The word God evokes a memory…some connection to the past. When I was young my mother said “God loves you”. So God became the source of love. My mother said, “I love you”. The way that she showed this became the idea of what love is. Even when naughty and after a beating, my parents would re-strengthen the idea of love. Somebody loved me and this gave security and hope.
In the family Christian church, the priest would say “In the bible it says that God loves you…through his only son”. So the God my mom spoke of, then became more authoritative, because the guy in charge of the church, a place where people listened with great reference to a priest, could lay down laws found in a bible that people showed great respect for.
So God took on all these meanings. Judge, respect, reverence, all-knowing, security, faith, hope, peace, understanding, omnipresent, omnipotent, Jesus Christ the son of God. God makes man in his own image.
One day a question came up ”…but where did God come from?” and no answer could satisfy…”and why could it not satisfy?”… because it became evident that nobody knew exactly. Some even said that it might be too far back to remember. But God is omnipresent. “oh, ummm”…silence…huh?
So God became unknown too.
It also became evident that there was not only a Christian God, but God for all religions. And on and on… and always about me and God.
A more intensive investigation shows that the story you get told is a story you can believe in too. All that is necessary are faith, hope and trust in God’s son who is also God. And these became acutely developed through application which in turn became known as ‘living the Faith’. And so I was living the Faith.
All the above always requires a ‘someone’ who applies the Truth of God. There was always a ‘me’ who was separate from God, who comes into union with God through the son. No one in the church ever asked “who am I?”. It was always obvious that you, a person, a soul, returns to God through the son.
Okay…but who am I?…Don’t you believe?…that question shows that you don’t believe and those that don’t believe, the unbelievers, they are tricked by the devil…do you fancy eternity in hell? Hell, no!
So God became good and bad became evil…God remained unknown while known through a teaching. And all the story about Lucifer the angel of light who pretends to be God….and on and on.
But what about me?…and what is a soul…have you ever seen a soul?…ummm no…but…Ha!
Who am I really?…I mean really…without all the story given about it. Am I God?…how do I know God without a story?
This question remains unanswered. Every thought coming up… to whom does this appear?…me…so who am I?…for what seems like a moment, no thoughts come. Yet I am here…Ha!
And where do thoughts come from anyway?…they are only known when they are happening. What is this?…existence…being….awareness. Everything that appears cannot be conscious of without awareness….even the thought ‘I’ is aware of. Where’s the separation in this….none. Who gets to suffer this life….no answer. Who gets to be responsible…. no answer. And if no one is responsible then the world will tilt, there will be total anarchy…blah blah blah. Oh yeh!…take a look at the truth of this fear…who is having it?…no answer.. its all blah blah.
But with the story of God where someone has to repent, someone has to be saved, someone is a soul and some one suffers all of this…well, this is a story, another play of light.
I prefer to call it ‘Intelligence’ because ‘God’ looks too much like a story for ‘me’. Intelligence is this happening without there having to be an identity called ‘me’. This happening is a play of light, an illusion that looks very real and is very real too…yet it is but a reflection, an image appearing. And its unconditional…because everything comes and goes of its own accord.
May 17, 2009 at 2:24 pm |
Yes, I agree God is to be found within as the answer to who am I? Looking behind “me” or “I” is our true nature and this nature is connected to God. The East is very aware of this which is why you find the practice of meditation. However, in the West, while the Church does not want us to have our own direct route to God, in early Christianity we have the Gnostic striptures or Gospels. Gnosis is what Luther and Decartes talked about: self-knowledge – who am I?