by Rod Harvey, Marketing Manager, Gold Coast, Australia
For about 40 years, I shunned the ‘God’ word – it brought up all sorts of reactions. I saw God through the eyes of the religions I had read about and rejected. I felt embarrassed to be associated with God.
Then I had ‘a change of heart’.
The catalyst was Serge Benhayon from Universal Medicine. Over the last six years I‘ve enjoyed attending Serge’s presentations and found them to be informative and enlightening. Serge presents possibilities: something to take away and ponder on.
I realised that the great religious leaders brought many truths to the world; however those truths were changed and reinterpreted by insecure, possessive and angry men who moulded religion to suit their own purposes.
I recognised how I had metaphorically placed ‘God’ and ‘Religion’ into the same basket, so if one didn’t work for me, then by default the other did not either.
Gradually I considered the possibility that ‘God is Love’ – a theme that appears to be consistent throughout various religious groups and accepted by millions of people around the world. By substituting the word ‘Love’ for ‘God’, I started to open up and break through my barriers.
The concept that ‘God is Love’ was revelatory for my pre-conditioned brain. And that’s where I had been stuck – inside my brain! God is something to ‘feel’ rather than ‘think’ about or ‘study’.
But accessing feelings wasn’t so easy. Because I had shut myself down from feeling deeply, I needed to make changes if I wanted to open up. This meant looking at my choices and taking more care of myself, altering what I ate, drank and improving my sleep. It meant being gentler, more present with what I was doing and making changes to the way I related and expressed to others. It involved unravelling and discarding old beliefs and patterns I had held on to. It meant taking time out to be still, rather than get caught up in distractions that pulled me away from myself.
As I gradually opened up, I found those moments of stillness. Through stillness I connected to my inner heart and a glorious love within… my essence. Within that space I felt divine love and understood that God is always present within me. I realised it was me who had built up the fortress to try to shut God out.
But God is not here to provide for me, blame or fix things up. I still have to take responsibility for the choices I make and I regularly go ‘off track’. Yet if I embody love, all will work out.
I also realised that this connection to love is something we all have within us at all times, even if we have shut it down. It can bind us together in unity.
Religion is not about rituals, clothing, adornments, rules or fear. After all how can there be fear with love?
I now see religion as my personal union and relationship with God, along with being open and loving with others. Simple, personal, all encompassing and loving: that’s my religion. It’s a way of living.
Universal Medicine helped me to open up my heart – the rest was my choice.
Wow, what a turnaround!
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
This is beautiful Rod, connecting with stillness…’Through stillness I connected to my inner heart and a glorious love within… my essence. Within that space I felt divine love and understood that God is always present within me. I realised it was me who had built up the fortress to try to shut God out.’
Ideals and beliefs cause much mayhem in human beings, and in the world.
‘God is Love’, no ifs or buts, pure Divine Love.
Even if we understand God is love, we still need to re-connect back to that love inside of ourselves and live that love to understand the true meaning of God and religion. And the choice is always ours to live with God (in love) or without God (in lovelessness).
I remember seeing ‘God is Love’ on a T-shirt many many years ago, and it really puzzled me. To me ‘love’ was a doing, so I wanted to think it was the language thing, but then I realised that I actually did not know much about neither God nor love.
And don’t forget Truth, especially in these times where corruption seems to be everywhere, and what is the purpose of having Truth if we do not have a True purpose?
It is crazy how we try and shut God out and yet go through life craving love and feeling lost until we choose to reconnect with our inner essence and the love within us all just waiting to be expressed.
My whole life I have held religion as a place of rules and restrictions. I’ve thought that if a person is religious they must obey the book and walk around with their eyes shut. Thank God for Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon who have brought in the question of what if that is not what religion is about? What if there’s much more to our relationship with God, with the Universe and the Stars than we are taught in mainstream religion, science and astrology? What if there is more to life, what if our perception is skewed and needs cracking?
Yes, thank God for Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for bringing Love and Truth back into our lives.
“God is something to ‘feel’ rather than ‘think’ about or ‘study’”. I couldn’t agree more Rod. I felt God without putting any labels or conditions on it when I was little. I am so glad that is back, just by me felling/ living in my body rather than my mind.
“As I gradually opened up, I found those moments of stillness. Through stillness I connected to my inner heart and a glorious love within… my essence. And it is through this connection that I re-connected to God, because I realised that God lives within us all, it is not about religion but about true connection.
Through connecting back to our essence we are able to re-connect with God, with Love.
This is a great way to define Religion Rod… ‘Simple, personal, all encompassing and loving….. a way of living’. Nothing awkward, complicated or imposing – direct access to God at all times whenever we choose it.
When we choose to reconnect with our inner essence and God and the knowingness of a true religious way, we discard all the impositions of current religions and simply reflect the love that we are.
And let’s add “equality” – no superiors or go-betweens needed, everyone has equal access to God and Love.
There are so many misconceptions about God that are based on fear but to understand and accept that God is love really opens your eyes to the misinterpretations we have been indoctrinated with in the past.
We have been fed so many falsities about God from main stream religion, it is hardly surprising many of us are/were wary of religion, and God.
(……this connection to love is something we all have within us at all times, even if we have shut it down. It can bind us together in unity. The oneness with and in God.
I guess it will take some time till we rid ourselves from the impact reinterpreted words such as God and Religion has had with us. I grew up with a meaning of God that wasn’t at all true but at that age I didn’t feel I had the authority to claim my version of God since the other version was what everyone else accepted. I think with the application of self love we will slowly claim back what God really means and what being religious truly means as well. That it’s very natural and not at all exclusive to anyone, and you need no degree to know about God, it’s a knowing we are all born with, fully mastered from the word go.
Just like you Rod, “Universal Medicine helped me to open up my heart – the rest was my choice.” It didn’t take long to say yes to open up my heart but when Serge Benhayon first mentioned God, part of me wanted to run. But thankfully there was a much bigger part that wanted to stay as this was what I had been looking for, for what seemed forever. So, I stayed and as a result today, and every day, I celebrate my re-connection to God and to me.
The eyes we use to see God are everything, because either we find him or not.
Those eyes need to be seeing clearly as it is a terrible fact of this world that there are many street sellers hawking their version of God, misshapen and twisted by their own investments and personal agenda.
“Through stillness I connected to my inner heart and a glorious love within… my essence.” – Everything about modern day life seems to distract and lure us away from feeling that stillness that lies within us, waiting to be felt (I know I sure have avoided it) via all of what we are sold is important in life (having fun, exhibiting drive in our work at the expense of our body, being competitive in sports and in school, video games, coffee, energy drinks, etc.). Isn’t it time to ponder on why that may be the case in the first place? Could it be that we are being distracted away from the most important thing of all that will bring us connection with our souls, God, and true purpose in life?
When Universal Medicine presented The Way of The Livingness as a religion I was anxious, having deliberately chosen to leave the Roman Catholic church when I was 18 and having lived most of my adult life as an agnostic. Over the years, I have come to accept God as a fact of life, not so much as a belief, but because it makes sense. I still can’t feel God within but I know that will come as I allow myself to be more still.
Knowing, ‘‘God is Love’’ is supportive in this process.
We are taught about God through pictures and words but it is a feeling.
It makes sense how so many of us have had difficulty relating to God as a concept according to pictures presented by organized religions and as a result rejected Him. He is a multi-dimensional being and a relationship with Him encompasses the physicality and beyond, it is a lived experience.
We are taught about God from a book, and we create images in our heads of what God looks like. We imagine God to be forgiving or angry, and we know that He loves little children. But we are not taught to FEEL God, to connect deep within and feel the presence of God that is in all of us equally.
“God is something to ‘feel’ rather than ‘think’ about or ‘study’.” I loved this line Rod, most of my religious life has been thinking about God, and studying to find God, but with no avail, I had not learnt to feel God, and did not know that God lived within me and that by my gentle breath I could simply connect to him. As my connection deepens so does my sense and love for myself as a divine being grow.
I’ve always known there has to be a God of some sorts, but what life presented by way of picturing God didn’t quite work for me. I refused to believe that there was no God at all. Universal Medicine presented God, as you mentioned by how God feels. This God I understand, as there’s far more understanding when I feel something, rather than mentally visualising it.
As you say Rod, for all of us it “meant being gentler” to start with, and as we were so lost we had to start with what we could handle and that is the Gentle Breath Meditation.
Being more gentle, and delicate, along with being present is always supportive, ‘It meant being gentler, more present with what I was doing’.
“Through stillness I connected to my inner heart and a glorious love within… my essence.” When we connect to the inner stillness of our essence we can feel the Divine love flow through every particle of the body.
Having been bought up in the Catholic faith for many years it was obvious that this religion was designed to crush and reduce you – especially if you are a woman. And now experiencing The Way of The Livingness for many years I can truly say this is a true religion that reminds you and celebrates you as an equal Son of God. I am so blessed to be a part of this religion and for re-connecting back to the truth of God.
Trying to see God through the eyes of established religions is an impossible task even if we try very hard. And, it is not us who fail; the problem lies with the eyes on offer and us saying yes to it and engaging in a pattern of movement that guarantees walking away from God even if we tell ourselves that we are walking towards Him.
I like this line about true religion and love “It can bind us together in unity.” It does naturally so. Is this the answer to our woes?
This is what (in my experience) many religious groups claim to do (with prerequisites however) and yet its the very opposite. That’s because love doesn’t come with a prerequisite.
Through out my life I have prayed to a God that was out there, separate from me, mainly because I was considered a sinner who had to ask forgiveness before God would consider me his child, understanding now that this is not true, it has taken time for me to learn to love myself and to feel worthy of God’s love, as I bring more tender loving care to my body I feel more of this love within me I am starting to feel a deeper sense of my connection to God.
‘God is Love’ and love is who we are. The more I began to develop a loving relationship with who I am, the more I have realised that my relationship with God is inseparable, as we are in fact the sparks of God no less. God is not separate from us, or an unreachable communion that can only be attained through our doing good deeds and death. We can never escape the fact that we are held within the ever-present body of God and that as the fiery sparks that we are we are, through the way we live we represent this vibration. As such a religious life is lived when we surrender to being who we are, through which our Godliness is our natural way of being.
This two-part blog is epic, it really feels like you are writing on behalf of us all. I relate so much to what you have shared. Unfortunately, it’s still a bipolarish situation for me, back and forth about being settled with The God word and feeling ashamed and hoping it doesn’t come up, it all depends how I have been living and who I am sharing it with. It’s great for me to keep reading stuff like this, it keeps opening my heart up even wider.
I too used to feel embarrassed when mentioning the word God as if I was claiming Santa Claus was real. Yet, I would conveniently allow him to appear in my landscape at some occasions to justify my judgment, or to explain away the unexplainable. He never was a full-time presence in my life for a very long time. Even though I always knew there was more to life than meets the eyes, I never allowed God to be that missing piece which actually holds and makes sense of everything, or maybe just did not want to use that word to give Him the full credit. There’s actually quite a bit of stuff there. This feels like the relationship I need to go deeper into honesty with.
It is impossible not to feel God when connected to my inner heart yet I realise I have wanted to separate the two. I have wanted to blame God when the going got tough thinking that if there was a God he would save me yet at the same time knowing it was my responsibility to connect to my inner most and live from my essence. The ideals and beliefs that we think we have overcome can still arise as they are not healed in full, the deeper we go.
I have had an issue with God, because I felt that he didn’t truly exist because if he did then humanity would not treat each other as they do. Through Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I found that God is actually in me to connect to whenever I connect to my inner self, what I was missing was the connection to my inner being.
It’s because humanity treat each other so badly that we know God exists, otherwise we would not question the bad behaviour. We know there is another way to live and be together, and that knowing comes from our connection to God.
Love this sharing Melinda, we do know, we know there is more, and how we live, how the world is today is far from the divinity and love we innately know deep inside.
‘God is something to ‘feel’ rather than ‘think’ about or ‘study’. What you share here Rod is something for me to definitely ponder on….
This description of religion brings with it responsibility for how we are and relate with others. A way of being that brings people together. “I now see religion as my personal union and relationship with God, along with being open and loving with others. Simple, personal, all encompassing and loving: that’s my religion. It’s a way of living.”
This is beautiful Rod. Religion in its truth is so simple, and do so pure, the pathway to our inner most essence.
Learning that how I had always known God from within was in fact a reality that brought up much for me. As I then had to unravel (and continue to unravel) the way I lived which did not (does not) honour what I know.
I used to have a pretty common picture of God as the man with the white beard and booming voice, sitting on high in judgement of us ridiculous human beings messing up all the time. As a consequence I wanted nothing to do with him. But I now know God personally, He talks to me all the time – not with a voice that shatters glass, but through symbols in nature, so-called coincidences and so many other ways. He is within me as he is within us all and the stronger and deeper my relationship with myself becomes, so too does my relationship with God. I know the latter through the former and I love that.
The concept of praying and trusting my life in God only through faith has always felt disempowering to me, because when I take responsibility for my choices there is nothing and no one to blame, including God. When I choose Love, that which is God and also everyone equally, support is always around.
Religion is something that is very confirming of who we are. There is a truth known to all deep within about God and our relationship with God and that we are made of the same stuff as God. Realising that I am here and God is where God is simply because of our choices is huge and very humbling.
This is beautiful wisdom Rod and perfect for me to read this morning ‘Through stillness I connected to my inner heart and a glorious love within… my essence. Within that space I felt divine love and understood that God is always present within me.’
To be able to connect to God, we need to prepare the body first by the way we move and make choices. Through a divinely aligned body we can connect to a deeper essence of us that comes from God and knows God inside out, through that we have access to all that God is.
Thank you Rod for sharing the beautiful truth Universal Medicine has presented that we are love and in that love God lives within. “I now see religion as my personal union and relationship with God, along with being open and loving with others. Simple, personal, all encompassing and loving: that’s my religion. It’s a way of living.” mine too Rod.
Reading this I felt how interesting it is that we want proof of God or to know God or even trust in God, yet most the time we are coming from a body that does not know itself, doesn’t trust itself and isn’t being cared for or held with love. It’s beautiful to read Rod how once you felt the possibility of God and his beholding light and love of everyone, you made steps to support yourself more, which then re-connected you to what you have always known, “…that God is always present within me.”
Likewise I’ve not developed a relationship with God for many reasons – being confused, embarrassed, it not being cool, being distracted. What a waste, and as this relationship starts to develop now I realise how huge it is to have this amazing feeling and connection inside me, that is accessible all the time.
Love is most definitely the prove of there being a god. The love we can feel inside is truly magical, it is the Divine nature that brings us to the honouring of the beauty in every day life.
Ditto Rod – I started my relationship with God by looking at it through the eyes of those that have spent the last few millennia representing him, and given religious history and all the slaughter, mayhem and separation that has been meted out in his name was unsurprisingly confused. Its when I started to look for God inside, and in my everyday that I realised that here was a very different, truly inspiring relationship that has blossomed inside me. This makes a lot more sense.
From recognising that God is Love and substituting the word God for Love you were able then to bring that Love into your life and in the way you were/are living and this brought you to stillness. ‘Through stillness I connected to my inner heart and a glorious love within… my essence.’ A great journey that is open to all of us however it takes dedication, which is really a continued opening to love, and with that you have turned your life around. Very inspiring Rod.
I am truly appreciating a very different relationship with God now and like you Rod, am finding that God is in every part of my living. How I choose to live allows or blocks out my ability to feel the love of God which starts with a deep knowing and loving of myself in the world. Thank you Serge Benhayon for presenting the truth.
Rod,
On reading your sharing I can feel how I always knew God was love, and this is why I could never understand mainstream religion. Like you Universal Medicine has reminded me that religion is plainly and simply my connection with the love that lies within. The love of God which lives inside all of us, making the choice to connect with it and allow ourselves to be guided by it.
The Way of The Livingness is the first religion that has sat comfortably with me and that I absolutely know and can feel is wholly true. It’s a way of life and a way of living in constant communion with something grander than physical everyday life.
God is not as a concept but rather a living way of Love. This is a beautiful way to describe true religion.
True Religion as in “The Way Of The Livingness” as presented by Serge Benhayon, is to me the most honest, and truthful, and Soulful Religion I know. I am so grateful for the truth that God is within each and every one of us and we are all his equal Sons!
Thank you Rod, thank you for showing that God, religion, love, people, the world … become very simply and very enjoyable when we take the responsibility that is ours and take our life in our own hands and leave the blaming and complaining behind.
Religion is a living way of connection to the love that is inside.
“I now see religion as my personal union and relationship with God, along with being open and loving with others. Simple, personal, all encompassing and loving: that’s my religion. It’s a way of living.” Beautiful Rod – so simply expressed but you have it in a nutshell.
There is incredibily stunning wisdom in realising that if you truly embrace and embody love, all will work out.
I too returned to God with the support of Universal Medicine. When I totally shunned God in my early 20’s I was very shut down and alone. Workshops presented by Serge Benhayon and esoteric healing helped me to open up to myself and the world again. In this opening up it was clear that there was so much more to life than what we see. I began to feel the warmth, surrender and stillness that is available inside me, and in fact inside everyone and I began to feel we are all so connected, and not only with each other but also with God. I also began to feel equal with God, feeling him as another spark of warmth who holds us all, which is why we have to be equal, because we are all inside him. I would not have been able to feel any of this if I hadn’t of seen through the lies and bastardisations of the word religion and the word God and I thank Universal Medicine for supporting this process.
Thank you Rod. I too had confined God and religion to the same basket which resulted in my feeling that something was missing. You express it beautifully in “I now see religion as my personal union and relationship with God, along with being open and loving with others. Simple, personal, all encompassing and loving: that’s my religion. It’s a way of living.”
I can relate to all you share Rod as I also turned my back on God for many years – no wonder I felt miserable during this time as I was shutting myself away from love. Developing my relationship to God these past few years has been key to deepening the relationship to myself and all my relationships and has bought more simplicity and joy to each day.
I love how you have made the word God accessible during this piece of writing. God can be a huge word to sallow especially if we have been indoctrinated by others of the meaning and disagree with it. God should be accessible and almost should be held as a causal life occurrence for all to discuss and chat about.
‘Universal Medicine helped me to open up my heart – the rest was my choice.’ Awesome statement Rod! What a different place the world is when you take ownership of your own choices.
“I felt embarrassed to be associated with God.” Yes, it’s like turning your back on the best friend you will ever have (because you believed all the lies that were being told about them), who’s always been there – steady and consistent, accepting you no matter what you say or do – just waiting patiently without judgment for you to come to the realisation that all along who they are is and has always been pure love.
Rod, I was particularly struck by the way you have summed up your concept of religion as being a personal relationship with God, yet something that also recognised that you are part of the brotherhood of humanity. This understanding takes away any notion of ‘should’ or ‘have to’ or rules that usually apply with other religions which then form a complicated pathway to God. Letting go of old beliefs has been a slow process for me but I am gradually feeling my way back as the way that God and religion is presented through Universal Medicine simply makes sense.
The beauty of Universal Medicine is that it brings back to humanity the innocent essence of God as we have it in us as a child. Service of a true religion.
Universal Medicine brings the beauty and holiness of God to this Earth. It brought God into my life… again, and I am forever thankful to them for this. Universal Medicine presented many things that were tremendously challenging for someone like me, a declared Atheist for almost all my life so far. It was not very easy to renounce my beliefs, yet, being honest and truthful with what I felt, it arrived a point I could not keep denying it. Renouncing to my deep ingrained beliefs was not hard at all. To keep running away from God was a possibility that I have not chosen. God is going to be a fact of life for the rest of my lives.
Over the past few weeks I have been reconnecting to my relationship with God, letting go of preconceived notions about who he is and simply feeling just how loved I am. This is religion and it is something I cherish.
Having no Issue concerning God, but big issues about religion and its presentation early in my life I am reconciled to The Way of The Livingness being a Religion. I can see you have had a wonderful turnaround from the presentations of The Way of The Livingness as Presented by Serge Benhayon, as you say God and Love being the same.
A beautiful turnaround Rod and now you are inspiring others with your choices. That’s what I love about Serge Benhayon and everything he presents he truly lives – his strong integrity and deep love for humanity invites us to feel this is equally in us too.
Rod I relate to ‘throwing the baby out with bath water’ when it comes to God & Religion. I saw the hypocrisy and plain nonsense that is part of many religions, and the slavish adherence to out dated teachings and concluded that God did not exist. Now that I understand the true meaning of the word I can claim that I am religious, and slowly I am allowing myself to know God again.
Thank you, Rod- you have really nailed this and I love it. My religion is my connection to God through loving and appreciating all that I am and there is no church building, priest, confessional or Sunday ritual in sight. I am living this everyday and am learning and feeling more about this beautiful connection every day.
Rod- you say so much to the world when you write “God is something to ‘feel’ rather than ‘think’ about or ‘study’.” It blows away any argument the Agnostic, atheist or skeptic could put forwards if this is the starting criteria. While we reduce who we know ourselves to be through the mind there will be all sorts of seemingly intelligent and rational ways to deny the love that is God. Rod you certainly shake off some of God’s misnomers here and this is a sure step towards being more free to feel God is Love.
It is indeed a big revelation, to feel that god is love, and that this love is inside us.
Thank you for sharing your development towards finding and re-connecting to you knowing God. What you describe I have often observed in people, throwing out God in disgust because of the bad taste many religions leave once we look a bit deeper into what really goes on within those religions. I liken that to the saying ‘Throwing out the baby with the bathwater”. It makes so much sense when we realise that God had nothing to do with those religions; he did not make them. It’s humans, like you say, who made the religions to suit them, to control others. What Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have presented to us, and anybody who is ready to listen, makes so much sense and brings back responsibility to each of us to live God here and now. And we all can see how much that is needed in our world. We are our own saviours, as we can choose every day how we want to live; with truth, love, harmony, stillness and joy, we just need to re-connect to these fundamental qualities within us all equally.
‘I had metaphorically placed ‘God’ and ‘Religion’ into the same basket, so if one didn’t work for me, then by default the other did not either.’ Rod I did this too, mistaking religion to mean the many versions of God as presented by religious organisations or faiths. I have come to know that religion is a way of living that reconnects me to my innate wisdom.
Wow! Yes what a turnaround Rod. When you share “But God is not here to provide for me, blame or fix things up” that really resonated with me. Until I was introduced to Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon I was very much into the blame game and often it was directed at God. Taking back responsibility and bringing self loving choices into my life has completely opened up a whole new way of living. Thank you for sharing your amazing journey.
Beautifully summed up Rod ‘I now see religion as my personal union and relationship with God, along with being open and loving with others. Simple, personal, all encompassing and loving: that’s my religion. It’s a way of living.’ A blueprint for living life in a way that is loving to ourselves and others.
We are all a part of god and the trick is to allow ourselves to connect to our inner essence and thats when we will feel god
Succinctly said Joe and so true, for without that connection to our essence, we will be at the mercy of the ideals and beliefs that dangle like carrots outside of us and separate us from that essence.
What a magnificent turn around Rod. Truly inspirational.
Rod, what you have written is such a finely yet simply detailed way to understand what ‘unfolding’ is all about. How you went from knowing you were shut down to love and taking responsibility for your own communion with God. It all matters doesn’t it?! From what we eat and drink to how we are with others, all plays a vital role in us being open to the God within. I will read this again.
I can really relate to what you are saying Rod; especially that God is something to ‘feel’ rather than ‘think’ about or ‘study’. For me also, accessing feelings was not so easy after a lifetime of ignoring or suppressing them. Universal Medicine helped me to return to the purity of stillness I had not felt since I was a child. God was naturally there, I just have to clear out the clutter that is in the way.
Beautifully said Bernard – God was naturally there, I just have to clear out the clutter that was in the way. We all are an equal part of God.
You have opened up something big here Rod, that God and religion are not here to fix things up. Religion is the way we live, and the choices we make and the responsibility we take with ourselves, whether each moment is of love or not. We are in religion every moment when love is lived.
Here here, very well said. What Rod has exposed is indeed a game changer. So often I see mainstream religion as a sort of ‘free for all’, like you can do what you want without being held accountable because God will take your sins and always forgive you. I agree when you say ‘ Religion is the way we live, and the choices we make and the responsibility we take with ourselves..’
Rod, the way you have expressed in such simplicity and clarity is deeply beautiful and full of love. How interesting we get caught up in a word, when we hold onto its definition through thinking, when by feeling it through our whole body, this word canopen up a whole different scenario. And how interesting that without the clarity and connection with our body, we cannot access the true wisdom of life.
Thank you for sharing your understandings about the misinterpretations of the true messengers that have resulted in the divisive groupings that have separated into conflicting organised religions. As you so say “Religion is not about rituals, clothing, adornments, rules or fear. After all how can there be fear with love?” Universal Medicine brings us back to the universal love of God equal for all. God is love, we are all, every one of us regardless of beliefs or lack of them, Sons of God, therefore we are all love in essence and true religion is a re-connection to the love that is in the inner-heart of all.
Seeing god through the eyes of the plethora of different religions that are available in this day and age with their variety of interpretations gives us many different versions of what people think god is. So much so it can become quite confusing. Great blog Rod.
Absolutely Suse and not only that, I used to believe that there were several gods, one from each religion – all fighting against eachother. How could you not think that as a child while you were taught contradicting theories?
For me I am finding that inner relationship with God that you speak of Rod and how my awareness of such connection is directly tied to my choices, thoughts, words and actions with the last three all dependant on the first.
When I focus on the feeling of God within my body nothing is bigger than me and nothing is a problem or a big deal. The more I connect to being aware of God the more I feel at home in myself and a sense that I need not look elsewhere for my answers to life.
So true Leigh ‘The more I connect to being aware of God the more I feel at home in myself’ and the more my life flows because of this connection.
I love the way you express this Leigh and the fact that when we connect to our inner heart and feel the divinity / God within, there is a flow, ease and effortlessness which comes with this.
Love most certainly is very very simple and equally as practical for us all. It is not separatist in any way imaginable. So God is therefore felt through a Livingness of Love because if we are not living True Love with ourselves and one another how can we ever know God?
When I finally: “….understood that God is always present within me. I realised it was me who had built up the fortress to try to shut God out”, was a huge paradigm shift for me, but it still took time to become a natural part of my life. Going from not even wanting to say the word God to knowing that he is always with me, having regulars chats with him and acknowledging the magic he presents to me in every moment, has been such a complete turnaround in my life, and every day I appreciate that my life is so much richer in so many ways as a result of this deepening relationship. A big thank you Rod for these two wonderful blogs, and to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for presenting me with the wisdom that has allowed me to break down the “fortress” and to open my heart to God once again.
Wow, what a turnaround, absolutely subscribe to this, for me it was a massive turnaround too. I love how you describe religion as an all encompassing and loving way of living and that religion is your personal union and relationship with God. Very awesome, also how you “bridged” yourself to God by connecting to the Love God is, very beautiful, love it.
God has always been there naturally for me, with Universal Medicine I have found a space where being with God naturally is.
This is truly beautiful Rod. Seeing God no longer through the eyes of religions and instead through your own essence and the living of the love you are, is just divine. A true pleasure to read.
I was a busy, buzzy sort of person, I used also be lazy and but even then my mind would be buzzing with some sort of thought, issue or plan. Finding a stillness in my life has brought about huge practical changes, I feel content, joyful and steady “I found those moments of stillness. Through stillness I connected to my inner heart and a glorious love within… my essence.” It has also brought a connection with my ‘essence’, a connection with my natural divinity.
The word ‘God’ has been a stumbling block for many, myself included and I shied away from using it. Now that I have re-connected to me and felt the love that I am, I know that God and Love are one of the same and ‘binds us in Unity’. Thank you Rod for sharing your life-giving ‘Turn around’.
“This connection to love – God, is something we all have within us at all times…It can bind us together in unity” Absolutely.
A beautiful sharing of the true relationship with God you now have Rod – “Simple, personal, all encompassing and loving: that’s my religion. It’s a way of living.” – A gorgeous reminder thank you.
It just shows how truly empowering it is for the humanity to understand religion and God in their true meaning, and why the world cannot work in harmony as long as the misrepresentation/bastardisation and blind faith continues.
Love it Rod, as I can see how more recently I have begun to unlock and unbind myself from seeing love, God and religion as seperate entities to myself. I too have begun to develop a true union with God as I choose more self-loving choices. I can also see these choices are radiating out to those around me and I have once again begun to see the beauty in all aspects of life. It feels that my rose coloured and seperative glasses have been removed and through this true Union or relationship I am developing with God I am again seeing the wonder, beauty and amazingness we all equally hold within. While I am not perfect in this, what I do appreciate is that I have begun to see that just by choosing to live this way I am able to offer inspiration to others, revealing that we all equally have so much to offer and bring to the world.
Beautifully expressed Rod. I have struggled with the words ‘God’ and ‘Religion’ over the years and that was largely because I didn’t realise that “..God is something to ‘feel’ rather than ‘think’ about or ‘study’. The connection I establish with God is what true religion is about. Thanks Rod.
I really get this “Gradually I considered the possibility that ‘God is Love’ – “, for me I had not realised that learning to care for myself and learning self love would open a door to a connection that I had missed, I can feel the divine, God, and I am building a relationship which is a foundation for how I experience life. I was open, and gradually felt this relationship to be true. It has happened through a ‘feeling’ a lived experience that I know for myself not from something that anyone else has told me.
Tender Rod it was an absolute pleasure to read your blog – your honest and simple way to wrote about your experience with religion and god was touching me. You are living true religion for me and that deepened my own way of living religion and also the love I feel for god and the world within me – wunderbar.
“I now see religion as my personal union and relationship with God, along with being open and loving with others. Simple, personal, all encompassing and loving: that’s my religion. It’s a way of living.” I love this sentence Rod, so simple in how you describe true religion, this has come to be my understanding too.
Thank you Rod. Yes, God is love, true religion, Soul, the divine, and found in the way we are with ourselves by the way we live life – connected in love. When I am in union with the innate stillness inside me, I am in union with my divinity. I am with God.
What a beautiful sequel Rod, thank you. And yes, a gorgeous and graceful turnaround. I have always had a strong sense of God. But the Love of God I felt so deeply, never make sense, was never confirmed or reflected to me in the religions I had been aware of, or by the people associated and the way they lived. I had become disheartened with what I felt was true. But when I first heard Serge Benhayon present the teachings of the Ageless Wisdom, the truth of what I had felt, was reflected to me and resonated deeply within. That God IS Love and this Love IS within us all equally so and that this Love can be lived in all that we do, with all equally. And with this my journey to return to this truth, this glory of Love within me began and continues to deepen every day. The Way of the Livingness is my religion I now know, a religion that is inclusive of all. As we are all in essence of His Love.
Beautifully expressed Rod. Disentangling the word God from the concept of established ‘religions’ has freed me to now forge a true relationship with the word ‘religous’, so I now can say that I am, and have always been, deeply religious.
It is wonderful to have a true and healthy relationship with God and love. It asks us to be true and responsible for our choices and how we live.
This is so beautiful. You have made a concept so huge (god… honestly – it doesn’t get bigger than that), so beautifully simple. A connection to god is accessible for all of us through our own bodies. What a most lovely revelation. Thank you Rod.
Wow beautifully expressed Rod, your turnaround is a big one yet it sounds so beautiful and simple.
p.s I love reading your blogs so do keep them coming.
That’s beautiful… I’m starting to really feel where I can find God and where I can really feel him. That is in stillness, connection with myself. I find I can distract myself a lot from feeling still and feeling the loveliness of stillness. I get ‘busy’, find other things to ‘do’, and it’s been the perfect set up for me to keep God at bay as I may have a lack of trust there. I am so inspired by people who really embrace God and honour their knowing of him being real and being there as a forever support. I know I am going to work on my rhythm more to bring more quality and stillness to my life so I am not always distracted from feeling God’s beautiful presence, and my direct connection to him, through connecting with myself.
Yes religion is simply connection, we are all religious but because the word has been manipulated and changed for the gain of a few in their thirst for power, we have lost the true meaning and beauty of religion. Now people like yourself are speaking up, truth is coming back into fashion.
“The concept that ‘God is Love’ was revelatory for my pre-conditioned brain. And that’s where I had been stuck – inside my brain! God is something to ‘feel’ rather than ‘think’ about or ‘study’.” Thank you Rod, I am starting to feel rather than think.
Great how you share that you were always thinking about god, and not feeling. This makes such a difference. Its a pitty that all those grumpy men have made the idea of god suit their agenda. But I can feel how great it is to know the true way of being with god, it is in us all.
Top blog Rod. I can relate to thinking that God and religion were one and the same so it wasn’t until Serge Benhayon presented that religion, as it is today, really had nothing to do with God and that God was simply just love I opened up to the fact God does exist and he is with us all of the time.
Thanks Rod. I’m with you on all that true religion offers, but I still can’t use the word God. My attachment to what it has represented for me is so ingrained, I feel a real block. Although, I align to the concept of life being about love, I know that to be true.
Rod, I love how you write and what you write. It is always very interesting to read on other people’s journeys to God. Your experience is different compared to mine. Mine was not God is love but gosh, God is. Difficult as it was for me to admit it, I did. Then I happened to feel this fact in my body and simply surrendered to it.
Reading your article, something else came to me: The Way of the Livingness is a religion that is different from others for various reasons. One of them has to do with how we feel God. We do not go to mass on Sunday, nor to the Temple on Fridays. To feel God, to feel it’s amazing presence, we go inside us. By deeply connecting we transcend our physical body and really have a universal feeling that is totally spacious, very beautiful, incredibly still and timeless. This feeling clearly allows each one to recognise the Godliness that surrounds us and reflect him back to us.
Thanks Rod for beautiful, simple description of true God and Religion.
Hi Rod, I too saw God through the eyes of religion. At age 18, when I moved away from catholicism, I also moved away from the version of God that was imposed on me as a child . Up to about 5 years ago I never spoke about religion or God. When I first heard Serge Benhayon mention the G word I turned a deaf ear. A little later when I heard him mention that God is love and lives within us all I knew with every cell in my body that i was hearing truth. Slowly I have been discarding the false notions I had about the nature of God and religion.
Reconnecting with our heart, that is how I am building a relationship with ‘love’, ‘God’ as you say “God is something to ‘feel’” Thank you.
What an amazing blog Rod Harvey. I love the way you write and make it simple.
Like you my pre-conditioned brain was stuck big time. I grew up in the hindu religion and there were so many Gods and I got confused as I always felt there can only be one God and then I hated this man in the sky with a long white beard who was never there.
I gave up and then was very anti that three letter word as it brought up too much reaction in me – so I turned to spiritual new age as soon as I could and got into anything and everything but still avoiding that word God.
Like you the catalyst for me was Serge Benhayon and the teachings of Universal Medicine which allowed me in my own time to make choices to connect to me with the infinite Love that I am and come from and am made of.
Slowly slowly I have come back and things are very different now and I can talk openly about God and not hold back. I love what you say that ‘it can bind us together in unity’ -well that sure throws religion as we know it today out of the water.
I Love this Rod. You have expressed so clearly and simply the foundation of true religion and how easily it can be lived in our lives on a day to day basis once we let go of all the beliefs we have around words such as God and religion.
“I now see religion as my personal union and relationship with God, along with being open and loving with others. Simple, personal, all encompassing and loving: that’s my religion. It’s a way of living.”
Real, genuine and bringing a simplicity to living love, thank you Rod.
That feel very Universal and complete Beverly.
Rod, this is so real and genuine. “I now see religion as my personal union and relationship with God, along with being open and loving with others. Simple, personal, all encompassing and loving: that’s my religion. It’s a way of living.” You have put in to such simple words exactly how I feel.
Thank you Rod. I have found that my relationship with God has opened up a lot of things that I didn’t know were affecting me. Just the word itself brought up fear and damnation. For me it was a return to heart which I guess is what you mean by ‘change of heart’ that helped me come back to the truth. The more I allow myself to feel life, the more I feel God in my life. God is not a name. It’s a word that describes a feeling, a relationship that I have with everything from a ladybird to a mountain, from one person to the world population – i.e. it is the oneness that I am a part of.
I just really love both of these blogs, Rod. I love how you’ve exposed the inconsistencies about religion that we’ve all learned and lived with, and also how you’ve found a new relationship with God through ‘feeling’ rather than thinking or studying God.
In the moments when I’ve allowed myself just simply to know God by connecting with what is always there in the inner heart, rather than to try to know God through what someone else teaches (or preaches as it were), has been profoundly healing for me – and it feels like just the start.
God suddenly becomes more accessible, more real, and more truly loving than the God we were taught about who punishes, judges, forgives.
Rod, you have helped to make God more accessible through your expression in this blog – thank you!
For me ‘God’ in my life did not exist, it was something for the ‘religious people’ or so I assumed and thus felt dissociated with the word. Attending Serge Behayon’s presentations on the possibility that God is an inner, ever present feeling that we can be aware of and as I sit and ponder after reading this blog I am learning to explore this fact. I have made changes in my life to strip away what is on the outside so that I may become more aware of what is already within, when I do feel that inner-core it confirms to me that this feeling of Love is far greater than any outside distraction. While I may still wander off towards those distractions the more I feel this inner-love the more I want to stay with it.
“As I gradually opened up, I found those moments of stillness. Through stillness I connected to my inner heart and a glorious love within… my essence. Within that space I felt divine love and understood that God is always present within me. I realised it was me who had built up the fortress to try to shut God out.” I love this Rod. Thanks for a great blog. It’s always worth re-reading these amazing inspirational articles and I see so much more in them than when I first read them. Deep appreciation.
There was so much that I could personally relate to in my own life with your words. I also have followed the path you have re-found, ‘being open and loving with others. Simple, personal, all encompassing and loving: that’s my religion. It’s a way of living.’
Love it Rod. And I feel the same about my relationship with God – in the simplicity you so deftly speak of. It’s at once a deeply personal relationship, and also intrinsically connected with how I live my every day, and how I am with all those I connect with. This can be ‘love’ or not – it’s simple.
And as you’ve so beautifully put it also, this is something that we FEEL our way with – ever learning…
“God is something to ‘feel’ rather than ‘think’ about or ‘study’.” Let this statement be the foundation of true religious education! For really, is not the capacity to FEEL God within all humanity? And thus true religious education then about opening ourselves once more to being able to feel. As you’ve said here, it has been we ourselves, through living devoid of love, through neglecting to love ourselves, who’ve built such ‘fortresses’ to shut Him out. Thank God (yes, literally) for the work of Universal Medicine, that our fortresses, should we choose to listen, can once again be broken down, and our relationship with God made simple – as it should be.
It’s clear to me that I always felt God in my life – from as early as I can remember, my knowing and feeling of ‘God and me’ as one was so ‘naturally there’ I didn’t even ‘think’ about it..
Then when I came across what so many have done with, and in the name of God, I couldn’t use this ‘name’ for Him. I used everything BUT the word ‘God’, until my late 20’s when something shifted, and I realised I could call this knowing of absolute love that I was (and am) always held in, by the name ‘God’. It was my own choice to use this name for what I had always known, regardless of the horrendous way so much of mankind has used the word ‘God’ as justification for anything but love – to go to war, to abuse, to exclude…
So celebrating with you, dear Rod, in the reclaiming of the name/word in its truth, and stepping ever so lovingly along the path of living with Him.
Here here Victoria; I too celebrate the innate knowing I always had that God was indeed flowing in my very veins and the hearts of every person on earth. I now celebrate the fact that I am deeply religious and finding my way back to the openness and joy of receiving the Love that is inherent within me.
I loved that line of Rod’s too..“God is something to ‘feel’ rather than ‘think’ about or ‘study’.
God is not a mental game of recall and rattling off pages in a book – He is what we are and feel to be if we connect to who we truly are – Love – equally so with no division or separation.
Said from one who truly knows God. Thank-you Rachael.
My how we’ve bastardised such innate knowing and understanding of God, through our intellectualisation and seeking to ‘own’ through personal identification and mental arrogance, that which cannot be owned.
For we are of Him and we ever live in Him. To go to the mind is to reduce His love and live in the illusion that we are separate from it.
GREAT Rod. This makes me smile and reminds me of a beautiful encounter last week where I was out and totally unplanned met a friend. She asked if she could ask me a personal question and I said yes! She asked what church I go to and I said none, and said that my only church is my home. She said you have an energy and wanted to know where it came from. Somehow I went into some explanations and got to talking of Universal Medicine and the inner heart and the ageless wisdom. What blew me away is that she stopped me and said “Ahhh it’s from God”. Amazing! In that moment I realised that I don’t HAVE to explain anymore or hide that this Love is from God and that I am connected.
‘I now see religion as my personal union and relationship with God, along with being open and loving with others. Simple, personal, all encompassing and loving: that’s my religion. It’s a way of living.’ Beautifully said, Rod!
Wonderful, wonderful!
I really love what you have written. It is short, simple, honest and sweet. I will show this blog to one or two men I know…
Thanks Rob. Being tricked by the fusion of current religion and god is one I can relate to and one I am glad to have decoupled.
Great blog, and it shows how simple our relationship can be with God. Boy, we certainly love to complicate things don’t we.
Gorgeous, thanks Rod.