by Toni Steenson, Coraki, Australia
When I was growing up I was taught a lot about God – I learnt about God at home, at school and at church. What I learnt about God never quite fit the picture for me, and now I am coming to know God more intimately I understand why.
I learnt when I was young that I was a sinner and that I was evil. If I did not want to be bad I had to work at it very astutely, as my natural way was one of sin: so good was I at sinning that I was told that God had to sacrifice his only son to teach me, and all of us, about Love.
What I now know is that I am naturally Love and that God’s Love lives inside me and impulses me to be who I naturally am. Of course, I can choose not to listen to this Love that lives inside me, and often do, but this in no way takes away from the fact that I am Love, and no matter what I do, I am still naturally Love.
I am not bad or evil and I am not a sinner that God had to sacrifice his only son for: if we are all part of God, does this not mean that we are ALL the sons of God?
I also learnt that God would punish me for my sins: I know this is definitely not true as, from my relationship with God I know that when I choose to do something that is not loving towards myself or others, God simply just keeps emanating his Love so that when I am ready I can also choose to emanate that same Love. One thing I have come to know about God is that he is so patient and he has no need for me to be in any certain way.
I was taught to fear God: that he was something far away and scary and that he could grant me things if I prayed to him and was good. I now know there is nothing to fear of God as he is a part of me and my equal, he lives within me and treasures me more deeply than I know or choose to treasure myself. I also know that God cannot grant me anything, but rather offers me free will so I can choose to grant myself through my everyday choices.
So much of what I learnt about God when I was young was not just wrong, but the complete opposite of what I now know to be true. How can this be, that from three different sources I was taught the same mis-truths?
How I know all of this is not because someone told me, but rather I have chosen to build and have an intimate relationship with myself; through this, my body has shown me all of this, and so much more.
- I have listened to how I feel about situations and occurrences… and not discounted these feelings.
- I have taken time to do Gentle Breath Meditations and then, to the best of my ability, lived from this quality.
- I have taken time to listen to my body, so when it is tired I rest rather than listen to my mind, which may tell me I need to keep going.
I am forever great-full to Serge Benhayon, Michael Benhayon, Miranda Benhayon, Natalie Benhayon and many others for inspiring me to build this intimate relationship with myself and God – for me there is no blessing greater.
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
Toni, thanks for a truly heart felt sharing – everything you have shared is something that I too can relate to, an upbringing and a learning of what God is not, to then come full circle to knowing how deeply we are actually connected and knowing of the God within. It is not my reality every day, as I have moments or days when I feel so far away from this, and them moments and days when I know it to the bone. And so it is about about having more of the switched on and connected days and building on these till such time that there are only micro-seconds of the off moments.
The concept of fearing God is done to disempower us…truly seeing ourselves as an equal is about also claiming the God one is and hence the power ones holds – this of course does not happen overnight but is a clear step by step gradual process of claiming moment by moment: “I now know there is nothing to fear of God as he is a part of me and my equal, he lives within me and treasures me more deeply than I know or choose to treasure myself. I also know that God cannot grant me anything, but rather offers me free will so I can choose to grant myself through my everyday choices.”
The unconditional love that we all crave: “One thing I have come to know about God is that he is so patient and he has no need for me to be in any certain way.”
Thank you for sharing your relationship with God, ‘ One thing I have come to know about God is that he is so patient and he has no need for me to be in any certain way.’ and that, ‘I now know there is nothing to fear of God as he is a part of me and my equal, he lives within me and treasures me more deeply than I know or choose to treasure myself.’
It’s a strong religious belief that humans are lesser, that Jesus was superhuman and could create miracles, and that the power all resides in God. Then there is the judgment of whether we are good or not and what we might be granted. Basically, we see the power as being outside of ourselves instead of seeing human beings as Sons of the same one God, with equal loving power and responsibility for our own lives. We see God as standing over us, not as someone we separated from and can rejoin at any time.
So eloquently shared Melinda and this voluntary dis-empowerment (for that is how I see it to be) is a choice we make to shy away from the responsibility that comes with great power. And yet it takes a lot of force to dis-empower oneself and deny the very core of ones being that holds the power to change the world.
Starting with the Gentle Breath Meditation gives us the gift of being able to start to listen to our bodies so we can then deepen our awareness as you have so Lovingly portrayed Tony.
Yes, this is a great place to start, ‘I have taken time to do Gentle Breath Meditations and then, to the best of my ability, lived from this quality.’
And being gentle is simply the start as you have shared Loraine, and adding to what you have shared we are always deepening our movements including the relationship we have with our breath, thus we understand that the relationship we have with breathing gently is a standard we set as our foundation.
It’s like, we were having a relationship problem and we didn’t want to see our part in it, and want to blame the other person but they cannot really be faulted, so we start lying about them a little by little, and we need to convince others with the same lie, so it carries on because the lies actually suits most people.
Not matter what I do, God still loves me. That resonates with me. The only thing I then have to do is to allow that love. And see the many ways I am blocking that love.
To have an intimate relationship with God is probably the one thing people desire the most if they would be honest. If they only knew it does exist.
The only way to know what is true is to build a relationship with the truth and the most honest marker of that has been my body. It is honest, blunt, unsubtle and consistent!
So True Lucy ask your body and you shall receive but it is up to each of us to understand the message.
I love what you share here Lucy, very to the point and true, our bodies are honest, blunt, unsubtle and consistent.
The body is certainly the marker of truth Lucy and to be honest, because I often don’t like feeling what I am feeling in my body I then seek way to numb myself or to escape what I am feeling. The crazy thing is that this does not allow me to connect and actually heal what is happening as it does the complete opposite. And yet to be with the body and feel, is the bridge to our power, the bridge to our Soul and hence our relationship with truth. Why do we fight it so much?
Powerful message. For how we can have forgotten the holy truth that we come from : our universal truth. Love inside needs to be lived first and foremost. For without we miss the whole picture of where we truly come from.
If what we learn about God is sin-ister, we are not really learning anything true about Him (and us).
God is always patient, he loves us unconditionally, his love just emanates. This so much more sense than a judging and forgiving God. By these images of God – a God with manlike qualities – we know these images have been created by mankind.
The only person that punishes us for our sins, is ourselves with the stick that we carry round always at the ready! The Universe reflects back the choices that we make no question, and God has permanently open arms for whenever we are ready to return… never any judgement.
Reading you blog makes me relax and sink deeper in my body. It further confirms me what I already know. That God loves me whatever I do. However horrible I behave or no matter how much I am resisting my own light and love. That God is in me and around me all the time. It is so simple and it makes so much sense.
You make it so simple Toni, and that is the way it is. We have been lied about what God is and how to relate to him, and no doctrines are needed to experience Him.
You are very right – for we are already everything that God is, this is the greatest blessing of all.
Great blog Tony, and may I add the three ”Rs” responsibility, reincarnation and respond and not react, maybe that is four Rs?
The experience of God is one that is deeply personal and one that stems from our inner connection and one that does not require a belief. I was out walking recently and could feel God around me, holding me like I have never felt before. His holding never changes, constant, warm and very loving. Its us that needs to allow this so that we can feel everything that God is and everything that we are.
Catholicism is all about you accepting something about you and about God that is not true.
Our personal and intimate relationship with God is essential to undo the impersonal imposed picture of God and oneself. This exposes how much institutionalised religion and beliefs we take on can actually take us away from the very natural knowing of our divine origin and beingness.
It can all be felt inside us….
Yes, it takes an intimate relationship to expose an impersonal one.
How much have we been lied to about religion, and in fact how much have we chosen to listen to those lies … for the idea that someone has to die to atone for our sins is one of the greatest lies of all, and it keeps us as children and forever chasing a perfection that is not possible while ignoring the truth of the fact we are of God … the other side of this is responsible, how willing are we to be responsible and live knowing we are of God and that how we are matters for all of us. So yes we’ve been lied to about religion but for many of us for a long time that has been a suitable truth and a comfort to avoid the knowing and the responsibility that we are of God, and we are to live that Godliness in all aspects of life. This is what the Way of the Livingness has opened my eyes to, and this is how I now choose to live.
It’s a lie that we are convinced is the truth. We even convince ourselves that of the violence and war in the name of God is because of religion. That’s one of the biggest lies. The sad thing here is that we know religion because we are religion. How far we have walked.
One of the things that is highlighted here is that our choices in life are our responsibility….all of them. God provides the field that we walk in and we do the rest. Its hard to see our choices over time, come back for us to see and work through. But the aim is not punitive, but for us to heal, let go and evolve – that’s it.
Beautiful blog Tony for when we commit to living from our inner most without perfection – just as much as we can, our understanding and clarity of the world around us is so much clearer and joyful.
If we keep refusing to see the unwavering offering of love and to take responsibility for our own choices, sure, some of the things in life may seem like punishment and we think God is to blame, but it is very possible that they are actually helping us clear the what is not that we have been accumulating over time, so that we can return to be the glory that we are.
God is love, he never asks us to be anything other than the love that we are, and through that love we know God.
Keeps it really simple, just being the love that we naturally are.
When we consider the impact of the many ‘stories’ we are told, it’s no wonder we are in a state of complete disarray as a society. The concept of being born a sinner basically gives us the worst start to life ever possible. A complete lie designed to keep us from shining the absolute truth of who we are. And as we have all witnessed, this evil trick works….but only for so long, because light is light and it’s impossible for it to not shine through…so by hook or by crook, the light (truth) always comes to correct the darkness.
I considered myself atheist while growing up. Never really following a particular religion. But in the last few years I have come to learn how joyfull life can be having true religion in my everyday.
Me too Leigh! I feel so blessed to have been re-introduced to my relationship with Love, with God, with Truth, Joy, Stillness – the list goes on. I feel that through The Way of The Livingness I have rediscovered a relationship that I had walked away from many moons ago.
God is a big word in this world, and over whom many wars are fought and people are slaughtered, while using His name. This cannot be the God everyone deeply knows he is, but the world keeps us feeding these false believes what God is.
Only by the teachings of The Way of the Livingness I got to know who God really is. And now the next steps: not only knowing him, but also feeling him with me, around me and in me. It is an allowing.
Honouring your own feelings by taking the time to listen and reflect upon them offers a new way of daily life that will never be the same as it was.
The magic of God is that He is love and always has been and is this same unbounded love that is equally in every one of us calling us all to be that love that we too naturally are.
There are many stories about God in this world however the true register of God is known through our connection to our inner-heart, where our Soulful light is no less than the light of God, and the beautiful thing is that in knowing God we know who we are. As we are in fact inseparable.
My truth experiences of God, being with God, have no words, it is a way of being, a quality, a knowing, this is something no one can give me, tell me, instruct me on….it is equally for all to be with and it is something that I have been honouring and developing because it feels like home.
The key understanding for me with my relationship with God is that the depth of it is felt and confirmed in my body and not in the thoughts of my mind.
The devastating lies we are fed, as truths by ‘people in power’ in religious circles is that there was only ONE son of God. Once this foundational lie is received and believed then we are open to the many more lies and beliefs that come with mainstream/institutionalised religions that form a way of life that is forever trying to appease and seek forgiveness from God. Not the true life of the Sons of God we all innately are.
Well said Rachael Evans – we are all here to live the love of God that we are. Through living in connection to our Soulful light, we realise that we are the ones that we are looking for, as it is each and every one of us that are responsible for the resurrection of Christ.
So much is implied and assumed around who and what God is, and I recall so many impressions I received as a child growing up, most revolved around an ‘almighty being’ somewhere up in the sky who saw everything and had a long flowing grey beard. There was a lot of fear of condemnation but this just didn’t make sense to me if God was in fact love, which he supposedly was. These impressions and their ridiculousness led me to turn away from any sort of religion… until I met Serge Benhayon. From that point, although I didn’t realise it initially,
Reading this I realise that what I also learned about God and religion in my younger years, which was virtually identical to what is shared here, is about control. Controlling behaviour and dampening down our very natural expression which is love and not sin or evil at all. The myth that we are born of sin is completely the opposite to how we are when we are born. We only need to look at the natural joy and beauty of a small child to see our truth.
So true Jennifer – who can look at a baby and say they are naturally born bad or a sinner that God is ashamed of? We are Heavenly from the day we are born to the day we die, no matter how much we try to deny or hide the fact.
Many days I feel absolutely wonderful without having to do anything, and now I understand that this is not just a feeling, but I am experiencing God with me and around me. It marvels me, he was there all along but as I was lied to how God is, so I did not recognize him.
I agree what you say in the comment above Ray, it is almost as if the world is upside down on many things, that the truth is no longer being presented, and what is presented makes no sense at all, you give a great example of this in relation to our understanding of God.