The chief reason why we do not find God: we do not desire him ardently enough. Our lives are crowded with far too many other things and we can get on pretty well without God. He is certainly not as essential to us as the air we breathe. This is what he was to man like Ramakrishna. . . . He once said to a friend, speaking about what it means to long for God, "If a thief were sleeping in a room that was separated from a treasury full of gold only by a thin wall, would he sleep? All night long he would be awake contriving devices to get at that gold. When I was a youngster, I desired God even more ardently than that thief desired gold."
— Anthony de Mello, Contact With God