Understanding Unity Series, Part 2 of 8
Click for audio: What Is God?
“The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).
When we ask the question, What is God?, we do so knowing there is no more of a definitive answer than if we asked, What is Love? We’ve all experienced love at some level, but to describe what love is would be impossible. We write and sing about love, but nothing we put into words truly captures the experience of love. And so it is with God. I cannot answer the question, What is God? But I can tell you that you can experience God.
In making the online shop synthroid us shift from a paradigm of separation—the belief that God is something separate from us—to the paradigm of oneness—the understanding that we are one with God—we must reach some measure of acceptance that it is within God that we live and move and have our being. We don’t enter the presence of God or have to earn to right to do so; we’re already in God.
Imagine you were raised in a windowless room and one day someone describes a strange concept called outside. They talk about open fields spreading out beneath blue skies, glistening lakes fed by burbling streams, and warm breezes that rustle through leaves and hiss through tall, swaying wild grasses. The room you are in is inside a house and surrounding this house is the reality of outside.
The windowless room represents a paradigm of separation. A room next to you has a window that allows you to see the outside. This room represents a paradigm of oneness. But a paradigm is still a concept. So your next step is to open the door that leads you outside.
God, like the outside, is always present, unchanging, and totally accessible. You do not have to be able to put God into words to experience God.
Doug, an interesting talk. You really want people to experience God. In a way, you are a Unity ‘evangelist’ — leading people to experience God as you have done in your own life. Like Billy Graham wanting people to experience Jesus Christ personally, as he has done. I affirm, “God lives in me. He is alive in me. Jesus Christ is alive in me.” And it is so.
John, I never thought of myself in quite that way, but perhaps you are right. Experiencing God is, to me, what it’s all about.
I have seen a paradigm as an unseen frame that I impose on reality that inhibits what I see as I look through it. I once had a set of solid color frames that I would impose on a picture. As I changed from frame to frame onlookers were surprised how they would see different things in the kop kamagra internet picture. One could say that a paradigm is established by set of unspoken rules that we apply to all we experience that determine what we will allow ourselves to see and generic viagra vs viagra how we will interpret what is seen.
The paradigm concept has been the single most enlightening learning I have experienced. I am so glad to now be able to apply it to the differences I have always had with traditional Christian theology.
Good example, Allen. Thanks for sharing this.