Some time ago I was sitting with a group of people who were intrigued by me; and kept on asking me questions about my work. One of them finally asked "What religion do you follow?" I'm always weary of this question so I said in a diplomatic way "Well I believe that there is a superior being that has created us all, I call Him God. He is everywhere and all around us and is plain simple love." And then the dreaded question "What is your God called, who is He?"
It was one of those questions that had come to my mind so many times before -- is my God different than yours? Is yours better than mine? Does that mean that there is more than one creator of the Universe if people from different religions have different gods? Am I right to believe in a certain God while you are wrong because you don't agree with what I call my God? Who IS God?
From the beginning of time humans believed in a higher power, something bigger and more powerful than themselves. They needed to believe in someone who had inconceivable powers and was so much bigger than themselves and also to answer the big mysteries of the world. So they worshiped the sun, the moon, fire and even created gods of the seas. Anything explainable was considered an extension of the holiness of God even love and beauty intrigued humans and they made goddesses of love and beauty.
When I look into my heart and think about God or as I'm told "my God", this is who He is:
1-He is my friend and confidant
2-He is everywhere all around me in the littlest corners of the world
3-God doesn't reside in some holy building where I need to go to find Him; he lives inside of me in the deepest darkest corners of my heart.
4-He is not there to just make me feel small but he sees my successes as his own, as I am created by Him.
5-God is love, the love I see and feel everywhere
6-He talks to me through my heart and soul- if I only listened
7-Religious rituals don't bring me closer to Him but loving his creations does
I know that God, Allah, Jesus, Bhagwan, Buddha are all names of the same higher power that created all of us. The same powerful being that created all of us from love, yet we separate ourselves from each other trying to prove that our religion is better than the other. We are fighting wars, killing people trying to prove how we are the righteous ones and it is our right to demean and destroy others who don't agree with our religious rituals or the name we give to our creator. What we need to remember is the
My God or yours-God is Love and that is all that we need to know.