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You might have seen people in spiritual circles acting a little cheeky.
They say heretical things like, “I am God.”
Some people might even call them delusional, completely batshit crazy insane. People with a command of psycho-spiritual language would probably insert the word ego somewhere.
How can they spout such poppycock?
How can they comfortably and with a straight face assume the position of head honcho and say it to everyone who cares to listen?
Well, what do they actually say when they say, “I am God”?
What are we saying when we say the same?
First, we need to clarify what we mean by “God.”
Let’s skip over the multiple Gods scenarios ala Hinduism and go straight to the One.
Every religion and individual believer likes to believe their God is the biggest and baddest around. To be the biggest and baddest around, God has to fit a bill:
▢ Omnipresent (All-Present).
▢ Omnipotent (All-Powerful).
▢ Omniscient (All-Knowing).
These terms together point to a notion of perfection and completeness.
A more general abstraction of this bill is infinite.
God is infinite.
But because neither the concept of God nor the concept of infinity excludes anything, we can say:
God is infinity.
Infinity is a philosophical/mathematical expression. God is a religious expression. Same same but different.
What Does Infinite Imply?
Infinite implies no boundaries, no borders, no demarcations, no beginning, no end, no exclusions.
In other words, nothing that is not it. Now we’re getting somewhere.
Is there something in your direct experience that fits this notion of infinity?
Yes yes, there is.
Being-knowing-awareness is the amalgamation I’ll use here.
This sense of being, of knowing, of awareness is always here and you have never known anything outside of it.
It is always present because it’s indistinguishable from the present = omnipresent
It is knowing itself and nothing is known without it = omniscient
The whole cosmos arises from its bosom = omnipotent
Something else we can say is that you can never know infinity conceptually because you can’t get outside infinity. There is no further perspective than infinity which is a no-perspective or all-perspective perspective.
Infinity is not the concept of infinity as much as pineapple isn’t the word pineapple.
This is the real infinite you we are speaking about here. Don’t be intimidated by these fancy words. Nothing fancy, just what you are.
So what you are fits the notion of infinity.
Are You Really Infinite?
You might say that this can’t be true because you don’t know everything, are not aware of being everyone and everything, and can’t create worlds at the snap of a finger.
But keep in mind that infinity sweeps away the notion of multiplicity.
You don’t need to be aware of being everyone and everything. Just try to find anything outside of this being-knowing-awareness.
You might say you’re not aware of being Papua New Guinea. But Papua New Guinea is an idea and that idea derives its being from that same being.
Remember, what we’re talking about is infinity and there is nothing that is not infinity. Your appearance as a person is the same infinity as the appearance of a watermelon.
You don’t need to create anything with the snap of a finger. Here again, this means nothing is created outside of this being-knowing-awareness. It’s the operant power.
You might think you’re not creating worlds at the snap of a finger but you have created the whole idea of creation, worlds, and fingers. Besides, infinity also implies that the finger has already been snapped and everything has been created.
You don’t need to know everything because you are that knowing. And everything that has ever been known and will ever be known is known through and as this knowing. Knowing makes any known possible, but ultimately eliminates the notion of a dualistic known and knower.
So what can be known for certain is the knowing itself whichfore you know all there is to know.
Being-knowing-awareness is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. But impersonally. It’s not subservient to personal notions about it.
God Is I
Now we can complete the equation.
I = being-knowing-awareness = infinity = God
These terms all point to the same reality.
Being-knowing-awareness or infinity is the absolutest idea of any God around. And its actuality is so common and obvious it’s easy to overlook.
It’s pure non-conceptual I. Not a personal I but isness. I am not merely what I appear to be.
If the word God really points at what we’re saying it’s pointing at, then God is everything.
Christianity’s rockstar was one of those heretics. “Me and my father are one,” is what he says in John 10:30-33.
He said it in a roundabout way. Perhaps he held back a little to not put people off or to have some wiggle room in case some folks became a little too inquiring. Which they of course did anyway.
But he knew that God is all.
In the Upanishads, Adi Shankaracharya says, “Aham Brahmasmi,” which translates to “I am Brahman,” which further translates to “I am God.”
Another saying from the Upanishads is “Tat Tvam Asi,” which means “You are that.” You are what? You are reality. What else?
Rumi said, “I am God, and I am not God.” This is a smart move. Saying “I am God” without having it ooze of ego is no easy feat. He homes in on the point that God is all — including the apparent finite forms — and yet beyond all forms, including the idea of God.
So when your neighbor chats you up across the balcony and says, “I am God,” it depends on what she means by I.
If she pronounces it as a claim of personal grandeur then we could bat an eye and perhaps get a padded cell ready. But even if she says it from a so-called delusion, she’s metaphysically-speaking pretty correct.
And correctly understood, the statement “I am God,” doesn’t elevate the personal self; it dissolves it.
If by “I” she means being-knowing-awareness then she’s saying, “God is God.” And that is a reasonable statement. Pretty similar to another statement that God Iself apparently made: “I am that I am.” I don’t remember saying that so don’t quote me.
Anyway, with this clarification, saying “I am God” makes sense. It’s not a lofty proclamation but a statement of fact.
To improve this statement technically and avoid misunderstanding, we can reverse the components. Let’s say it together out loud:
God is I.
Luka
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Hey Luka! Hope you are having fun in Thailand with the coconuts! 🙂 Having become an Atheist at age 14, that word God was as triggering for me as it probably was for religious folk, maybe more so? It still is not a pleasant word to hear but I’m not “offended” in the same way a religious person would be when someone says “I am God” because I don’t look at God as some all powerful entity in the sky that I have to worship and obey. However, I do think that because it’s such a loaded term, it seems… Read more »