God Consciousness – What Is It?

God Awareness

Consciousness is a state of awareness associated with self-consciousness—it is your experience of self as well as your awareness of something within your self. It is this awareness of something within you that is the beginning of true God consciousness—an awareness of the presence of God—an awareness that goes beyond your thoughts and words about God.

Your growing awareness of God demonstrates your intellectual capacity to know God—it is a consciousness of divinity that unfolds on increasingly progressive levels of realization. Anyone of average mind has the capacity to be God conscious. It is only our individual depth of understanding, or our depth of consciousness, that varies.

As an illustration, a swaddling infant may be completely unaware she is in a crib or in a room but, as she grows, she begins to recognize the crib and the room and, as she begins to move around, she notices other rooms, each one with a specific purpose, such as one for sleeping, one for eating, and another for entertainment. Later, she begins to realize that all the rooms form a part of her house and are contained within the house. And later still, as she experiences life outside the house, she sees that her house is only one house on a street with many houses.

On a more significant level, she also becomes aware, perhaps unconsciously, that the house is more than just a house. It is also a home that carries meaning, a place where she learns to appreciate different values, a dwelling where she learns duty and loyalty to family, and a community where she learns about social interactions and a greater morality. In other words, the house connotes meaning and value in both the intellectual and spiritual phases of her consciousness.

At each stage in this venture of consciousness, the girl experiences a gradual increase in the understanding, meaning, and value of the house and, therefore, a greater consciousness of the house in the context of the whole. Each stage of consciousness is a more comprehensive level of reality perception, but each level of perception is relatively true. This process of increasing consciousness is the same process we go through as our grasp of both the spiritual universe and God’s nature expands and deepens over time.

Just as the young girl became aware of various levels of house reality, so it is that we become aware of various levels of God reality. We first come to understand the idea of God, a purely intellectual pursuit that any child can grasp. Secondly, we begin to realize the ideal of God—a more advanced recognition of the true nature and attributes of God. And last, through personal experience, we come to realize the spirit reality of God, a consciousness of the actual presence of the Spirit within us.

Knowing God

Even though the full character of God is far beyond our grasp, and despite the limitations of our minds, it behooves us to stretch our imaginations to the uttermost limits of comprehension. By doing so, we improve our understanding, acceptance, and love of the divine nature, and we also improve our reception of the spiritual gifts of God.

Getting to know God begins with the understanding that God is the first Source of all things—the primal source of all reality. Indeed, without this eternal and infinite Being, there would be no such thing as Reality. God is the Supernal Ancestor of all things—the limitless power at the center of all creation—beginningless, endless, timeless, and spaceless. And there are many more edifying concepts of God to contemplate (also see Upgrade Your Image of God). Here are just a few:

• God has purpose and will—he/she is a creative Being.
• God is self-existent, the only thing in all existence that is not created.
• God is absolute yet eternally motivated by the perfect ideal of divine love.
• God is limitless and infinite power—controlling, sustaining, and renewing the universe.
• God is eternal—always was and always will be. As the Source of all creation, time is just another creation.

There is no spatial limit to God. Even if the size of the universe reached infinity, it would not be a concern to God. Space is merely another creation, all of which is contained in One Being. The Divine is eternal and infinite—the Creator of time and space.

For an eternal Being, there is no beginning and there is no end. But for time-space creatures such as us, it is almost impossible to imagine things that are outside the movement of time and the boundaries of space. Nonetheless, a useful meditative exercise is to imagine a fictional beginning when only one single entity existed—an eternal and infinite entity. This is the I AM, the absolute, infinite, eternal, volitional, and intelligent Power behind all creation—the Source of all spirit, all life, all love, and a seemingly infinite universe.

This cosmos of the Infinite I AM is therefore endless, limitless, and all-inclusive—timeless, spaceless, and unqualified. 102.3.10

– The Urantia Book

• God is divine and the source of all divinity. All that is holy, sacred, and supernal originates and emanates from the Supreme Being.
• God is the Universal Father at the center of all creation, and she is the Universal Mother of all creatures.
• God is volitional—a spirit being with freewill choice. It is difficult to portray a Creator God who cannot decide to create.
• God is life—without God there would be no life. Life is a divine, evolving creation.
• God is perfect and infallible. Evil, or error, is solely the prerogative of humanity—the inevitable result of bad choices. 
• God is supremely good. One of the most realistic perceptions of God is that he is the very source of all goodness. We see this in the gifts of God—the inner Spirits we all possess, the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, and the personal ministry of angels.
• God is our friend. There is no anger or vengeance in God; she is perfect, loving, compassionate, and understanding.
• God is fair. There are no chosen people. There are no favorites in the eyes of God. All notions of ethnic, racial, national, or religious superiority are ill-conceived outbreaks of human arrogance.
• God is impartial. Celestial beings work on everyone’s behalf. There is no favoritism. Anyone who believes that God is on their side at the expense of others, does not understand the parental love of God.

To Love God Is to Know God

It is easy to judge others prematurely because of their inconsiderate actions or rash words, but when we understand the reasons why they act the way they do, and when we consider all circumstances or what they may have endured or suffered in life, we become more compassionate and merciful.

We come to love others by getting to know them and, to some degree, the same can be said of God. By understanding the nature of God, we come to admire and adore this Divine Source. But with some distinction, we can never really know God until we first learn to love him with all our heart, mind, and soul. It is your reverent love for the Infinite Source of Eternal Love that opens your mind to truly knowing the nature of the Divine Presence.

Your growing God consciousness goes hand-in-hand with your increasing ability to know God through love. You soon discover that your love for the Divine is not an artificial feeling of euphoria. The truth is, you can be as certain about the reality of the loving presence of God as you can about the reality of any other person in your life. It’s a very real experience.

God Is Someone

God is someone, not something. One of the most profound realizations you can have, is that God, as the First and Universal Personality, is a personal being. God’s personality along with his gift of personality, is what allows you to make an intimate connection with this vibrant, living, and loving Spirit Being.

God is not a person as you might commonly conceive, but he is a person in the sense that you can get to know him in a meaningful way, just as you can get to know your next-door neighbor. God is personal not just because he or she is intelligent and conscious but also because he can know and be known, love and be loved.

As we discovered in another post, possessing a personality is what allows us to recognize and interact with other persons—it’s the ability to have intellectual contact, to communicate. We are conscious beings who can share individual life experiences, discuss personal problems, love each other with unselfish love, and know each other on a profound level of understanding.

Knowing God as a person is not something you can ever discover through reason or logic alone. An eternal and infinite God who is the source of all reality cannot be limited to the confines of human logic or the fetters of human philosophy. Nor can there be any logical limit to the scope of God’s manifestations. Nevertheless, you can realize the truth of this divine Person through your own religious experiences—through spiritual contact and spiritual insight.

As the creator of all things, God embraces the personal, the nonpersonal, the prepersonal, and the superpersonal, or any other state of personality you can imagine. In order to communicate, or commune, with personal beings, God must have a personal side, one that is more than simply being a spiritual force or a universal mind.

God is far more than the thing he/she creates. If we see God only as an energy or force, then how does this energy source or energy field express or give love? Love is a personal act, a feeling of devotion between two or more persons. The Divine Spirit is a personality with whom we can converse, a friend to whom we can reveal the innermost desires of our hearts, a being we can love.

God is the First Person—the Universal Person—and the creator of all personalities in the entire universe. And your experience of God is a personal experience—it is your intimate, personal relationship as a trusting child to an all-wise divine Parent. It is this faithful, trusting, and humble attitude of mind that makes it possible for you to approach, to know, and to love God (see Have Faith—But Faith in What?).

Whenever we speak of contacting God, we are actually contacting the Divine Presence within us, which is our direct connection to the Eternal Personality at the center of all things. And while this Spirit of God is not a person per se, it does fully represent the personality and essence of God—it is of God. While it may be prepersonal in this sense, it exemplifies the personality of an infinite and eternal God.

The divine spark within you exhibits the nature and attributes of God in every way imaginable or possible to a human mind. It is a living, conscious, and thinking spirit entity that embodies the divinity of God—the cosmic window through which you can glimpse the realities of Deity.

God Is a Divine Parent

Without a doubt, many religious views are unreasonable, but this is not to say that all religious ideas are unreasonable. In fairness, we could just as easily say that many current views and stereotypes about God and religion are equally unreasonable.

We could begin with the portrayal of God as a divine Father, an image primarily emphasized in Christianity but also in line with Judaism and Islam. To those who lobby for a gender-neutral world, such a view of God can appear unreasonable, if not disagreeable. But keep in mind that the concept of God as a spirit father is both an analogy and a metaphor best understood when viewed within a historical and cultural context.

Long before the time of Jesus, almost all societies in the world were dominated by male authority to the degree that it affected the entire framework of religious and administrative thought. In this long era of male dominance, the supreme God was widely envisioned as a male disciplinary king—as a lord and master, yet with human frailties and susceptible to unchecked emotions, such as anger and jealousy. God was to be feared and obeyed as though he were a fickle but all-powerful sovereign, which is one reason early followers of Jesus referred to God’s spiritual realm as the “kingdom of heaven.”

But Jesus was the first religious teacher to widely advocate God as a compassionate father—a Divine Parent rather than a heartless dictator. Instead of fearing God as king and master, Jesus urged us to love and revere God as the all-loving and all-wise Father of all personalities—a divine Creator.

Above all, his revelation of the divine, parental love of God to the people of that time (and this time) was an improved and more accurate vision of the true character of God. It was not only a declaration of God’s affectionate attitude toward us, it also defined the nature of God’s relationship to us. Thus, he portrayed the heavenly Creator as a loving, wise, and caring father—as a loving, wise, and caring parent.

And instead of a wrathful God who must be slavishly obeyed and feared, Jesus revealed a friendly, loving, and compassionate God—someone to be followed willingly and happily, someone we can love in return. This is the critical analogy—that God loves us with the same deep devotion and unconditional love that all good parents have for their children—that our Creator loves us as a perfect father would love.

While Jesus portrayed the love of God in this way, he was well aware that the Eternal Source of All Reality is much, much more than a loving father or mother. But when it comes to any human understanding of our relationship to God, the notion of divine, parental love is the best analogy.

Nonetheless, it’s not reasonable for us to assume that the Divine Source is either a man or a woman, male or female, masculine or feminine. The creature is not the Creator and, as the First Cause of all things, God created gender. God must, therefore, be just as maternal as he is paternal. Terms like God the Father, God the Mother, or sons and daughters of God are powerful family metaphors intended to impart the highest ideals of parental love within a spiritual family.

Reaching a Superconscious State

When you become God conscious, you begin to realize that your inner Spirit is continually attempting to communicate with you. It is attempting to awaken you to spirit realities and to guide you on a path of spiritual thinking and spiritual behavior. Its divine objective is to transform you into a spiritual being.

Most religions recognize the positive, inner workings of this guiding Spirit, this fragment of God that forever encourages us to walk a spiritual path—to live a virtuous life. And there are many ways to achieve this.

In Hinduism, followers are encouraged to follow the Four Paths to God, which include devotion, work, knowledge, and mind training. In Confucianism, devotees are advised to follow the Five Virtues: benevolence, honesty, knowledge, faithfulness, and correct behavior. And in Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path extols right speech, intention, understanding, conduct, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and meditation.

In Christianity, followers are generally exhorted to live according to the will of God, a path not as clearly defined, but a useful parallel would be the “fruits of the spirit,” which are nine attributes of character observed in those who follow God’s guidance—love, joy, peace, tolerance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (see also What Does the Will of God Actually Mean?).

Underlying all these religious traditions, is your belief that living a dutiful and moral life—following a virtuous path—is what constitutes a spiritual life. But this life must be more than simply acting out virtues in a pretentious manner; this is not sincere. The only thing that works is making an honest, genuine, and unequivocal attempt to follow the lead of your inner Spirit. Walking the Spirit Path is always more than just doing something—it is being something.

We progress only by following the lead of the Spirit within us because we are not yet perfectly spiritual and, therefore, possess no inherent or spontaneous spiritual wisdom. Our task is simply to listen and learn.

God is attempting to spiritualize your thinking, not control it. You may not be entirely conscious of the process because, for the most part, it occurs in the superconscious realms of your mind. Nonetheless, you need to give your personal consent for this Divine Guide to function. With your permission and cooperation, it can achieve considerably more than it could in a stubborn or reluctant mind.

While your spiritualization may be an unconscious process, the proof of this superconscious activity is in your own religious growth—your transformation into a loving, caring, and helpful person who is attuned to the Spirit within and completely dedicated to a life of goodness, beauty, and truth.

By tuning in and harmonizing with divinity, you are refreshed, comforted, and inspired. Everyday challenges, rather than being insurmountable barriers to your progress, become unique opportunities for you to express your spirituality by loving others. Never underestimate the power of the Spirit to adjust your thoughts and transform your character.