²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, ^[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:26-27

then we can see the logic why God also have to be male AND female figure. Simply because we, people, have this in our nature, so it supposed to be in God’s nature since he created us in His (or Her) image.

There was an episode in the “Legend of the Seeker” TV series, which portrays God (the Creator) as a woman. It may be an unusual thought for some, but please pray about it and you may see a point that God is not a single being, God is our Parents – Father and Mother, our Heavenly Family.

Let me ask you a few questions. Do you believe that God has all the answers on all those eternal questions about happiness, purpose of life, life after death, and so on as well as on all the questions of modern scientists? Do you believe that God is our Parent? Parents naturally teach their children about everything they know. So, why then do we have to go and study in school and college, where they don’t even know all the answers? Can’t we just learn directly from God, our Parent?

Truth is, we got disconnected from God sometimes in the beginning of human history. That’s explains why humankind has a history of ignorance, promiscuity, violence and suffering. It is like learning without true parental advise and guidance.  We have a long history of learning everything through human trial-and-error experience, without being able to listen to God. Apparently, such learning is not very effective either. It does not remains for long in the memory of generations. Many of the same mistakes were repeated again and again by every generation.

What would be the alternative way of learning about everything? It is learning together with our Parent God. How to do that? We need to re-connect our mind and spirit with God, so we can be guided by God in our daily lives. It will not be a quick and easy process, much like learning to walk for a baby. We have to expect a period of difficulties of understanding and accepting things. But through our experience of conversations with God in prayer and meditation, and practice of guidance we received from God in our actions, everything will become clear and all puzzle pieces will come together. We would not need to believe in God in order to live graceful life. Our experiences with God will turn us from the one who believes into the one who knows God. The one who can directly connect and learn from God.

What is the steps to re-connection, to becoming One with God? It is a process called restoration or re-creation. We have to apply here the same Principles that God used to “create” us. What are those Principles or should we say Laws? They are the ones that Jesus mentioned, Love God and Love your neighbor as yourself [Matthew 22:36-40]. This passage refers to two major Principles of Creation – 1) Living for Greater Good (God) and 2) Living for the sake of other people and yourself.

How to practice Love for God? By living for Greater Good, for the whole purpose of the universe and human society. What is this purpose? It is peace, mutual prosperity and advancement of talents and virtues. So, how do we live this way? By becoming a leader and owner of common Greater Good vision. By taking responsibility to better any field of human endeavor which we feel partial about, which we have interest in. Not only field of entertainment and hobby, but, most importantly, field of politics, economy, social relationship, international diplomacy and so on. These are the fields that urgently awaiting leaders with desire to live for Greater Good and apply Principles of True Love.

How to practice Love for neighbors and yourself? By living for the sake of others, helping first, giving unconditionally. When we give sincerely, from heart – the greater happiness will come to us and sooth our heart, the people we helped will follow us, become our friends and support us as well.

However, we shouldn’t forget loving ourselves, respecting who we are, pursuing our personal dreams, developing virtues and talents in order to mature physically and spiritually. Because it is a foundation for us to love others. Who wants to be loved by someone with low self esteem, by someone who cannot even take care of himself or herself? Such people cannot love unconditionally, from heart. Deep inside they want others to take care of them and make them feel good. Therefore they show love in order to get what they want. Please don’t misunderstand this point, I am not talking about person’s external actions we can see, but about internal motivation we often don’t see.

I hope you got a picture of what it means to become One with God. It is not a lonely journey of a saint in the mountainous wilderness, but a tightly-scheduled lifestyle of a leader with Great Vision and strong Desire. Are you ready to become such leader? You may not know that you are, just like Neo.

…

Purpose of life is one of the central universal questions most people ask at some point of their adolescence. “Why am I living, what’s the point to study and train yourself, strive for goodness and refrain from evil desires?” This is not an easy question to answer, because the answer can be obtained only through personal contemplation and experience of reality.

Many world figures testified of universal love, that penetrates barriers of nation, race and even religion. True saints, sages and people of moral character to some extend loved everyone without distinction of social hierarchy, beliefs and traditions. Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, Confusions, Buddha, Socrates, and others. They were delighted in the well-being of others and selflessly worked for others’ benefit even to the point of risking their own life.

Such love or compassion is called True Love, since it is given unconditionally. It is based in Ultimate Reality of God who loves everyone simply because we are God’s children and he is our Parent. Does parents love only obedient children and hate disobedient? Real parent cares for both, and often gives even more attention and love to the problem child.

True love can move anyone to rise above self-centered attachments and desires. It changes our perspective of life and shifts our focus to the welfare of the other. It is love that is universal, overcoming the ordinary tendency to focus only on your own desires and objectives or to favor your own group.

The ideal of true love is rare in the world. Such love requires the foundation of integrity, truthfulness, and unity with the Absolute (God). That’s what Jesus meant by saying “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”

Why true love is so desirable? Because it brings true purpose to life. Without experiencing such love, people can never find their true purpose, true dreams and aspirations that can rise them above daily mundane routine and lead them through eternity.

If you are looking for the purpose of Your life, know that the key to finding the answer is in true love, in living for the sake of others. Even when you don’t feel great, making someone happy brings you fresh and awesome feelings, ignites a flame of desire to live and to be active, and feeds your imagination with new ideas. That’s the real secret to happiness – make others happy and you will find a deeper perspective of You life and eventually see it’s Purpose.

Quotes:

A man is a true Muslim when no other Muslim has to fear anything from either his tongue or his hand. Islam. Hadith of Bukhari

To the addict, nothing is like his dope;
to the fish, nothing is like water:
But those immersed in the love of God, feel love for all creation.
Sikhism. Adi Granth, Wadhans, M.1, p. 557

Only a Good Man knows how to like people, knows how to dislike them, Confucius said, “He whose heart is in the smallest degree set upon Goodness will dislike no one.” Confucianism. Analects 4.3-4

Strong One, make me strong.
May all beings look on me with the eye of friend!
May I look on all beings with the eye of friend!
May we look on one another with the eye of friend!
Hinduism. Yajur Veda 36.18

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Christianity. Bible, 1 Corinthians 13

Leviticus 19:18: ¹⁸ ” ‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.

In the ancient times every nation had it’s own God or gods. People believed that there is a god for every nation. This kind of understanding has been a ground for the law of loving own people or neighbors (people of your nation who have the same god as you do) and hating enemies (people of other nations who have other gods, that you don’t believe in).

What was so special about Jesus’ teaching about loving your enemy, is that Jesus introduces an idea of one God for every nation and race. Because we are all the sons and daughters of the one Heavenly Parent, we have to treat each other as own people and neighbors even if we have a different skin color or different language. That was a totally new concept two thousands years ago.

What about now? Do we still believe that there is a god for every nation and every church? Do we understand that there is only one God – Heavenly Parent of every human being living on Earth and in the Spirit World?

When we have the understanding that our Heavenly Parent is the parent of people of the other nations and other churches, then we cannot see them as enemies any more. Even if they are negative and violent towards us, they are still our brothers and sisters who need our help, love and support.

Do you know who feels most miserable in the family if child is unhappy or hurt and crying? It is her father and mother. When people are fighting the most miserable is God. If you love God, you have to love your “enemies”, forgive them and give them another chance to live in peace and happiness with you.

That is why Jesus asked us to love enemies. Because he knew what’s in God’s heart. How much misery and pain God feels seeing people constantly fighting. Jesus loved God so much, that he wanted us too to relief God’s pain and misery. That requires loving our enemies, seeing in them our brothers and sisters, becoming one family under God.

The word intimacy means different things to different people. In true sense, intimacy involves sharing deepest thoughts, fears, hopes and dreams. Willingness to share these with God is at the heart of prayer.

However, intimacy in prayer is a two ways communication: revealing yourself and receiving God’s revelation. When you fully open yourself to God, God opens Himself to you.  This is how God revealed Himself to founders of religion, prophets, saints, and writers of holy scriptures.

You can experience God in your life and receive His revelations if you open yourself to Him in prayer. In intimate sharing, asking questions and listening for answers…

Although God is invisible, He has left evidence of His reality by which people can know Him, if they only look. These include:

• What people can sense by the inner self – spiritual and emotional experiences;
• Universality of the moral laws, which mirrors the laws of nature – every religious teaching presents the same moral laws in it’s own way;
• Evidence of God’s handiwork in the wonders of the creation – infinite cosmos and awe-striking quantum world;
• Testimonies of various religious founders – most of the founders had vivid spiritual experiences and achieved nearly impossible things in their lives.

By paying attention to these facts in our life we can come in touch with the Ultimate Reality called God that can be experienced by each individual in the midst of the relatively short physical existence.

Eye cannot see him, nor words reveal him;
by the senses, austerity, or works he is not known.
When the mind is cleansed by the grace of wisdom,
he is seen by contemplation–the One without parts.

Hinduism. Mundaka Upanishad 3.1.8

The thing that is called Tao is eluding and vague.
Vague and eluding, there is in it the form.
Eluding and vague, in it are things.
Deep and obscure, in it is the essence.
The essence is very real; in it are evidences.
From the time of old until now, its manifestations ever remain,
By which we may see the beginnings of all things.
How do I know that the beginnings of all things are so?
Through this.

Taoism. Tao Te Ching 21

Confucius said, “The power of spiritual forces in the universe – how active it is everywhere! Invisible to the eyes and impalpable to the senses, it is inherent in all things, and nothing can escape its operation.”

It is the fact that there are these forces which make men in all countries fast and purify themselves, and with solemnity of dress institute services of sacrifice and religious worship. Like the rush of mighty waters, the presence of unseen Powers is felt; sometimes above us, sometimes around us. In the Book of Songs it is said,

The presence of the Spirit:
It cannot be surmised,
How may it be ignored!

Such is the evidence of things invisible that it is impossible to doubt the spiritual nature of man.

Confucianism. Doctrine of the Mean 16

We shall show then Our signs on the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the Truth.

Islam. Qur’an 41.53

For what can be known about God is plain to [all], because God has showed it to them. Ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature, namely, His eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse [non-believers].

Christianity. Bible, Romans 1.19-20

From our daily life to the large public events that shape the course of history, we can notice many expressions of the human aspiration for ever greater happiness.

Why would pursuing happiness be so difficult? Aren’t happiness suppose to come naturally to everyone?

The First of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths is that human existence is suffering, or ill (Pali dukkha), which connotes the idea of an illness generated by the self through its false attachments. Often this condition is described by the metaphor of a universal fire engulfing the world.

In Hinduism, the human lot of samsara is to go through an endless cycle of death and rebirth, conditioned by nature (the gunas) and rooted in the results of past actions. This is likened to a universal tree, turned upside-down, whose roots and branches trace the sequences of actions (karma) back to the beginning of time: the whole of it is suffering.

In Christianity, the doctrine of Original Sin conveys a similar idea: Humans are, by their fallen condition, cut off from God and hence unable to fulfill the true purpose of life. We may try to be good, but in spite of our best efforts, we miss the mark. Original Sin, like the Hindu notion of samsara, is understood to be a condition perpetuated throughout the generations of humankind.

“The Noble Truth of Suffering is this: Birth is suffering; aging is suffering; sickness is suffering; death is suffering; sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are suffering; association with the unpleasant is suffering; dissociation from the pleasant is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering–in brief, the five aggregates of attachment are suffering.”

(Buddhism. Samyutta Nikaya lvi.11: Setting in Motion the Wheel of Truth)

“I look at what ordinary people find happiness in, what they all make a mad dash for, racing around as though they couldn’t stop–they all say they’re happy with it. I’m not happy with it and I’m not unhappy with it. In the end, is there really happiness or isn’t there?”

(Taoism. Chuang Tzu 18)

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

(Christianity. 1 John 1.8)

Source: from the book of Andrew Wilson “World Scripture”

Read more: World Scripture: A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts

“It indicates that the Kingdom of Israel already existed in the 10th century BCE and that at least some of the biblical texts were written hundreds of years before the dates presented in current research…

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Now is truly a new beginning. The science cannot ignore any longer the Intelligent Design of the universe and existence of God as the Cause and the Designer. It is time for us to catch up with what it is to know more about the real life, the Life with God.

Since ancient times religions have consistently provided people with ideals and traditions to guide them towards an Eternal life of joy and happiness. However, ideals and traditions have constantly being updated through new revelations from God. From dark lawless times before 10 commandments, to times of Moses’s Law “eye for eye” and “love your neighbor and hate your enemy”, to times of Jesus’ advise “love your enemy” and “forgive and turn the other cheek”. We can see in human history a constant evolution of ideals and traditions.

Think about the ideals you share and traditions you follow. What is their final destination? Are they based on the vision of ideal world where everyone treated as God’s child, has equal rights and opportunities? Or are they some outdated ideals and traditions, which promise benefits of salvation and eternal life to only an exclusive group of people? If so, such future cannot possibly be realized, since True God wants everyone to be god’s child and does not plan leaving anyone behind in “eternal suffering”.

Ideals and traditions therefore can be compared to a house. They help to raise and protect us when we are small and naive. But when we become mature adults it’s our turn to take part in the maintenance, repair and even remodeling of the house, to accommodate a new and greater vision of God’s Dream for Humankind.

What would be the point to hang on to the outdated ideals and traditions if they are not benefiting us any more? Just like when salt looses it’s taste, you have to replace it with a fresh one, or you will spoil your meal. And when your clothes wear out, you would go and buy new ones to look pleasing to everyone’s eyes.

Don’t be afraid to get taste and feel for new ideas, ideals and traditions. That is what intended for us, if we want to arrive at the place of eternal joy and happiness inside our heart as well as in the world around us. If we want to experience Real and  not a “traditional” God.