God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher

“The Great Apes Are Wonderful Creatures . . . So Close But Yet So Far.”

February 1, 2024

“And so, Lord, You call forth the first human beings?”

Yes, the first inklings, forerunners, of man. The great apes are wonderful creatures, full of intelligence, energy, and drive. But it is frustrating to interact with them. They are so close and yet so far from having full interactive personalities. They have teleological urges but they are only effective, for the most part, at the biological level. Their social life is rudimentary and their spiritual awareness is diffuse and inarticulate. They lack a symbolic order. They can’t project ideals beyond the sensual. They can’t respond to Me either.

“But they evolved?”

The transition to early man is both slow and sudden. Remember what the first two years of a child’s life is like, and (then) imagine each day to be a century. In a sense, nothing is happening. One day looks much like the last, and there is no single great leap forward.

So imagine My excitement when the first protohumans arrived. At first, you couldn’t tell them from animals but I could see their potential. They didn’t have language but their sounds and marks had representative purposes. They could connect one thing to another, one thought to another. They could remember their past and replay it in their minds. They slowly developed a sense of the future.

Think in a different way.

January 25, 2024

“Lord, I have the feeling that you want me to read and think less, and to listen more and just write down your story.”

Don’t stop thinking, but think in a different way. Don’t work so hard to figure everything out, to make it rational, to make it fit your categories. Just listen and think through the implications of what I tell you.

“But, Lord, some of what I learn from You comes from worrying over what you say.”

Sometimes yes, but often no. Sometimes your questioning just gets in the way. The main point is to open your mind, to try to understand what I am saying on its own terms, and to see ways it might be true or understandable to you.

“A Step in the Right Direction”

January 11, 2024

Nilsson says, “Another step in the development of polytheism was thinking of the great forces of nature (such as sky and seasons) and of human life (such as love and death) as gods.”

Yes, and the same story applies there. It is quite apt, and not incompatible with understanding a single divine reality behind them all. In fact, seeing them as gods—as personal beings with desires, plans, loves, and so forth—is a step in the right direction, of acknowledging that God is a Person and one with whom one can interact.

“Lord, did the polytheistic response affect You in any way?”

Oh yes, in many ways. When someone sensed My presence in a place and responded respectfully, it increased My awareness of My presence there, and of what it was about Me that evoked and deserved respect.

Then I was given an analogy.

Sometimes someone might be the pillar of a particular institution and not realize their distinctive role until a crisis. And they notice that everyone rallies around them or sees them as their savior or seeks their advice or expects them to get them through it. In a sense, they were the pillar all along, but it was almost latent and not fully actualized until the occasion arose and they saw it reflected in the eyes of others.

I gather that God’s experience was something like that.

What Does God Sound Like?

December 28, 2023

When philosopher Jerry L. Martin heard God speaking to Him, people said – Really?

A real Voice? What does God sound like?

Experience God: An Autobiography

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God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher – is the true story of a philosopher’s conversations with God. Dr. Jerry L. Martin, a lifelong agnostic. Dr. Martin served as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Colorado philosophy department, is the founding chairman of the Theology Without Walls group at AAR, and editor of Theology Without Walls: The Transreligious Imperative. Dr. Martin’s work has prepared him to become a serious reporter of God’s narrative, experiences, evolution, and autobiography. In addition to scholarly publications, Dr. Martin has testified before Congress on educational policy. He has appeared on “World News Tonight,” and other television news programs.

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Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast– the dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin.

He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions, and God had a lot to tell him.

“The Soul is at one with God.”

December 28, 2023

A few days after my dream, I started praying about daily matters and was interrupted.

Stop. You’re just rambling, not thinking. If this were our last conversation and you could know only one thing, what would it be?

I thought, what is it that affects me most personally? “Lord, is there life after death and, if so, what is it like?”

You flunk. You have asked Me a question I have already told you the answer to.

“But not what life after death is like.”

The dream I sent you told you that. You got a glimpse of life after death.

There is a second reason you flunk. Your motive is honest but wrong. You ask only what concerns you. Ask out of desire, and fear of not getting what you desire, and should ask in terms of the good of life, of all life, and of what I want for you, not in terms of what you want for yourself. You should seek understanding.

I tried to step back to see what question my “soul” would ask. “How can I merge with You? I’m not sure if that’s the best way to put it, Lord: be at one with You, at rest with You, at one with Your will?”

The question is adequately formulated. The goal—one way to describe the goal—is to be at one with God, the God of All. At bottom, the Soul’s will is the will of God. The Soul is at one with God. The Atman language is a bit off target, a bit misleading.

Hindus believe that the Atman or Soul is identical with the Brahman, the ultimate divine reality.

It is not that you and I are literally the same substance, the same particular. It is that we are “at one,” in perfect harmony, and not accidentally so.

It is in the nature of what the Soul is, that it is at one with God. Remember that these metaphysical (philosophical) categories are crude and inadequate in the first place.

Back to your question: how can you become at one with God? Of course, the answer is that you already are—your Soul, that is. The task is to come to realize that this is so, to realize it not merely in theory, but in intuitive, felt understanding, in your emotions and feelings, and in practice.

“That’s the goal, Lord? It sounds simple. The one-ness is already ‘inside.’ All we have to do is to bring our conscious selves along?”

That is right. It is the simplest thing in the world.

And everyone, at some level and at some moments, knows it, at least glimpses it. But it is very difficult to actualize in practice. The empirical world—the world of desires and the senses—seems so real and is so powerful that is extremely difficult to redirect one’s energy.

And the empirical world is real, in its own way. This is not Christian Science. The world is not an illusion, a mirage.

If it is a mirage, it is one from which you can drink water. No, you must respect the empirical world while at the same time emancipating yourself from it, not letting yourself be identical with your interests in this world.

________

Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast– the dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin.

He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions, and God had a lot to tell him.

new Elijah, voice, Experience God: An Autobiography

“It will be My voice.”

December 14, 2023

So that is what the new Elijah, the new messenger, is about. But telling the world that I am the new Elijah? “Lord, I am back to the laughing stock problem.”

As I tell it to you, it will become clearer what you should write publicly.

There is no point in writing something that will be dismissed. You will need to continue reading and studying—otherwise, you will not have adequate words and concepts. There is a reason I chose an educated man for this task.

My message is evolving over time.

You will carry it forward. Do not credit this to your ego—it will be My voice. (Just) focus on the task. The world’s religions have spent themselves. They need renewal. There will be many voices for renewal. Yours will be one of the most important.

“I would feel more comfortable being one of the less important.”

________

Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast– the dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin.

He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions, and God had a lot to tell him.

Trust in Me and Believe in Yourself

December 7, 2023

“Isn’t this emphasis on the power of positive thinking wrong?”

No, it is still valid as far as it goes. You will develop more and have a greater impact for good if you trust in Me and believe in yourself—not in your ego, your will, but in your spirit and your destiny.

“Destiny?”

Yes, there is a goal for you (for a person)—an individual path of evolution—that I want to help you along. Believing that you can progress and trust in Me to help you is very helpful in achieving that goal.

Read Chapter 114

November 30, 2023

A Proper Appreciation of Yourself Opens Your Heart.

An ego rush always broke my connection with God. So I tried to keep a cold watch on this ego of mine.

When I was still in Washington, D.C., a matter came up about which I needed the assistance of an eminent intellectual with whom I had a limited acquaintance. He was completely forthcoming, and I felt flattered by his response.

“Lord, how should I take this? Is it wrong for me to feel flattered?”

No, it is not. This is joy, the joy of being yourself, which is proper to (appropriate for) human beings. I want you to be happy, to feel the fullness of your own being, its bounty. I blessed you with certain gifts. Of course, you recognize them as gifts, as benefits, as talents. That is okay. It is not the same as ego.

Ego is destructive, separatist, defiant of My will, self-satisfied and self-lustful. A proper appreciation of yourself opens your heart, binds you to Me, to those you love.

“Pray and I will tell you”

November 16, 2023

I started making a list of great spiritual leaders to pray about. I thought the question would be, for example, What was God communicating to Martin Luther? But, when I asked, I got a different answer.

Suppose you brought a guy in – say, Luther – and cut him up (dissected him, looked at the elements that make him up). What would you find?

“Not just the single solitary individual, I suppose, but someone immersed in a tradition, institutions, and a culture.”

I act over the centuries in reference to individuals, but also movements, cultures, and the like.

“But only individuals receive communications.”

Just listen for the moment. I interact with mankind, with the universe, in many different ways. Do not assume that the only interaction is the same form of the interaction I have with you. With some it is conversational, but with others it is by inspiration, by My spirit moving through them, infusing institutions and life-forms, cultures, cultural forms, art, music, dance, symbolism, ideational systems, thought forms …

So, looking at each cultural form, I should be able to figure out how it reflects You?”

The starting point is not the cultural forms and asking “What kind of God or transcendent order does that imply or suggest?” but start with Me and ask “What am I doing with that culture, individual, art, art form, or whatever. What is it to Me?” Pray and I will tell you.

The Right Way to Ask

November 9, 2023

“Walsch reports You as saying, ‘God will grant whatever is asked, without fail.’ Whatever is asked!”

The trick is in “ask.” Not everything you “want” has been “asked” in the right way, with fulsomeness of soul.

“But then the statement is completely misleading. It depends on a verbal sleight of hand.”

Not so. Some might be confused by it, but it is a way of focusing attention on the right way to ask, to believe and feel fully, and to motivate this change in people. But it is not a lie, not even a Noble Lie. It is the direct truth. When you come into the fullness of Being, of partnership with God, everything you truly seek will be granted. That may seem like a bait and switch, but that is not the way you will see it when you get there. You will see that this is indeed what you really wanted all along.