Find God! Where? How?
In our loud and hectic time, ever more people are asking about God: Where is God? And how can He be reached?
Or: Is there a God at all?
Or: If God exists, why doesn’t He show Himself?
Or: I don’t believe in God, because anyone who takes a closer look at this world comes to realize that the existence of a God is merely a fable.
Still another one thinks: When someone asks, “Why does God allow such chaos in our world?” – many a religion refers to the mysteries of God. And he reflects further: I’ve checked out many religions and thought that here
and there I had found a little spark of the truth. With many a so-called shower of sparks, I thought I’d finally come home, and dedicated myself to this religion. Soon doubts came up in me and I asked myself: What should I do with this spark of truth, since I haven’t become a new person through this spark of truth, even though that was promised me? In my mistrustful skepticism, I thought: Surely, many a religion still has more sparks of the eternal truth. If we were to bring all these sparks of truth from the various religions together, would we then have found God? My disappointment grew and I thought: I’ve searched and searched, I was in this and in that religion, and up until now, I’ve neither seen nor found God. I came to the conclusion that I’m certainly not alone with my questions: Where is God? Where can I find God?
Why does He hide Himself when I affirm the so-called truth that He is supposed to be? Despite everything, I don’t want to give up searching, even though my doubts in God’s existence are growing ever greater, above all, when I think about the guise of external heads of religion with their religious garbs and further address the question:
Why does God want the guise of His socalled intercessors and all the ado that’s made about them? And when, enveloped in their splendid robes, they preach humility, when so many people go hungry and hardly have a roof over their heads, or any money to clothe themselves according to the season, I again begin to doubt in the existence of God. And the costly headgear perplexes me just as much as the “modest caps” that are supposed to cover the tonsure.
Why all this? And not lastly, I wonder what is hidden behind all this? When you talk with many a proclaimer of God, then you come to the conclusion that they are farther from the truth than a believing God-seeker.
The summary of the God-seeker is: Every head of his religion is of the opinion that his religion is the one that would save your soul and only his religion would proclaim the truth.
Dear reader, if you want to, think about the following:
No one needs to take an external step to find God. Why? Because the eternal Spirit, whom we in the western world call God, is omnipresent and thus, also in the soul of each person.
The omnipresent Free Spirit of infinity, God, is in the nature kingdoms, in every tree, in every little plant, in the grass, in the animal, in the stone. The eternal allprevailing Spirit is in the mighty cosmos. We human beings don’t need to go here and there to find God. We don’t have to put a guise on ourselves to pray to God.
Let’s just remember the words of Jesus of Nazareth that essentially say: Consider the lilies of the field, they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
And so, God is in us. God is around us. God is above us. He is under us; He is to the right and to the left of us. He is the Free Spirit, the life in all things.
We can search ever so much for God in religions, in spiritual groups and communities and have institutional church “aha-experiences” – but as time passes, all this turns insipid, because the person who has not found God in the very basis of his soul remains a seeker and, conceivably, a wanderer from one religion to another, from one spiritual group or community to another.
To draw nearer to God, the Eternal, He gave us the Ten Commandments through Moses and through Jesus of Nazareth, the heavenly teachings in His Sermon on the Mount. Whereby the Ten Commandments of God and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth are merely excerpts from
the all-encompassing eternal law of God, from His love and freedom, which is the true life.
However, if a person puts his external demeanor and behavior above God and contents himself – animated by the desire that faith alone ought to be enough, along with the customs and traditions of the respective religion – then he will never find God, not even when he thinks he has found sparks of truth here and there.
Every external “aha-experience” will pall at some point. The person keeps on searching for God and remains discontent, until person and soul have found their way home to the root of life within them and the soul rests in the ocean of life.
Particularly at the present time, many a person wonders: Why did God give us the Ten Commandments through Moses and Jesus of Nazareth, His Sermon on the Mount?
Have we become smarter and drawn closer to God by knowing about the Ten Commandments of God and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and His Sermon on the Mount?
As stated: To find God, no external religion is needed, no external intercessor, and no binding community with intercessors. We alone should be the God-seekers, and find God in the very basis of our soul, for among other things, Jesus of Nazareth essentially taught “God in us,” and pointed out how we should pray. He said:
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Anyone who believes in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth will also inevitably believe in an immortal soul, in the very basis of which the free eternal Spirit of infinity dwells and is active, and whom we in the western world call God.
We people have an odd habit: We blame others for the negative things that happen to us. We point out what others do or don’t do – again and again: The other one is to blame; the other one acts wrongly and so on and so forth. We have to change our way of thinking and come to understand that each person himself is responsible for his life on Earth, for what he does or for his spiritual neg-
ligence. We alone have to look for our “fishhooks” regarding this, that can be found in our feelings, sensations and thoughts, as well as in our words and actions. Anyone who makes the effort to take a close look at himself will very gradually sense that to some extent he is a counterfeiter, because what goes on behind his feelings, thoughts, words and actions is usually not what he pretends or shows to others! That is the counterfeiting. We, the so-called counterfeiters, are ultimately against ourselves and against the radiation of our soul, even against our body, which, through our behavior that is far from God, develops problems and suffers because of this, perhaps even becoming ill.
We ourselves are the ones who inflict upon ourselves what we ultimately don’t
want. Not the other one is to blame for what happens to us. We are the guilty ones!
So our guilt lies behind our behavior patterns, behind our feelings and thoughts, our words and actions. That is the counterfeiting – that is what we are.
At some point we will recognize our own falsity and humbly ask the omnipresent Spirit for help, to support and help us. We have to go toward God. We have to take the steps, by conquering our falsity with His help. Anyone who compares his negativity with the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth will soon recognize that he has turned away from God. Hardship, suffering and worry, or even illness, should cause us to think about ourselves, about what we have caused,
and move us to not blame God for our ills. All these traits, including our discontentment, point out that we people are searching for God. Whether we want to accept this or not: Each one of us is more or less discontent, because the soul is seeking God, it is seeking the true homeland, the ocean of the true life, because the pure being in the very basis of the soul comes from the eternal Being.
Dear reader, someone who frequently pauses and thinks about himself feels the discontentment in himself and ultimately, the search for the eternal goal. Even if today we don’t want to admit this, sooner or later we will realize that there is a deep inner ache in us, something indefinable, which is homesickness, the longing to be home in the Eternal, in the Kingdom of God, in the eternal Fatherland.
During our young years, there are many things we don’t want to admit. We believe that if we were to experience, or do, this or that fascination, then we would be happy and content in the long run. In reality, it’s all an illusion, because, in the temporal, nothing is lasting. When we get older, then many a one looks in the mirror of discontentment and realizes that he sought, and seeks, something that he couldn’t, and can’t, explain, even though, from a worldly point of view, he has no lack of prestige and prosperity.
Directly or indirectly, each person or each wandering soul is seeking the eternal goal, the eternal stream, the ocean of life. Ultimately, every one of us must admit to himself that he is merely a wayfarer on Earth, who at some point will discard his earthly garment, the body –and then what?
Even when many a one outwits his fellow people and goes through the world with a money-hungry and dissipated life, at some point every one faces the question: What has all this accomplished? What have I done to my soul and what do I give it to take along when it leaves this world? Anyone who believes in a life after this life on Earth must perforce ask himself: Where will I, that is, my soul, be?
Every kind of discontentment is the knocking in the very basis of our soul. It knocks – it knocks on the person’s level of feelings, on his conscience, because the soul has strayed from its path into the eternal Father’s house. It keeps on knocking in the person’s thoughts, words and actions.
The knocking from the very basis of the soul is a signal to turn back and change
our ways and to enter the temple of the Holy of Holies in the very basis of our soul, in order to follow the instructions given in the Ten Commandments of God and in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Ultimately, the path to the very basis of our soul is: the order of the temple. The person who does not question himself to figure out what lies in his level of feelings, in his thoughts and actions, in his whole behavior, is like a ship adrift on the ocean without navigation. At some point, it will capsize and the ship’s crew will not know where its ship has gone aground. Panic breaks out! One of the crew calls for help, another for God, still another for the coastguard. Each one thinks of his own personal rescue, the one more, the other less, of the rescue of his physical body. Who is clos-
er to being rescued – those who call for the earthly existence or those who take heart and ask about the true life and call on God?
The reader can answer this question himself, in order to figure out what his concerns would be.
We hear about miracles time and again, for instance: “That’s a miracle!” However, in our whole earthly existence there is no miracle, but solely a just help from the eternal love and care that comes from God. The eternal law of God is the law of love and care for the life.
In the all-encompassing law of life that is unity, there are neither incantations nor incense, neither castigation nor self-adulation, neither ceremonies nor priestly cults, neither lay prayers nor missionary pastoral care, neither ritual nor sacrificial cult, neither external religion nor relics, neither saints nor hypocrites, neither image worship nor self-worship.
God’s law applies to each person, also to the so-called shipwrecked one, no matter whether he is eventually rescued or even drowns.
Anyone who is of the opinion that he is a believer should know about the order of
the temple that Jesus of Nazareth taught us – that each person himself is the temple of the Holy Spirit – and should remember this message daily, when he prays or even wants to visit an external “temple of the faith”; he will soon experience that he becomes freer and more aware of God.
The one who remembers the words of Jesus does not need the affected behavior of pastors and priests, but solely the sovereign teachings that say: God is the Free Spirit, the omnipresent Spirit that lives in nature as well as in the animals, that animates the stone, the entire Earth and all cosmoses.
Every person is more or less a stranded one. On a cosmic island that he calls “Earth,” he ekes out his existence. When the human earthly existence has run out, where then, will his soul be? At the lat-
est, when the person’s last earthly hour strikes, he hopes, consciously or unconsciously, to be taken as a soul into the ocean of eternal love and to live eternally. That is simply the call of the soul, which bears, in its very basis, its eternal homeland.
Dear reader, if you can affirm the Free Spirit, without rituals and whatever all else is created around the word “God,” then you will take the steps to draw closer to the Ten Commandments of God and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, including His Sermon on the Mount.
Who are we who write such things?
We are followers of Jesus of Nazareth, who taught the Free Spirit, God, and lived as an example for the people that a person can be close to God without dogmas, regulations and rites, without pastors and priests.
We followers of Jesus of Nazareth do not form an external religion or community in the traditional sense, in which spokespersons place themselves at the head of the community and where community members become lemmings.
The following of Jesus of Nazareth is based on the common bond of people who understand one another because they belong to the Free Spirit.
Jesus of Nazareth essentially taught us: Wherever two or three are gathered in My name, there I am there in the midst of them.
People frequently ask where such free communities can be found.
In the work of the Spirit of God, in the Worldwide Center of the Universal Life, of the Free Spirit, there is an open community, where every seriously seeking person can inform himself. We give the following advice to people who seek open, free communities: If you know people of like mind, then you could simply meet together now and then for prayer with each other and to share spiritual experiences, so as to learn from one another and grow and mature spiritually.
As stated, we do not need any external religion, any spiritual traditions and customs. We, every one of us, should think and live in the awareness: God in us – in the very basis of each soul.
Followers of Jesus of Nazareth pray to within, just as they feel in their hearts, without memorized prayers.
Even though God, the Spirit of our heavenly Father, knows about all things, many a person has a need to hold a dialogue with Him, God. This is prayer, the personal concerns, the heart prayer. The person who is praying, prays into the very basis of his soul, to God in him. The prayer to within and the step-by-step fulfillment of the Ten Commandments of God through Moses and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth help us to recognize our sinful aspects, to repent of them, clear them up and no longer commit them. Spiritual growth and spiritual maturity develop from the free, inner prayer, as well as a gain in life, freedom and harmony, and not lastly, the love for God and neighbor.
This free inner path needs no priests and pastors, no so-called stone houses of God. Each one of us bears the Holy of Holies, which is God, in the very basis of our soul. Nature also helps us to attain independence from prayer litanists, pastors and priests. When we tend nature with love and care, it can be a garden of God that vivifies our senses with the Spirit of freedom. At every season, nature is the word of creation, the word of God. At every season, nature shows us how it flowers and matures and gives. Nature doesn’t make a fuss about this, because it knows that the Creator-power remains, because God is the life. Just as nature is embedded in the bosom of the mighty Creator-Spirit, in the life, so should we human beings also conduct ourselves.
The omnipresent Creator-word, the word of the Eternal is: I AM THE I AM – the life eternally.
If you like, immerse in the All-stream of life, which is in us, around us, above us and under us. It is the omnipresent life, God, the Free Spirit of our heavenly Father, whose children we are.
People in the following of Jesus of Nazareth wish their fellow people and themselves spiritual growth and spiritual maturity and the growing awareness that when two or three are gathered in the name of the Christ of God, the living Free Spirit is in the midst of them, in the midst of us.
In this awareness, brothers and sisters of the Free Spirit greet you.
