{"id":404,"date":"2008-09-21T00:01:59","date_gmt":"2008-09-21T00:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/09\/how-god-functions.html"},"modified":"2008-09-21T00:01:59","modified_gmt":"2008-09-21T00:01:59","slug":"how-god-functions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/09\/how-god-functions.html","title":{"rendered":"How God functions – Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

God functions in a very particular way — and I do not believe this way has ever been accurately described for us by traditional religions.
\nThe New Spirituality, on the other hand, offers us deep insight into the mechanism of Life — or what we might call the process of God.<\/em>
\nConversations with God<\/em> makes it clear that God is not a Super Human Being, living somewhere up in the sky, having the same proclivities and the same emotional needs as humans. God is neither a male nor a female, nor is God of any particular race. God’s face is not black or yellow or red or white. God is all of the above, combined. Because God is, in fact, everything there is, combined.<\/em>
\nThis is the “secret combination” that unlocks the Universe.
\nLast week in our Teaching Lesson in Sunday School All Week<\/strong> we explored the function of God. We were unable, because of space restrictions (we did not wish to “write an encyclopedia,” as they say), to complete our explanation. What we did say was that God’s Kingdom consists of three realms: The Realm of the Absolute<\/strong>, the Realm of the Relative<\/strong>, and what I have termed the Realm of the Absolative<\/strong> (being the Absolute and the Relative, combined.)
\nI had to invent a word — “Absolative”<\/em> — to describe this Third Place in the Kingdom of God because there is not word in the human language for it. Few people have even attempted to describe it.
\nIt is that place between Knowing and Experiencing that is both and neither. The place where God is greater than the Sum of Its Parts…
\nThe Realm of the Absolute<\/strong> could also be called the Realm of the Spiritual. It is where the Individuations of God (such as You) know absolutely everything, absolutely and simultaneously.
\nThe Realm of the Relative<\/strong> could also be called the Realm of the Physical. It is where the Individuations of God (such as You) experience everything that you know, relatively and sequentially.
\nThe Realm of the Absolative<\/strong> could also be called the Realm of the All. It is where the Individuations of God (such as You) know and experience your Selves sequentaneously. That is, the Knowing and the Experiencing are happening BOTH sequentially AND simultaneously at once. The expression is therefore sequentaneous<\/em>.
\nSuch a thing could only happen in an environment of Time\/No Time. It is the place where all the When-Where’s of Eternity exist Here-and-Now.
\nNow some people call the Realm of the Spiritual the “Kingdom of God”…or “Heaven,” if you will. Yet I am told that is not accurate. The truth is, ALL of it is Heaven, ALL of it is The Kingdom of God.
\nThat’s as far as I got last week. So let’s go on from there…
\nGod’s process is this:
\n1. God individuates Itself, manifesting Itself as a millon-kagillion-bazillion “singularizations” of The Singularity. Or, if you please, the Only Thing That Is.
\n2. God does this so that It can realize Itself. The Process of Self Realization is a three-part process: (1) Know; (2) Experience; (3) Be. In the Single State of Pure Being God can Be Itself — but It cannot Know or Experience what It is Being, for the simple reason that there is nothing else.<\/em>
\n(You cannot know yourself to be “big” is there is nothing “small” that exists. You cannot experience yourself as being “fast” is there is nothing “slow” that exists. If nothing exists except That Which You Are, then That Which You Are is not knowable or experienceable.<\/em> It is conceivable (that is, you can conceive of it), but it is not knowable or experienceable.)
\n3. Since there was nothing else that IS save the ONLY Thing That Is, God could not go “outside of Itself” to find out about Itself; to Know Itself or to Experience what it might come to Know. So, God did the only thing that God could do. God divided Itself into a countless number of parts (or aspects of Divinity), so that each part might then experience The Whole, and so that The Whole might experience Itself through each of Its parts. This process is what I have called “individuation.”
\n4. God then created a series of what we might call Devices, through which the Knowing and the Experiencing of Itself would become possible, even though nothing else but<\/em> Itself existed. These Devices were: Time, Space, Physicality; Relativity; Forgetfulness; Consciousness; and Evolution.
\n5. What we have come to call The Soul is nothing more (and nothing less!) than an Individuation of God (or as Aspect of Divinity), physicalized and evolved to the point where it has developed self-consciousness. Not all physicalized Life has evolved to the point of having self-consciousness. Some Life forms, on the other hand, have evolved to a higher level of self-consciousness than humans have. They are said to have a high level of Awareness. Indeed, even among humans, levels of Awareness vary from person to person. (More about this in the weeks ahead.)
\n6. In the Realm of the Spiritual, the Soul is Divinity Divisioned. That is, God Individuated. This Division of Divinity moves through The Essence on an eternal journey, from the Realm of the Spiritual to the Realm of the Physical, to the Realm of the Spirisical (that is, the point between the other two realms). The completion of one cycle of this never-ending journey is called, in our language, a “lifetime.”
\nThe reason for this journey, with its many cycles, as well as a look at how and why the Divine Devices of Time, Space, Physicality, Relativity, Forgetfulness, Consciousness, and Evolution work, will be the topic of our next exploration, one week from today.
\nTomorrow: a look at the Mormon Church, and the role of Christ in our lives, through the eyes of a believer, as Sunday School All Week<\/strong> continues…
\nThe soul is on an eternal journey<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

God functions in a very particular way — and I do not believe this way has ever been accurately described for us by traditional religions. The New Spirituality, on the other hand, offers us deep insight into the mechanism of Life — or what we might call the process of God. Conversations with God makes…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12,11,4,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-god","category-life-and-the-new-spirituality","category-new-spirituality","category-spirit","category-sunday-school"],"yoast_head":"\nHow God functions - Part II - Conversations with God<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/09\/how-god-functions.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How God functions - Part II - Conversations with God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"God functions in a very particular way — and I do not believe this way has ever been accurately described for us by traditional religions. The New Spirituality, on the other hand, offers us deep insight into the mechanism of Life — or what we might call the process of God. Conversations with God makes…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/09\/how-god-functions.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Conversations with God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-09-21T00:01:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Neale Donald Walsch\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How God functions - Part II - Conversations with God","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/09\/how-god-functions.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How God functions - Part II - Conversations with God","og_description":"God functions in a very particular way — and I do not believe this way has ever been accurately described for us by traditional religions. The New Spirituality, on the other hand, offers us deep insight into the mechanism of Life — or what we might call the process of God. Conversations with God makes…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/09\/how-god-functions.html","og_site_name":"Conversations with God","article_published_time":"2008-09-21T00:01:59+00:00","author":"Neale Donald Walsch","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/09\/how-god-functions.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/09\/how-god-functions.html","name":"How God functions - Part II - Conversations with God","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-09-21T00:01:59+00:00","dateModified":"2008-09-21T00:01:59+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/#\/schema\/person\/59dec2a2c0645950921b5cb7864ffc64"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/09\/how-god-functions.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/09\/how-god-functions.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/09\/how-god-functions.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How God functions – Part II"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/","name":"Conversations with God","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/#\/schema\/person\/59dec2a2c0645950921b5cb7864ffc64","name":"Neale Donald Walsch","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/27b\/27bce5d8beddfd11309a88e8e70a1ef3x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/27b\/27bce5d8beddfd11309a88e8e70a1ef3x96.jpg","caption":"Neale Donald Walsch"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/author\/ndwalsch"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}