I was having a conversation with a client today. The word “god” came up.
Some of us are challenged by the usage of the word god. It can bring up many neuro-associations in our unconscious mind, depending on our conditioning. A parallel: Some people hear the word “Budweiser” and think “yum” or see an icy cold mug in their mind and get thirsty. When I hear “Budweiser” I automatically smell a college party and a bunch of kids puking. It’s just an association. It’s just a word.
When it comes to the word “god”, I think of it this way:
God is just a word for the unknowable. Since we’re human, we try to understand everything as a human (i.e. anthropomorphize). It’s why many dog owners make the continual mistake of understanding their dog through a human projection, which is not helpful to the dog.
A dog is just a dog. The unknowable is just the unknowable. “God” is just “dog” spelled backwards. They are just words for something to experience personally.
A reminder that we project a human model on most things is a favorite quote by the writer Anaïs Nin:
“We see people and things not as they are, but as we are.“
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