God

"One thing I can't stand, it's people groveling."

"All true knowledge of God begins with the knowledge of his hiddenness."

"He who is called Brahman by the jnanis is known as Atman by the yogis and as Bhagavan by the bhaktas. The same brahmin is called priest, when worshipping in the temple, and cook, when preparing a meal in the kitchen. The jnani, following the path of knowledge, always reason about the Reality saying, "not this, not this." Brahman is neither "this" nor "that"; It is neither the universe nor its living beings. Reasoning in this way, the mind becomes steady. Finally it disappears and the aspirant goes into samadhi. This is the Knowledge of Brahman. It is the unwavering conviction of the jnani that Brahman alone is real and the world is illusory. All these names and forms are illusory, like a dream. What Brahman is cannot be described. One cannot even say that Brahman is a Person. This is the opinion of the jnanis, the followers of Vedanta. But the bhaktas accept all the states of consciousness. They take the waking state to be real also. They don't think the world to be illusory, like a dream. They say that the universe is a manifestation of the God's power and glory. God has created all these — sky, stars, moon, sun, mountains, ocean, men, animals. They constitute His glory. He is within us, in our hearts. Again, He is outside. The most advanced devotees say that He Himself has become all this — the 24 cosmic principles, the universe, and all living beings. The devotee of God wants to eat sugar, and not become sugar. (All laugh.) Do you know how a lover of God feels? His attitude is: "O God, Thou art the Master, and I am Thy servant. Thou art the Mother, and I Thy child." Or again: "Thou art my Father and Mother. Thou art the Whole, and I am a part." He does not like to say, "I am Brahman." They yogi seeks to realize the Paramatman, the Supreme Soul. His ideal is the union of the embodied soul and the Supreme Soul. He withdraws his mind from sense objects and tries to concentrate on the Paramatman. Therefore, during the first stage of his spiritual discipline, he retires into solitude and with undivided attention practices meditation in a fixed posture. But the reality is one and the same; the difference is only in name. He who is Brahman is verily Atman, and again, He is the Bhagavan. He is Brahman to the followers of the path of knowledge, Paramatman to the yogis, and Bhagavan to the lovers of God."

"The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation."

"Most intellectual people do not believe in God, but they fear him just the same."

"The god of many cannot remain the true god."

"Is it possible that there are people who say "God" and suppose they mean something shared by all? — Only consider two schoolboys: one of them buys a knife, and the other buys an identical one on the same day. And a week later, they show each other the two knives, and they turn out to be only remotely similar, so differently have they been shaped by different hands. ... Is it possible to believe we could have a god without making use of him?"

"A thought struck me abruptly: My God, you do exist, then. There are proofs of Your existence. I had forgotten them all, and never demanded any either, for what an overwhelming obligation would come with this certainty. And yet that is what is now being shown to me."

"When I speak of All That Is, you must understand my position within it. All That Is knows no other. This does not mean that there may not be more to know. It does not mean, and here words quite fail us, it does not mean that All That Is, in any terms we can conceive of, may not be limited. It knows of no other."

"If a person who indulges in gluttony is a glutton, and a person who commits a felony is a felon, then God is an iron."

"If you do not know your heart, you do not know your God."

"I think I’ve gone through quite an ordinary series of steps in life. I began as most children began, with God and Santa Claus and the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny all being about the same thing. Then I went through the things that I think sensitive people go through, wrestling with the thoughts of Jesus—did he shit? Did he screw? I began to dare to believe that God wasn’t some white beard. I began to look upon the miseries of the human race and to think God was not as simple as my mother said. As nearly as I can concentrate on the question today, I believe I am God; certainly you are, I think we intelligent beings on this planet are all a piece of God, are becoming God. In some sort of cyclical non-time thing we have to become God, so that we can end up creating ourselves, so that we can be in the first place. ... My own feeling is that relation to God as a person is a petty, superstitious approach to the All, the infinite."

"We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes."

"I think God is as much a basic ingredient in the universe as neutrons and positrons . . . God is, for lack of a better term, clout. This is the prime force, when we look around the universe."

"I do not belong to any church, but I do consider myself a religious man...part of the creative and intelligence behind life. Therefore, if we are part of God than our lives are not brief meaningless things, but rather have a great importance and significance."

"Also, if you read attentively and objectively the "Letter about God": in The Mahatma Letters, you will see that the Mahatma repudiates the sacrilegious and anthropomorphic conception of a Personal god—cruel and unjust, chastising with eternal damnation all so-called heretics, and justifying all the crimes committed in his Holy Name! Verily, such a God cannot have a Mahatma's approval and respect."

"Its Humanity develops fully only in the Fourth—our Fourth—our present Round. Up to this fourth Life-Cycle, it is referred to as 'humanity' only for lack of a more appropriate term. Like the grub which becomes chrysalis and butterfly, Man, or rather that which becomes man, passes through all the forms and kingdoms during the first Round and through all the human shapes during the two following Rounds... During the three Rounds to come, Humanity, like the globe [planet] on which it lives, will be ever tending to reassume its primeval form, that of a Dhyan-Chohanic Host. Man tends to become a God and then—GOD, like every other atom in the Universe..."

"The Ruling Principle of the Universe is one of Harmony and Love—God is Love. Therefore, if we wish to embody the most ancient axiom, "as above, so below," we should become unified precisely upon this principle of love and should be subordinate to it, regarding it as our only boundless Ruler."

"By propagating the dogma of Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God, the Church contradicts the very sense of the prayer given to us by Jesus Christ himself, "Our Father which art in heaven." And also the words of the Scriptures, "So God created man in his own image." (Genesis 1:27)"

"Verily, there is nothing more sacrilegious for human consciousness than to limit the Ineffable Grandeur of the Divine Principle that is poured out over the entire Universe. Assuredly, from this monstrous, ignorant belittling issue all the unworthy concepts of God. Man, in his conceit, tries to bring everything down to his own level and likeness... Indeed, the books of the Teaching are full of concepts of the Divine Principle, or God, and of Spirit and spirituality."

"The God in us is the sole reality; all else, as beautifully and poetically expressed by the East, is but the "Play of the Great Mother of the World."...There is no God, or Gods, who was not at some time a man."

"In the presence of infinite might and infinite wisdom, the strength of the strongest man is but weakness, and the keenest of mortal eyes see but dimly."

"Nothing remains, under God, but those passions which have often proved the best ministers of His vengeance, and the surest protectors of the world."

"Kill one man and you are a murderer. Kill millions and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone and you are a God."

"If I were granted omnipotence, and millions of years to experiment in, I should not think Man much to boast of as the final result of all my efforts."

"If there were a God, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt his existence."

"Pragmatists explained that Truth is what it pays to believe. Historians of morals reduced the Good to a matter of tribal custom. Beauty was abolished by artists in a revolt against the sugary insipidities of a philistine epoch and in a mood of fury in which satisfaction is to be derived only from what hurts. And so the world was swept clear not only of God as a person but of God's essence as an ideal to which man owed an ideal allegiance."

"I think that if there were a God, there would be less evil on this earth. I believe that if evil exists here below, then either it was willed by God or it was beyond His powers to prevent it. Now I cannot bring myself to fear a God who is either spiteful or weak. I defy Him without fear and care not a fig for his thunderbolts."

"The existence of the world without God seems to me less absurd than the presence of a God, existing in all his perfection, creating an imperfect man in order to make him run the risk of Hell."

"Respectable society believed in God in order to avoid having to speak about him."

"Gott werden, Mensch sein, sich bilden, sind Ausdrücke, die einerlei bedeuten."

"There are as many gods as there are ideals. And further, the relation of the true artist and the true human being to his ideals is absolutely religious. The man for whom this inner divine service is the end and occupation of all his life is a priest, and this is how everyone can and should become a priest."

"In saying we are in immediate relation with God, the latter term is used only to designate the Whence of our spontaneous and receptive life, of which we become aware in our feeling of absolute dependence."

"“Were you not at the Holy City when the army of the faithful burst in? Did you not yourself partake in the slaughter of the pagans, and the women and infants of the pagans, those who were born in lands where the gospel never reached? Did you not do this and much more, all for the glory of God? And does not that same All Mighty and All Merciful God damn men for sins of weakness and ignorance when He himself made them imperfect and prone to weakness, and taught them not so that they remained ignorant? Did He not allow the serpent to enter the Garden, make no move to stop it, then punish severely his beguiled servants?” “Lady, as you said, you know the answers. All these things are true.” “Then I ask you, Julian, are these actions of a loving God?” “I—I—don’t—” “Know! But you do. This knowledge is the heritage of all men. You know they are not, and yet more shall you know. God is mad, Julian. He babbles on his throne of light, and the sound of his gurgling fills his angels with fear. He sends them forth with flaming swords to raze the cities of men, and when thousands upon thousands have been slain, and the smoke of their pyres rises into the heights of the sky, when pestilence and famine slay thousands more, then God laughs and roars like some mindless beast, ‘THIS IS PLEASING TO ME!’”"

"I can see him. I know that God is real. I know it in my heart. You can only believe in what you know to be true. You know your own truth. I know mine. Everyone should be able to find that within themselves... I want to live my life for God, and let other people take from that whatever they want."

"I think the destiny of all men is not to sit in the rubble of their own making but to reach out for an ultimate perfection which is to be had. At the moment, it is a dream. But as of the moment we clasp hands with our neighbor, we build the first span to bridge the gap between the young and the old. At this hour, it’s a wish. But we have it within our power to make it a reality. If you want to prove that God is not dead, first prove that man is alive."

"You have in yourself some thing similar to God, and therefore use yourself as the temple of God, on account of that which in you resembles God."

"The greatest honor which can be paid to God is to know and imitate him."

"Consider lost all the time in which you do not think of divinity."

"A good intellect is the choir of divinity."

"You should not dare to speak of God to the multitude."

"He who is worthy of God is also a god among men."

"He best honors God who makes his intellect as like God as possible."

"We are all writing God's poem."

"God is our fortress, in whose conquering name Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks."

"God shall be my hope, My stay, my guide and lantern to my feet."

"And to add greater honours to his age Than man could give him, he died fearing God."

"Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal I serv'd my king, He would not in mine age Have left me naked to mine enemies."

"Don't worry if you see God first, tell him shit got worse."

"Beware of the man whose god is in the skies."