"WHATEVER THIS IS."

"Whatever this is” is an alternative expression to “God,” since the word “God” comes with a lot of baggage; it means a lot of different things to different people. 

“Whatever this is” is a presence that one feels, meanwhile; it is something other than the person while at the same time being the person.  It has no attributes, for to assign it attributes is to limit it, much like the word “God” does.

Vedanta, while using “God” synonymously with Atman/Brahman, also uses the expression “net, neti,” meaning “not this, not that.”  Buddhism does not have to worry about this since it does not acknowledge anything divine, referring instead to “higher levels of consciousness” and even, on occasion, “the deathless.”

The feeling one gets from “whatever this is” is love.  Oddly enough, some of us have never used the word love when speaking of spirituality, although many, especially Christians, use it all the time.  The word “love” also means different things to different people.  

What kind of love are we talking about here then, considering that there are many kinds of it, brotherly love, parental love, platonic love, erotic love, compassionate love?  It is none of the above.  The above are all human loves, loves of the relative world, limited loves.  

Were we to use human terms, just for the sake of discussion, we would say that this love is, at the very least, unconditional, never threatening or scolding, and always warm.  It is a love that comes when someone knows everything about you, what you have done and what you will do in the time you have left, where you have been and where you have yet to go, and when you will die.

“Whatever this is” has been and always will be protective of you.  We do not know why this is.  It has saved many of us more often than we can count, mainly saved us from ourselves, but then also saved us from others.  “Whatever this is” allows us to do what we will in the world, while, paradoxically, not allowing us to do it. 

It can only go this one way.