by Sri Baba Ram Stephan (aka, Stephen Gabriel)

Student:  Teacher, who is G-d?

Teacher:  You are.

Student:  You are joking, right? How can I be G-d? I’m not omniscient. I’m not omnipotent. I can’t be everywhere. I haven’t created anything.  No, Teacher. I am not G-d.

Teacher:  I will try to explain. I didn’t say you are G-d all by yourself.  You are one person who is among many who are G-d.  G-d is everyone and everything. G-d is Nature. G-d is all matter and all energy. That is how G-d knows everything, how G-d is omnipotent, how G-d is everywhere, and how G-d created everything.

Look at your body: it consists of 37.2 trillion cells. These make up the substance of your body, including 78 organs, 22 square feet of skin, 60,000 miles of blood vessels, and produces a variety of fluids and chemicals.  All of these diverse things make up one human body.

We – you and I and all the rest of the sentient beings in the universe(s) are the cells of G-d’s body. That’s one way to look at it.

Another is to compare G-d to the ocean. First, did you know that as seen  from the South Pole, there is only one ocean?  Humans have, for convenience, divided that ocean into five parts but all of that water is connected.  If you go to the waters edge, and using an eye dropper, take a sample of water from the ocean, that sample contains all of the essence of the ocean.  Our bodies are like eye droppers. We contain al of the essence of G-d. And like the eye dropper of the ocean, we have been taken from G-d, for a short period we call a human life.

That does not mean we are separated from G-d. That is impossible. We are electrically connected to G-d.  But we don’t remember that. This is because beginning from a very young age we have been indoctrinated to believe that G-d is something other than ourselves. That G-d is higher lifeform. That is simply not the case.

It all begins with your birth. When you are born, when your body is expelled from your Mother’s womb, you take your first breath. Your first drink of oxygen. In that moment, your soul, that part of you that is in fact G-d, enters you. You had a life prior to this one, and one before that, and one before that. And birth begins your next life experience.  You won’t remember your previous lives (unless you have chosen to, and you have learned enough to warrant that).  You start fresh – a clean slate. Your education begins with that first breath and ends when you take your last.

What then happens when you die?  Your living soul, that part of you that is the Self, and which is G-d, melds with all the other souls, like a drop of water returning to the ocean.  The recording, if you will, of your life is added to the recordings of all the other lives and that knowledge is added to what I think of as the great library of knowledge.  Your mind is connected and synchronized with all the other minds, and in fact becomes part and parcel with the one mind – the mind of G-d. However, you do not lose your uniqueness. Rather you become a part of the great collective.

During this faze (really, a recurring faze) of life you are part of the decision making process that governs the universes. You will share in the creation of stars and solar systems; make decisions regarding the evolution of countless species and sentient beings. If in that last life you achieved what the Hindus call moksha, then you have the choice to stay in this existence, or you may choose to be born again. In such you will choose who your parents will be, what their social and fiscal position is, what country or society you will be part of, etc.  If you have achieved moksha, then you can also choose to retain the knowledge you have from previous life times. In this case you would be an avatar, boddisatva or a messiah: a being whose mission is to help humanity evolve in some way.

G-d is you. G-d is me. G-d is your neighbor, your friend, your sister, your brother, your parents, the inhabitants of your town, your province, your country, your planet, your solar system your universe, and in fact, all of the universes.  Wars are the result of ignorance. If you know that everyone is G-d, how can your fight them?  There are, at least for the time being, people who believe in other ideas. If these ideas are a danger to you, then you are obliged to deal with that. An example of this might be the Arab/Jewish conflict in Israel. Both are members of different monotheistic religions, and both believe they have a stake in the land they occupy.  In particular the Arabs are convinced that they must attempt to make life miserable for the Jews, even killing them. The Jews have no choice but to defend themselves, so a continuous condition of insanity prevails.  What would happen if, say the Jews, would adopt our belief system?  Nothing would happen. So long as the Arabs see the Jews, regardless of Jewish belief, as their enemy, the Jews would still be obligated to defend themselves.

What would happen it the Arabs adopted our belief?

Peace. No matter what belief system the Jews retained, if the Arabs were to, en mass, adopt our belief system, they would see the Jews as G-d, and the fighting would end. They would treat the Jews, as well as each other and everyone else on this planet as G-d. They would live in Israel side by side with Jews as brothers and sisters. Peace and  prosperity would prevail.  If the Jews were to adopt the same belief system, this would all be doubly true.

If you and I and everyone else is G-d, then everyone is equal in importance. Everyone is loved equally, everyone is respected equally. Everyone is worshiped equally. This is regardless of ones ethnic origin, racial heritage, national origin, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, education, profession or anything else.

John Lennon, in his song Imagine put it this way:

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky

Imagine all the people
Livin’ for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too

Imagine all the people
Livin’ life in peace

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

 

The Wisdom of Stephan Gabriel — https://urgod.org