As the title states, this book is about The Nature of God. The sub-title The Discovery of Self is particularly important as the author finds that mankind is an integral part of God's nature, as is God's immense variety of other manifestations. He traces the changes in Man's concept of God from residing in thunder or lightning, in volcanoes, to a God who is the cause of an eclipse, who is mainly a punishing God, to that of a pure and permanently existing God of love. However, although the evidence points to the fact that this God has no body He does have an associated evolving factor that is very gradually becoming part of His expression of love and he cites both ancient and modern thinkers to support these views.
The author points out that all is God. God is one single vast entity. There is no such thing as 'not-God, ' Satan notwithstanding. (The concept of Satan is fully discussed). He discovered that God's permanent factor is pure love, beauty etcetera, the part of God that most people think of as God and worship. However, the author notes that God is also His evolving factor that evolved from the 'Being' part of Him. The Being has no limits to its expression whether this is good or evil in the eyes of human beings. It was clear to the author that any connections between God's permanent and evolving factors must be filtered through a suitable process to ensure that any negative elements of His evolving factor are not allowed to contaminate His pure loving permanent factor. For evolving human beings, though seemingly separated from God, this process consists of voluntarily purifying their internal psychic structure to the point where they are spiritually fit to be an integral partof God's pure love. The author notes here that God's omnipresence, another part of the nature of God, ensures that we are never separated from Him and that any separation comes from Man himself. The nature of the Being from where His manifestations emerge is also discussed in considerable depth. Further, God's evolving factor can be considered as having two states of existence, namely in a material and a spiritual world. These are discussed in some depth as are the connections between these various states.
The path for humans to accomplish the goal of merging with the pure permanent part of God is not easy and only true saints, mystics, advanced yogis, the founders of the major religions and many wise men of the past and present have succeeded. The author points out that it is from such enlightened people that we can know what direction to take in life and it is from such rich sources that he has drawn on, for much of his approach in discussing the nature of God.
It is noteworthy that in recent years science has entered the scene and the findings of these 'spiritual scientists' are fully supportive of the ancient wisdoms. For example they both postulate the existence of a "mirror world" that reflects our feelings back to us. Together, these ancients and moderns make a powerful case in attempting to delineate the nature of God. The scientific findings are detailed at length in the book in Part 3 (Chapters 11 to 15). The impact of the Dead Sea Scrolls on the nature of God is also discussed at length in chapter 15.
Many mainstream scientists are still skeptical about using science to discuss spiritual matters, but science is science and the spiritual scientists make a goodscientific case today using the same criteria as traditional science such as repeatability, double blind studies or both where possible.
In the author's first book "Spreading the Light" he evaluated many areas of life and showed how these all led to God. In this book he discovered that by studying the nature of God he found that this led him back to the 'many' areas of life. It was at this point that he realized that this thinking is in line with the "One and the Many" concept of God in the Eastern religions.
Details of God's evolving factor are examined extensively. For example, the author examines the role of the religions of the world and includes a special chapter on Buddhism as Buddhism denies the existence of God. He shows that this fact is not irreconcilable with the other religions and in fact Buddhism may well be called 'the religion of religions.'
As part of God's evolving factor the author examines six case histories of mystical experiences, eight case histories of psychic phenomena and eight case histories of dream phenomena, all part of the nature of God. He presents his case for the reality of reincarnation and the existence of the spiritual planes. He describes a remarkable physical technology that is a close parallel to the structure of the spiritual planes. He also devotes a complete chapter (chapter 7) to describe what happens to us after death and exactly where we will live. This chapter may surprise you.
An attempt is made to define God and Man. The value of human relationships is discussed and a list of life's basics is given. The future of Man is also discussed and a final chapter (chapter 22), includes a list of God's attributes. Many moreitems about the nature of God are discussed throughout the book.