Who is God? | Design Life

Hello and welcome to the Design Life blog, where we discuss Holistic Beauty, Personal Development and a little bit of magic.

The purpose of asking the question, "Who is God?" is not so much about defining God as it is about your relationship with and deepening your understanding of God, The Divine, The Universe, Infinite Intelligence etcetera. I believe asking "Who is God?" should be as natural to us as asking "Who am I?"

Everybody has some kind of relationship with some kind of higher power and therefore God often comes up in my line of work. It's necessary for our growth as individuals and as a race (the human race) that each person needs to have a personal relationship with their God and a clear awareness of who (or what) their God is. Instead of just going along with what you have been taught about who (or what) God is. You need to rediscover the Truth for yourself, even if you come to the same conclusion, you will have grown in the process. And that's the purpose of asking "Who is God?".

God is God. You can't insult God by asking "who are You?". On the contrary, I believe it gives God the opportunity to reveal His/Her/Its true nature to you. You see, each person has free will. Each person is free to choose his/her thoughts. Therefore anyone can choose to believe in whatever they want. God does not force Him-/Her-/Itself onto anyone (only people can attempt to do that), otherwise we all would be of one mind, yet we're not.

God will only intervene if we ask, through speech, thought or emotion - we must reach out to God, before He will step in, otherwise it violates our free will.

Who is right?

Words were created by people. Words are influenced by beliefs, intentions, perspectives and feelings. Throughout most of our lives, we learn about God from people who speak and write words with their own intentions (not necessarily bad, but not all good either). They have many opinions about who God is and call God by many names. People have many opinions about who God is and call God by many names.

Hindus worship Brahman (a single Being of ultimate oneness), but they worship Brahman through many representations of gods and goddesses. Muslims believe in Allah, who is superior to and transcendent from humans. Christians believe in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit (the holy trinity). There are other religions too, and even within those religions, there are many variations of each. And each has its own concept of God (or no god), but they are all taught by people through interpretable words. We can't see God like we see people. So we all just kind of go along with and accept the beliefs of whatever the people in charge are saying, whether that's our parents, community leaders or governments.

But at some point in our lives we realize that we can think for ourselves, and often the explanations of others seem hollow. We only really learn through personal experience... And yet we find ourselves with other people all the time. Groups of people from the same religion mostly come to the same conclusion. Christians learn from the Bible and they say they know it's true, because their God from their Bible has proved Himself to them and they have experienced His goodness. Muslims learn from the Quran and they say they know it's true, because their God from their Quran has proved Himself to them and they have experienced His greatness.

So who is right?

Don't get me wrong, this isn't a Christian VS Muslim debate - the point I am trying to make is that all religions come to their own conclusions based on their own logic to prove their own God. And there is nothing wrong with that if you feel happy, safe, loved and excited about life. And harm nobody else. Although there are people who wouldn't agree with that. Some people think that there has to be a "right" religion and then, by extension, others must be wrong. But I'm not writing about them, or religion in fact. I'm writing about God.

God is Love

Regarding my answer to the question, "Who is God?"... God is Love. But what do I mean when I say Love? I don't necessarily mean the strong feeling of affection, although that is one way that we translate God.

How do you see with your eyes? When you look at an object, electrical signals travel via the optic nerves to an area in your brain called the thalamus. This then sends the information to the visual cortex, where it is examined in detail. How do you hear with your ears? Your ears enable you to detect vibrations in the air around you. We call these vibrations 'sound'. Sound travels through your ear and reaches the special receptor cells right inside your inner ear. These cells change the sound vibrations into electrical signals, which pass along the auditory nerve to the brain.

We have various senses that (as you can read above) translates vibrations and/or electrical signals into what we see, hear, smell etcetera. Our feelings/emotions are also a sense that we can use to translate the vibration of God. When I say God is Love, Love refers to a Universal vibration. Many people refer to it as Source Energy. 

God is Love, Love is Source Energy. Source Energy is God. This elicits a new question. What is Source Energy?

You are Source Energy

First, I want you to acknowledge that you are not just made of flesh and bone. Scientifically, you know that. Your body is made up of various systems, including the cardiovascular system, digestive system, nervous system, muscular system etcetera. What are these systems made of? Chemicals like oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. What are these chemicals made of, then? Molecules. What are molecules made of? Atoms.

An atom is made up of three tiny kinds of particles: protons, neutrons, and electrons. The protons and the neutrons make up the center of the atom called the nucleus and the electrons fly around above the nucleus in a small cloud. Quantum physicists discovered that physical atoms are made up of vortices of energy that are constantly spinning and vibrating, each one radiating its own unique energy signature. If you want to read more about the world of quantum physics, I suggest you read this article: click here.

To clarify, your physical body (everything, in fact) is made up of atoms. When you look at an atom (through special microscopes, of course!) you would see "a small, invisible tornado-like vortex, with a number of infinitely small energy vortices called quarks and photons". The atom (what you are made of) has no physical structure. Atoms (you) are made out of invisible energy, not solid matter.

Invisible energy... Source Energy? An invisible God? What thoughts come up as you read through this information?

God is Love, Love is Source Energy. The same energy that you are made of. 

Love in Religion

Every major religion has specific views about Love. Bahá'í teaches God's love is part of his own essence, and his love for his creatures gives them their material existence, divine grace and eternal life. Most Christians also believe that God is the source and essence of eternal love. In the New Testament, agapē is charitable, selfless, altruistic, and unconditional. It is parental love seen as creating goodness in the world, it is the way God is seen to love humanity, and it is seen as the kind of love that Christians aspire to have for others.

In the Sahih Muslim Hadith, the Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said: “You will not enter paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another.” Muslims are directed by Allah in the ways to become close to Him and how to gain His love.

Love in Hinduism is sacrament. Prema or prem refers to elevated love. It preaches that one gives up selfishness in love, not expecting anything in return. It also believes "God is love". A sacred text named Kanda Guru Kavasa quotes, "For the thing which is everywhere is only Love, And Love is the only thing which is like a soul within us, Love is Kumara, Love is Kanda." Simply put it means, Love is God.

Remember, however, that religion is something that is formed by people. People write religious texts, even though they are "inspired by God". Two people can look at the same color, yet come to a different conclusion. Is it possible that two people can experience the same God, het come to a different conclusion, too?

Six Men and an Elephant

One of my favorite parables to explain the above is the parable of the six blind men and an elephant. It tells the story of six blind men who have never come across an elephant before. They try to conceptualize the elephant by touching it. But each blind man is touching a different part of the elephant's body. One is touching the tusk, another is touching its leg, another is touching its tail etcetera. They describe the elephant based on their limited experience. One says it feels like a tree trunk (leg) and another says it feels like a snake (trunk). They all end up disagreeing about what an elephant is. Each blind man is convinced that all the others are lying, because he knows what he feels is true, so they go to war about the concept of an elephant.

I believe this is an example of how people (and whole religions) conceptualize God based on a limited view of what/who God is. Nobody can see God, therefore we are essentially "blind" and can't know whether our experience of God is whole. People are inclined to project their limited experience onto the whole truth and don't consider the possibility that they may only be partially right and other people may be partially right, too.

In conclusion, I believe that God is Love, but not the conventional definition of Love. Love as in the highest energy vibration, that which we are all made of. God is Truth - timeless, unchangeable and immeasurable. Through our thoughts and our feelings (which are also vibrations) we translate and experience God and then we try to conceptualize our experience. We can use religion, any religion, to experience God, but God cannot be limited to any one religion. Not in my opinion anyway.

Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below.