Living as God invites you to experience the mystical unity of all life. Just as God is one with all that is, so are you. From the very beginning, you are knocked from your comfortable chair and challenged to accept that you too are the author of this book.

Living as God invites you to make nothing short of an evolutionary leap in consciousness: from seeing God as “out there” and separate from you to seeing God as right here, right now – as your self. It is God who is looking out of your eyes, working with your hands, speaking from your mouth, because you and God are ONE.

Living as God reminds us that as God we are creators and can choose what we want to create. If we have chosen to see ourselves as separate little people struggling in a hostile world to survive against “others”, we can simply choose again now to see differently.

What kind of world will we create if we live from the awareness that we are all One as God? Judgment, competition, and conflict will dissolve. Trust and joy will reign. Any perceived surface differences would no longer separate us but be honored because we now know that fundamentally we are the same – we are of the same divine love essence.

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ONCE UPON A TIME, WHEN WE HAD AN INNER CERTAINTY of the truth of our Being, we didn’t need words for guidance. And so may it be again. Words offer a poor path to the reality of the ineffable, but for now they are still one of the few tools for sharing ideas, feelings, and experiences related to the spiritual realm. Humankind has called this realm many things: the Tao, the Void, the Rigpa, God, Source. On and on go the words that are used in an attempt to express that which lies beyond their limitations. The Infinite cannot be contained in a word any more than your essence can be conveyed by your name.

When it comes to words, the vast majority of humanity still associates a state of ultimate peace and fulfillment with the word “God”. Consequently, this is the most highly charged of all words. It carries every confused vision, every misconception, yet every cherished hope of mankind. Because of this, an evolutionary clari-fication of “God” is needed.

We say the grandest expression of man is godliness. This is the pinnacle of our human potential. But most neither know godliness nor how to express it.

Our greatest human yearning remains our need to know God. This book is brought into manifestation by the collective call for help in this search. In our search, we must be ready to go beyond the word “God” and what we currently associate with it. This is the journey we are about to take. Words can still serve us in this journey, as long as we do not mistake these aids, these pointers to Truth, for Truth itself.

Is God outside of you, inside of you, or all around you? Is God a person or a power? A fantasy or a reality? God may mean ultimate power for you. God may be a name for nothingness, as in some Buddhist texts. God is represented by a single man for some Christians, every man for the Hindus, silence for the Taoists, and sound to the Vedic seers. God evokes a state of peace to some, and to others God is a legitimate reason for war. God has been described as a powerful lion of a creator, and also as meek as a lamb. The planet earth is God for the aboriginal Americans, and everything but the physical realm is God for some New Age Thinkers. The Tantrists find God through sex, yet Catholic priests seek God through chastity. Why such confusion? Why such disagreement?

In truth, all are correct. God is without opposite or opposition. God is the manifest universe and also the infinite unmanifest potential of all life. God is exempt from nothing and indeed excludes Itself from nothing. Not for any reason. Not ever.

How can we remove the encrusted, disfigured outer shell of the word “God” so as to reveal its innermost truth? If we could fully convey the complete, indisputable truth of this one word, then in publishing it to the world, all seeking and suffering would cease. This is the dauntless challenge and intent of this book. If it is achieved in you, it will not be because of the words, but because of your readiness to feel the truth to which they point. Awareness comes not through the thoughts that words evoke. Awareness is a felt experience that leaves a new, true, and permanent change in perception of reality— of what is so. It is the hungry mind that wants to reduce the ineffable to the confines of logical reasoning. The thinking mind separates out; it cannot conceive of wholeness and thereby interferes with truly experiencing awareness of the One Self.

As you read, you may arrive at the bottom of a page and realize that although you have understood what is written, you cannot actually recall a single sentence. This is truly good news. It means that you are releasing the limitations of thought, of the thinking mind, and are being carried by the higher vibration of the heart that is embedded between these words and lines. This is the aim of all true teachers, whether they take the form of a human or a book. For any thought is useful only to the degree that it leads us into a deeper awareness through feeling. So do not rush through this work with a hungry mind. Let it sink in deeply. Let its feeling-tone linger in your energy field. If you do, it will speak to you and reach you on many levels in perfect, harmonious ways.

We say God, Goddess, All That Is, the Self, Consciousness, Energy, Being, Mahatma, Yahweh, Jehovah, Rigpa, I Am Presence, the Void, Isness, Oneness, Spirit, Tao, You, Me, Love, Light, Us, We, I, He, Her, It, One Self—and always these words point to God. Indeed, we are all synonymous: each of us has the same essential nature. If we understand one person fully or the essence behind one name of Spirit truly, we understand them all.

“God” is the word we use most often to describe all that we do not understand. Yet it is also the word for all that we do understand. But once we think we understand something, we stop calling it God. We used to call a flash of light from the sky a sign of God, but now we know it simply as lightning. At one time, saving someone from dying of a poison would have been called a miracle. Now, with medical antidotes, we can achieve a quick chemical response to the poison rendering it non-lethal to the body. The more we seem to understand, the less we need to ascribe to God. From this perspective, God has become increasingly narrow in some people’s minds. However, when we start to sense the Spirit of all things—the essence behind each form—we find that the word “God” expands again to encompass everything.

For centuries, most of humanity has held an extremely dysfunctional image of an outside, anthropomorphic God, which has severely limited the human race in all its endeavors and been the cause of much suffering. In order to break free, to evolve, this conditioned, misleading view must be dropped. Yes, we could try to simply avoid the word “God” in our philosophical dialogues and spiritual pursuits, yet eventually it must be integrated for our own inner healing. We can talk about Universal Life Force or the Universal Mind, but eventually, our inner self will ask, “But how does all of this relate to God?” That is the fundamental question.

A requisite part of this inquiry is how do you relate to God? When you close your eyes and are still, and say the word “God”, what images or thoughts emerge? What does God mean for you? Do you feel anger towards God, fearful of Him, or do you feel ambivalent, as if the word were merely a symbol of a vague unseen power? Do you feel love towards Her or do you feel neglected?

Regardless of your response, you must someday explore this relationship, for your path to inner peace spirals through its essence.

Let us finally resolve all issues that stand between us and our world, between you and your family, between you and your self, between you and me, between you and God. You have brought this book to yourself now so that these words may break down the longstanding walls of self-imposed separation, thereby enabling you to experience again the peace that comes through unity with God.

Since we command that which we truly understand, are you ready to reclaim the power in your life? That is why we are here. Life, God, wants to extend Itself, and It does so through you. This is our individual and collective purpose— to give expression to God, to be the Living God. It is through us that God can come to know Its Self. And this includes you. Through our existence, God can look on Its Self and see Its beauty.

© P. Raymond Stewart