God
God is the Creator of the universe and the source of Knowledge in all sentient beings.
"God is the experience of total relationship." [1]
“God is so close to you that you cannot even turn around. God is so big and so magnificent that if you had only one leg and one arm and God, you would do well.” [2]
The Presence of God
“God is here. Yet no one can be still. Relationship is here. Yet no one can feel it. Your Teachers are with you, but your eyes are moving too fast.” [3]
"The experience of God directly is the experience of all relationships at once."[4]
“The Presence of God is first experienced as emptiness because it lacks movement, and then within this emptiness, you begin to feel the Presence that permeates all things and that gives all meaning in life.” [5]
“God’s Presence is permanent. The world itself is temporary. The physical universe is temporary. God’s Presence is permanent. Can you then see what is great and what is small? Can you then see that which gives and that which must learn to receive? Can you then realize the importance of your preparation? Can you then realize the importance of your service in the world?” [6]
The Nature of God
"Knowledge is God in you. God is Knowledge in the universe."[7]
“As Knowledge is the Mind behind your mind, so there is a Mind behind your Knowledge, and this Mind is God.” [8]
"God is not a person or a personage or a personality or a singular awareness. To think like this is to underestimate the Creator and to overestimate yourself." [9]
God's Plan to end separation
“The Creator uses everything for a greater purpose. The Creator does not come in and destroy the wicked and take control of everyone and everything and force a unity that people would resist and could not choose for themselves. Instead, everything is set in motion for redemption, for reunion, for contribution, for empowerment, for forgiveness, for true recognition.” [10]
see also The Greater Plan and God's Plan
The will of God
“People are very adamant that God should come and make the world exactly the way they want it, but God has other plans. God’s intention is to free everyone here so that they may return to their Ancient Home. So instead of making the world a perfect place for your separation to exist, God has set in motion the forces to break your separation down. Very loving this is.” [11]
"God must enter a world where God is not welcome, in ways that do not generate fear and panic amongst those who believe the world is their only reality. It is for this reason that the Will of God manifests itself in subtle and ingenious ways in this world."[12]
see also God's Will
God's Purpose
“God’s Purpose here is to unburden you and prepare you for true relationship, because you will not be able to do anything in life without true relationship.” [13]
“God has a Mind, a Will and a Purpose. In its totality, this is incomprehensible to you now, for you cannot stand apart from this Mind, this Will and this Purpose and be able to discern their meaning. You can only join with them, and the extent to which you can join with them will be the extent to which you will experience their reality, their value and their immediate necessity in your life.” [14]
The omniscience of God
"There is nothing in the universe that God is not aware of." [15]
“God knows what humanity needs even though humanity remains confused. God knows what is coming for the human family even though the human family is obsessed with its past. God knows that humanity must unite in the face of great danger even though people continue their conflicts and continue their admonitions against one another. What God knows and what people believe are not the same.” [16]
The wrath of God
"God is not capable of anger." [17]
"God has no wrath." [18]
The absence of the Presence of God
“Your disassociation from yourself, from others and from God is primarily an issue of competition for power.” [14]
The calling of God
"We have spoken of God as a great attraction, as a force pulling and drawing people. That is a good analogy because it allows God to be as great and as mysterious as God is. That is to acknowledge that God in the world is a force in motion. It is here to do something. It moves people to go along at Its pace. It ignites people, sets people in motion and cares for people." [19]
"If God speaks again, who can respond? If God shows things that have never been shown before, who is willing to see this? If God defies religious belief and expectations, who has the courage and the humility to be prepared to receive this? If God calls you to a higher service and position in life, who is willing to undergo this process of change, a process they cannot control and cannot even really understand? Who is willing and able to do this?" [20]
How God works
see also providence
“People often think of God as a giant welfare system—spiritual welfare! You just sign up and then you collect your checks, and you receive your dispensations, and you are given your gifts and your miracles. You just have to believe in the system. Then God will come and serve you and do all these little things for you, as if God had nothing better to do in the universe than to cater to your wishes! Only a pathetic God would be so involved!” [21]
“The Creator does what works, even if it is incomprehensible to those who are destined to be its beneficiaries.” [22]
"God is working behind the scenes, reclaiming the separated through Knowledge, working through inspired individuals and through meaningful relationships. God does not make a big show. God does not want people to bow down and become slaves, unwillingly, resentfully, with hostility and bitterness. ... God does not threaten you. God does not tantalize you. God does not seduce you. God is present for you, and you have the opportunity to become present for God." [23]
"Recognition must be based upon a deeper experience, recognition of a greater truth, recognition of a New Revelation. This recognition occurs at a deeper level of the mind, beyond the realm of the intellect, beyond the realm of ideas and beliefs and the things that people attach themselves to regarding the Divine Presence and Power in the world. This Power is so formidable, but it functions through the individual. It works from the inside out. This is how God works in the world. People want grandiose demonstrations, but the Presence operates differently. It does not make a great show of itself. It speaks to the inner world of the person and reaches from person to person in this way." [24]
“The Creator uses everything for a greater purpose. The Creator does not come in and destroy the wicked and take control of everyone and everything and force a unity that people would resist and could not choose for themselves. Instead, everything is set in motion for redemption, for reunion, for contribution, for empowerment, for forgiveness, for true recognition.” [25]
“God is always pumping life into life, essence into form. When things begin to die, individuals are sent into the world to bring new life.” [26]
“God works mysteriously. God is like a great attraction without a marquee or a billboard. God is pulling you along incessantly.” [27]
“Your Spiritual Family beyond the world is supporting your spiritual development by communicating to you through the Mental Environment. The Unseen Ones are supporting your spiritual development by overseeing your participation in the world and by participating with you at the critical turning points of your life. And the Creator is supporting your spiritual development because the Creator has given you Knowledge—a pure, guiding intelligence within you. Beyond the reach of the world and worldly contamination, it remains ever pure and ever complete within you.” [28]
“God functions beyond human belief. God is not circumscribed by humanity’s religious traditions. God moves as God moves, not as people think God moves. Even if you can get everyone in the world to agree about a position about God, God is not bound by this. To say that God cannot send a New Message into the world is profoundly arrogant. How can you say what God will do or what God cannot do? How can you make this claim?” [29]
God and creation: god of all worlds
"To understand God’s work in the world, you must understand God’s work in the entire universe." [30]
"You must think of God now in the Greater Community - not a human God, not a God of your written history, not a God of your trials and tribulations, but a God for all time, for all races, for all dimensions, for those who are primitve and for those who are advanced, for those who think like you and for those who think so differently, for those who believe and for those for whom belief is inexplicable. This is God in the Greater Community. And this is where you must begin." [1]
"You are no longer dealing with a local god, a local deity, a god of the hill and the tree, a god of the ocean and the river. You are not even dealing with the god of one world and one people, as you are accustomed to think. Now you are dealing with a God of all the universes and Creation beyond the universes, a God so great that your mind can only fall down in praise. Not a human God. Not a God that you create in your own imagination, but a God that you must experience at a deeper level, beneath and beyond the limits of your surface mind. For you to comprehend the God of the Greater Community, then you must comprehend the Voice of the Revelation." [31]
"God is too big to be concerned with this one world. God is not a human being. God is not limited by human understanding, human psychology or human emotions."[30]
"In the Universe, there are trillions and trillions of races. No one Redeemer can speak to them all. No one religion could speak to them all, obviously."[32]
God and creation: Earth and its inhabitants
"God is moving humanity in a new direction. It is time to prepare, to receive and to support the Revelation. People will complain. They will protest. They will resist. They will accuse the Messenger. They will denounce the Revelation. Unable to respond, unwilling to reconsider their life and their ideas, they will resist. This always happens at the time of Revelation. Those who have the greatest investment in the past will resist the new world and everything in it. They cannot see. They will not know. They do not have the courage to reconsider their position. They do not have the humility to stand in the face of the Revelation. What can God do for them? They asked so much from the Creator, but they cannot respond to the Creator’s response. What can God do for them? Be amongst the first to respond so that your greater gifts in life may be established and have an opportunity to come forth in the days and the years of your life. This is the power of Revelation—to unleash wisdom and Knowledge that humanity desperately needs now to prepare for a future that will be unlike the past. The blessings are with you. The power of redemption is within you, in Knowledge within you." [33]
"God loves humanity. God is not angry with humanity. God knows exactly what humanity is prone to do under difficult circumstances, so God provides what is necessary to guide the human family, without taking from you your own responsibility as an individual, as a citizen and as a member of a group or a nation." [34]
“All the seeming power of your world, the forces of nature, the inevitability of your death, the ever-present threat of illness and loss and destruction, and all appearances of conflict are all temporary movements in the great stillness of God.” [35]
The new God
"Here the New God is the old God, unveiled and clarified, not clothed in ancient understandings or ancient mythologies. For there is only one God, and that is the God of all the universes..." [36]
“Do you see? The Greater Community will change your ideas about God completely. It will change your ideas about religion completely. You will see that God is not preoccupied with humans. You will see that God is something bigger than what you have ever considered, and you will have to think as a participant in a Greater Reality. This is a great blessing.” [2]
"God did not invent your ideas and beliefs. God did not create your preferences and your fears. God did not create the world that is a product of everyone’s preferences and fears. You cannot blame God for the social conditions of humanity. You cannot blame God for wars and cruelty, exploitation, slavery and poverty. That is all a human creation based upon greed and ignorance, based upon not enough people contributing enough to the world around them. But God did create the presence of Knowledge within you, and only God’s New Revelation makes this very clear, without an overlay of history and human interpretation to cloud your understanding. The stream is clear. The Message is pure. You are receiving it from its Source, instead of an interpretation that was made centuries later for human consumption." [37]
Your relationship with God
“You experience God through discovering and carrying out your purpose for being here.” [14]
“Your relationship with God cannot be comprehended intellectually. It must be experienced. The development of this experience rests upon your desire for it and your capacity for it.” [14]
“Your experience of intimacy with anyone or anything directly reflects your desire and capacity to experience God.” [14]
“You cannot go further with anyone or anything than you can go with God.” [14]
“Without your relationship with God, you would have no real basis for understanding yourself.” [14]
“Your relationship with God is not based upon ideas. It is based upon the experience of affinity and purpose.” [14]
“Your relationship with God indicates that you are here in the world for a purpose.” [14] “The great gulf between you and God must be filled in with reality. The assumption is always made that there is you and there is God, and you are small and God is great. But between you and God is all of life’s evolution—an expanding network of relationships. It is through this network that you must pass.” [38]
“In realizing your real will, you come to realize God’s will for you.” [14]
“Through Knowledge you can feel the Presence of all relationships. This is the experience of God.” [39]
"God is the great attraction, and you must become the great respondent." [40]
"God is so close to you, and yet so vast and magnificent and incomprehensible. Your connection to God is at the very center of your being, but you live your life at the surface of the mind, held there by your fascination and fear of the world." [41]
“In coming into meaningful relationship with another, you will feel God. In telling the truth where the truth needs to be told, you will feel God. In experiencing gratitude for something that has been done for you, even on a mundane level, you will feel God. This is how God is recognized and experienced.” [42]
"God did not create your social personality. God did not create your ideas and beliefs. God did not create your decisions, your failures and your regrets. God can only speak to what God created in you, which is something deeper, more pervasive and more natural within you. The New Message is calling to you." [43]
“This Greater Power in the world requires that you be prepared to receive it and to express it. You are its voice; your hands are its hands; your eyes are its eyes; your ears are its ears; your movement is its movement. It relies upon your preparation and upon your demonstration, as you rely upon it for certainty and as you rely upon it for purpose, meaning and direction. Thus it is through this reliance upon Knowledge and Knowledge’s reliance upon you that your union with Knowledge is made complete.” [44]
“Your relationship with God is what must be healed, for that is the primary conflict in your life. Your disassociation from God is the source of all of your conflicts and disabilities. However, the resolution of this fundamental conflict will take place within your relationship with yourself, with others and with the world. In other words, your problem is your relationship with God, but the solution will be established through your relationship with yourself, with others and with the world. Real healing must be established within the context of these three arenas. The power for you to do this is given by God.” [14]
“In considering your relationship with God, you do not need to have answers, but only to ask questions. You ask these questions so that you may open the door to your own realization.” [14]
Belief in God
“You do not need to be a religious person or even to have a religion in order to experience God.” [14]
“The purpose of all religious institutions fundamentally is to provide an environment where you can cultivate your desire and your capacity to experience God.” [14]
“The attempt to define God is the attempt to make God concrete. This is an attempt to make God fit in with your ideas.” [14]
"Believing in God may be preliminary to knowing God, but believing and knowing are not the same. Many people claim they believe in God, either because they believe or because they are afraid not to believe. However, to know God is to come into relationship with God." [45]
"It is the Greater Power of Knowledge—the mystery, the evidence of things unseen—that must be the focus of your faith, that must be the heart of your religion, that must be the source of your encouragement, your wisdom and your guidance." [46]
“God is only interested in re-establishing communication with you. That is all that matters because that is the universe. What can you hope to accomplish here without that? Your span of years is quite brief. Your environment is far more powerful than you are, or seemingly so. There are countless adversities to undermine your progress. There must be something else. This then is where your trust must be directed.” [11]
"[The power of Knowledge] is God's great gift to you. You may feel, or even complain, that God has not done this or that for you in the past. What God has given you, however, is so much greater than all of your former requests. God has given you freedom, and with freedom God has given you purpose and direction." [47]
Other Quotes about God
“God has given this world everything it needs. Now it must use what has been given. God has given this world purpose. God has given this world evolution. God has given this world spiritual assistance of tremendous magnitude. God has planted purpose within you. God has given you life. God has given you Knowledge so that you may fulfill your part in this world at this time.”
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“You can ask God for favors, you can ask God to rescue you from your dilemmas great and small, but somehow you never made your rendezvous with God. Your rendezvous with God is your rendezvous with Knowledge within yourself, for that is where God speaks to you. That is where you reconnect with the Source of your life.” [48]
“God does not discriminate. God is not delighted with the religious and angry with the unreligious. God has placed the saving Grace within each person. The real purpose of religion is to bring people to this saving Grace. Religion in all of its forms is intended to do this. Even though religion has taken on other manifestations and assumed other purposes and in many cases has been adopted by political forces, this is its fundamental purpose—to bring you to Knowledge, to bring you to this deeper guiding intelligence that the Creator of all life has placed within you and within each person as a potential.” [49]
“You may pray urgently to God for salvation, for guidance, for redemption and for protection, but God has already given you a perfect guiding intelligence. Whether you are a part of a religion or not, whether you practice a faith tradition or not, wherever you live, whatever your culture, whatever your financial position, you have the great endowment living within you.” [50]
“God is speaking to everybody—even those who do not believe what you believe, even those who do not adhere to your religion, those of other countries and tribes and groups who might live very differently from you and have different social customs and values. God is speaking to them. God does not only speak to the people of one faith tradition, as if they were the chosen people, as if they were God’s favorite because God does not function at the level of ideas. God is not a super intellect because God exists beyond the physical reality, and beyond the physical reality you do not need ideas in the way that you think of them now. Ideas are related to form, to people, places and things and to the interpretation of events, which are people, places and things. God lives beyond this reality.” [51]
Metaphors
"The emphasis here is for you to reach that vantage point where you can see your relationship with God and with yourself clearly while you are in the world. It is from this vantage point that you will be able to see the relationship of all things. Like climbing a great mountain, you must reach a certain position where the relationship of that mountain to everything around it becomes self-evident." [14]
"God is like the air. Everyone breathes the air, but few pay any attention to it. Everyone is sustained every moment with every breath. Their bodies depend upon each breath in order to live in the next moment. Cut off this supply of air and the person dies quickly and everything comes to an end. God is like that—so pervasive, so present, so supportive and so nourishing." [42]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Greater Community Spirituality, Chapter 1
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Wisdom from the Greater Community Volume One, Chapter 3
- ↑ Wisdom from the Greater Community Volume One, Chapter 20
- ↑ Secrets of Heaven, Secret 44
- ↑ Steps to Knowledge, Step 69
- ↑ Steps to Knowledge, Step 339
- ↑ Wisdom from the Greater Community Volume One, Faith and Fear
- ↑ Wisdom from the Greater Community Volume One, Chapter 19
- ↑ The Recitation (April 1, 2011)
- ↑ Steps to Knowledge Continuation Training, Step 13
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Wisdom from the Greater Community Volume One, Chapter 4
- ↑ Secrets of Heaven, Secret 5
- ↑ Wisdom from the Greater Community Volume One, Chapter 12
- ↑ 14.00 14.01 14.02 14.03 14.04 14.05 14.06 14.07 14.08 14.09 14.10 14.11 14.12 14.13 14.14 14.15 Relationships & Higher Purpose, Chapter 1
- ↑ Entering the Greater Community (May 27, 2011)
- ↑ The Message and the Messenger (January 26, 2008)
- ↑ Relationships & Higher Purpose, Chapter 8
- ↑ The Engine of War (April 17, 2008)
- ↑ Wisdom from the Greater Community Volume One, Chapter 13
- ↑ God's Power and Presence in the World (April 23, 2011)
- ↑ Living The Way of Knowledge, Chapter 4
- ↑ Greater Community Spirituality, Chapter 6
- ↑ Greater Community Spirituality, Chapter 15
- ↑ God’s Power & Presence in the World (April 23, 2011)
- ↑ Steps to Knowledge Continuation Training, Step 13
- ↑ Wisdom from the Greater Community Volume One, Chapter 16
- ↑ Wisdom from the Greater Community Volume One, Chapter 18
- ↑ Living The Way of Knowledge, Chapter 5
- ↑ What is Creation? (February 2, 2008)
- ↑ 30.0 30.1 God, Knowledge, and the Angelic Presence (September 2008)
- ↑ The Voice of the Revelation (April 14, 2011)
- ↑ The Redeemer (January 18, 2010)
- ↑ God Is Moving Humanity in a New Direction (April 22, 2011)
- ↑ The Engine of War (April 17, 2008)
- ↑ Steps to Knowledge, Step 40
- ↑ The New God (February 12, 2009)
- ↑ The Gift of a New Life (May 14, 2011)
- ↑ Wisdom from the Greater Community Volume One, Chapter 17
- ↑ Steps to Knowledge, Step 169
- ↑ The New Message on Freedom (February 23, 2008)
- ↑ The Future of Humanity (May 12, 2010)
- ↑ 42.0 42.1 Greater Community Spirituality, Chapter 9
- ↑ The Recitation (April 1, 2011)
- ↑ Steps to Knowledge, Step 318
- ↑ Greater Community Spirituality, Chapter 9
- ↑ The Great Faith (April 25, 2007)
- ↑ Greater Community Spirituality, Chapter 13
- ↑ The Sacred Rendezvous (January 29, 2009)
- ↑ What Will Save Humanity (March 30, 2008)
- ↑ Navigating the Difficult Times Ahead (September 29, 2008)
- ↑ Knowledge and the Limits of Belief (November 3, 2008)
Further Study
How Does the New Message Speak of God?
Greater Community Spirituality, chapter 1: What Is God?
Greater Community Spirituality, chapter 9: How Does God Participate in the World?
Relationships & Higher Purpose, Chapter 1: "Your Most Primary Relationship"