in - God, RELIGION, UNIVERSAL MEDICINE | SERGE BENHAYON 978 Words

Pictures of God 

Picture this: I’m standing in the middle of a very large room, a bit like a hall, in front of a large group of people. Everyone is holding onto a pile of pictures of God that they’ve brought along. I put it to the floor: “Does anyone have a picture of God that they would like to bring out and put on the wall so we can have a look?” People are standing with bags and crates full of their pictures of God so it’s a ludicrous question to ask and I’m just teasing them. Everyone is there and ready with their pictures. I have to create some disappointment though, by saying that we can look at their examples of pictures after I have finished covering the walls with mine first.   

I place my first one on the wall. 

It’s called ‘Geocentricity – God you need to introduce yourself to me.’  

I have lived most of my life thinking that God wasn’t part of the equation that I had of life. He was something or someone that other people had in their lives. I felt this in spite of attending a Christian school where we sang hymns and prayed every morning. Yet I felt no connection with this God. This God seemed like a person but one that was in the sky. So that was one of my big expectations or pictures – that he floated down towards people and said, “Here I am, now you can trust me.” I don’t suppose God has a whole lot of time for formal introductions like that.   

The next picture was called ‘God loves to measure.’

I read a blog this morning called ‘God Doesn’t Add Up’ and it made me think of another picture I had of God. The way that I have been living would suggest that God lives in a room full of measuring apparatus – measuring tapes, rulers, barometers… anything with a measuring function to it. And he sits there spending his time measuring us all day long. I guess God might not have time for that. But we do. It is only we who self-measure and it is very ungodly to do so. The more I become aware of the abuse this self-measuring incurs, the more I am able to consciously let it go.  

So, if I start to dismantle the pictures I hold of God, then what is left of what I understand God to be?  

Well, there are understandings of God that make me sit bolt upright. I know that we all have a deep relationship with God that is not fostered through institutionalised religions. God is not in words or adherence to a book. So where do we get our connection with God? Is it from effigies that we look up to and give a moment’s attention to? Is it from reciting words and prayers? Is it from feeling bad about the things we have done?  

There is another picture that has popped up:  

God is above and separate from us.  

Can we fathom that actually we are the same and equal, but have just chosen to make ourselves less?   

So, when I ask these questions –   

  • Could I go shopping with God?  
  • Could I go to the gym with God?
  • Should I have had dinner with God?
  • Should I be speaking to my brother with God?
  • Should I be teaching with God?

The answers are all yes.

Expression is an amazing tool for bringing out beliefs that we have picked up and run with but that are completely contrary to what we feel inside and know to be true. It’s as though our bringing these beliefs out in the open air to shine some daylight on them gives us very little option but to leave them behind.   

In writing this I have found one of the greatest pictures of all buried in the pile. I’m dusting it off and considering if it is one that I can really afford to let go off. After all, it is a very big one, and has been very expensive in terms of all that I have invested in it: useful in terms of the huge space it takes up on the wall too – without it there will be an exposed wall and well, space. It’s strange because the others I can easily scoff at but this one feels like it has some traction still there.   

Without any further ado… it’s the one about not deserving God. When I drop this one, I open myself up to feeling God.  

The vehicle for accessing this relationship with God is through my body; being able to connect to my body through feeling and listening to what it is saying to me. For example:   

  • When I feel the delicateness and gentleness of my body as I move;   
  • When I move with awareness of the length or tallness of my spine – sometimes it feels as though I am gliding;  
  • In my hands when I touch and pick things up tenderly, gently, lightly; 
  • When I am aware of the intimacy that I can feel with people;
  • When I am aware of the delicacy that I can feel in me and others; 
  • When I can feel how still I can be and how this resides in others too;
  • When I feel openness and transparency and our capacity to love and be close to each other.

For me, God is about awareness and clairsentience (feeling and sensing). It’s not something I can access through my mind and think about. It is something I feel.   

It’s time to take down the pictures.  

By Simone, Teacher, UK 

Further Reading:
Who or What is God?
God’s Waiting Room
Space, God, Purpose and human existence
The ungodly behaviour of the Gods – is this true?

494 thoughts on “Pictures of God ”

  1. I so adore what you have written Simone, because you are asking humanity to stop and consider all the pictures we have of God and are they actually true? The answer has to be no they are not true or real. We have been so lied to when it comes to God that for many people the word turns them away from God. There’s the lie exposed that we turn away from God when actually we should fully embrace God because he is with us always and we are held by him as he is the universe that holds everything. The particles that make up our bodies come from the universe so we are at one with the God/ universe. The lie is in religions that has us believe and endorse at every level that God is outside of us and that some people have access to God, his chosen ones and all the rest of us are sinners. So that the only way to God/Heaven is to give all our wealth over to religion and we can buy our way into heaven. But if we stop and consider that God is within us then we don’t have to give anything away but we have and that is why we are lesser and bereft of the one thing we actually want more than anything and that is God’s love.

  3. Could it be that the Love God has for us is so immense that his non-imposing way is the Love we are feeling and are also returning to when we are connected to our Essences, Inner-most-hearts / Souls? Imagine a gathering of like minded Souls who are so much Love they are imposing less to each other and what that would feel like?

  4. What I was reminded of when reading this is how different and personal everyone’s relationship with God is (even if it is not to have one!) and that although innately we are the same how we all express is unique. From my experience the more I love me (self-love, self-worth and self-care) the more I am open and loving in all other relationships including that of our brothers, the Hierarchy, who walk beside us, which of course are all a part of God/Fohat/the Divine and is a relationship that is forever deepening.

  5. I could relate to this Simone
    “I have lived most of my life thinking that God wasn’t part of the equation that I had of life. He was something or someone that other people had in their lives.”
    Until today when I had an experience of allowing myself to surrender to feel the stars and the universe which to me is God, when I felt this there was such a warm feeling and a flow to my entire body, I understand it is all about surrender to what we all know within us is true.

    1. The word surrender pops out at me here. A surrender to what? And just as you say Mary, it is a surrender to ‘what we all know within us is true’ and how incredible it feels to be back home in that place where we know.

  6. Pictures put us and what we are looking at into a box, there is a defined edge and an understanding that to look outside that box is not acceptable. Thank you for busting a few pictures for me today!

  7. How can we possibly ever picture God. Seriously He is unfathomable and so how on earth can we have a picture of Him? That’s the giveaway really isn’t it, if we have any picture whatsoever of God then we know it’s not true.

    1. Love what you share here Alexis, how can we ever have a picture of God, it would be an illusion, a projection, a fantasy, definitely not true.

  8. This is such a sensitive topic for many of us, the constant questions of whether God exists or not. Having to have proof that he does, it’s almost as if we need someone to tap us on the shoulder & say – “I am God”. But what if God communicates with us all of the time, only to see us ignoring him because his messages are not what we expect? Is it possible that our perception is skewed and with that skew we’re unable to see what is so clearly in front of us to see.

    1. Interesting what you are sharing here with us all viktoriastoykova, because let’s take it one step further and say if we met God would we recognise him/ her as a God or would we walk by them? We have built so many ideals, beliefs, pictures of God that as you say our perception is skewed and is that a deliberate attempt to keep us all skewed so that we do not see God in ourselves or others.

    2. If we let go of our pictures and expectations we may find that God is communicating with us, ‘what if God communicates with us all of the time, only to see us ignoring him because his messages are not what we expect?’

  9. The pictures I have had in the past, I now recognise are one big fat lie. Good to let them go.

  10. It’s only when we stand back and view the different versions of who and what God is, do we get the absurdity of the situation we have created. How is it possible to have so many different versions of God and all of them be true. It makes no sense.

    1. The irony is most of the pictures are not actually ours but false ones we have taken from others to be true! So yes absolutely we need take a few steps back in order to be able to feel and see this.

    1. Our pictures, our ideals and beliefs can get us into a lot of trouble, hardly surprising when they are not true in the first place.

  13. Throwing away the pictures and coming to know God within, that is a much better deal than all the pictures in the world.

    1. Agreed, then we are open and responsive to what we feel, see and understand rather than closed and presuming to what we will feel, see and understand.

  14. This is a very simple and clear understanding as to how just about all of us have created our own picture of God in that we have created our own God. But this God has been created by our human way of living, one could say we have created God in our own image and this is why we have so many factions of ” God “on earth.

      1. Where did we get or why did we allow all these different versions of God if we all have the same God within. And why is it we have allowed all these different versions of a one religion to dictate to us their version of God? Is it possible their way of controlling us is to tell us that we are undeserving of God?

  15. Having pictures of God is a very effective way of not getting to feel God. It’s like having an amazing view where life is all there but looking away to some tiny picture whilst all the while God is there waiting for us to look beyond the tiny, 2D picture.

  16. Not only do we grow up about pictures of God, but also pictures of what many things should be or look like, such as marriage, relationships, work etc. the list could go on.

    So, its a no wonder we give our power away to these things and people can become confused and lost with life.

    What if, what you have described to access the relationship with God is through the body, is the answer to our issues. And the simplicity is, to establish a relationship with our bodies, then we are with God all the time, instead of thinking it is always external.

  17. Pictures of God are not from God but from creation, which we are so invested in that we allow the pictures to flood our minds.

    1. There are no pictures that come from God because God is forever expanding, therefore He is forever changing, whereas a picture is a snapshot frozen in time that may get updated from time to time, but lacks any true movement.

      1. Beautiful point Alexis, very true, ‘There are no pictures that come from God because God is forever expanding’.

  18. All through my childhood I tried to make sense of the pictures of God that society presented, whilst at the same time feeling a wonder and connection with something grand that did not fit these pictures. I knew God did not want to be feared or above us in any way and was confused as I explored various religions. It was in finding The Way of the Livingness that what I had always felt was reflected back to me.

  19. This shows us that pictures of God don’t work. What you write here..’The vehicle for accessing this relationship with God is through my body’.. what we feel and how we move the body is the key.

    1. Which is why connection with our body is so important, we are then able to connect with God.

  21. A huge limiting aspect of having a picture about anything is that it becomes a filter and expectation through which we look at life – it keeps us going round and round in the same groove and stops us from seeing and surrendering to the deepening and expansion constantly on offer in line with the Universe we live in.

  23. Not being worthy of God’s love was a big one for me for years but I now know that the judgements were all mine and used as a good excuse to be less.

    1. Julie I can relate to what you have shared,
      ‘Not being worthy of God’s love’
      Those words to me are what underpin the Roman Catholic faith. I remember as a child sitting on a cold pew being told by a priest that we were not worthy of God’s love. These words along with the pomp and ceremony is all theatre to control and gain authority which equals power over the populace.

    2. It is interesting how harsh we can be on ourselves, maybe worth renouncing that behaviour, and starting to cherish and love ourselves.

  24. Coming back to our feelings rather than our thoughts is always the way to go. Getting in touch with our truth and we do we feel rather than what we are fed from the outside.

    1. Pictures and beliefs can keep us small and feeling worthless; they stop us from feeling our magnificence.

  26. I’ve known for a while that the human being is made up of two parts – Human (the body) and the Being (non-physical) And the being can be a spirit or Soul. The Soul accepts how the body relates to God and the spirit wants the pictures and resists having an aligned relationship with God.

  27. It is my body that constantly reminds me of God – those moments when I breathe and can feel we are so much more than the delineation of our bodies, that there is space in me that is other worldly. As well as being awesome to feel it is also very steadying and practical.

  28. I have uncovered a picture from reading this today that I wasn’t fully aware I had. It’s that God only pays attention to people who desperately need his help and deserve it. That’s incredibly loaded – it means I can go around saying God doesn’t love me or I can wail with cries of helpless despair in the hope ‘He’ll listen’. Neither way is in anyway responsible or loving. I can indeed ask for support anytime and do so from a place of honesty and humility, knowing that the support given will be there for not just me but for everyone I meet too. There are no special ones who get special treatment.

  29. Having pictures of any kind creates expectations … and ultimately disappointment when they are shattered or never come to fruition.

  31. I am beginning to understand that God does not measure, it is me measuring how much I let him in and how much of my Godliness I am willing to let be seen.

    2. andrewmooney26 I have water trickeling out of a faucet when it should be gushing out. I feel what this shows me is how much of my godliness I’m willing to show to the world. We are sent messages every minute of the day by God as he is in constant communication with all of us, we ignore God he has never ignored us, thank heavens literally because if he did ignore us I dread to think what would happen to us. I do not want to live in this rat hole we call life for ever that’s for sure. Thankfully he has thrown humanity another life line.

  32. Our pictures delay our evolution because we only want to see our version of life and aren’t prepared to see or feel the truth before us.

    2. It is great if we become aware of the pictures that are delaying our evolution so we can then renounce them, and let them go.

  34. Are we surprised that we have pictures of God? Space is unlimited, but we still have a go at filling it constantly with photos of everything. And then, we question why we are so exhausted!

  35. Our pictures of God can be very detrimental as they can create false expectations and hopes that can’t be fulfilled. My sense is that Children, through comments from adults, can often feel disappointed at the lack of seeming response from God about the problems of the world. I know that as I kid I felt very disappointed that God simply didn’t step in and stop all the mess. Only later as an adult did I understand about free will and karma.

  37. This is a great one to expose, Gill, and I recognise it as something I used to do too. A world away from feeling God’s absolute holding, readiness and presence in every breath.

  38. By the nature of them being my own creation, pictures and expectations are always a deviation from being connected and open to the truth that unifies us all. The more picture and expectation free I am, the simpler and sweeter life becomes.

      1. Exactly, do we simply replace one picture for another, or move into claiming the divinity within and the intelligence within our bodies and innermost?

  39. Recently I have been considering how stunting of connecting and deepening our Inner Awareness and access to Universal Wisdom it is, for us to be told from young that the only thing that counts is what is written in text books, religious books and other expressions considered to be of ‘authority’ and our own experience is not worth much, especially if it questions or introduces anything that shows something different to the pictures being presented.

  40. Pictures create so much unnecessary hardship, angst and complication. Life is so simple when we allow each day to flow in its uniquely harmonious way, and allow others to simply be themselves.

  41. When we hold all of these pictures of God, is there anything else in our lives where we carry pictures? Are we drifting into a secret life of Walter Mitty?

    1. Great question to ask, do we have pictures, or beliefs, elsewhere in our life, and if so what sort of consequences are they creating? Are these pictures supporting us and our evolution back to Soul, or are they limiting us and keeping us small?

  42. I love here how you talk about such simple daily life experiences as being confirmation of the presence of God or divinity or something universal or grander than human life (whatever you want to call it). I have had the same expereinces too and they have confirmed for me without a doubt the fact that as human beings we are much more than physical animals trying to survive on this planet.

    1. This is so true Andrew … “… as human beings we are much more than physical animals trying to survive on this planet.” Life here on planet earth is not about struggle and survival – it is all about truly living – in a way that is vital, harmonious, responsible, wise and with purpose.

  43. “Could I go shopping with God?
    Could I go to the gym with God?
    Should I have had dinner with God?
    Should I be speaking to my brother with God?
    Should I be teaching with God?
    The answers are all yes.”
    This makes it very tangible how there is no question about that God is and so are we in every moment equally. We are grand and this grandness we ought to live by this simple fact of our true beingness.

    2. Indeed Michael … the feeling is very different when we choose to truly see and let in what is before us.

  45. Gosh we seem to have made our relationship with God, something that is so innate and so natural, ever so complicated and seemingly unattainable.

  47. Our pictures of God have the exact opposite effect of what we think … leaving us with a mental construct rather than the awareness and feeling of an all encompassing stupendous love that is God.

  48. I love all the questions you ask like, ‘Should I be speaking to my brother with God?’ Living every aspect of life with God supports us and inspired others to be the most loving aspect of who we are and drop all that doesn’t belong.

  49. It is interesting to ponder who is the being who is driving all these beliefs, ideals and pictures we have in our heads about God and the divine nature of life.

  51. Our mental pictures just don’t work – I wonder how long it will take us as a humanity to realise this! Feeling God’s presence affects our bodies instantly – the tension of all the pictures drops away and we allow ourselves to be who we innately are.

  52. And may I add Simone, that we give our-selves the space to move from every moment into a Loving-Space then as we walk about we are assured of the space we are expanding around us is connecting us to God.

  53. These pictures and images of God only serve to retard us and the whole of humanity; they are by nature designed to keep us away from knowing God from the inside out.

  54. T’is the alleged season of celebrating the birth of Jesus and all of the pictures of friends and family in the delivery room. That was a holiday that was stolen from the Druids and now is a commercial event to but buy things for others that they think, they cannot live without. All of this, to keep us from celebrating the greatest event ever, the love that is in all of us and it never needs a special day to appreciate it.

    1. Beautifully put Matilda. I wonder how much of my life I have spent living from mental constructs rather than from the inspiration of impulses felt?

  58. I love that we can go shopping, have dinner, go to work or hang out with friends and God is there with us regardless of what it is we are doing. A great reminder, thankyou.

  59. I have always got the sense that God or the universe or whatever you want to call it was more interested in who I really am than what I have reduced or measured myself to be.

  60. “Could I go shopping with God? ” From my childhood presentation of God this would be a very undignified concept of Him but now it is a concept that makes Him real for me.

  61. I love the simplicity of this blog and the way it exposes false pictures of God, to reveal God as the one on one relationship we have with ourselves in connection with our Inner Heart. God is constantly with us, no need to look for him and no institution or cleric needed, we commune with God daily through our every expression.

      1. True Matilda, the relationship is not static and God ever present and ready, waits for us to deepen our connection.

  62. When we carry pictures of different aspects of our life, it prevents us from feeling the truth of what is within and around us. We’re not living in the here and now and consequently miss much of what life offers us.

  63. You are exposing how insidious these pictures that we carry are and how much they affect us, They are actually barriers to keep us away from the truth of God

  64. ‘if I start to dismantle the pictures I hold of God, then what is left of what I understand God to be?’ love this question because, when we strip away all that isn’t true we’re left feeling the truth of God in our inner heart.

  65. Your blog has reminded me of the pictures I had of God when I was growing up and how they all related to God being something outside of me that could only to accessed by going to church, however I can now feel how God can be with me in all that I do and it is my responsibility to live this (to the best of my ability) so as to reflect it to those around me.

  66. It is impossible to have a true picture of God, therefore all the images there are of Him are false.

  67. Holding pictures suggest we know all there is to know and we then selectively go about selecting what fits. The truth is that there is so much more available to us, for us and in us and once any picture is released we are offered all that is truly there – Heaven on Earth.

  69. Sometime ago it was shared with me that I had the energy of a certain religion in my body that I was still influenced by. How many of us are made aware that in past lives we have practiced many different religions and that the consciousness of those are still held within our bodies. And so is it any wonder that we hold onto the false pictures of God believing them to our own?

    1. This is so simple to do and yet so few are aware of it. My children were at a christmas play the other day and the vicar was telling them that it was impossible to know God and that the only way to try was to get to know Jesus. If we can get out of our heads and back into our bodies, like we were as children, it would be much harder to say that.

  71. To feel that we are not deserving of love highlights how we have already rejected or separated from that innate divine essence that is within us all.

  72. When I read such questions as “should I go shopping with God” or “should I go to the gym with God” at first glance it seems a silly to even ask such things. But after reflecting I end up wondering why not? We think we do these things alone, but that is never ever the case. We are forever bombarded by thoughts ideals, beliefs and emotions from one place or another. Why not choose the quality of energy and thoughts we wish to align to?

  73. Believing that we already know all there is about something and holding that picture as a definitive description, is one certain way to ensure we do not have the space to keep evolving and expanding our relationship with it.

  75. When I was little I remember feeling how the pictures I was presented of God didn’t marry up to the way I felt about God, when I thought about God I felt a warmth which felt secure and was nothing like the images I saw which felt domineering.

  76. I have always felt that God is everywhere; in the trees; in the animals; in the people. Even with that ‘everywhereness’ I still had physical images of God and it was still very surface. Now I know I can certainly feel God within me and I can feel God within others. Now there is no image of what that looks like, because I know what I see is everything in that moment.

  77. When we know who God is then we may laugh at some of the pictures we painted Him to be. It is so ridiculous some of the pictures we have of God, for example, we see Him as judgemental, harsh, unloving and inaccessible. Do any of these pictures ring true? Definitely not.

  78. I find that having pictures (expectations and ideals) about anything totally kiboshes the magic of the present moment; it is like I am blind to what is there right before me because I am running my pictures in my head.

    1. So true Matilda, this is what I experienced recently and it was so obvious later when I realised what was happening and how blind I was to the truth. It caused so many complications but heaps to learn from this experience for sure.

    2. I agree Matilda and that magic is present constantly for us to see and feel if we allow ourselves to see without those pictures.

    3. So true in how we meet other people but coming from the pictures and ideals we hold onto for ourselves to try to meet.

    4. I agree Matilda. We could read this blog and think only about the devastation caused by our pictures of God.

      Yet this is just one example of having a set of pictures and a great example of the results too.

      The pictures I hold of anything give me a warped reality and misinterpretation of people, situations etc. And In doing so I miss opportunity upon opportunity to connect – with people, life, myself, to really be in life.

  79. Everything in the universe is constantly expanding, when we focus on pictures we ignore this important fact and try to hold on to one snapshot, which by definition can never be true even if it started off as such.

  80. I think we would drown the world if we were all to physically manifest all our pictures of God, there would be so many of them.

  81. As I dispense with the pictures I have carried for ages about pretty much everything (God, food, relationships, being a woman, daughter, wife, mother…) I feel freer in each moment to really observe what is going on, where I am at and how much there always is to learn. This makes life super interesting, fun, inspiring and so much simpler.

  82. I love this blog as I notice how great it is to evaluate my pictures of God as I never ever took a moment to feel them and let them go.

  83. I realize that my confusion about God is that I was trying to understand him from my head. When I go to the concept of feeling God, my body just relaxes and yes, I can feel him. Wow!

  84. Thank you, Simone. I love this blog. The simplicity, sweetness and inspiration of what you share is very gorgeous. The list of 5 questions in the middle really touched me. Thank you.

  85. Whether we think something is true or not is not going to change the fact of whether it is indeed true or not. However, we all have free will to decide for ourselves what we accept as our truth – there will come a time when we all accept the one unified truth of how things are and until then we are all on the same journey of re-awakening. We all do know the truth, but have lost our way becoming distracted through our creation of a different way of living where we don’t have to be as responsible, which we are slowly realising has caused very dire consequences for us all.

  86. There’s a bridge in Scotland that takes so long to paint that by the time it’s finished, it need starting again – thus the painting is never complete. This reminds me of the infinite futility of trying to paint a picture of God. It’s an expression/experience that is constantly changing. Impossible to capture in something as reductive and one dimensional as a picture.

  88. My main picture or belief is that I’m being judged by God for not being good enough but it’s not God judging me, it’s me judging me.

    1. Or is it an unloving energy that we are allowing in that is actually causing us to judge our selves as we are not choosing to appreciate how amazing we truly are.

      1. Yes, Alison it has to be an energy that we let in, it certainly doesn’t come from our divinity.

    2. Same here Fiona, I had the same belief even though I thought myself to not be religious at all, but I still carried this belief and I adopted this as I was growing up and for most of my adult life. Now, it is amazing to let this go and embrace the fact that God is not at all judgemental but deeply, deeply loving.

  89. God, we are of God, we are God, divine sparks of equal light. I know God and have known divinity through my body and no one can take that away. Pictures melt and dissolve when you allow the knowing of God from the body.

    1. Time and time again, slowly but surely, I am learning that the knowing of God comes from the body. But the key word here is ‘allow.’ It isn’t a case of making myself more knowing of God, of becoming more Godly. It is simply a case of allowing myself to feel and experience the knowing that is here in this body.

  90. Not only do we have a multitude of pictures of what God is and should be, we also have been indoctrinated with the belief that we need an intermediary between us and God, as fostered by institutionalised religions. All this stuff makes us orphans, bereft of the immdediacy and delicateness of God’s beholdng love.

    1. I find this super interesting and so exposing of the rot and madness that we have allowed to perpetuate. That we have set things up so for most religions there are ‘intermediaries’ between us and God, when in truth we are made of God and are therefore equally with him all of the time.

  91. It makes absolute sense in feeling and sensing there can be an understanding of our connection and interdependence to all things.

  92. “Can we fathom that actually we are the same and equal, but have just chosen to make ourselves less?” This is a truly inspirational statement and one so worth considering … to act on this is to truly transform one’s life.

    1. Given the universe is expanding – I feel the pull for us to be expanding too – by being open to letting go of what doesn’t belong and allowing space for greater understanding and wisdom.

  94. Funny that how we are fed pictures of what God is like and don’t really stop to question this at all. But the same can be said about our pictures of anything else for that matter. I used to imagine God to be this large fatherly guy (with a big white beard of course) sitting on a throne on top of a cloud and looking down at the world and the little humans. This is actually a hilarious picture, and yet I took to it hook line and sinker and never questioned it until I came to realise this story about pictures. Thank God I could drop that picture pretty fast! I am sure you can picture that 😉

  95. Pictures about God and pictures about life, pictures about relationships, pictures about ourselves and our body image etc etc the list goes on – How often are we caught living with pictures of things and wondering why life itself does not match up with our pictures? What if all these pictures are false, and that life is only true once we let these pictures fall away and are willing to see what is there to be seen. How raw, uncut and refreshing would this be and at the same time so confronting too!

  96. “Geocentricity – God you need to introduce yourself to me”. Organised religion has done a lot to foster this belief that God reveals himself in mysterious ways and only to special chosen ones. With this belief its no wonder that we don’t look inside ourselves to meet God.

  97. The sanctity of the body resurrected. Look no further, simply honour and treasure its be-holding quality and God expresses through us.

    1. I love the way you have expressed this Kehinde. It captures the relationship with our body and therefore God, that is right here in our hands when we allow it.

  100. Museums are full of old paintings and pictures that need constant attention to maintain their lustre, kind of like lies, whereas God resides within us and can never be less.

    1. And their value oscillates wildly depending on fashion, whims and currency markets – whereas our individual relationship with God can be priceless….yet free…surely the best bargain in the universe?!

      1. And then if the picture is of any serious value, you’re not allowed anywhere near it and they are heavily guarded by wardens, sensors and alarms and access is further limited to those that can even get into the museum in the first place. Whereas access to God is 24/7, whoever you are and wherever you are.

    2. I love this comment Steve – what a brilliant reflection for us all of where we place value as a society – guarding prized possessions from the past in beautiful, heavily guarded museums at an enormous financial cost, just so we can choose to go and look at them and be reminded of how things were. Yet, our relationship with God and the divine love that we are constantly held in, offering us the most exquisite support and connection with the truth of who we are in every single moment is something that many of us fail to even acknowledge, let alone appreciate.

  101. When I feel and connect with God in my body, no picture can ever come close to expressing the glory of what I feel. The truth can’t be captured and put into a box, it’s there to be felt.

  102. When we are not open to accepting that God is very much a part of our lives and we his, we are also shutting out our own divinity.

  103. God is love, and true love does not judge … therefore, God makes no judgment of anyone – it is us who judge ourselves.

    1. We hold all the measuring apparatus, based on our lack of self worth; we then project this onto an imagined and human-alike fashioned God and either turn our back because we don’t like our creation or fervently submit to the effigy in the hope of a better afterlife. It doesn’t make sense.

  104. Reading this it makes me wonder how and why we maintain some of our pictures when we know they are not possible … for example, that God is a person who lives in the sky – how is this even possible – a person like us living in the sky … really? I fell for this too but why dont we question this, challenge the norm, speak out about what we know to be true or not true?

  105. To see the world with the ‘eyes of the heart’ is to not fall for the images that would otherwise seduce us and render such vision naught.

    1. Our mentally created images expose what we want to see; viewing the world with the ‘eyes of the heart’ allows us to see and feel the truth before us.

  107. Sounds as if we will only know God in full when we have let go of any pictures. Tricky thing is that with still having pictures I instantly try to imagine how that may look like and how then ‘in God´s name’ will I be able to know him. The mind favours pictures and imagination, truth favours knowing through and from the body hence the need to develop or actually rekindle our relationship with God by deepening our relationship with our body.

    1. And this understanding makes life very simple actually. If we build a relationship with and honour our bodies, our relationship with God and awareness of his always presence deepens.

  108. ‘It’s time to take down the pictures.’ Yes, and not just of God but the pictures I have lived my life to that don’t foster truth, only disappointment in myself or God.

    1. Yes Karin, revealing to know disappointment is the consequence of having false pictures. Remove pictures, add responsibility and disappointments become a thing of the past.

    1. No trying, no expectations, just allowing ourselves to be with God and for God to be with us.

    3. A gorgeous thing to say Carmel, and a very liberating experience to let go of what we know in our heads, and allow the heart and the body to feel and experience God from within.

  110. I love that we can go shopping with God, have dinner with God, speak to others with God, teach with god, in fact do anything with God, and it not be a big deal. To make God a part of our everyday lives, and have him walking beside is in everything we do, is one of the most wonderful choices we could ever make.

  111. “Pictures of God” – if we have a picture of God we have a picture over ourselves, and as with pictures of anything, there is always an attachment and in this disappointment it gets turned into all sorts of other emotions and conditions that do harm – all the things that both God and we in our ‘picture-free’ true essence ‘are not’.

  112. Museums are full of pictures. No matter how realistically they portray the subject, they are still just a copy of a picture we have in our mind! So, how can you paint a picture of God that is part of everything?

    1. As my 5 year old daughter always says – “God is in the air”…. so good luck trying to draw that!

    1. Yes, absolutely!! Yes, no point at all to have a discussion let alone an argument over this – and all the horrible rest that can go on in the name of God.

  116. I didn’t go to church as a child so it’s interesting that I carry so many pictures of God, including the image of the white bearded man in the clouds.

  117. ‘After all, it is a very big one, and has been very expensive in terms of all that I have invested in it: useful in terms of the huge space it takes up on the wall too – without it, there will be an exposed wall and well, space.’ – I love the point you raise here – when we are considering the investments we’ve made in life, even when we discover they aren’t true and our un-comfortableness in being willing to let them go. When we allow ourselves to surrender and consider this choice from the perspective of, do we want to live a life of truth, that honours who we and others truly are, or do we want to continue playing the game that keeps us all in the self-created mess that we are currently living in – it’s a no-brainer.

    1. The challenge is being willing to let go of our comfort and our perceived ‘safety’, which is in fact a self imposed prison.

    1. A very pertinent point. As has been shared with us many times before – we think we think, but we are simply vehicles of energy that passes through us. One day I will get this with my whole body, but until then I simply have to catch those pictures and let them go as they come up.

  119. Life is so much more inspirational, joyful and harmonious when we focus on feeling and being aware of truth.

  120. “… God is about awareness …” this is so true when we consider God is all around us and within us, therefore we only have to stop – anywhere, anytime – and make a choice to connect to God.

    1. It sure is Otto, whilst pictures can be great I find they are always limiting especially when we hold onto a picture which has changed or moved on then we stay stuck with and in it rather than appreciating and seeing what is before us.

  122. Yes, time to take down the pictures and live from the connection in our bodies. If we build a relationship with space and stillness we connect to something that is beyond our body and we realise we are part of a much greater whole.

  123. We have imprinted our pictures of God with human personality traits (judgment, wrath, demanding sacrifices, having a chosen people over others, etc.) while totally disregarding the fact of our divine origins. If God had a picture of us, it would be that we are divine but choose not to live that way (yet).

    1. In the same way that God isn’t ‘un-godly’, afflicted with personality traits – neither are we, if we choose to live the truth of who we are.

  124. I was aware of the pictures of God portrayed by various religions when I was younger however could feel the lack of truth in them and also could not find a picture of him that felt right either. It is now apparent that the trick is in keeping feeling that there must be a picture or image at all for in this we are open to being fed various versions to try and suit our needs and preferences to essentially keep us away from the truth that we know God very well through what we can feel all of the time. No need for pictures full stop.

  125. When we build pictures we set ourselves up for disappointments or maybe pleasant surprises, but the best thing to do is to see and feel what truth will reveal.

    1. Pictures mislead and can change – but the truth never lies, it just is and remains so.

  126. We all have so many pictures of what God looks like and not being content with that we even go to war for our pictures of God. Does God truly want us to fight over a made up picture?

    1. It’s a pretty stark comment this in that it accurately and simply exposes the truth of so many wars. Crazy that lives are lost because one picture is different from another.

  127. I can remember being brought up on the belief that the way to get an unanswerable answered was by praying to God, often in those moments when the consequence of my own irresponsibility had come home to roost.

    1. ha ha yes, me too! If there was something that I couldn’t handle or I had been caught out and now had to take responsibility I would consider my ‘last resort’ options – the last of which was talk to God. Funnily enough it irritated me that I would be using anyone in that way – no relationship then suddenly I need you so you are my go to.

    2. As a kid I never got the whole praying to God thing. It was a mental exercise and I was always disappointed that there wasn’t an answer or reply. It was only later that I realised the fact that connection to God is a feeling not a thought.

  128. Most religions conjure up pictures of God – from a wrathful judgmental figure to a loving fluffy old man with a beard sitting in a cloud ( that’s how God was presented to me in school) Yet having any picture is so limiting.

  129. “The vehicle for accessing this relationship with God is through my body.” Beautiful Simone. When we observe and listen to our body and honour its messages it’s amazing what we can learn.

  130. ‘Can we fathom that actually we are the same and equal, but have just chosen to make ourselves less?’ – yes we can, but first we have to be open and honest about all the beliefs that we have lived by for so very long. If our perception and belief about who we are is not true – that we are undeserving or less than God, then we need to expose and let go of the beliefs that are feeding us the lies about our selves.

    1. It’s a great point to consider that to know God first involves knowing and loving ourselves, it’s the truth of who we are.

  132. ‘I have lived most of my life thinking that God wasn’t part of the equation that I had of life. He was something or someone that other people had in their lives.’ – I was also not able to relate to the God that was presented to me in Sunday School, the picture of some guy watching me from above never felt true. We were never told that God is with every step we walk, every breath we breathe – God is never not with us, we are in fact all part of God.

  133. Unfortunately the image of us all sitting around with our bags full of pictures of God is not far from the truth. Over the eons we have been fed many different versions of God, and rarely have we had the chance to just know God in the simplicity of our inner connection. This relationship with God is image-less and unshakable. Yet I could relate to the peeling away process and the images that still have some traction. A very worthwhile activity to keep looking at.

  134. I love the gentle humour this is written with. It makes me laugh and see how I too thought God came down from the heavens to introduce Himself to me. It shows me how arrogant I am in that I can carry on in my waywardness and He needs to take the time to convince me He is present when actually He is always present, it’s me who goes off on a jolly (which is never a jolly but full of suffering at my own doing).

  136. An interesting sentence you wrote about God, that we can also apply to other human beings: “Here I am, now you can trust me.” The other always has to take the first step and prove to us that we can trust them, whereas we can do the same and say: Hey God or other human being, ‘here I am, now you can trust me.’

  137. Just the description of a picture and we get the sense (4 sides and a frame to contain) of how restrictive holding a picture is: automatically denying ourselves the multidimentional possibility.

  138. A very thought-provoking blog Simone. The other day I decided I would have a conversation with God, having been inspired by someone who expressed this was the norm for her, and as I was talking I felt a beautiful deepening stillness.. Pondering on why I didn’t make this my normal practice I realised it was because I would then have to commit in full, in every moment to surrender to this stillness/divine will. There is still a very large part of me that is resistant to this, a large part of me that still wants to be individual and engage in comfort, not step up to the responsibility of what having a true relationship with God would mean.

  140. Our self-measuring is pointless because we are constantly changing the goal posts according to who we are with and or what we are doing.

  141. When feeling the picture of not deserving God I can feel a lot of sadness in me, not because there is any truth in that picture, but because in having it I have kept myself separate to him totally unnecessarily.

  142. As a kid at boarding school I would have to go to chapel at least twice a week. That’s about 90 times a year for 10 years. And I have probably been to church about 200 other times at weddings, funerals and Christmas time. In all those visits, I have never heard anyone describe a relationship with God in the way you do in your list.

  143. God is with us no matter what, just like the words from Footprints in the Sand, it is only us who at times think we are alone when we choose to walk by ourselves.

  144. Most organised religions are businesses run by people who want power, control and recognition. Unlikely then that any of them are going to say; “you don’t need us, you already have God inside you”

  145. This blog is a brilliant exposure of how pictures put limits on our acceptance, understanding and awareness. They keep us swimming in a shallow learning pool rather than the expanse of an ocean. And the same exposure can be put to almost any aspect of our life (not just God) – wherever we have any kind of pre-determined image of how something might turn out or be, we are restricting the dimensions of what it could be.

  146. The world is obsessed with battles of the outer world and without honesty we fail to face up to the real battles raging within us. We’re constantly teased and pulled to choose between feeding the small insular self or expressing our love of humanity in each and every movement. The choice is always as simple as this.

  147. Even when nothing really added up with what I was taught about God and religion when I was growing up I feel I always knew there was a God holding this whole thing together.

  148. Knowing we are God and living it has the potential to change the world and is why this truth remains hidden and bastardised.

  149. Blind is he who sees only that which the eyes have received and overlooks all that the heart has felt.

  150. ‘He was something or someone that other people had in their lives.’ – it wasn’t that I didn’t have God in my life, but my understanding of God and how I felt about him was different from the pictures being presented to me. I didn’t associate my ‘special friend’ as being God as I grew up – rather I acknowledged I had a connection to something beyond the world as I knew it that I didn’t understand, but I knew it was there and I knew it was trying to teach me things – I thought I would be a better person, but I now understand it was to be more of my true divine self.

  153. Feeling unworthy of God’s love is not uncommon, and yet it makes no energetic sense whatsoever, because how can you be unworthy of something that you already are?

  157. One of my pictures of God has been that I don’t deserve this relationship because I walked away and turned Him down. But God doesn’t act like a jilted man or a bitter woman, for example. He knows how much I love him and that fact has never changed even when I acted out. God loves me and everyone else no matter the harm we inflict upon ourselves and others. This love is so beautiful to return to because it is who we are too.

  158. I had not really clocked the impact of holding onto pictures to this extent, but when I consider standing in front of a large group of people who are clutching to a whole pile of pictures and expectations they have brought along with them, I feel the huge barrier toward an open expansive and evolving exploration, regardless of the topic.

  159. We create all these pictures in an attempt to not be the glorious beings we innately are, and yet we all feel this gorgeous essence in each other, we all know that innateness as our truth but we continue to relate to the pictures – what a crazy set-up.

  160. Our pictures overlay the truth of who we are. We present these pictures to everyone we meet, however they will always feel the true us behind the picture no matter how many pictures we attempt to present… so in reality, it is a complete waste of time and energy having pictures!

  161. Our pictures of how things should be or look in life create expectations that are guaranteed to disappoint.

  163. ‘Can we fathom that actually we are the same and equal, but have just chosen to make ourselves less? ‘ – this is so huge to read and appreciate that God is equal to and with us all of the time.

    1. Yes, completely mad and so destructive. We are far more willing to accept what is not true than to accept the truth of our own divinity – and our society is currently set up to support this happening, which is tragic and so dis-honouring of us all.

  166. We are so engrained with pictures from a young age that it inhibits us from feeling what is accessible to us from within ourselves that is pure and true.

    1. So true, Carolien, my upbringing was more about how I should behave, to be accepted in society, rather than honouring how I felt. I’m not in anyway blaming my parents for this, they were conditioned to accept this way of being too. It is very beautiful to finally understand the importance of honouring our own truth that we feel through our body – the more we choose to live in this way, others will feel the invitation to consider doing the same.

      1. I feel that is true for all of us Alison, our parents were brought up the same. So how beautiful when we are offered a different reflection in life, make the changes and the offer this reflection to others. There is a divine truth that is accessible to us all though our innermost connection.

    2. Llfe becomes contained ‘out there’ by the pictures, a form of control that denies us truth.

    3. How true Carolien – it takes willingness and a deep self-honesty to start to truly let go of the old pictures that we are burdening ourselves with.

      1. yes, it is more comfortable and safe to stay in the generally expected paradigms than to step outside and dare to feel what is true from the inside out. It will definitely be challenged as it itself will be going against the established lies.

    1. So true, pictures distract and pull us away from feeling the truth, providing us with a bastardised version of how things actually are.

    2. Yes, and there is an energy that we choose to fool us into thinking we can make these pictures so grand we can do away with a true knowing of God. But deep within we know this is a fallacy.

    4. And we limit the Grandness in order to ‘grasp it’ with the tiny mind that works in chosen isolation to the knowingness of the heart.

  169. For a time in my life, I could not figure out who or what God was. I would question if he was outside us, inside us, everywhere or nowhere, man or woman – the list was endless and my quest to understand God went on and on. So when I heard Serge Benhayon talk about God he made complete sense and all the questions I had had when I was younger were answered at once, with a clarity and simplicity that no one else had ever been able to explain.

    1. The truth is always simple – we know the truth when we hear it, it confirms and re-connects us with what we already know.

  170. It sure is time to take down the pictures of what we think God is. Then we can connect to and feel who God is and that we too are all equally Gods in our own right.

  171. ‘For me, God is about awareness and clairsentience (feeling and sensing). It’s not something I can access through my mind and think about. It is something I feel.’ and this is why many of our established institutionalised religions preach the exact opposite – who needs a church when God is inside and all around you.

  172. ‘Could I go shopping with God?’ This one pulled me up short this morning, I go shopping with my taste buds, with my personal needs, but I rarely go shopping with all of Humanity and God is all of Humanity. How am I feeling when I walk into a shop, am I connecting with everybody in the shop? Am I connecting with what I truly need and not just what my thoughts tell me I need to buy? At the time of writing this, shops are filled with Christmas goodies, all sparkly and glittery, stacks of food that none of us need but that taste good, everything attractive that says ‘buy me’. The sparkles aren’t real, Christmas the way it is celebrated now has nothing to do with God. Many people are feeling stressed and anxious at this time of year and we don’t need to be. Life feels as if we are all living in a very false way because underneath we can all feel God and we know that how most of us are living is not a True Way.

  173. Our pictures are always fixed and limited … God has no limits, no boundaries, and is forever expanding.

  174. That so many of us have had a picture of God as being a man with human traits is ridiculous beyond belief. And to think that we scoff at the time when humans believed that the world was flat.

  176. Could it be any image we hold comes with a good dose of illusion as our bodies are energy, and we can feel energy and when we start to feel energy, this takes away all the so called pictures of how life could be?

    1. Absolutely, pictures are pictures and not the truth. Therefore what do we have more of currently in the world pictures or truth?

  177. I like the lighthearted and also genuine way that you bring to light some of the pictures/ beliefs/ ideals that we may falsely hold about God…

    1. So true Fiona, the very fact that we have a myriad of pictures about God shows how confused we all are with what or who god is and indeed our ability to connect with and be with God.

      1. It sure does David, you could ask 100 people what their image of God is and you would get 100 different answers, so no wonder we find it hard to connect with God!

  178. I kind of have to laugh at myself as a very young person being scared of the man made fires of hell and the unnecessary guilt I took on in believing what was erroneously taught to me as a child. All the God being angry, jealous and vengeful when all God is, is Love.

    1. We have free will to figure out our own relationship with God and indeed, whether we choose to believe in his existence, or not. However, it’s something else entirely to mis-represent the truth and portray God to be the opposite of who he truly is and force this belief on others, punishing ‘non-believers’ – to do that takes a very evil force indeed.

      1. There are so many pictures we have of God and indeed we’ve gone to war over those pictures at various times in our histories, insisting that ‘our’ view of God was ‘correct’ but reading this brings it all back to us and each of our relationships with God and how in fact God is there always ready and waiting for us to claim our place alongside him. It’s our ideas that keep us away from God.

      2. We are obsessed with battles of the outer world, and without honesty fail to face up to real battles raging within us. We’re constantly teased and pulled to choose between feeding the small insular self or expressing our love of humanity in each and every movement. The choice is always as simple as this, but doesn’t always feel so.

  179. Its great to bust wide open all the myths and pictures we have of God, all the lies and made up stories to be controlled that we have and just feel the deep connection we all have available if we dare choose it.

  180. The body knows God, it needs no explanation or visuals to justify what it intimately knows.

  181. ‘It is only we who self-measure and it is very ungodly to do so.’ – God already knows exactly who we are and holds us in love, honouring the potential of everything that we already are. We are the ones who struggle to accept our own magnificence.

  182. The more we see our pictures, the more that come up. We have a myriad of pictures each one there to make sure we are kept held in our own illusional imprisonment and prevented from realising our connection to God.

  183. ‘The more I become aware of the abuse this self-measuring incurs, the more I am able to consciously let it go.’ It is only through awareness of our patterns and addictions that we are able to observe them and let them go. I love what you share here about measuring ourselves, we have done it for eons, comparing and creating issues which don’t exist.

  184. I agree. Having a Christian upbringing myself, there was a lot of talk and discussion about God, but I always felt most connected to God when I was in quiet moments alone, or in nature, or in the connection and love I experienced with others.

    1. As a kid, I often heard talk about God, but no-one seemed to have a clue who he was or any tangible sense of a relationship with him. It was all just white-noise with zero lived experience as a foundation. No wonder I didn’t buy that version of God.

  185. Beautiful Simone, undressing the pictures and ultimately arriving at the simple glory of our every movement; the natural ease & steadiness offered by our shared homeostasis.

    1. It is ironic that we perceive God to be ‘assessing our worthiness’ … when in truth it is us who are assessing our own worthiness.

  187. It’s so much simpler coming back to the body as all of those pictures just get in the way and are designed to keep us away from truth and keep us in the mind.

  189. If only we stopped to pause, reflect and question the beliefs we hold and to be aware of the potential of what is on offer here, the difference and impact this would have in our lives and the world as a whole.

  190. This is beautiful Simone, your simple expressions of your relationship with God are exquisite.

  191. This speaks to me of a very real, everyday relationship that runs through every aspect of our lives. Why not? Why does God have to be sat on a pedestal when really He feels equal and it is just us that creates the gap. Just need to keep it simple, and invite Him into our lives at every opportunity.

  192. Why do we need pictures of God? Could it be we have surrendered ourselves to something else, and the photos are further proof to keep us in separation?

  193. “The vehicle for accessing this relationship with God is through my body” – in the importance of the body is found the importance of ourselves and also of God.

    1. Through being more aware of our physical body we can also be more aware of our multi-dimensionality.

  196. ‘He was something or someone that other people had in their lives.’ I used to feel perplexed when I met people who believed in God. I was always curious. I learnt there were some who had him only as a concept, something believed from the mind. But with those that I felt knew God, had a relationship with God, I asked, what/ who was God to them and how did they go about knowing Him? I am still asking but more than this, I am feeling my truth with this and the fact I do know God, I just wasn’t asking myself.

  198. The pictures or images of God that we have created are what keeps him separate to us, when in fact he is all around us and in us constantly.

  199. An image can only be cast by our desire to see something, and desire leaves much to be interfered with.

  200. The very fact that we have a picture of God shows just how far we have strayed from knowing his innate love within us. When we truly feel the quality of his love in our bodies, our movements, thoughts and actions, we have no need for an image of how he should be, because we are immersed in his immense wisdom.

  201. When I feel that inner stillness, that quiet and inner settlement, that is when I feel most connected to God. I know some people like to talk to God but for me it’s the feeling of space that does it.

      1. Yes… and on reflection, this is huge isn’t? We assume that God is somewhere ‘out there’ looking down on us don’t we? Yet, to discover the feeling that God is within us changes all our ideals and beliefs around this topic.

  203. Are we confused by the images that we have about God or any other image as they are a distraction taking us away from what our Inner-Heart is feeling, therefore if we feel first from our essences or Inner-Hearts then we can no longer be fooled by an image!

  204. Our bodies are very important vehicles – and hence how we care for them will determine the passengers we carry.

  205. How crazy is this world that an energy, ie God, which is innate within every one of us and completely surrounds us constantly, is supposedly unknown to us…

  207. God is seen through the eyes of the heart and never through the pictures in our head.

  208. ‘The vehicle for accessing this relationship with God is through my body’ – Beuatifully said – when we start to truly honour and listen to the constant communication from our bodies, it becomes obvious that God is never absent.

  210. What a wonderfully playful exploration of images of God that get in the way of our relationship with God.

  211. When we drop these pictures of God we know that we are so completely held in the love he’s always held us in.

  212. Letting go of the pictures we hold of God and accepting that He is only a breath away and every in-breath in conscious presence, offers the re-connection with our essence within.

  213. Simone, your simple and practical everyday tips for re-connecting with God through the body are great reminders and easily accessible for all.
    “The vehicle for accessing this relationship with God is through my body; being able to connect to my body through feeling and listening to what it is saying to me”.

  214. The part of this blog where it talks about not deserving God brought tears to my eyes cause I can feel that I still have this picture hanging around too but then reading the list of real every day experiences you have had Simone they are so undeniably divine and I could relate to all of them too, so this tells me that I am definitely divine and I am worthy of standing alongside God as an equal being.

  215. Although there are many aspects of our physical life that it is useful to have some knowledge about, it is seriously unintelligent to walk around with preconceived pictures of things, because it gets in the way of our ability to be fully open to actually receiving what life is offering us in the moment. I find when the image I am carrying is very strong it is possible to hear a different thing to what is actually expressed.

    Championing preconceived pictures of God can similarly sabotage our ability to truly feel , acknowledge , deepen and expand the glorious inner relationship with him everyone already has with him.

  216. Pictures form our expectations and expectations result in us casting our a projection of what we want to see based on what we need life to be. Holding pictures stops us seeing the fullness of what is truly there. And this is utterly evil as it prohibits us accessing Gods Wisdom

  217. ‘God Doesn’t Add Up’. This reminds me of what my kids might say around their maths homework. They can’t work out the answer not because the question is hard or wrong, but because of the way that they are trying to work it out, because of the methods they are using, the choices that they have made in the process. So when they get to the end, they are right, the sum doesn’t add up.

  218. Am I deserving of God? A brilliant a pertinent question for us all. On paper, it’s such a big question that it is no surprise that it overwhelms most of us. But I wonder if there is another way to look at it that might support us? If we are to accept that we are all vehicles that God works through, thus we are all Gods, then perhaps a simpler question would be, “do I deserve to breathe?” The answer to this one is easier I feel.

    1. If we are all Gods as we are, and vehicles God works through, then if we reject that we are rejecting God. Sometime we might feel more comfortable with rejecting or judging ourselves than doing that to God, but really it is the same.

  219. Am driving through the stunning Welsh countryside early in the morning with my head buried in my computer (don’t worry, I’m the passenger!) reading this blog about pictures of God. Then I finally look up and see the most magnificent sunrise. QED.

  221. We have so many pictures of God and I’m sure they will all differ from each other. But no matter what, the majority of us seem to agree there is a God. To me this is where society breaks down, because we have become intolerant of other people’s version of God, some believing that they hold the moral high ground when it comes to God. But what if we realised that every move we make is in the space that is God, that every breath we take is God because we breathe space and space is God. What if the universe is the body of God and we are held on this planet within the universe by God? Then we are all the same doing all the same thing, which is having an intimate relationship with God. We make God very complicated, but actually it’s simple, our very particles are composed of the matter of space which is the body of God. This means we are all Gods actually playing at being non Gods.

  222. The pictures we choose to believe in are nothing but excuses to not claim all that we are – the reflection of God and to not take responsibility for the lives we create and everything that occurs in the world.

  223. When someone recently said to me ‘God, I love you!’ and had said before that ‘God, I miss you!’, I realized how accurate that actually is. We miss God when we don’t allow ourselves to connect to him and realize we miss ourselves. And we love God immensely, so much there are actually no appropriate words for it.

  224. Churches have stained windows depicting events and people that we have to look up to view them as they look down at us. Does this make us feel that we are less to be humbled by their greatness? Or, has this been a way to keep us contained to our lower status of mere mortals? These monoliths are not needed to house God and his pictures, for he resides in every one of us.

      2. When we understand the true power of our divine reflection and that we need do-nothing less than deepening our Livingness and others will then feel that “whole new level” of Love.

  225. God is often not so much allowed as a topic of free conversation – at least this has been my experience with many religious people. In past conversations you are told what God is or is not like and you are not really given the freedom to share what your opinion or view is without being judged or looked down upon for saying anything out of the context of what ‘should’ be said. This is a shame, for in our discussions and talks it allows us to explore things in depth and then allows us to feel more easily what is true for us and allows a more honest relationship to develop with God.

    1. So true Henrietta. I have found those who have a knowing of God will share their experience of God in a way that by the expression of this deepens their understanding and knowing too.

  226. Awesome sharing anent God – thank you Simone! There are indeed so many pictures we carry of God and how he is or should be, yet it appears that they are so far away from the truth of the feeling of God himself.

  227. The fact that we have pictures of God shows how far we have fallen from our original state of being.

    1. Exactly Nico it is a clear give away that we are invested in what we can see and not what we can feel.

      1. Yes, well said Vanessa, there is so much of an investment in the pictures we hold about God and these are the basis for the wars we experience all over the world.

  228. God is so much more close to us than in the pictures we have made about him. We are never without God, and God is never not with us and that can be Cleary felt when we deeply connect with our bodies.

    1. Beautiful comment Nico, and I would go as far to say that the pictures and stories we have about God seem deliberately designed to keep us further away from God and that intimacy with God that we can so tangibly feel in our bodies.

      1. Thank you, Andrew, and it is also the way we are educated in which our thinking has been made more important than our connection with our body. We are taught that we can abuse our body by pushing it by the will of the mind to get the extreme physical achievements that momentarily give us rewards and so on.

  229. When I consider the acts of atrocity that people have carried out throughout history in ‘the name of God’, it is no wonder that there may be many people who turn their backs on the invitation to know God for themselves. However, this can only be so if we choose to accept the lies and mis-representation of the truth, which is that God is within us all and holds us ALL in his beholding love, equally so. We are merely giving in to the evil if we don’t discern for ourselves what feels true and what does not.

  230. Dismantling our pictures of God enables us connect to the truth of God as the pictures are blinkers that deprive us of that connection.

    1. Only we can discern the truth for ourselves – pictures are a distraction – a lazy way out for us to not take responsibility and as a consequence we can end up feeding the lies even more – giving them more street cred, making it easier for others to fall into the same trap.

  231. What a great process to let go of all the pictures of God and discover God is everywhere, all around us and inside us. In fact we are all God.

    1. Yes, the fact is we are all Gods – having pictures of God and making ourselves less than him is something to ponder on how we have been able to fall that far.

  232. “I don’t suppose God has a whole lot of time for formal introductions like that” – smiled out loud reading this today. Yep, I guess he does not either :-). It is up to us to step up and meet God and know that he is with us all the time but it is up to us to look for him. And the irony is once we do that we realise that his divine spark lives within us all.

  234. “Can we fathom that actually we are the same and equal, but have just chosen to make ourselves less?” An awesome question to ask ourselves and to consider. In reality, why would an all-loving God have anyone else less than the love he is – if we are truthful, it really does not make sense.

  235. We humanise God and try to reduce his vibration by putting these pictures on Him, but God does not have human traits, He does not live in the lowered vibration we have chosen to live in. So, these pictures distort and distract us from connecting to His love, who he is and who we are, a Son of God.

    1. Wow – awesome point Chan – and spot on we cannot humanise God just as we cannot un-God ourselves either.

  236. A very relatable blog Simone – some years ago, I too would have had a similar gallery of pictures (ideals & beliefs & expectations) hanging on the wall.

  237. God kinda gets a bad rap doesn’t he? The fact of the matter is that, as you point out, we all have so many varying pictures of what or who God is. We have a way of complicating things, but God is simple – remove the picture and you can find this too.

    1. ‘God is simple – remove the picture and you can find this too.’ – Hear hear, how far did we stray away from simplicity…

  238. It is true that we all have our own conditions and expectations that paint a picture of what God is to us. But what’s great about this is it exposes how by doing this we are not appreciating that we are a God and that God walks with us in each moment

  239. You can feel the confusion and complication of trying to find God in pictures and the sheer simplicity and clarity of knowing him through your body and the quality of movement.

    1. I love what you say here Michael- ‘the sheer simplicity and clarity of knowing him through your body and the quality of movement’ Now that is simple.

  240. The title of the first picture ‘Geocentricity – God you need to introduce yourself to me’ is quite absurd in that we have separated so far from the sense of being divine by nature, that we take this stance and insist that God comes to us and introduces himself.

  241. Definitely pondering my God pictures…some times it is all so simple and accessible we think it can not be it. But ‘it’ love, God, the divine should because of its true origins be all of that.

  242. This is funny and poignant , it is like looking for your glasses but finding them on your head, or thinking you are not loved but neglecting you have a heart within that can love ourselves and all equally, or looking for God but not looking in the mirror or eyes of another and seeing that divine spark shining bright and knowing we are all Gods.

    1. Yes, how much love do we neglect and reject on a daily basis- from the heart within that knows how to love ourselves and others without bounds or conditions. Yes it is like finding your glasses on your head!

  243. I like how you pose the everyday life questions of whether it is possible to do them with God. We have made God a separate being to us that is grander and wiser but where do we stand when we place ourselves next to him, where does our responsibility lie then?

  244. I used to laugh at the saying that “God created man in his own image”, because it seemed to me that in contrast “mankind had created an image of God according to his own character”, and mostly the worst aspects of his character at that. For example to me it was preposterous to ascribe to God the qualities of judging, angry, holding a grudge, punishing, favouring some over others, condoning abuse and killing of one another and a host of other ridiculous behaviours that mankind regularly indulges in.

    Rather than reducing anyone and anything that shows us a reflection of our glorious potential, let us embrace the responsibility of raising ourselves to such a quality in equalness.

  245. A beautiful sharing and understanding of God and the amount of pictures we carry. A refreshing truth of the reality of being one with God inside us and our innate connection that is always to be felt there underneath the pictures and beliefs we have taken on. An amazing joy to let go of and feel God within.

  246. Thank you Simone, I felt something in me expand when I read about your picture of not deserving God, that would be a belief I’ve picked up and now able to be aware of and let go of. The whole concept of God having conditions is so un-God-like in the sense that love is just that, love, and it’s unconditional.

  247. The pictures that we receive of God are mostly far removed from the truth. There is a knowingness deeply seated in us that God is love and yet we have been sold so many lies that perpetrate the utter confusion and misery that a life without God has become. And yet, we need to return in our own time – when we are willing to hear that voice within that calls us to return as imposition only forms a deeper wedge between us and God.

  248. “For me, God is about awareness and clairsentience (feeling and sensing). It’s not something I can access through my mind and think about. It is something I feel.” This is what I too understand about God now, and very much know that feeling of knowing God is with me when I am choosing to stay connected to who I am. And it becomes very clear very quickly when I let go of that inner connection, even for a moment.

  249. We do everything with God, like it or not we live inside his body so it is impossible not to. However, the critical difference is whether we choose to align to his way of doing things or our own and that is where the point of contention comes in, not from God but from us wanting to do it our own way. Human intelligence seems to fall a long way short of God’s immense wisdom.

  251. The examples given to access God through the body are very beautiful and expansive deepening my awareness that when I access my body to connect with God it is not only for self but for everyone and everything too.

  252. I have learnt a new word, Geocentricity, looking this up it then exposed our arrogance in thinking we ‘earth’ is the centre of the Universal. Gosh I do no think we can fathom the actual size of the Universe and it is very egocentric to think we are the centre of it!!!!! Also this ‘God you need to introduce yourself to me’ highlighted to me how we tend to always look for things on the outside but what we really need to do is connect first within as this is where everything is known once we get ourselves out of the way.

  253. “pictures of God” – in picturing ourselves we picture God, whatever the quality of the picture.

  254. I love these questions, they remind me that God is not out there but lives inside us all and that our connection to God can be very simple and very everyday and simply means we are being our naturally loving selves; ‘Should I be speaking to my brother with God? Should I be teaching with God?’.

  255. We are all born into this world in a greenhouse, naked without values and beliefs. Look at most teenagers, and the walls of their bedrooms are covered with posters. As we age is there any space for light that can reach us, through all the pictures we have obscured/covered every pane in our greenhouse.

  256. Experiencing God is much greater than inventing it. We don’t actually need any picture about something that is so within us, just living it, intimately, in everything we do, everywhere we go. So yes please, lets bring Love-God to the shop, to our relationships, to our jobs, our gaze, our touch… to every detail of our life to really know first hand about its nature.

  257. We often hear people say young children are impressionable but look at what we are impressing onto them, images of God that are very far from the truth. The truth is children already know God and then we as adults come along with these pictures and then it takes lifetimes in some cases to discard those pictures.

  258. God is with us everywhere, even in our most intimate moments we think we have only for our own. He is never not with us as he is forever holding us in his love, the love we do know so well because we are from the same source.

  259. How can you have a two or three-dimensional picture of God while he is multidimensional? It is impossible and if we have them, of course, self-made.

  260. Brilliant blog Simone. Our investment in holding onto our perception of pictures (about anything) brings the greatest contraction and disappointment – they just keep us deep in an illusion of how things should be, but actually, in truth, are never what we think or imagine things to be.

    1. Yes Alexis, let’s shred them, but also let’s stop creating any picture of God ever again.

    2. Yes Alexis, looking back it is a long and complicated process to be at a pictureless starting point, to then pick up pictures and then take them down. Waste of time and space. Remembering that we didn’t have pictures in the first place can quicken the process.

  263. We are taught about God through words and pictures but God is accessible through feeling and religious education does not always inspire us to feel, instead we are encouraged to sacrifice our bodies and ‘try to be good’ which has nothing to do with the Truth of God.

    1. If feeling and the body is the true gateway to a relationship with God, then is it any wonder that many of the religions very consciously manipulate us away from our bodies. There are of curse the multiple very extreme examples of this that have been carried out for aeons with almost no remorse or ramifications, but the there are also the very simple ones – does sitting on a wooden bench in a cold church allow us to connect to the sensitivity and clairsentience of our bodies. Don’t under-estimate the plan behind everything.

  264. I can now see, that it is by carrying all those pictures of God, which you have so beautifully described, that we actually shut ourselves off from God, and in the process shut ourselves off from us as well. If we are able to let go of those pictures of what we think God is, most of them passed down to us through age-old beliefs, we open ourselves up to begin to feel the truth of God and this truth cannot be a process of the mind but a feeling within the body. And knowing that we know God within every particle of our body means that, yes, God is with us everywhere – including the gym and the supermarket!

    1. Ingrid I like how you describe that we know God within every particle of our body that is because our particles are the same as the universe. God is the universe so it makes sense to say we are the universe too. Our down fall is that we have allowed men to dictate to humanity what is and isn’t God, we have fallen for the veneration of God rather than to hold ourselves equal.

    2. The body is our marker of truth, not pictures or beliefs we have taken on and held throughout the ages. When we access and are willing to explore and feel from the body we open ourselves up to truth.

  265. This is brilliant. When people talk about having pictures of God or of anything- a happy life – I haven’t quite understood as much as I do now after reading this that a picture is more that the picture it’s attached to. Let me say more. So having a picture of God doesn’t equate to having a picture, nicely framed of a man with white beard and flowing robes (though it could be this too). It’s having an idea like being unworthy of His love. I say this because understanding pictures and how they can corrupt truth is important if I am to notice they are there and then to challenge them.

    1. Yes pictures are ideals and beliefs we hold in the body so we have a picture based on something we feel including lack of self-worth. I too have seen this clearer since reading this blog.

      1. And then we complain that our life (in that box) is boring and monochromatic, so we indulge in all sorts to try to make that box feel more exciting. How about stepping out the box – then it all starts to get pretty epic and inspiring!

      3. Alexis – staying within this metaphor, what I have found is that by taking one side of the box down, it destabilises the other sides. Also, the light that floods in when one side of the box is removed supports me to drop the other sides….I think we’ve probably milked this metaphor to its limit now?!

    2. Yes, having a picture is definitely part of controlling the uncontrollable and boxing what (thankfully) can’t be boxed.

  267. Can we wear our hearts on our sleeves or do we feel the essence of our connection to our inner-heart or esoteric (one in the same) through our connection with God? Starting out with the Gentle Breath Meditation was the first sign-post for me to re-check-in with my inner-heart and feel the re-connection to God.
    For more on the “Gentle Breath Meditation” go to;
    FREE GENTLE BREATH MEDITATION
    http://www.unimedliving.com/search?keyword=Free+Gentle+Breath+Meditation

  268. If we are not deserving of a connection with the Divine we have that picture of not good enough and can fall into the trap of trying to be ‘good’.

    1. Not being accepting of our own Divinity allows us to play small, it can be an excuse to not take responsibility in living the grandness of who we truly are.

  269. Gorgeous, it is time to take down the pictures, for they are always interfering with our inner-heart truth. Because simply our pictures do not add up with our whole senses, hence it better to let them go.

    1. Agreed Danna we know so much more when we allow ourselves to feel the truth rather that judge if something meets a picture we have or not.

    2. And the pictures were never there in the beginning when we were children. We didn’t even see pictures.

  270. An interesting article exploring the pictures we can hold. You have done this about God and looked what you discovered. Imagine we all did this, slowly but surely, about God and lots of other subjects. Exploring what we think/believe around a certain topic, dismantling it and pairing it back to the truth of the matter.

    1. That is what I felt too, if we all reflected on all the pictures we hold and just see if they make sense and how they feel in and with our bodies we could easily rid ourselves of beliefs that do not hold true to us.

  271. Growing up in a church I was surrounded by pictures of what God Jesus and Mary looked like. Like the words used in a church service, these pictures do influence who and what we think God is and they do stay with us until we break down bit by bit these pictures and impressions that are so indelible.

    1. Yes but often if we allow oureelves to feel the truth we can sense that those pictures do not add up with what we feel. Hence, it takes than our strenght amd ability to go for what we feel and not succomb to the need or picture.

  272. In my course we are looking at family dynamics and how often in families there are labels given for a problem child, and this is the scapegoat used for some or if not all to use so they don’t deal with their own stuff. When it comes to God, I would say he has been used as the biggest scapegoat in history! Let’s blame it on God, say God said to do it, if it wasn’t for God we would all be xyz etc. But like the so called ‘problem child’ in the family, if we looked at what are they actually bringing to the surface for us to deal with as a whole, we could see it as a blessing not a ‘curse’. God only holds us in love, there are no curses or judgement or wrath from God. Does Gods love expose our unloving ways, so that is why we like to create pictures that God is the opposite? We talk about we must have equality among humanity, if we saw ourselves as equal to God, equality among all would be a given.

    1. I love your comment, Aimee and couldn’t agree more. We can’t blame God or someone or something outside of us, because all of us are God.

      1. So in some ways we can blame God for the world around us but not in the sense that we can blame an external figure but in the embodied sense that we are all the living aspects of God who are choosing to behave decidedly ungodly.

  273. Beyond ironic, I find that the pictures of God we have collected form the worlds so-called ‘religions’ are the deepest form of hypocrisy… since it is these very pictures that get in the way of us feeling, knowing and living the Truth that God is.

    …but who is responsible for the massive mis-understandings and bastardizations of what and who God is?

    I know this world works by supply and demand, so is it possible that we have not wanted to truly know God and this is why we have allowed ourselves to believe in false pictures, why we have ‘swallowed’ the lies?

    The more I re-acquaint myself with my own natural connection with and knowing of God the more aware I am of what is going on in the world (and this is painful) and with more awareness comes a greater and greater sense of responsibility…

    …is it possible that all the harm from all the bastardization of truth, religion and God be from our deep seeded avoidance of responsibility?

  274. Brilliant blog Simone, I love what you’ve exposed and let go of. Interestingly, I was not brought up in any way religious in my family but I also carried the same pictures as you of God. It makes you wonder how that is possible. I collected these pictures from meeting people who also carried these picture, the movies I watched, the books I read and through education from attending religious studies which I was not interested in but had to participate as part of my schooling. So, these pictures of God are everywhere around us, it is time to dismantle them too, take them down one by one as none of these pictures supports us to truly connect to God, in fact, they do the opposite of support.

  275. The only thing that separates me from God is my arrogant refusal to surrender to every single message he sends me through my body. God has always been inside us and us inside him. It is an irrefutable law of the Universe we live in.

  277. GOD is something you feel and not an argument, belief, construct or intellectual ideal. It is a lived way of love you feel in your body and hold equally for all.

  278. I enjoyed your tease Simone, and am becoming more aware and more accepting that God is in all of those ‘little things’ – that can no longer remain classed as ‘little’ once we realise we are all capable of and responsible for moving with God.

  279. Great point re. Feeling we don’t deserve God. We feel we must be judged by him
    As that’s how we have lived but there is zero judgment from him, just love.

  280. Those pictures you have about God, Simone I can very much relate to and as a kid whilst having an inner cry to connect with God I just didn’t know how. All these mental constructs about God made me feel less connected to him.

  281. “When I am aware of the intimacy that I can feel with people.” Its’ when it transcends such earthly things as friendship, companionship, connection. It is when you feel the space of something so much grander – that there is so much more than just the two of you involved in the relationship.

      1. I wasn’t joking! Well, I was, but I wasn’t. Anyway. Seriously though – if we truly accept what we are then we are much more likely to take responsibility for it. Would you look after a £10,000 diamond better than you’d look after a pebble? Exactly.

  284. I hadn’t thought about self measuring as being ungodly, which of course it is, but put in those terms it makes my body want to withdraw from such ungodly behaviour.

    1. I too held onto these pictures of God and they made me feel repelled whenever I heard people talk about God in this reduced form and at one point I thought that God doesn’t exist because nothing added up. I didn’t feel any of these pictures were true and concluded that God does not exist. In these false versions of God they can cause us to be in such reaction that we could potentially disconnect from God further and further. So, I now know that these pictures of God are very cunningly designed to keep us away from God. Once I realised this, letting these pictures of God go was easy for me because I never felt they were true. But I recognised how these pictures once impacted me with doubts of who God is due to seeing these pictures everywhere. By letting them go, I am not meeting the next person with these pictures and therefore not imposing them onto others, it is a responsibility that is so worth taking.

      1. Thats a good point. When I express my pictures I can feel they aren’t true. But others can express their pictures and totally believe them and hold them strong. So it’s not just the voicing them that releases us from our pictures, thats just the last boot out the door.

  286. I love your introduction Simone it exposes the lies we have taken on and made our truth about God, and the many pictures we have accumulated over the years. As children we know God we don’t necessarily say the word God but we have a feeling within us that knows that life is not just what we see, we are equally aware of all that is around us and in us, there is a joyfulness.and lightness that comes from our connection to the Universe and to God. As we grow up we are conditioned to see God by school, by how people talk about God, and by the insidious way that religion has separated us from God, by making sure we see God as being up there and us being down here and neither shall ever meet unless you are special and a chosen one. Because of this everyone has their own picture of God none of which come close to the magnitude and magnificence of God, who is with us always, and forever by our side.

    1. That is exactly how I knew God growing up – a knowingness within. I could never relate to the God presented to me in Church or during Religious Education – what was shared felt more like stories than the truth. Not that I necessarily felt I knew any better, I just couldn’t accept the pictures being presented to me as my truth. I felt sad that how I felt about ‘God’ seemed so different to everyone else.

      1. I felt the story of Jesus was not true as a child, none of it really made sense so I dismissed it as such and this is how I saw religion too. Like you Alison, it made me sad because I could feel God, but everything that was told to me was different to what I felt.

  287. It is very cool how you have looked at the pictures you have held of God. We hold so many pictures of so many different things. I love the tangible way you described the pictures, particularly in the fourth paragraph. It’s very healing and also shows just how much the pictures we hold have an effect on our physical body and surroundings. As you share, we are literally putting them up on a wall in holding onto these pictures energetically, but maybe not always so conscious we are doing this.

  288. Love this Simone, the boxes and boxes of pictures we carry which are false and give us the perfect excuse not to even bother contemplating our relationship with God.

  289. Thank you for exposing the many pictures we have of God that prevent us from truly connecting to the knowingness that God is always within us which the pictures only serve to obscure.

    1. I agree Helen, that those pictures of God ‘only serve to obscure’. In fact, I am starting to see how big and obscuring those pictures can become and in the process how we drift further and further away from the truth of God. But a picture is not forever unless we make it so, and by one simple choice, we can shatter it and open up our eyes to the truth that lays waiting behind it.

      1. Absolutely we can ditch our pictures at any time and allow the space to feel what is true without imposition of how something should ‘look’.

  290. Society teaches us that thinking and reasoning is the greatest way of knowing something, as if without defining something as a picture you don’t know it. But we will really only ever know anything and anyone from the connection we have from within.

    1. So True Golnaz, re-connecting to our inner-most as one does through the Gentle Breath Meditation is life changing and by such a simple practical tool.

  291. “Without any further ado… it’s the one about not deserving God. When I drop this one, I open myself up to feeling God.” Yes I know this one and it goes for everything divine and loving at the same time. The other day I felt I was fighting love and not letting myself feel I am worthy of this love and how much tension and hardness I had to built in my body to stop this love coming to me. Feeling all that effort it made sense to just let it go and allow the love to be felt and around me.

  292. In the 14th century artists discovered perspective and how to make the eyes of a portrait follow you, God, was top of the list for scary photos because scripture filled you with, God is always watching you!

    1. The irony is that these pictures that pertained to be of God were actually not, they were man-made, and kept people away from knowing God.

  293. I like the example of your picture that God needs to introduce himself to us. I know this one well and came to realise at some point that i was thinking God was not communicating with me when in fact he was constantly, in every possible way, but it was I who choosing to not see and hear it as i had an ideal of what that looked like. Now I can feel God when I deeply connect within myself and surrender any picture or condition i have been holding.

  294. The pictures of God we were fed as a young child were there to keep us in line but from an angle of fear. Now that I am re-learning that the connection to God is through the body and is as simple as a choice.

  295. I love that you are sharing the truth about God – that God is not someone who sits in the clouds as many of us have been led to believe, but that we can be with God in our everyday; through how we move and being open and loving with ourselves an others.

  296. an awesome call to examine the pictures we hold of God, that keep us in separation to him. I am starting to see how much work this is, for we are always held in his body, and so to be in separation we need the pictures to ‘wall us in’ so to speak and keep us from feeling and living this very natural connection.

  297. When we let go of all that god is not, God just is! So much of what has been written about him seems like a deliberate attempt to throw us off the true way of being and connecting to ourselves and through this we naturally are at one with him.

    1. What better way to control than by providing people with a belief that is not true, a belief that takes them away from their true selves as they are trying to connect with a misrepresentation of the truth.

  298. Simone, great article, thank you. I love what you shared about God being part of our everyday life and going shopping and having dinner with God, this feels really simple and true.

  299. It is refreshing to have a view of God that covers the depth that is really on offer, and how we all come with so many versions of what God is. So many pictures that we often become stuck fighting each other instead of appreciating each other.

  300. “For me, God is about awareness and clairsentience (feeling and sensing)” – as i understand and experience it is through the relationship with my body that God is accessed. And since we all have a body, we all have equal access to Him.

  301. Personally I do not attach the word “should” to God as love has no imposition or judgment although of course I am not saying you should not use the word should or that would be a should!

  302. When we stop looking outside of us at the pictures we have created we are able to feel the presence of God within.

  303. Without a doubt the picture of not deserving God is the largest even though it can get lost amongst all the others, or so I have found.

  305. Great blog exposing all of the pictures that get in the way of us having a relationship with God, understanding and knowing God through our bodies, through feeling. This is true of so many things in life: when we have pictures of how we want things to be, we stop ourselves from moving forward and moving through life, from embracing the learning and the beauty of being and living in the moment.

  306. “It’s time to take down the pictures.” Yes indeed. It would seem we are often fed pictures of God when we are little and they may stay intact until we are adults. Looking at and unpicking the beliefs we have feels so good. Feeling from my body is now the way to go for me.

  307. “God is above and separate from us” – I had this image of God for a long time too. Understanding that space is filled with divinity – God – I’m beginning to understand that God is all around us.

    1. If as you say (and I agree) God is Space then space is not only all around us but within us too – in fact everywhere and equally we could say we are within him / her.

  308. “The more I become aware of the abuse this self-measuring incurs, the more I am able to consciously let it go.” Thank you Simone I absolutely agree. Only we by ourselves can stop this self-measuring, otherwise we hold on to the picture that we are less than god.

    1. That would be an interesting picture to ask everyone to put on the wall Ester! – we have accepted and even invited the picture that we are less than God, with devastating effect to our bodies and every other person on the planet.

  310. Absolutely … when we connect to the stillness, openness, transparency, intimacy, delicateness and tenderness innate within ourselves and others we meet God – no pictures needed.

    1. Great point Joseph. Defining the undefinable is impossible, hence the crazy pictures we have been fed, not only as young ones but by a church that wants to dominate.

    4. We are multidimensional beings living in an ungodly way and then we try to reduce God down to a lower vibration where we cannot access his love and wisdom. I agree it is pretty Crazy.

  312. Beautiful light article that opens us up to the fact that many of us do have ideas about God that get in the way of being equal and with God. In the still moments, when we feel love, when we feel truth, we are with God and we know there is more to life than just the pictures that we see.

  314. We are taught about God as children through pictures – mine was a grey haired man up on a throne with rays of light pouring down from the clouds. God was always ‘Up There’ and I was always ‘down here’, but now I am learning that God is all around and in me. When I allow myself to feel God within my body I don’t need to have any pictures or to think who or what is God.

  315. Wow Simone, this blog speaks to my heart. I love the way you expose and dismantle those pictures that we each hold, and how often they are so familiar that we don’t even see them as images separate to ourselves, especially the one about not being good enough, which happens to me when I am caught up in my mind.

  316. We are never encouraged to feel God inside our bodies, but that is quite literally our nearest and dearest connection and absolute confirmation that God neither judges nor measures our worthiness, he just keeps on loving every single particle of our bodies. All we need to do is join in!

    1. Amazing isn’t it Rowena, God is always within us and all around us but we have throughout history done everything possible to push our connection with God away and make Him external and superior to us. Through the pictures of God, we further cement our separation from God. But if we drop all the pictures we can feel that God is in every cell of our body.

    2. So true Rowena … it is only we who measure our worthiness – God loves us wholly and completely as the gorgeous beings we already are.

  317. The pictures we have of God and there are many, are what stops us from connecting and feeling to the fact that God is always present and literally around us. God is the space that surrounds and touches us. I am beginning to understand “God is everywhere”.

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