Recent posts on religion etc on Eric;s blog prompted me to remind myself what exactly is it that God means to me - after all, I believe in God, yet dont visit temples or participate in any rituals connected to (or supposed to be connected to) worship of Him.

Traced out this mail I had written some time ago to Meet where I had explored this -

I believe Love is God. God is Self. Love and God are both other names for purity and devotion, both found in our absolute Core. As we delve deep in ourselves (as we move along our path of mental and spiritual progress), we discover that Core, which we call God, and whose manifestation we call Love.

This often happens suddenly and instinctively too......a great piece of music, a vision of green valleys tinged with mist, the "high" in the middle of (not the end of) a great sexual experience, the holding of yr baby in yr arms, the sudden feeling that u and he/she are not separate but one. And sometimes it happens at the end of a loner time period.....the result of a massive creative effort, the survival of moments of trauma thro the power of sheer strength, the discovery of faith where we thought none existed, the touching selfless gesture of a stranger .....at all these moments, we "connect" with our core and suddenly discover ourselves. The instinctive statement "i hv attained nirvana" is not an idle claim. At such moments, we have understood the concepts of Love and God, the attendant heady feelings of delight, devotion and purity.
Thus, God and Love is all within ourself.....that purest core of our heart that is sculpted with perfection is the God that we worship, the outward manifestation of that core in our approach and behavior is Love. And the recognition of this is Faith.