One God
To say there is one God is to say that we, each of us, living in and through our individual points of view, live an aspect of One Life. That One Life is what we call God, and through the thousand and one names, through the unnameable Name, we project and carve out and assign qualities and characteristics to this rainbow One. We project onto it humanhood (for aren’t we human and “made in the likeness of God?”). We assign it gender, and what gender are we, or what gender are we taught to value more than our own? We assign it skin color. What color is our own skin? We project intellectual and emotional (human) qualities. Have you noticed that as you age, and hopefully mature, that God also seems to grow and mature? If we were raised to fear a literal and wrathful God, a God of the letter of the law, a God without soul, and if we manage to heal ourselves over time and through pain, isn’t it interesting that the God we then regard is wiser, more loving, more human?
To anthropomorphize is a natural human characteristic. It happens so automatically that it seems to be instinctual. Perhaps it is because I can only see what I am, and you can only see what you are, and she can see only what she is. So we project our seeing, our point of view, onto everyone and everything that we regard. It is natural and right that we do this, as this three-dimensional, duality world of either/or is meant to be a mirror into which we look in order to see who and what we are. This inner landscape is always well-populated, and since this world is a magic mirror, those elements that we project into the mirror act and speak and seem to be living their own lives, one that we share with them because we have stepped through the mirror and are interacting with our projections. And we call that our life.
It is also the way we create our God. The action of spirit is to constantly expand by seeking out ever-new channels of expression and experience. We need something to aspire to, something to go toward, some way of understanding our innate natures, our true Being. And so we create a mighty projection screen and call it God. What is our highest value? Death? To be right, no matter what? Then we have as our standard bearer a God who loves war and killing and retribution. Do we value cooperation and community? Do we value life? Then we have a God of law and forgiveness, of understanding and love, who reminds us that we come from the body of the Earth, from the body of a mother, and therefore are one with that body and with that Earth.
Through the infinite array of permutations that describes the possibilities of the human experience, we create ourselves to be the human family. And God, the One God, contains all of this, all possibility. It must, you see, for how could anything or anyone have existence outside God? Where would that thing or person be? In the outer darkness of no light, no movement? Well, we each go there now and again, for it is a possibility, a place, a vibration available to the human experience, and therefore lies within the purview of this God thing. And if it all lies within the range of God, then there can be many gods and Gods, and yet be One God. And if all possibility of expression and experience lies within it, then there is One Life, that Life is God, and that Life lives in us and through us, as us.