One God or Many?

          I Am the Lord, your God. You shall have no other gods before Me!

                                    So reads the first commandment.

The Ten Commandments are the best known and oldest rules of behaviour. They were given to mankind about 3350 years ago. When we look around today in western society and also in the rest of the world and compare the circumstances on our planet with the content of the Ten Commandments, we have to realise that this moral code has not decreased in importance. The Ten Commandments are and remain of pressing importance for the present time. This is true because mankind and this means all of us, is unfortunately still very far from really putting these guidelines for our earthly life into practice.

We would not have all the difficulties and problems, all the threatening developments, that we have today on this planet - starting with the destruction of the environment and the heating up of the atmosphere, to the constant danger of war, right up to social problems like exploitation, unemployment and hunger - if mankind had done nothing other than to consistently observe the Ten Commandments. Of course this is a bold claim, but when we examine these commandments more closely and actualise them from the point of view of today, then we recognise the truth of this statement.

We all know the first commandment, but do we understand it? Was it meant only for the people of that time who were constantly in danger of taking over other gods and religions from their neighbours? Who could have even been dancing around the golden calf during the meeting between God and Moses? Or are there not also in our time, in our life today, also very many "golden calves" which we like to dance around? If we look deeper, then we can ask ourselves the question:

Whom have we "made into gods"? Think of the "gods in white": the doctors, the scientists whose amazing accomplishments of technology and science have no limits. They can destroy, they can create new things, they can conquer space, and they can fly to the stars. Who among us has not seen these feats as higher than the One who created heaven and earth and is the life in everything? Does this not mean that we revere and idolise another god? Could the god also be called mammon? Could the god also be called career? Could it also be called influence and power? Are these not the gods of our time which many people worship by subjecting themselves to the law which says, higher, faster, further – without caring how it goes for my fellow man and without regard for what is lawful?

We should think about this serving of other gods, because this is the same as the worship of gods, but which gods? The first commandment says: "l Am the Lord, your God." How many gods are there then whom we worship? Isn’t there only one Lord? He is our Lord and God, our Father. We are all brothers and sisters and the one who raises himself to a lordship raises himself above God. If God is the highest commandment for us, God, the selfless, the giving principle, the All-Father, who loves us all, then why do we need the institution churches and the political parties?

What, for example have the so-called representatives of God given us? They have brought us fear, they have brought us threats; they have brought the institution to us; they have brought damnation - everything that God never wanted. In short, they made us dependent and made us see them as gods (politicians, religions leaders, medical specialists, scientists and so forth).

Could it be that my partner, my children, my friends, my possessions and my passions – or whatever - mean more to me than God?

God certainly doesn't ask us to suddenly give up all external things, all our possessions, everything that gives us joy and withdraw into the loneliness of the desert as hermits - especially since we would certainly take our suppressed wishes and longings with us.

No, what is important here is an inner change. What is important here is the question: Am l willing to include God in my life, also in the seemingly small things of everyday life? Am I willing to talk with God, my Father, about everything that moves me - by endeavouring to sense what would now be correct? By listening to my conscience?

With this first commandment, God tells us that He is dose to us and that we may come to Him. With everything that moves us. He tells us that we should not hold on to outer things, either to people who surround us or to things with which we surround ourselves. Our hold and also the basis for everything between people are, in the end, only He who dwells in us.

God is like a loving Father and much, much more, who does not abandon His children. He understands the situations into which we have manoeuvred ourselves - and today He shows us very concretely the next steps that we can take to bring our life here on earth closer and closer to a life in accordance with the divine principles of the law. When we do this, when we accept and put these offers into practice, then God leads us more and more into His Absolute Law of love. When we don't do this, then we fall more and more deeply into our own self-made law, into egoism, into our existence - wanting to have - and in this human law, we have to then bear and suffer through the results of our deeds. And this is exactly what we are experiencing today.

The Ten Commandments, revealed by the Creator of the heavens to mankind and the earth through Moses - as we know them from the Bible - are thus an offering of God's hand to the people. Yes, they are the offer of a covenant, an offer of a "working together" between God and the people with the goal of a higher development of mankind. And this offer still holds true today, for God is the eternally streaming love, the eternally giving, dynamic life. How could He leave us alone, especially now in these difficult times?

When we read in the book of Exodus how Moses received the Ten Commandments, we then feel what offers God makes to the people. They are not the kind of forbiddances with which we people close doors on each other and at the same time disregard the free will of others. They are offers, with which God opens the doors to a free, harmonious, happy life. Of course, we have to go through these doors ourselves; for we have received free will as a gift from God. He invites us to walk on His paths, but it depends on us whether and when we accept this invitation. His doors are open.