Who is God Anyway?

Being human can feel so limiting. Especially when things feel outside of your control. Wouldn’t it be easier to see your circumstances as having an outside force upon them? Because aren’t we all just looking for why?

It starts with a two-year-old pushing boundaries and, if you’re lucky, ends in old age. Ah yes… lucky or blessed? Maybe the same thing from two different perspectives. But that’s another story.

Right now, we’re looking for the source of it all.

God.

Or at least whatever humans have been pointing at with that word for thousands of years.

I can’t hand you the answer. I’m not sure anyone can. But I can offer a few directions people have looked — upward toward consciousness, inward toward the self, outward into the order of reality, through lived experience, and eventually, well for me, it’s love.

God as Consciousness

You’ve probably heard of the great “I AM” — almighty God as an all-powerful observer and judge of humanity. But beyond the old man in the sky, many cultures imagined multiple gods connected to everything from seasons and storms to love, war, wisdom, wealth, and death.

What do most of these gods have in common? They reflect human consciousness on a divine scale. They are not limited in the ways humans are, yet they remain deeply connected to human life and are believed to influence it.

Prayer, worship, and personal revelation all attempt to build a relationship with this higher consciousness. And in most traditions, humility becomes central to that relationship.

Maybe humility matters spiritually because it requires a person to step outside themselves for a moment — to recognize they are not the center of everything. In that way, humility is not weakness. It’s awareness.

God as Within

People who recognize God within themselves usually lean toward self-sovereignty. Though that sounds arrogant at first, it’s almost the opposite. Because if God exists within them, then it must also exist within everyone else.

Take it a step further and eventually you dissolve self, other, and God entirely, leaving only being itself. This perspective overlaps with Nonduality, the idea that separation itself may be an illusion. And if we keep zooming out from there, we’d probably end up somewhere before the Big Bang, so let’s not lose ourselves completely.

It can be said the universe separated itself just to experience itself. That consciousness had to forget what it was for a moment in order to become something. Someone.

Honestly, whether that’s literally true or just a beautiful metaphor, it’s a way to understand God, and maybe that’s why we’re here wondering who that might be.

If you put this perspective on, you become more patient when you see yourself in others and, dare I say, more humble.

God as Order

Now that we’ve discussed God inside and out, let’s look at why so many people see divine intelligence woven into reality itself.

From the spiral of a snail’s shell to hurricanes and galaxies, perfect patterns in nature appear everywhere. So do cycles — seasons, tides, death, rebirth, even the movements of planets from Earth’s perspective. Some people have gone so far as to believe these cycles influence human life itself and call it astrology.

Looking at God as order or pattern means the smallest part contains the whole. This can best be explained through fractals or even holograms — where the structure repeats no matter how closely you look.

And honestly, humans seem wired for this kind of meaning-making. Carl Jung coined the term synchronicity to describe meaningful coincidences that feel too connected to ignore. The moment you decide something carries significance and call it a sign when it appears again, you are participating in the pattern. Whether that meaning comes from God, consciousness, coincidence, or the mind itself… well, that’s part of the mystery.

God through Experience

Looking at God through experience is less about defining God and more about coming into contact with something sacred directly. This can happen through family, grief, awe, nature, transcendence, meditation, love, or even psychedelics. Moments where reality suddenly feels deeper than language.

It often involves becoming less afraid of the void and allowing illusions like ego, identity, and endless desire to loosen their grip for a moment.

This is where Buddhism and modern western individualism start pulling in different directions. Western culture often teaches people to build a stronger identity — to become somebody. Buddhism, on the other hand, asks what happens when you stop clinging so tightly to the self at all.

Not because life is meaningless, but because suffering often comes from attachment itself.

And maybe the harder something is to describe, the closer it gets to whatever people mean when they say “God.” Something so ineffable that language starts breaking apart around it.

So honestly, who am I to fully define God anyway?

God is Love

For me, I feel God when I’m my most playful self. It feels closer when I see the look on a dog’s face that’s genuinely happy to see me. When I play pretend with a child or when I feel so deeply seen and loved that I can’t help but break down.

Whatever this connection to God is, it seems deeply tied to the waterworks of my eyes. It’s burning in my chest and a kind of overwhelming gratitude for life itself.

Maybe that sounds simple after all the philosophy, symbolism, and existential wandering. But honestly, love is probably the closest thing to God I’ve ever experienced.

So best of luck on your journey. Let your version of God be what it is. Visit it from time to time. It might not solve every existential problem in your life, but it may help remind you that being alive is something sacred.