A friend recently asked me why I use the word “God.”
After all, he indicated, it’s just such a loaded term with so much baggage and associations.
That’s true.
It’s also an incredibly powerful word, for many people.
For thousands of years, for billions of people, this word “God” has connoted the highest, most sublime possibility.
Having been raised Catholic, for me the word “God” was always charged with a profundity of meaning and significance that no other word had.
It’s in my bones. It’s in my cells. It’s in my DNA. I come from a large family and ancestral lineage of mostly Christian people.
Why fight that?
Why not claim and wield the words that resonate most potently in one’s depths?
Also, in my most profound transcendental experiences of Divinity, the word “God” would always spontaneously appear, during or after the experience.
“That was God. I just undoubtedly experienced God,” is what I would think/feel.
So I don’t fight the word. It comes naturally, I let it be there.
I intuit that if most people had some of the experiences I’ve had—of basically dying and watching the universe die and melting into the most pristine undifferentiated Light of Infinite Loving Intelligence, for example—they’d probably be using the word “God” or “Brahman” or “Allah” or “Tao” too. They’d use the loftiest word their culture had given them, because words can’t actually come anywhere close, so you might as well use the strongest words you’ve got.
With that being said, there are a couple disclaimers worth mentioning here.
Disclaimers
My recent post on egregores and meta-religion highlights one of them in substantial depth. Basically, if you’re going to use words associated with an existing religious system/movement, you need to be aware that there’s going to be a certain psychic gravity exerted upon you, attempting to sweep you up into the psychic-energetic maelstrom (or “egregore”) of that particular religious movement. I recommend being careful about this. There’s a big difference between a direct relationship with God and a relationship with God mediated by the norms, dogmas, and collective-energetic tendencies of an organized religion. That’s not to say people within organized religions cannot have a direct and beautiful relationship with God, but it requires a lot of focus, discernment, and advanced awareness to do so without getting ‘hooked’ into the egregore of the religion.
[Note: Since writing this post, I’ve actually been going through an interesting and unexpected process of reconnecting with the Catholic tradition of my ancestors. It presently appears as if I am becoming some sort of animistic shamanic Catholic mystic. I am opening to the lineage of my ancestors and finding strength, stabilization, anchoring, centering, and nourishment there. Though I am also being careful not to get swept up in the Christian/Catholic egregore, shadows, and dogmas. It is imperative to me to maintain a sense of direct relationship with God and to prioritize the direct relationship with God above all else. If you want to hear more about my current process on this, watch this ~15-minute video I published recently about going to church and returning to Catholicism.]
You also want to be careful not to get over-attached to any particular word for Divinity. “God” is the word for Divinity that I use most, both publicly and in my inner monologue and prayer practice, yet I periodically spend time completely letting this word go. I often do this by repeating certain mantra-like alternative terms or phrases for Divinity, either silently or aloud. For example, I might repeat the (Peter-Brown-inspired) phrase “Transcendental inconceivability” or “Indefinable actuality” or “Perfect unknowable Bonfire” or “Uninterpretable Mystery” or something like this. It feels important that I choose a phrase that 1) points to the fundamentally unfathomable nature of God, and 2) is not associated with any major religion or spiritual movement. This sorta feels like “clearing the cache” of unwanted energetic or egregorical debris.
What Does the Word “God” Mean to Me?
So, what does the word “God” actually mean for me?
An old bearded white man on a cloud, of course!
Nah, jk. 😂
The non-loaded phrases I used above are good pointers:
God to me is basically the “indefinable actuality” of Life itself.
The transcendentally inconceivable and undeniable fact of Being.
Whatever is, is God.
God is All.
God is the fundamentally inscrutable Miracle of Existence.
God includes everything from the most mundane to the most exalted.
You taking a shit in an outhouse, is no less God than you dissolving into the eternal, timeless, formless Light of the ‘Absolute.’
Seen clearly, both are completely inexplicable and astounding demonstrations of God’s boundless imagination.
In my experience, God is Good—a transcendent Good beyond what we call “good” or “bad.”
God is Love.
“Love” may be the best alternative word for God.
(Or perhaps “Grace” or “Heart” or “Innocence.”)
God is a transcendental Mystery of Love beyond all reckoning.
God is our Father.
God is our Mother.
God is also beyond Father and Mother and all categorizations.
All of Creation is a poetic expression of God’s Love—and of God’s impulse to play and explore its infinite possibilities.
Without a certain amount of darkness and struggle and violence, the tapestry of Creation would be far less dynamic, fascinating, multi-dimensional, suspenseful, Shakespearean. When you zoom out, there’s an astonishing beauty to the whole cyclical dance of Forgetting and Remembering, which produces these numberless epic stories and characters and scenes that unfold within/as the living Heart-Mind-Body of God.
That doesn’t mean I personally support violence. The human character I have been assigned in this sliver of the Grand Dance is decidedly not a fan of war or rape or torture or murder, etc. My heart tells me that I am here to help people remember that when they engage in these sorts of activities, they are only hurting themselves, for we are all truly non-separate, and what we do to another, we do to our own soul.
(I also see that I am not separate from these violent potentialities, and that truthfully there seems to be no potentiality in another which is not also, on some level, in me.)
And yet it is not a contradiction for me to play this peaceful human character while also holding the capacity to zoom out and affirm the totality of God’s Creation, in all its awful splendor. In truth it is only because of my ability to zoom out and love all of Creation, that I am then able to bring a high degree of unconditional Love into my interactions with my human family in this realm. If I rejected any part of Creation, I would be rejecting some part of every being within this Creation, for again, we are all non-separate. The macrocosm is in the microcosm.
I’m not saying I’m perfect at affirming Creation and loving all beings unconditionally. Far from it. I’m only human, and I have moments where my heart simply flinches and closes in the face of Life’s challenges. Love is an endless practice, and there are always greater degrees of Love to discover. God’s Love knows no bounds whatsoever, and it is only through Grace that God has allowed me to glimpse how deep this Love truly goes, that I may then humbly strive to embody and channel some fraction of its infinitude into this realm.
God is Mysterious Love beyond all reckoning.
God is Truth beyond our dualistic apparatus of “true” vs “false.”
God is Peace beyond description.
God can experience itself in numberless (formless) forms.
There are forms which are more veiled, and forms which are more naked, forms which are more active, and forms which are more restful.
Our consensus Earth-reality is overall a quite veiled, active form of God. Everything appears to be in constant motion, and there are thick clouds of form, appearance, and conditioning that make it quite difficult for most people to notice God in their day-to-day lives. And yet God is always there, the radiant Sun shining behind the clouds, animating the entire Dance.
In a substantially unveiled, yet still active formless form, God can experience itself as an Infinite Primordial Love-Power-Light-Intelligence explosively fractaling forth through numberless dimensions and orders of magnitude. “I” have experienced God as such via 5-MeO-DMT, and there are no words whatsoever that could even scratch the surface of what was revealed in that experience. I cannot emphasize enough that God is so far beyond all description that it is totally laughable to say anything at all about God—yet hilariously, God makes characters like me who love trying to poetically verbalize God anyway. (If you are curious to work with 5-MeO-DMT [via Bufo alvarius] in an ideal setting, consider joining us for Wild Freedom retreat later this year.)
And in a substantially unveiled, restful formless form, God can experience itself as an utterly motionless Peace beyond all articulation. “I” once experienced God as such via 5-MeO-DMT, and it was akin to being the surface of a still pond, multiplied by a trillion. It was like being inside the innermost secret of the purest quality of stillness and restfulness—a dreamless slumber in which God was not even aware of itself or of anything.
This Divine Rest felt like one of God’s most undiluted Homes or Abodes—one which is our birthright, is within us now, and to which we will all return, again and again.
And yet no aspect of God can truly be said to be “higher” or “lower” or “more” or “less” truly God than any other. Your present experience is as much an expression of God as the most rarefied immortal spheres of God’s Kingdom. It’s all God, and from God’s own trans-temporal vantage point, it is all occurring simultaneously.
There is no actual need to change any of it, or to “escape Samsara” in order to reach “Nirvana” or “Heaven.” Seen through the eyes of unconditional Love, Earth is Heaven, and Heaven is Earth. Your life, just as it is, is a “pageant of Divine Celebration,” as Peter Brown once put it. It is all the non-separate flowering of an Immeasurably Loving Imagination.
The First Dreamer. The One and Only. The Supreme Mack. The Truly Original Gangster. Can’t spell “God” without OG. :)
[Note: Since writing this post, I’ve become more attuned to the reality described by some of the Christian mystics: That God is both immanent within Creation, as well as transcendent of Creation, and that while we are on one hand non-separate from God, we are also simultaneously distinct, ‘separate’ individuals who must go through a process of ‘sanctification’ and ‘divinization’ in order to partake of God’s undiluted essence in ever more full and beautiful ways. In that sense, although everything is already God on one level, it’s also accurate to say that God’s naked transcendent essence—though it is present within and gives rise to Creation—tends to be veiled by the forms and appearances of Creation, and thus it typically requires substantial efforts of purification, honorable living, devotion, prayer, contemplation, and practice to become ever closer to God in this human form, partaking ever more fully of God’s Immeasurably Loving Essence.]
In Sum
Hopefully that clarifies why I use the word “God” and what the word means to me.
Regarding all this metaphysical mumbo jumbo: Please don’t take my word for it. Find out for yourself. Find your own revelations. The Mystery is alive and well.
My ego likes to think it knows something about God, but who am I? Some guy on the Internet who talks to himself in rhymes and befriends trees? Why are you even reading this?
Hahahah, I jest, I jest, sorta.
On the real, though: Find your own heart’s knowing of the truth. That knowing will serve you far more than anyone else’s words ever could.
Love,
J
P.S. I’m having an interesting debate about high-priced ‘psychedelic space-holder’ trainings on Twitter with Paul Austin, founder of the Third Wave. It all started when I tweeted out a thread starting with, “Yo people, stop paying $8k for breathwork certifications. Stop paying $15k for ‘psychedelic space-holder’ certifications. These certification companies are scamming you—super over-priced.”
(By the way, Twitter is now called ‘x.com,’ which I find really disagreeable and silly—sounds like a porn site. Seems like one of Elon’s worst decisions.)
If you appreciated this post, you’ll probably also appreciate this one:
Jordan Bates
Leadership Coach, Heart Healer, & Entheogenic Guide
Honor | Love | Courage | Truth
Jordan Bates is a leadership coach who trains heart-led warriors to give their lives over to God, Truth, and Love. He is also a teacher, writer, mystic, artist, rapper, space-holder, and celebrator of God. He offers one-to-one coaching, men’s leadership development, self-guided courses, & retreats—and now also offers True Creation Accelerator.
Find Jordan elsewhere: His Website | His Courses | Telegram | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | Spotify Music — (Jordan Bates / Goku the Wizard King / LOSTBOYEVSKY) | Spotify Podcast | Bandcamp | TikTok