The Way of God

Essays on Sikhism

by Claudia Gaspar Soares Martins

The first thing is that God's the first being; and that He existed before anything or anyone else, and will continue to exist after everything and everyone is gone. Were we to somehow or another appear out of nowhere and come upon reality for the first time, the first being we'd notice - the most obvious and preeminent Being - would be God. Simply because we hadn't yet had a chance to take His presence for granted, and hadn't yet been way laid by all the other things that have us overlook Him. God will eventually prove to have existed before everything else, too. But knowing that would come later, after we'd have with stood the shock and stun of catching sight of His presence in the firstplace. Again, we're also told that He will continue to exist after everything and everyone is gone. Why would we need to know that, too? God's ineffable presence defines reality and gives it its heft. And that by being the first and last, He is the better part of the whole. God - and God alone - both created and maintains everything. Simply put, that comes to deny the power of anything or anyoneelse to truly and utterly create out of the blue (despite our own personal fantasies and vainglory). And it comes to underscore the fact that God not only created us, he also maintains our beings moment by moment.