"What is God?"

[gurthbruins]

This is the question asked today on a Facebook group called "Deism, freedom from revealed religion"

My reply:

<< Everything is God. Look at a grain of sand, listen to the wind. You are seeing God, you are hearing God. God is the Whole; the universe. It's an organism, the supreme organism.
There are two things higher even than that: the Law, which even the universe has to obey, and Time, without which there would be nothing. One could say that it is Time that creates every moment afresh and adds it to the 4-dimensional, growing organism that is the universe: it grows, not in size, but in the time dimension. Unless the future already exists and we are merely moving forward through an already-made universe, which is also possible. >>

One reason I post it here is that I don't want it to disappear: on Facebook your comments soon get buried under many pages of comments, it is difficult to keep track of them and they can be difficult to locate again. There is no index of posts or grouping of posts in categories.

Nevertheless over the past 8 years I have witnessed a steady decline in activity on diverse forums: e.g. the Sudoku forums, health and diet forums. People find the quicker responses on Facebook groups more exciting, and the present popularity of those groups attracts more and more participants, including myself. But I like the relative permanence and accessibility of a forum.

[gurthbruins]

The person who asked this question, said this was the best reply he had ever heard. And said, so now, what about prayer - to which I replied

Michael, your appreciation will encourage me to persist in my efforts. So now, about prayer:
Prayer is communication with God. I feel a need to communicate, to say "Thank you" for a life I did not create myself but received from mysterious sources, to express my gratitude and love in obedience to his wishes, which must be wiser than my own. Who would not want so extreme an intelligence as guide? The gift to me of life is so obviously an expression of love that my heart is moved and I wish to love in return... that I trust this lover, trust him to preserve me... "Preserve me, O Lord, for in thee I take refuge" says the psalmist. "Ein feste Burg ist Unser Gott" says the hymnist (A sure haven is our God)(Luther).

Note: I do not ask God for my daily bread. Nor for anything else. God knows what I need, I don't need to beg for it. And also, God know what is in my heart. Prayer, in which I renew my loving and joyous surrender and obedience to God, is basically to remind myself of how I see my relationship to God.

In this relationship, I can trust that God at every moment of life will steer me through my impulses to do exactly his will, which will be of the maximum eventual benefit to me and to everything else.

It is a bit hard to talk to Time, or to the Law, so I construct a selected part of the universe, the imaginary Constitutional Monarch, a figurehead instituted to receive my homage and adulation. (Remember, all ideas exist as part of the ideal universe). This is a Golden Calf which the Bible forbids - its greatest error, as the Catholics realise and wisely ignore.

[withinsilence]

"It is a bit hard to talk to Time, or to the Law, so I construct a selected part of the universe, the imaginary Constitutional Monarch, a figurehead instituted to receive my homage and adulation. (Remember, all ideas exist as part of the ideal universe). This is a Golden Calf which the Bible forbids - its greatest error, as the Catholics realise and wisely ignore."

The Golden Calf is a story, teaching about idolatry. Something doesn't seem to add up in the above statement? Or I'm missing your point, which very well may be the case. Can you further explain this statement please?

[withinsilence]

The question "What is God" is answered within the question, It Is What Is, I Am That I Am, That Which Is, Be Still & Know. The problem with this explanation for the seeking mind is that it's too simple an explanation. No matter what Time period of past human's have asked/thought of this question...God Is and also no matter what time period of future humans asks this question...God Is. And as of right now, Which Is always Ever...God Is. Simple enough? It may be easier to ask, What is not God. The more important question one may choose to ask is, Who Am I?

[gurthbruins]

The Golden Calf was an attempt to construct a visible image, a "graven image", because it is really difficult for a primitive mind to think in abstractions or even words.
Words are really very weak in themselves, because they can mean nothing more to us than our imagination can tell us they mean. We react much more strongly to something we can actually see, such as a wolf wearing a red jacket.
I will confess that the question "Who am I?" has no discernible meaning for me at all: but then I am an earth sign, seeing is believing and I fail to derive any image from this question.
The Catholic church takes good care to locate a visible lady, a mother of God, in a highly visible place,and to ordain the painting of many pictures to prove the existence of this lady to those who can't think in abstractions.
All the words in the world mean nothing to me by the side of some music composed by one of the great composers, of whom there is a divine Trinity.
Whose names I shall forbear to mention, because their names too are just words which mean nothing. God can be found by a continued search, but not in books, and not in reason.

[withinsilence]

Thank you for the reply. Yes, the Golden Calf was to represent the false gods they were worshiping at that time. I understand creating a physical object to describe something words may not, but for me its the opposite, I can read something, even abstractions and usually understand what they're pointing to. The part I don't understand is that it is said to worship no graven image, yet that is exactly what many do in the Church, concerned with the container and not the contents so to speak. Hanging a cross on the mirror or around the neck, carrying scriptures around, quoting them chapter and verse, and believe one's saved, yet acting just the same as if there was no cross, and the scriptures said do as you please, there is no transformation or truly being born again/a new creation in Christ. What good is having all the scriptures in the world memorized if one lives not one word of it? For me its an innate feeling, an intuition, a revealing or inner knowing, not a concept created in mind that the image represents.

I prefer the word Tao to God, as Tao cannot be made into a mental construct, thus allowing wonderment, awe and mystery to remain within the psyche, leaving one to "know it doesn't know" so to speak and thus learn to flow with it, with all of life and not go and harm or condemn others because it "knows" its God is superior to "yours" which is nothing less than worshiping the false idol made within the mind.

But as you say, and you're correct as I see it, words say nothing in the greatest sense and arise and fall within the all pervading and ever present silent empty space in which all physical and mental experience happens.

I love music, sound/vibration and have been playing a 32" symphonic gong for a little while, also been to a few gong baths/singing bowls/bells meditations, which as I see it is far more beneficial at bringing one in harmony with their original frequency/vibration than any day I ever spent in church listening to a preacher read out of a book. The old churches were constructed to help bring out sound, so when the pipe organ was played and certain notes struck people were literally getting tuned up vibrationally which creates an immensely good feeling within. Today we have square boxes for churches and electronically created music which does little to create altered vibrational/conscious states. Same reason the opera or orchestra (LIVE music) is so "moving" as its causing all the atoms to sing and dance.

This is of course how I see/feel it.