“We use the word “God” and rarely ask ourselves what is really meant by that word. We assume we understand the meaning of the word simply because we know how to use it in conventional contexts and grammatically correct sentences. But many of us have little conception of all that the idea contains and all the questions and answers that are part of it. And above all, many of us—at least it was so for me—are not aware of the inner experience that validates the idea, that shows the way towards impartial verification of the existence of that which we can justifiably and with good conscience call God.”
page 82, What is God
QUESTIONS OF THE HEART: ARE WE ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE? (IV)
“What I didn’t yet realize in any but a superficial sense was the obvious corollary of this teaching about I and Thou: namely, that in order to open up to the Thou, I myself, the other half of the relationship, would have to be truly and genuinely I. I would have to be I!”
Page 56, What is God
“All I can or ought to say further about this is to call up an ancient saying—which comes from I don’t remember where—to the effect that the only real proof of the existence of God is the existence of inwardly developed human beings—along with the existence in oneself of that which can recognize them.”
Page 52 What is God
QUESTIONS OF THE HEART: ARE WE ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE? (III)
“It does not matter whether we deny or affirm the existence of what the conventional world calls God. What matters is only that we are deeply and authentically concerned with questions of ultimate reality and ultimate value.”
Page 12, What is God
“I observed—at first vaguely, but eventually quite clearly—that when I thought about God our ultimate reality without any sense of the inner vibration of my being, then my thought simply raced ahead into complications and “ingenuity” without end or without substance. I became “clever” or “brilliant” or “imaginative”. And I pushed hard to be “right,” or “original,” or “bold,” or “up-to-date,” etc. I received “recognition,” and chose my friends accordingly, honing my ability to argue and score intellectual points.”
Page 17, What is God
“Unbeknownst to me, the question of who I was and the question of who or what God was—this was the same question!”
Page 31, What is God
QUESTIONS OF THE HEART: ARE WE ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE? (II)
"If we look and observe ourselves, we will discover that the presence of a higher vibration within ourselves is already there, activating the impulse to think about the questions of God. But we are all too often insensitive to the inner vibrations from within the heart of man..."
page 14, What is God
QUESTIONS OF THE HEART: ARE WE ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE? (I)
“When a man or woman directs his or her attention to questions of ultimate reality— which are in their essence the questions of the nature of God—something awakens within us and calls to us; when a man or woman directs his or her attention to questions of ultimate value and ultimate obligation—which are also in their essence the questions of the nature of God and God’s need of us—something within us awakens and calls to us. That awakening something has no interest in material, worldly needs or attractions; no interest in pleasure or success or money or being first. I am calling it the soul (or the Self) for lack of a better word. It is not interested in what the me wants. It wishes only to live and grow and be.”
page 14, What Is God