Gennaro Brooks-Church

Jason
U.S. Jewish, currently practices the Psycho Transformational teachings of George Gurdjieff.

God needs help! It may sound strange, but look at the creatures of the world. Plants and animals are basically fixed at one level of consciousness. Humans, however, are the great variable. They have an ability to raise their consciousness, to refine it. By refining ourselves we become better conduits for God, just like electricity passes through some things better than others. So the help that God needs is help with refinement. You could say that the entire cosmos is a great refining factory, going from coarse to fine. In doing this, the universe is in a constant act of returning to God. We humans refine every day by taking food and turning it into energy, but we can speed this process along by increasing our awareness. That is what the medieval study of Alchemy is all about: turning lead into gold. There’s no question that God is in everything, lead and gold alike. Sure God exists in the base elements, but it is not it’s highest potential. It’s highest expression is in the finer form of matter.

Eventually, we could become such good conduits that God’s energy and ours is one. At that point we are God in its purest form. I’m speaking practically. This is something I aspire to on a daily basis. I do it by constantly trying to stay aware of myself, of my senses, of my mental and emotional state. I am helped in this development by belonging to a group that studies Psycho Transformation, a method brought to the west by George Gurdjieff. Part of this study involves learning a system of dances, called Movements, which are designed to cultivate a state of balanced awareness. For me the exploration of God is a very practical matter. It is an effort to look, to uncover, to peel off layers of obstruction into knowing one’s self, and through this we refine our being. The most available arena for answering to the question of God is in ourselves.

It is not an accident that the Old Testament says, “man is created in the image of God.” That is a practical statement. What it means is that we can look into ourselves and find God. The whole structure of everything that exists is represented in the human being’s makeup. Another expression says, “as above, so below.” So there is really no difference between “What is God?” and “What am I?”

I don’t think at this level I can really know God, but I can work on getting closer. Maybe one day I’ll know God, become God. But for now, any answer to “Who is God?” will be wrong. It will just be theory. When I become God, then I’ll know the answer. But I wouldn’t be able to communicate it to you. Whatever I said would be useless to you. You’d have to become God yourself to really understand.