God is a Word

“In the beginning was the word
and the word was with God
and the word was God”
~ John 1:1
“And God said to Moses,
I AM THAT I AM”
~ Exodus 3:14
“An important part of the adventure of life is to get hold of the mind, and to keep that controlled mind constantly attuned to the Lord. This is the secret of a happy, successful existence.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda — Man’s Eternal Quest
“God alone is the Doer.

Everything happens by His will.”

~ Ramakrishna Paramahansa
Remember God, forget the rest.

Forget who you think you are,

to know what you really are.

~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.

If you are conscious of anything,
you are 
essentially conscious of yourself.”

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“This separation between man and man,
between nation and nation, between earth and moon,
between moon and sun . . does not exist, it is not real” ;

“Your own will is all that answers prayer, only it appears under the guise of different religious conceptions to each mind.
We may call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, but it is only the Self, the ‘I’.”

~ Swami Vivekananda – “Jnana Yoga”


"In the beginning was the word  and the word was with God  and the word was God"


God is a Word*

Q. What is God?

A. As the Bible says – God is word:

A word used by different people
to designate their different ideas
of a transcendent power;

An omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotence
which they may intuit, accept or reject,
but can’t ever comprehend.

Nor can such transcendent power
ever be aptly named.

For any designation would
constitute limitation
of the illimitable –

THAT.

So, whether or not the “universe” was created by God,

“God” is a word created by humans.

But, just as ‘a rose by any other name is the same’,
However humankind calls or tries to imagine it

There exists an indescribable infinitely potential and supreme Power:

An Absolute Reality and Existence, and Origin of All,
as

THAT.


Footnote.



*Innumerable words – God, Love, Nature, etc. – may be used to signify an ineffably infinite divine Power or any of its infinite potential aspects. Or as in the Jewish tradition it may be acknowledged that no name can denominate “THAT” which is beyond conception or expression – since naming limits the illimitable and ineffable Infinite Reality.



Ron’s Comments about “God is a Word”

Dear Friends,

The word “God” is extremely common. Countless people commonly curse, exclaim, read, think, or pray to “God”. “In God we trust” appears on all US currency and coins.

But who of us has deeply considered what “God” really means to us or other life-forms? How many times have we unthinkingly uttered or heard such exclamations as “thank God!” “God bless you”, “God love you” – or even curses including the word “God” – without wondering about their significance.

Encouraged by my beloved Guruji I have spent much of my post-retirement life-period reflecting about “God”, and other synonymous words. And I’ve found that our beliefs and concepts about “God” evolve as we evolve spiritually; and that continually contemplating God as non-duality Reality furthers our evolution.

The above poetic essay was composed to propose that “God” is a word used by different people to designate their different ideas of a transcendent power, which ultimately is beyond words. Thus, it explains that humans created the word “God” – with thoughts from ruminations, revelations, intuitions, and speculations, paradoxically trying to identify THAT which is beyond words, beyond all thought.

It is offered to encourage exploration of our common inner Divinity and SELF-identity – in furtherance of our (conscious or subliminal) universal longing for a state of ONENESS with Divinity – with “God” or THAT.


“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

~ Proverbs 23:7


“A man is but the product of his thoughts;
what he thinks, he becomes.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“We are what we think.

All that we are arises with our thoughts.

With our thoughts, we make the world.”

~Buddha


With our continuing reflections and thoughts about “God”, may we increasingly discover and experience our joyously loving common inner Divinity – until ultimately we non-dually melt and merge immortally as ONE Divine LOVE.

And so may  it be!

Ron Rattner

2 Comments

  1. bruce edwards on August 8, 2014 at 8:43 pm

    …and the word is aum…



  2. John Kaye on March 5, 2018 at 8:11 pm

    Ron:

    I believe that what we called G-d is infinite consciousness. He spoke or thought or dreamt the universe just as our finite consciousness creates dreams. We are all part of that infinite consciousness and also have finite consciousness. We are and have consciousness. We are finite and infinite. This has been reflected in our mythology. The Hindus, Buddhists and the Greek and Roman gods came down as finite beings and were subject to a finite life which even when ended they remain immortal. Jesus was considered to be both a finite and G-d. man. Jesus, the finite was crucified and died in agony on the cross but he is infinite so he lives forever. since we are both infinite and finite our motivational love and fear, respectively. Love is the creation of unity because we are infinite and is the source of all intrinsic motivation while being finite produces fear – we are all alone, separate and vulnerable. Because we are infinite we have no free will. Since are finite we do have free will. The body is finite the soul is infinite. When our body dies, our soul does not perish. finally, when we pray to G-d he hears us because we are part of him and he is part of us.