Worship God in Spirit and in Truth

God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

For The Spirit is God, and it is fitting that those who worship him worship in The Spirit and in The Truth.”

Aramaic Translation

In reference to the woman of Samaria: 23, Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

John 4:24-26

Many religious believers take part in ceremonies or rituals, but never know the Object of their worship. It is those who have God consciousness, who commune with God that can truly speak of worshiping God.

We need to know, that when we are sincerely devoted to God, no matter what words we use, God will answer. Unfortunately most people do not worship God with conviction based on the experience, that God is real and that He is listening to our prayers; that He is just behind our thoughts. If we pray with all our heart and mind concentrated on that indwelling Presence, we will know the One we worship.

Why does God remain unknown to people who worship him in temples and churches?

Churches and temples talk about God as if He could be comprehended by our restless mind. Divinity itself is perceived through intuition, the soul’s God given power of knowing truth. When mental restlessness is stilled and our consciousness is interiorized, in touch with our soul, the God revealing intuition is awakened. When we find God within, He is no longer a mystery concealed by his various material manifestations.

The most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet, (Acts 7:48) heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? Has not made my hand made all these things? Isaiah 66:1(KJV)

Worldly people have build temples on hilltops and lived in places of pilgrimage, only to find that their inner environment is still a place of sense and thought based matter worship. Worshippers, who by meditation interiorize the out flowing consciousness, by withdrawing their attention from identifying with the body and material nature, discover through direct experience what God is. They know what it means to truly worship Him; they have found the way to salvation.

When Jesus said:”God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

The term God and Spirit based on mystical insight, are mutually exclusive, but are interchangeable where no distinction is required.

Spirit signifies the Unmanifested Absolute, void of even the slightest ripple of thought or vibration, where even space, time and dimensions are nonexistent. There abides only ever - existing, ever – conscious – ever – new Bliss that is Spirit.

God implies the transcendental Creator, beyond creation but existing in relation to the manifestation that evolves from Him. When relative creation is dissolved again into its Creator, then God becomes Spirit, the Unmanifested Absolute. 

God remains transcendental as both the source of becoming and imminent as the sum and substance. In manifesting creation, when Spirit becomes God the Creator, His transcendence is reflected in creation as the guiding Universal Intelligence. Thus God is Divine Intelligence manifesting creation. Spirit is Divine Intelligence with creation dissolved in It.

So in truth, God is Spirit becomes the Father of Creation. He is all things in creation; but the manifestations of creation are not God. His Spirit nature never changes, though a portion of that consciousness is present in nature.

The wave distorts the ocean only in appearance, but not in its essence. The true vision of God lies in the Spirit Ocean without the waves of creation, the realization of God as Unmanifested Spirit: the only existing substance, Truth, without the delusion of matter or phenomena.

As long as our consciousness is limited to creation and its inherent delusion of separate things, we have not attained enlightenment. We live in delusion absorbed in the ever changing phenomena. We need to lift the veil and see God first as transcendent in His creation, following that, we can realize God as transcendent beyond creation.

As Absolute Spirit is reflected as God’s guiding Intelligence in macrocosmic creation, so is Spirit reflected in the microcosm of the body as the soul, the individualized spirit image of Spirit in man. True worshippers who actually commune with God, who experience his presence in meditation, realize that the soul and God the Creator are reflections of Spirit.

Another spiritual insight informs us, that God the Father of manifestation can be known by the soul either by perception of or oneness with any of His manifested attributes. Spirit, the Unmanifested Absolute, can be known only by oneness with Spirit.

God in relation to the soul presumes a duality, the Object to be perceived, God; and the perceiver or experiencer, the soul.