THE OBVIOUS QUESTION

Are we human beings or are we mice?

How can we even think of going all through our life without ever asking the obvious question - what is the means by which we came to be here? What is God?

The usual, traditional answer to that question is that we are not meant to ask such questions, that God is a mystery, unfathomable, not remotely knowable. At this point the questioner is supposed to go away, suitably chastised, and get back to following the traditional, rule-based religious practices. And if you can live with a blindfold over your head, that's good enough.

Oddly enough, the answer is mostly correct. God is a mystery - to us. God is unfathomable, and not altogether knowable as a whole. But we do know God in part.

We know the part that is nature. We decode the rules and laws of nature with our science, and we deduce the actions of cause and effect on a physical level. All of that is God in action. So we can know the effects of God in part through science.

We know the part of God that is human nature - or at least we can learn it. We know how God thinks - as us. And human thought takes us out of the physical realm into a world of ideas and imagination. This too is God in action. The study of thought is philosophy - so we can know the action of God in part through philosophy.

Finally, we can learn the essential nature of God as our saints, poets and sages have tried to describe to us. There is an essential base of goodness that God must have, or else our creation would be self-destroying. Since we are here, these qualities must be the underpinnings of our universe. These principles form the basis of all the religions of the world, although they are masked by layers of ethnic and cultural ritual and costume. These principles are those which must apply in order that the world and life continue to advance and thrive. So we know the essence of God through religious intuition - that which we call revelation.

So what are we dealing with? What can we conclude?

Science shows us that God works through laws that are not personal. They work the same for all, and we can use them to our advantage. Ernest Holmes noted that there was just as much electricity in the world when Moses was alive as there is now - but he could not heat his tea or toast bread with it. The law - the principle has not changed, but our use of it has grown till we work with computers, robotics and iPods.

Many wise people have noticed that our use and governance of human thought and emotions has not kept pace with our understanding of science. We think that we can pick and choose our interpretations of science according to our desire for wealth and our need for resources. Accordingly, we think that we can choose our lifestyles independently of the effects on the Earth's water, air and climate. We still have a lot to learn.

I do have a little money in oil stocks. I might be tempted, when I hear that the rivers downstream from the oil sands have fifty times the poisons in them that they ought to- rivers that supply the native reserve lands downstream - I might be tempted to discard that information, thinking it doesn't matter. When the cancers and other illnesses show up a few years from now - if it takes that long - I can always say that the link has not been proven, because the studies I was unwilling to pay for were never done. Yes, in the world of ideas, we are back in the stone age, even though our science is far advanced.

We can see this more easily when we look at Iran or North Korea, waving nuclear capability in the face of the world. We cannot see this when we look at our own unwillingness to give over some of our profits to keep the earth and water pure.

Have you ever notice that philosophy is never taught in primary school or high school? Wouldn't you think that the knowledge of how to think straight, use logic, make fair comparisons, would be a fundamental subject? Not only that, but at university level, this area is underfunded and pushed to the back burner. A Ph.D. used to mean a doctor of Philosophy - now it can mean anything at all.

God works through the human mind - but we have avoided studying this aspect in our culture. When we teach the Science of Mind, we are at least partially filling a void that exists in our entire civilization. The linkage between Mind and matter, between thought and experience, is also God in action. We should teach metaphysics right along with physics.

Finally, there is direct revelation - that flash of insight that makes us go "Aha" and reveals to us yet another aspect of how the Universal Power works in our life. These are experiences that are near impossible to forget. They change lives, as they ahve done down through the ages.

There is one problem with revelations. They come in a flash, usually as images, dreams, visions and so forth. They rely upon us for interpretation. We interpret them through the filters of our minds; through our upbringing, our language, our culture, and our learning. Sometimes by the time we are done, there is very little left! This is why we have many different religions in the world, and on the outside they seem very different. It takes a lot of digging to see past the surface layer to the core ideas that they are based on. When this is done, we find the patterns repeating themselves, over and over, covered up under layers of sound, color, and movement. We interpret God in our own way.

So although we might ask the obvious question, "What is God?", the answers may not be obvious at all. In fact, we need to change the question a little, and ask, "What is God to YOU?", because each of your is going to interpret the revelation of God in your own way, as it applies to your own life.

God is infinite. God is the sum total of every possibility that there is, regardless of whether we think it is constructive or destructive, or whether we would call it good or evil. There is only one Power, one Intelligence, and that is God. From that one, we draw forth whatever action is held in our consciousness.

God's will is pretty simple. God's only, single desire is to unfold and express Itself in endless ways. The Power is eager to respond to your earnest belief and express as your experience. You are interacting with that Power at all times, whether you know it or not. God is being your life, through you, as you, right now.

You ask "What is the nature of God?" What is the nature of you, right now? Whatever you are, now, is the portion, the aspect, of the Life of the Universe that you are allowing to work through you. That's the nature of God, in your life.

With a change in perspective, with a growth in consciousness, with greater openness, you can allow more and more of the infinite nature of God to show up for you.

The universe is vast, perhaps infinitely so. It has been brought into being through the action of an intelligence, a wisdom, that has formed and applied both the laws of physics and the mental laws of creativity. Mind has always gone before matter; the greatest philosophers thoughout history have duly deemed it so. How could we hope to fully grasp the complexity and power of these forces? Yet we are part of them.

We think we are only a few years old. Yet the stuff we are made of, the very atoms, are nearly as old as the universe itself. They were forged in the hearts of the first supermassive stars, before they exploded and spewed their material products out into space, there to form solar systems and galaxies. We are as old as time itself, and we partake of the very nature of Nature.

In the simplest analysis, God is That Which Creates out of Itself. We exist within this creation - within God, as part of the Divine Product. In the image and likeness of this Creative Power, we too create our world, our lives, and our experiences.

The nature of God is as much as you can imagine, as much as you can channel into this world, and to you it can never be more than that. Like the faucet of a sink, the waters of Spirit will only flow as much as you are open. Open more, and more of God will appear in your life.

It is entirely up to you.

With a new year coming, you can think about it over Christmas! Merry Christmas!