There is no good definition of being. It is a concept that is both simple and complex. Being is what you are; not what God created you to do, but what He created you to be. Very, very few ever discover and operate in their true being. Being is roughly analogous to character, but character can be developed and exercised as an individual. Being is created by God, not by you or anyone else, and to be truly realized must exist as part of a body not individually. This does not mean that you and others have no influence on being, – you do. You can strengthen or weaken it, you can purify or pollute it, but you cannot create it.
Righteousness is a prerequisite to understanding your being. Righteousness is not being, but is a part of being. The deeper understanding of your being must be based in righteousness. Righteousness is defined as to know and do what is right.
There has been a great effort by Satan and his forces to obscure, twist, distort, and reduce the knowledge of being. Satan cannot destroy being any more than he can create it, but he can and does distort it so that it is almost impossible to recognize. Understanding of being has been almost completely lost. We still recognize some reflections of being in certain people such as creativity, compassion, diligence, and so forth, but these are only indications of a much greater reality.
Most people in western civilizations categorize themselves by what they do, i.e., I am a doctor, a teacher, a mechanic, a housewife, etc. Beyond this we have mostly superficial identities by race, nationality, sex, geography or some other affiliation. This identity by what you do or by loose and transitory associations is exactly the opposite of God’s intention. You should know and be known by what you are created to be, not what you do. You be to do – not do to be.
This is a restatement of the scriptural principle “faith without works is dead” (James 2:16). Being without doing is impossible, but the doing flows from the being not the other way around. This is an important point not just a play on words. It is this very point that Satan has used to totally distort and camouflage the understanding of being.