What exactly is God?

I am GOD

 

whatever you think it is, its something else.
(thus spake lao tsu and more or less baha'u'llah and more or less every manifestation of it)

an entity, or a consensus of entities that appears to have a single identity,
that requires neither physical form, nor to be known to exist by anything or anyone in order to do so.
an entity with the capacity to manipulate matter and energy without requiring itself to be formed of either.
like all things, including ourselves, a thing that does not have to exist, but rather chooses to.
a thing that can be experienced without being able to be proved, disproved or accurately described.
a thing which exists without any effort to describe it being other then self serving fantasy.
a thing which can exist without psychological nor egotistical interpretations of the question.
a thing that only makes you insane if you claim any sort of authority on it.
a thing that can love you no matter what, but will not likely unmake whatever harm you cause.
a thing there are a lot of things a lot of people believe about that i don't.
a thing that gets along just fine without my doing so.

if this is in hinduism, shouldn't the question be:"what is A god"?

though much the same answers it seems ought equally apply.
other then the apearnce of a singular consensus no longer being required.

 

Attempting to define or describe god is like attempting to tell me what the shape of water is.

 

But there's the paradox. To believe in something, we have to have some idea of what it is we believe in. "I belieive in the unknown" won't get us far, and what would be the point?

 

God is love
It's the higher vibration
It's the presence of light

 

Santa Claus?

 

Hinduism has its Avatars such as Krishna and Rama who are thought of as forms taken by the Divine for the benefit of humans. Similar to the Christian idea of Jesus as the incarnation. Others focus on the forms of the gods such as Shiva or Devi in her many phases.

This from Bhagavd Gita ch:12: (Prabhavanada/Isherwood translation)

Arjuna:Some worship you with steadfast love. Others worship God the unmanifest and changeless. Which kind of devotee has the greater understanding of yoga?

Krishna: Those whose minds are fixed on me in steadfast love, worshipping me with absolute faith, I consider them to have the greater understanding of yoga.
As for those others, the devotees of God the unmanifest, indefinable and changeless, they worship That which is omnipresent, constant, eternal, beyond thought's compass, never to be moved.
They hold all the senses in check. They are tranquil-minded and devoted to the welfare of humanity. They see the Atman (soul) in every creature. They will also certainly come to me.
But the devotees of the unmanifest have a harder task, because the unmanifest is very difficult for embodied souls to realize.

 

This is well stated.

Nirguna Brahman, or Brahman without attributes, cannot be described due to its nondual nature.

As the female enlightened master Anandamayi Ma stated, "Only that which can be expressed in words is being said."

Paramahansa Yogananda wrote: "The word 'God' means the manifested, transcendental Being beyond creation, but existing in relation to creation. Spirit existed before God. God is the Creator of the universe, but Spirit is the Creator of God."

The Shivalinga, representing a cosmic pillar or point of light, is considered as Saguna Brahman or personal God with a finite form, emanating from the Spirit or Nirguna Brahman.

“ God is Omnipresent and All-pervasive. By the very nature of these qualities, He cannot have any form. He is, therefore, formless (Arupa). But in order to bless us, He assumes innumerable forms (Rupa). The Linga form in which we worship Isvara is symbolic of both His formlessness and form. It is symbolic of form because it has a particular shape; It is symbolic of formlessness because it has neither head nor limbs. The very conception of a Linga denotes something which has neither beginning nor end; the literal meaning of Linga is symbol.

Banalinga, part of Panchayatana Puja, is egg shaped. It serves to remind us Isvara(God) has neither beginning nor end. The shape of the sky is another example. Looking at the horizon we feel that the sky and the earth meet at a particular point. We may circle the earth and return to the point from which we started, without coming to the point where the sky and the earth meet. If we go into the significance of the symbol of Linga, we will realise that it is intended to bring the Unknown within our mental comprehension.". ~ Kanchi Shankaracharya Sri Chandra Sekarendra Sarasvati

 

well i do believe in the unknown being unknown and the only problem i can understand some people having with it is that doing so doesn't gratify their own egos.
the thing to keep in mind about that, is that a god doesn't owe it to anyone or any thing to do so.
that objection really to me makes no sense. what is meant by "get us far"?
as to the point of any belief, it is universal and common to all beliefs.
does a belief even need a point? does ANY belief actually have one?
a belief is two things; first you get to experience things that you don't have to know in order to do so.
this is a leaving behind of the baggage we otherwise take for granted.
the other thing is a hope for something, anything, that doesn't just end with as brief as our physical lives.
both of these have the salutory effect of encouraging the avoidance of causing needless harm, or in other words, morality.

 

I came to wreck everything.
And ruin your life.


God sent me.

 

god is not what most people think. god is not the creator. there is no creator.
i have never met a god. a good saying was that one knows the god by their worshippers.
therefore most gods are selfish and shalllow

 

Without the ability to laugh at yourself, comprehending God is impossible, and you could say God is in the punch lines as much as anything else.