The Eternal Light

There is at once at subtle yet significant difference between God as a being and God as being. When some of us say; "God is a verb," we mean to suggest God is a way of being rather than an abstract or external form ... a Being. With that said, it is possible to speak abstractly of God as a way of being to the extent we point to God as a way of being not yet fully experienced or recognized. So that, when some say they wish a relationship with God they mean they wish personal identity or conscious experience anchored in essential being.

The use of the nominative for God is to create external icons or anchors so consciousness can be in relation. The nominative predicates God with external characteristics or attributes that sense based consciousness can grasp. Instead of "God is" consciousness based on the senses says; "God is that." In the same way, sense based consciousness says; "I am this," instead of "I am." Sense based consciousness seeks predication for personhood or identity.

In the book of Exodus, God commands the Israelites to not worship engraved images. In the Book of 1st Samuel God says the people of Israel's wish for a King was a rejection of Him. Both these are examples of sense based consciousness dependent of external forms. Ideas are the icons or idols of men or women today. Political, religious, and social, ideologies are shaped and formed to give meaning, direction, and being to the sense based consciousness. Instead of "I am" sense based consciousness says; "I am a Quaker, I am an Activist, I am this or that and this and that." Being is predicated by the sense based consciousess. However, God and/or self consciousness can sustain without predication ... God.

Imagine consciousness without the five senses, that is without sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing. Imagine consciousness without brain function - thoughts, feelings, desires. Imagine walking in the world without the five senses. Sense based consciousness exists because external objects reflect back on it through the senses and the brain. Sense based knows itself in relation to or in the reflection of external objects. The dissolution of the body is death to sense based consciousness ... the light goes out ... there is no thing to reflect upon.

If God is a he, she, or it ... God as Being is iconized (a made up word) or crystallized ... for the sake of reflected consciousness.

... for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? For when one says, 'I am of Paul,' and another, 'I am of Apollos,' are you not carnal? (1st Corinthians 3)

Carnal, sensual, or sense based consciousness traps the Eternal Light or Essential Being in forms even ideological form. Human Being can directly experience and know consciousness independent of the bodily senses and mental ideological constructs. Human Being can experience and know consciousness anchored in Eternal Being so that the Eternal Light flames forth even unto the dissolution of the body. This is the verbal God ... unpredicated ... I am.