God...
Who or what is God?
You must not follow the practices of the land of Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not follow the practices of the land of Canaan, into which I am bringing you. You must not walk in their customs.…
Beginner's mind: I suggest that you read the Bible as if it is the first time! Read it as if it is written only for your liberation, here and now. Be very observant to your subtle inner responses and resentments. Truth bypasses our thinking mind, but thinking is needed to release our attention into openness and peace.
God is the cause of the phenomena of Life.
I AM denotes the father state of Consciousness:
Invisible, infinite, fulfilling, benevolent.
The land of Egypt is your own materialistic mind; 'customs' are the unaware ways we think and feel on behalf of a separate-self, seemingly apart from God.
Nothing I say here can be an absolute description; please discover for yourself; be inspired, contemplate, do your research, prove me wrong, but please don't believe anything; not even your own thoughts. We are too full of assumptions, hearsay and gossip. My interest is not in religion, neither in hope nor believe, but discovery: first-hand, present tense, I am.
Tip: pick a Bible passage that resonates in you and live with it for some days. Carry it with you on a piece of paper. Read it frequently, feel it; allow yourself to be very quiet with it, give it inner space to resonate, ask questions, look up words and meanings. The Bible is not about theoretical book-knowledge, but your own living discovery of your true nature, as the child of God; the benchmark is peace of mind in daily living, independent of circumstances.
It is crazy how people call themselves Christians but are so fixed on defending their fickle opinions instead to find and share our common ground in Love, in Presence, in awe for Life; we are all children of God, there is only one Source, one Life.
Where is God to be found?
Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
God is so intimately one that it took me decades of suffering to finally surrender my outward attention, and let it dissolve in the simple, effortless Awareness 'I am, I exist'. For decades my turning inwards did only reveal some black no-thing, judged and rejected by my mind as boring and empty. Rupert Spira's yoga meditations helped me a lot in discovering my own ignorance and fear of looking closer.
"Truth is simple, but the seeker is complex".
God's creation is perfect, but we need to detox from our sense of separation (the apple Adam ate); and we can do it only here and now, through life, meditation/prayer, contemplation and study. Roughly 10% of our journey consists of mental understanding in keeping us turned inward towards the heart, and 90% of the work happens simply by not running away, by allowing and feeling what got stored in our body during the decades of ignorance towards our true nature.
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body.
Glory = Presence of God.
God = The cause of the phenomena of life. Being, present, pure, unadulterated by conditioned thought and feeling.
the Holy Spirit who is in you = beyond words and conclusions, your own discovery, outside the bubble of thinking and feeling.