Dracula on God

People have searched for God in temples, in books, in the heavens, and in one another.

Very few have searched where He has always been.

Within.

Not the little self that introduces itself by name, profession or nationality, but the silent awareness looking through your eyes at this very moment.

When Moses asked for the name of God, the answer was not He will be. Nor was it He once was.

It was simply:

I AM.

The oldest mistake humanity has made is believing that these words belong to someone else.

They do not.

They are spoken every time consciousness awakens to itself.

God is not a distant monarch governing creation from beyond the stars. God is Being itself—the infinite imagination from which every star, every tree, every stranger and every dream continuously arises.

The wave may believe itself separate from the ocean.

The ocean never makes that mistake.

Perhaps this is why Christ spoke so often with the simplicity of a child. A child has not yet learned the great illusion of separation. He has not yet forgotten that life is one continuous miracle appearing in countless forms.

The purpose of wisdom is not to become someone else.

It is to remember who has been living your life all along.

And when that remembrance arrives, something extraordinary happens.

You no longer ask, "Where is God?"

You begin asking a far more beautiful question:

"How shall God live through me today?"

Jonathan remained silent for a long while before he spoke.

"You speak of God," he said quietly, "yet not in the way I expected."

Dracula smiled.

"I rarely do. I don't speak as though God is... someone, I speak as though God is everything."

Jonathan frowned.

"That sounds very different."

"It only sounds different because we have become accustomed to division."

Dracula looked through the great cathedral window where the evening light had begun turning the ancient stone into gold.

"If I were to ask you where the sunlight ends and the warmth begins, could you answer?"

"No."

"Neither can anyone tell me where God ends and creation begins."

Jonathan considered this.

"But Jesus spoke to the Father."

"He did."

"And prayed."

"He did."

"And called Himself the Son."

"He did."

Jonathan looked puzzled.

"Then surely there is separation."

"There is relationship," Dracula replied gently. "Relationship is not separation."

He paused.

"A wave may speak to the ocean."

Jonathan smiled.

"But it remains the ocean."

Dracula inclined his head.

"Exactly."

Silence settled comfortably between them.

"Jesus never invited mankind to worship His individuality."

"No?"

"No."

"He invited mankind to awaken to the same truth from which He lived."

Dracula looked at Jonathan with remarkable kindness.

"The greatest misunderstanding in history is that people admired the light instead of learning to see by it."

Jonathan lowered his eyes.

"So when He said, 'The Kingdom of God is within you'..."

"...He was not speaking poetically."

"And when He said, 'I and the Father are one'?"

"He was describing consciousness, not privilege."

Jonathan breathed deeply.

"I have heard those words all my life."

"Most people have."

"And yet I feel as though I am hearing them for the first time."

Dracula laughed softly.

"That is often the difference between information and revelation."

He walked slowly towards an old wooden table upon which rested several ancient books.

"The Hermetic philosophers expressed the same truth with astonishing simplicity."

He placed his hand upon one of the volumes.

"'The All is Mind.'"

He allowed the words to remain in the air.

"Everything exists within the infinite consciousness we call God."

Jonathan looked at the shelves surrounding them.

"The world..."

"...is not outside God."

"My life..."

"...is not outside God."

"My thoughts?"

Dracula smiled.

"Closer still."

Jonathan hesitated.

"Then imagination..."

"...is far more sacred than we have ever been taught."

Dracula's voice became quieter.

"Every cathedral was first invisible, every symphony, every act of kindness, every civilisation, they all appeared first within consciousness before becoming visible."

Jonathan looked towards the unfinished sketches lying upon Dracula's desk.

"So creation itself... is imagination made visible."

Dracula nodded.

"Hermes understood it, the great mystics understood it, the greatest artists have always sensed it, and Christ lived it."

He looked once more towards the fading sky.

"The tragedy is that religion often taught mankind to admire the Architect while fearing the act of building."

Jonathan smiled.

"And what should we do instead?"

Dracula's eyes sparkled.

"Build beautifully."

He rested a hand upon Jonathan's shoulder.

"Not because you wish to become God."