What Is the Difference Between “God” and “Absolute Consciousness”?

Dear Preety,

Pranam!

God is Absolute Consciousness. It is the same.

However, Yogananda taught that God is both impersonal and personal. The concept of “God” seems more the personal form, whereas “Absolute Consciousness” seems the formless and impersonal Spirit.

Personally for a long time I have thought of God as Absolute Formless Consciousness. I thought that it is the higher and truer concept. Maybe it is, theoretically and philosophically speaking.

Now however, after many years, I feel God much more personally. This is much sweeter, much closer and dearer. I have seen that this is (at least for me) the more advanced way to see God, because it brings me closer to Him.

A Mother or Father you can love. “Absolute Consciousness” is more difficult to love.

This is why in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna tells Arjuna (12:5): “Those who make the Unmanifested their primary goal make the path more difficult for themselves. Arduous for embodied beings is that path.”

Jesus too in the Bible too prays personally “Our Father,” even though he knew that God, finally speaking, is “a Spirit”: eternal absolute Consciousness.

Swami Kriyananda even says that you can pray to God as a “sacred crocodile” if that is your sincere and heartfelt prayer. God will then respond to you as the “sacred crocodile”. It almost sounds like a joke, but it isn’t, because the point is important: God answers to love, not to our concept of Him.

One evening at the dinner table Swami Kriyananda told us young devotees: “When I die, God won’t ask me, Which religion have you followed, and what have you done? His only two questions will be: How much do you love Me, and how much have you loved?”

But yes, ultimately speaking God is absolute Consciousness.

God bless you,
jayadev