The Essence of God

French painter Henri Rousseau once said that God had created man in his image and man, being a gentleman, returned the compliment.

And therein lies one of the fundamental problems that has faced humanity since the dawn of time.

We have given a deity that we can never hope to understand human qualities that also include human deficiencies. This dates to the beginnings of humanity, when our desire to understand the universe around us led to the need to put everything into human context given our limited knowledge and sophistication. Thus we gave our deity or deities human qualities so that we could understand their nature and relate to them. 

The creation of God in man’s image has led to countless wars, oppression, suffering and deaths. 

Many of the problems we are seeing today stem from religious differences, and these will continue until those who act in the name God begin to realize its true essence and understand the consequences of ascribing human qualities to a deity that lives far beyond our ability to comprehend its very nature.

The way I see it, God is neither good nor bad, vengeful nor generous, angry nor happy, strong nor weak, masculine nor feminine. God does not require worship nor adulation. God can be viewed as the perfect creative energy of the universe and as such, beyond human foibles.

God is neither in heaven nor in hell. 

Rather, we can think of God as present in all creation, from the smallest cell to the largest mammal. God can live in our hearts and minds as that spark of life and consciousness that constitutes our being and dwells inside each one of us. 

Humanity evolved through a sense of community that since early times was provided by churches, mosques, or synagogues. Many value this aspect.  However, when it comes to finding God, my experience tells me that God is to be found within ourselves and can be experienced personally and not through the intermediary of a priest, imam, or rabbi. 

Indeed, most formal religions have their spiritualist counterparts in which the individual learns to connect with the infinite through techniques like meditation, dance, chanting, or song. Jews have the kabbalah, Christians the various esoteric schools and congregations, Muslims have Sufism, and Buddhists and Hindus their own mechanisms for introspection and spiritual growth. Many Amerindians have techniques that teach them how to connect with the deity and achieve some form of transcendence.

Formal religious rituals can be a way to find God within us. But theologies and dogmas can restrict rather than liberate us to find our truths. The powerful political forces wielded by religious bodies can and are often used by leaders to control us and manipulate our behavior and our very beliefs.

The political aims of religions led to the Islamic invasions of Africa and parts of Europe, the crusades, the Inquisition, the religious wars in Europe, the Holocaust and the conquest of the Americas, to name a few instances. 

More recently, Islamic extremism calling for the deaths of all non-Muslims and the victory over the globe of Sharia and Islam has underscored the evil committed in God’s name. Russia’s supreme religious leader has called for the destruction of Ukraine, supporting President Putin in his war that has killed tens of thousands and destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure.

The Christian nationalists in the United States who have taken over the Republican Party use God to promote their interests and try to use the bible in the same way that Islamic fundamentalists use the Koran – to divide and conquer.

India’s Hindu nationalists, led by Prime Minister Modi, believe in the supremacy of Hinduism and seek to eliminate the hundreds of millions of non-Hindus from the sub-continent.

Throughout the ages, men have used God to control others. Political deism has been fundamental in the politics of all human societies, with the priestly class tasked with interpreting the will of God and forcing others to follow – often against the pain of imprisonment or death.

So, what is the essence of God?

In my experience, God exists far beyond our comprehension.

A fly can land on my arm; we are both living beings, but the ability of the fly to comprehend human nature or the essence of humanity is nil. 

God and humans exist, but we are like the flies trying to comprehend the eternal.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote that “what lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us”.

We can manifest the God within by living a life of love, compassion, and respect for ourselves and others. 

We can connect with the creative energy of the universe that is the manifestation of God by using certain tools we can all access. Different spiritual schools use meditation, dance, ritual, or music to allow us to hear the voice of God within ourselves and achieve a certain wisdom and connection with the divine.

Truth cannot be imposed. It must be found through personal experience, as must God. What we consider sacred texts have all been written by men and reflect their view of life in their time and in their context. 

And we may find that the truth is like a wheel. 

At the circumference, the spokes are very far apart – like religions and their various dogmas and theologies. Each think that they have a monopoly of “truth” and are superior to the others. 

But as the spokes converge at the center, they become one, as is the truth. Yet, we can only achieve this by evolving towards that center, leaving the individual spokes and connecting with the creative energy of the universe. 

I am sharing these thoughts with readers because we face a terrible future if we allow religious fanatics to not only eliminate our freedom of choice but eliminate us in their quest for religious supremacy. 

But don’t believe me. Follow your own intuition and find the truth by yourselves. 

It is there waiting for you.

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Edición: Fernando Sierra