, not in mosques, not in Kaaba or Kailash, but in the breath of your breath, in every moment of your life.”

God says Where do you search for me, O seeker? I am right here, beside you.