Teachings of Christ Mind

^32.1 The experience of the Self is God. It is not from God. It is not of God. It is God.

^32.2 If all of life is the oneness that is God and God has chosen to experience that oneness through relationship, then you are also that experience and are in relationship with God through that experience.

^32.3 Here we must revisit the concepts of oneness and manyness for if you retain any notions of God that are inaccurate, they will arise here.

^32.4 Let us discuss, for a moment, the concept of God because everyone has at least some sort of concept of God.

^32.5 First we will look at the concept of God as Supreme Being—God as one being, one entity. When thought of in such a way, it is somewhat easier to relate to God than when God is thought of in broader terms. You might think of God as you think of yourself. When thinking of the ideas put forth here, you might think of God deciding to know Himself. You might think of God deciding to create. You might think of God creating. You might think of God granting free will to His creations. Then, perhaps, you might think of God resting, or standing back and witnessing the unfolding of all that He created.

^32.6 What would the purpose of this be? Would God be standing back, judging Himself on the goodness of what He created? Thinking that He’d like to make adjustments here or there, perhaps, but no, He has already granted free will so He can’t do that? If the original purpose was knowing Himself, what kind of knowing would this provide? Wouldn’t this suggest a situation similar to a parent thinking he or she could know him- or herself through observation of the children they produced?

^32.7 Another concept of God is that of Creator. This concept might have nothing to do with the notion of God wanting to know Himself. This concept may be quite amorphous and not tremendously different than scientific notions of the source of life. Whether it be called God or the Big Bang or evolution, this notion presents the concept of something being begun and then turned loose, proceeding from its beginnings under scientific or natural laws.

^32.8 Another idea of God within the concept of a Creator God is of God existing in all of what has been created. God is, within this concept, seen as the spirit within all that lives and also seen as an overriding spirit, a force, a unifying factor. God is closer, within this idea, to being a participatory being, but still falls short. Man lives and has free will. Animals abide by the laws of nature. God is still a concept.

^32.9 Yet most religious beliefs encompass the concept of a living God. How might God live? Could He live in time and space in a dimension we know not? Does He live as the spirit within us, and as such have some small role, perhaps akin to that of what we refer to as our conscience? What kind of life would this be? A difficult to imagine life at the very least.

^32.10 A concept of God is not necessary. False concepts of God, however, are compromising to God and to Self.

^32.11 Jesus spoke to you of his life as an example life. Jesus was called the Son of God and also God. Those who understand the meaning of any or all of the example lives that have come as revelations of who God is, understand that those lives were not separate from God.

^32.12 Yet to believe that God is everyone can still make you feel as if you are not God. How can this be? This can be only because in your contemplation of this idea, you lose your sense of self. There is a rebellion, a negation of either the self or God that occurs when these two concepts—concepts of the self and of God—cannot be reconciled or joined in harmony. Either the self or God takes precedence in all lives. All lives. There is no other choice as long as the self and God are seen as separate.

^32.13 Whether God is seen as Creator or Supreme Being, God is still seen as the All Powerful. While God is seen as the All Powerful, man is disenfranchised. Even while God is perhaps seen in all things, or as the spirit by which all that lives, lives, God is still seen as having what man has not. The list of what one can imagine makes God powerful and man not could be endless, just as one could make an endless list of what they believe differentiates God from man. The example lives in which the power of God was demonstrated in the lives of men and women are seen as little more than pass-through situations in which the power of God passed through men and women to other men and women.

^32.14 Only Jesus was known as the Son of God and as God. This is why Jesus came as your teacher and was used as the example life for this work. This is the point that this work has striven to get across. That man and God are one. Not only is man God. But God is man and woman and child. God is.

^32.15 And yet, God could not be all that is, or God would not be in relationship. If the natural world around you has revealed anything to you of the nature of life and God, it has revealed to you the truth of relationship. As has been said before, if separation had severed relationship, then separation would truly exist. Each entity or being would be singular and alone. Yet God has been referred to as the All of All. How could God be the All of All and not also be man? How can God be all that is and at the same time not all that is? How can God be the All Powerful and Living God and also be lowly and powerless man?

^32.16 God has also been referred to within this work as relationship itself. Let us consider this idea newly by considering God’s relationship to Jesus.

^32.17 The claimed relationship of God to Jesus was that of Father to Son but also as one in being. One in being, but different in relationship.

^32.18 Could God be one in being, but different in relationship, to each of us? Could not God’s oneness of being be the consciousness we all share? Could not God’s relationship to everything be what differentiates God from us and us from God? So that we are both one in being and different? Could it be that while we are one in being with God we can also become more god-like through the practice of holy relationship? Could not the instructions that you have been given—such as those of access to unity, and becoming a spacious Self, and the means that have been used, such as the two levels of experience you have achieved during the days and nights of our time together—be attempts to show you how you can be more like unto God in relationship, even while you are God in being?

^32.19 Would this answer your questions concerning how God is both different and the same? Would this answer your questions concerning God’s great power when compared to your own? Could you see that God’s power stems from His relationship to everything rather than from His being? This is the easiest way to say this, if not quite accurate. Being is power. But being, like oneness, cannot know itself without relationship. You are one in being with your Father, with God, with the Creator and with all of creation. You are also, however, a being that exists in relationship. The extent of your ability to be in relationship is the extent of your ability to be god-like.

^32.20 God is the being and the relationship. You are capable of all the power of God’s being but you are powerful only as God is powerful—in relationship. Because God is in relationship with everything, God is All Powerful. Because you are in a state of limited relationship, you have limited power. This is the difference between God and man. This difference, however, can be diminished as you embrace holy relationship. As you embrace holy relationship you can become powerful as God is powerful.