Who is God

by Randy Baker
(Longmont, Co)

Carl reads from On Being God

Who Is God?

There is an old story about a Zen master who points to the sky at night and says to his students, "What is that?" One student said, "The moon", to which the master replied, "'Moon' is just a word, and by saying it you have destroyed that."

"God" is just a word whose meaning becomes whatever construct our minds have decided to make it. Unfortunately, the use of the word "God" all too often destroys what He (or She) is.

In the East, they are taught that God is the sum total of everything, synonymous with words like "universe" or "energy" or "love". In the West, we have a view that God is a majestic old gentleman with a brilliant white beard who sits on a throne in heaven. Both definitions could not possibly be true at the same time and yet they most certainly are.

Our attempt to define the word "God" (much less decide who God is) is even more difficult and complex than it first appears. If (as noted above) God is a construct of our mind, then "God" has as many meanings as there are minds. Or, as the spiritual teacher said, when referring to all things spiritual, "If you can think of a name for it, That ain't it."

The funny part is that we ALL have had an experience of God, and even if we cannot articulate it, the experience is real to us, a part of our cellular knowing, and our description (which consists of meaningless words) can be completely understood by others with similar experiences.

It is almost as if God is the opposite of us. We think; God creates. We move; God has already been. We become; God is. We know; God expands. We talk, and God is the silence between the words.

Now, of course, all that is just linguistic garbage which, as it happens, is what most descriptions of our spiritual experiences are.
Many authors do a brilliant and creative job of trying to get us together on this "God" thing. I can remember reading pages by some of the best known writers from this generation and those past, then looking at the page and thinking "I don't understand a word he or she said". When I read the page again, not trying to understand the words, I could then comprehend exactly what the author had said.

So don't be discouraged. The answer to the question "Who is God?", is really quite simple.
God is more, more than you can imagine.
More than you can say.
More than you know.

But here is a bit of good news:
YOU are more than you can imagine.
YOU are more than you can say.
And YOU are more than you know.

I guess that would make you God, wouldn't it?

There is another Zen saying: "One moon shows in every pool; in every pool, the one moon."