WHO IS GOD?

[Ramesh Ramnani]

God is not a 'who', He is not a person. God is the totality, the sum total of the whole existence.

God is not somebody: God is 'allness'.

I am God, you are God -- everybody is God, all is God. In fact, to use the word 'God' is not right. There is godliness and no God at all. To be really true to reality, 'godliness' is the right word to use, not 'God'. The moment you say 'God', many things arise out of that word....

First: God becomes a person -- and God is not a person. God is impersonal existence; God is impersonal 'beingness'. Once you say 'God', God becomes a 'he' -- that is male chauvinistic, that is ugly. God is neither a 'he' nor a 'she'. And if you decide to use 'he' or 'she', then 'she' is far better -- because 'she' includes 'he', but the 'he' does not include 'she'. 'She' is far bigger -- naturally so. Man is born out of the woman. The woman can contain the man, the man cannot contain the woman. The man has no womb to contain anything.

But both are wrong. God is neither man nor woman, because He is not a person at all.

Then what is God? Don't ask 'who is God?' ask 'what is God?' Life is God. Love is God. Light is God. It is an existential experience. You never come across God like an object. You come across godliness -- like an inner upsurge. Something blooms in you... and you cannot even find the flower, just a fragrance. God is not a flower but a fragrance.

I cannot indicate where God is, who God is. I can simply relate my experience of fragrance to you.

Existence is full of godliness. Everything is divine -- the flowers, the birds, the rocks, the rivers.... Not that you have to create a temple for God and a church for God -- that is stupid, because God is everywhere! For whom are you creating the temple and the church and the mosque? If you want to pray, you can pray anywhere. Wherever you bow down you bow down to God, because none else exists.

You will have to understand MY language. 'Belief' is a dirty word here. And by belief you are prevented from knowing; you are not helped. And it is because of belief that man is divided. It has not helped man's spiritual growth; it has been one of the greatest barriers. It is belief that divides you as a Christian, a Hindu, a Mohammedan. It is belief that divides the earth. It is belief that creates wars.

The MOMENT YOU believe, you are no more one with humanity: you are a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan. You have gone ugly, you are poisoned! And now you will be continuously fighting for your belief. And all these people fighting for their beliefs are blind people fighting for their belief in light -- and nobody knows what light is.

[SS91]

The Meaning of God

There is an indefinable mysterious Power that pervades everything.

I feel It, though I do not see It.

It is this unseen Power which makes Itself felt and yet defies all

proof,because It is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses.

It transcends the senses....

That informing Power or Spirit is God....

For I can see that in the midst of death life persists, in the midst

of untruth, truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists.

Hence I gather that God is Life, Truth, Light. He is love.

He is supreme good.

But he is no God who merely satisfies the intellect

If He ever does.

God to be God must rule the heart and transform it.

~ Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
(Young India, October 11, 1928)

subhasrini
OM SAI SRI SAI JAYA JAYA SAI!!!
Let us pray at the feet of Sai Baba who is the incarnation of all gods and protector of all, to show mercy on us, and increase our devotion towards him.

[Ramesh Ramnani]

Do you really know who God is? You don't know even who you are -- how can you know who God is? You have not even become acquainted with the closest reality -- that is beating in your heart, that is breathing in you, that is alive in you -- and you are thinking to become acquainted with the totality of existence? the infinite, the vast, the eternal? And you have not even been able to have a taste of your OWN being. You have not even tasted a single drop of the sea, and you want to taste the whole sea?

And you NEVER go to the sea! You go to the scriptures. You never go to the sea -- you go to the priests. And then you create belief, and the belief comes out of your fear, not out of your love, not out of your knowing, not out of your experience -- it simply comes out of your fear. You believe because alone you feel afraid; because you are childish, you want somebody to hang on to, to cling to. You need a father-figure! so that you can always look up to him, so that you can always throw the responsibility, so that you can always cry and weep and remain helpless.

It is out of your fear that you have created God. And a God created out of fear is ill, it is pathological. It will not bring you well-being: it will make you more and more pathological.

The so-called religious man is almost pathological; he is neurotic. Go to the monasteries, look around with open eyes, and you will be simply surprised that in the name of religion a thousand and one kinds of pathologies are practised.

People don't become healthy and whole -- they become more and more helpless, more and more frightened, more and more eccentric. Of course, their neurosis is such that it is respected.

Freud is right when he says that religion is a collective neurosis. I agree with him. The so-called religious ARE neurotic. If a single person behaves in that way, you will think he is mad; but if a big crowd behaves in that same way, you think it is religious.

[Ramesh Ramnani]

JAI SAI RAM!!!

Anand means bliss and bhakta means devotion, a devotee. And that is going to be your path.

Bhakta should make it his very style of life to be loving, whether someone was present or not, for the emphasis should be not on the object of love, but on the feeling of love itself. Whatsoever you regard with love, with respect, becomes a person and is no longer just a thing.

So, for a loving person the whole world becomes luminous with personality. That's what God means. There is no way to approach God directly, only through love. So slowly go on giving things a personality. And that depends on your attitude and how you approach them. You can go to the tree and touch it as if you are touching your beloved. In that moment that tree becomes your beloved, because it is you who creates your world.

So, devotion is nothing but a tremendous creativity and the whole world is by and by transfigured, transplanted into a new dimension. Everything becomes luminous with personality. Nothing is a thing... everything has a soul. You impart the soul, or it has always been there but you were blind. Love opens your eyes and you discover -- yes, that is more correct: you discover the soul.
 
So let it be a continuous adventure. Look at things, look at people, at the sky, but let love be flowing. Your love will create the world around you, a new world, a new being That new being is what in the old ages people used to call God.

God is not somebody sitting somewhere. Unless you impart godhood to existence, God is nowhere to be found. Unless you create Him, He is nowhere. God exists in the love of the devotee. You get me? In the love of the devotee, God exists.

OM SAI RAM!!!

[Ramesh Ramnani]

I have heard one Sufi story. Once it happened that a fish in the ocean heard somebody talking about the ocean, and the fish heard for the first time that there exists something like the ocean. She started to search, she started to ask and inquire, but nobody knew where the ocean was. She asked many fish, great and small, known and unknown, famous and not so famous, but nobody was capable of answering where the ocean is. They all said they have heard about it; they all said, "Sometime in the past our ancestors knew it -- it is written in the scriptures." And the ocean was all around! They were in the ocean; they were talking, living in the ocean.

Sometimes it happens that the closest, the nearest, is so obvious that you can forget it.

The nearest is so near that you cannot look at it, because even to look at something a certain distance is needed, space is needed. And there is no space between you and the divine; there is no space between the fish and the ocean -- no gap. The fish is part of the ocean, just like a wave; or the ocean is just the infinite spread of the being of the fish. They are not two; they exist together, their being is joined together. Their bodies may appear different but their inner spirit is one, it is unitary.

The same is the situation with us. We go on asking about God -- whether God exists or not -- and we argue much for and against. Some believe, some disbelieve; some say it is just a myth and some say it is the only truth, but they all depend on scriptures, nobody has an immediate experience. When I say immediate experience I mean experience that has grown into you, or into which you have grown... intimate, so intimate that you cannot feel where you end and that experience begins.

God cannot be an object of any search; he remains the very subjectivity. You are not going to find him somewhere because he is everywhere, and if you start looking for him somewhere you will not find him anywhere. All that is, is divine. God just means the whole existence, the totality, the ocean that surrounds you, the ocean of life.

The first thing to remember before we enter into this intimate search and inquiry, into this intimate experience that people have always called God, or Buddha has called nirvana, or Jesus has called the kingdom of God -- names differ, but the experience indicated is the same -- the first thing to remember is: it is not far away, it is where you are.

[mata]

You seem to be saying that God is omnipresent. Yet God is truth.Where there is truth there is happiness and peace.

 So why is there so much degradation in the world if God is everywhere and in everything.

[Ramesh Ramnani]

JAI SAI RAM!!!

Mataji first of all I welcome you to BABA SAI's blessed Forum. As usual I ask every newcomer to post something more about them under Sai Devotees Profile. The same thing I will also ask you.

Straight away I may say that it is not HE who has degraded the world......It is we all are responsible for its degradation......including me.

OM SAI RAM!!!

[mata]

Thank you for your welcome. However I am not sure this post is in the correct forum. I am a student of Raj Yoga and I am interested in discussing aspects of spiritual knowledge with seekers of truth. I have friends who are Sai Baba devotees. I have no wish to cause any  offence to your members so please direct me to an appropriate forum if here is not the right place to post.

I agree man is responsible for degradation in the world, but the question is why is this? If man was pure in the beginning how did he become impure? What is the cause of impurity?

[Ramesh Ramnani]

JAI SAI RAM!!!

Mata dear....I didn't get you. Can you elaborate please? No! you are not at all offencing to any one please.

OM SAI RAM!!!

[mata]

Man once lived in the world in total happiness and peace.

Now we see degradation everywhere, by this I mean lust; anger; greed ;ego; attachment etc. Sorrow is everywhere pain and suffering is everywhere.

Truth/God/Love cannot exist in a world of darkness and degradation, so how can "Godliness" be everywhere?

How can God be Omnipresent?

[mata]

Could you explain what Jai Sai Ram and Om Sai Ram mean?

[Shammi]

SAIRAM

Please ask these questions to your self ....just to your inner self and   you will get all answers there
Can you please take little   time to do that   ..?


SAIRAM


Bow to Sri Sai - Raksha Karo Deva !!!

[SS91]

quote:Originally posted by mata

Could you explain what Jai Sai Ram and Om Sai Ram mean?

When you meet each other,do not shout hello or bye-bye,

or some silly chatter.

Let the moment of meeting be sanctified by the remembrance of God.

Say, Ram Ram, or Om, or Hari Om, or Sai Ram.

subhasrini
OM SAI SRI SAI JAYA JAYA SAI!!!
Let us pray at the feet of Sai Baba who is the incarnation of all gods and protector of all, to show mercy on us, and increase our devotion towards him.

[SS91]

quote:Originally posted by subhasrini

quote:Originally posted by mata

Could you explain what Jai Sai Ram and Om Sai Ram mean?

When you meet each other,do not shout hello or bye-bye,

or some silly chatter.

Let the moment of meeting be sanctified by the remembrance of God.

Say, Ram Ram, or Om, or Hari Om, or Sai Ram.

subhasrini
OM SAI SRI SAI JAYA JAYA SAI!!!
Let us pray at the feet of Sai Baba who is the incarnation of all gods and protector of all, to show mercy on us, and increase our devotion towards him.

When greeting someone with "Sai Ram", try to think of greeting not only the worldly body that you see but our SAI in that person.

 We could use any name of God; it is the intent and feeling that counts. We have happened to choose "Sai Ram" because of the universal appeal of that name as a mantra.

(Some devotees do repetition of the Name --namasmarana-- with "Om Sri Sai Ram", repeating "Om Sri" on the inbreath and "Sai Ram" on the outbreath.)

The word "Sai" can be split into two: "Sa" and "Ai". We have been told that "Sa" means universal father, while "Ai" stands for universal mother. Sai Baba, our Sai, is our mother and father.

"Ram" can be viewed as a shortening of "Rama". One interpretation of this word is that "Ra" is the Fire Principle, which burns all to ash, while "ma" stands for maya or illusion, so together, they mean the destruction of illusion.

Sai Baba has said also that "Rama" means "He who pleases, fills with bliss, causes delight", that "Rama" means the joy that comes from love.

subhasrini
OM SAI SRI SAI JAYA JAYA SAI!!!
Let us pray at the feet of Sai Baba who is the incarnation of all gods and protector of all, to show mercy on us, and increase our devotion towards him.

[Astrid]

quote:Originally posted by mata

Man once lived in the world in total happiness and peace.

Now we see degradation everywhere, by this I mean lust; anger; greed ;ego; attachment etc. Sorrow is everywhere pain and suffering is everywhere.

Truth/God/Love cannot exist in a world of darkness and degradation, so how can "Godliness" be everywhere?

How can God be Omnipresent?

Sai Ram

Mata, dear, are you aware of the many bodies of man? We are not and do not have this physical body only. We have more bodies than this one only and they are ever more subtle. The number of bodies varies from philosophy to philosophy. Some speak of as many as twelve, others of eight, others of five and some of only three. No matter their number these bodies are like shells around the brightly shining divine being we really are, each and every one of us. The thing about these bodies is that they get ever more dense, ever more coarse with the densest being this physical one. And they also work like veils on our awareness. This is to say: once we are in this physical body we tend to forget about all the others and their qualities.
Now, if we identify with this physical body and do so fully, we will only be concerned with its needs and material things in general. We become desperate to fulfill our physical needs. And the simple fact that the more you eat the bigger your stomach grows the hungrier you become the more you need to eat .... the more desperate you become to get enough food explains on a very basic level how anger, greed, envy came into the world.
The same thing applies to emotions. The more we identifiy with our emotional (astral) body, the more desperate we become in getting our emotional needs fulfilled. Desperation, anger, jealousy grow ...
Identification with our mental aspects is rare, while attachment to it is rather common. In such cases our intellectual capabilities mean all to us (remember the time when everybody was crazy for IQ-tests?), which again creates desperation ("I need to know everything"), anger, envy and jealousy ...
These feelings put into action are the cause of the suffering in this world.

But the fact that we identify with only part of what we really are does not mean, that the rest is not there. It is simply that we are not aware.
GOD is omnipresent. It (to avoid a "he" or "she") is in every living being (including the minerals) it is only our awareness which is veiled.
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" says Ortega y Gasset. GOD, too, is in the eye of the beholder. The vision of our physical eyes is blind to everything non-material, it is our inner eyes that see. And to their vision everything material, emotional, mental and so on becomes translucent and can see GOD in everything, see Its omnipresence, see the divine in ourselves and our neighbours.

And if we look into the world with our inner eyes more often, what we feel and what we do will change, too ...

OM SAI RAM

Astrid

Restless was my heart till it found rest in THEE