Spiritual Wisdom of the Week
by: Rabbi Michael Lerner on May 31st, 2011 | 31 Comments »
This week’s spiritual wisdom comes from Rev. Sarah Ray. She writes about her personal experience with God and gives insight to how we can find love in God, others, and ourselves.
Looking into the Eyes of God
by Sarah Ray
Will the Universe implode if I tell you this? This ultimate secret?
I hope not. Actually, what I think will happen is that you won’t see this if you’re not meant to. Someone will walk in and interrupt you and you will click off the page, the phone will ring, your computer will crash, something like that. There are certain truths that can only be shared when the recipient is ready.
The truth that I want to share is something that must be experienced. I want to share my experience with you, but be forewarned, if you are not ready then what you experience will be terrifying. If you are angry and fearful and want to cling to that anger and fear, read no further. If you cherish your lust, stop right now.
This truth has been shared before, but somehow we manage not to hear. We are like children bent on annoying their mother, running around with our hands over our ears, singing, “La, la, la – I can’t hear you!” And then we crash into the coffee table and cry.
Christ Yahshua (Jesus) said it. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” He did not say, “when they die,” and yet the vast majority of Christians silently tack that on, nodding sagely and waiting for the grave to “save” them.
Paul said, “Do you not know that you are the Temple of God, and the Spirit of God abides in you?” And yet Christians kill, in the name of God, claiming that Spirit is only within the believers. Is the truth only true if it is believed and known? God is omnipresent, “above all, in all and through all.” Truth is not dependent on belief.
Mohammed said, “Wherever you look, you see the face of God.” And yet still Muslims kill.
THIS INSANITY MUST STOP.
This secret is only a secret if you don’t want to know. Do you want to know more?
It is called the Divine Glance. It could end all wars.
Do you truly want to see God? If you say you don’t believe in God, then do you want to see the ultimate truth? If you claim to be an atheist, is it really God you don’t believe in, or the concept of God as an old man in the sky who can’t wait to ruin your day with a thunderbolt because you touched your naughty bits? For you, when I say God, replace the word with “consciousness,” “life,” or “energy.” God is all those things.
Can you purify your heart? The truth is, if you can’t see God in everyone, you can’t see God in anyone. So forgiveness is essential. Purify your heart and forgive the world, forgive yourself, forgive GOD. And then you will see.
God is omnipresent. Do you know what “omnipresent” really means? It means, “everywhere at once.” Not like a boogie man who can pop into your space and say “Boo!” at any moment. It is everything, already here, now.
Is the space behind your eyes a place? Then God is there.
On the day that I forgave all – everything and everyone, including myself – I looked into the mirror and saw that consciousness of God, looking back with joy to finally be seen. If you can forgive all, so can you. But be forewarned, if you think there is one iota of darkness you can hide, one vengeful thought or victim’s resentment, those joyful, loving eyes will be transformed into your worst nightmare. You will only see what is in your own heart.
So let there be love in your heart, and know that God is love. When you are ready to call your Creator “the Beloved” you will be ready to see. Once you can see, you can share this wonderful Divine Glance. Everywhere you look, see the face of God, be the face of God.
This is exactly how it is done, once your heart is purified. Look into someone’s eyes and be aware of God’s omnipresence. Remember that space behind your eyes is not excluded from God’s omnipresence. Think “God is looking through my eyes this very instant.” Know it to be true. It IS true.
You will know when the person you are sharing this with sees the Beloved. If they are of a pure heart, they will hold your gaze and laugh with joy. If they are not ready, they may interrupt the Glance by looking away or saying, “What?” Do not try to explain what you are doing before you share it, it will not be received any better then. In fact it is more likely that their ego will block it with expectations.
If they are not of a pure heart, or if you try to use this for any other reason than to share the love of God, they will turn from you in terror. Don’t let your ego try to use it to make you “special.” God is in them, too, so you are not any better than they. They are the Beloved too, only they may be more deeply “sleeping.” One who is awake is not any “better” or “worse” than one who is asleep.
To be in the presence of God is Heaven. One day, it is my fondest wish for you that you will find everyone you meet looking back at you with that joyful recognition.
Welcome to Heaven. Ready to wake up and dance, Beloved?
As my beloved spiritual master Swami Satchidananda used to remind us: When you know your Self, you see your Self in others, and loving your Self, you love others as your Self.
Absolutely. Thank you, Beloved.
I get refreshed by old truisms in new words (or packages called books or lectures). Having just finished a Landmaark Forum Education – the 5 day grueling introduction, I returned to a book I had put down: A COURSE IN MIRACLES. The Landmark newsletter recommended reading many of the people I had been storing in my self help library and lo and behold again I realized they are often saying the same thing in different words. If you just consider the logic and assertions of A COURSE IN MIRACLES without believing in the ‘Holy Spirit, God and Son of God descriptions, it’s the Landmark Forum embellished. We are a quirky beings with a labyrinth of thoughts in our minds. The thoughts analyze, judge, evaluate, doubt and believe. We’ve been taught lessons we ought to later unlearn because our knowing and/or our intuition calls for it. For some reason, supposedly economical but it could be political or social because we haven’t organized our societies that way and we’ve not been taught HOW to love because we have been promoting our egos in the pursuit of self-confidence, esteem, choice. we love to make war, we love to get married; we love to raise children until we don’t anymore.. War in words, ideas, weapons, science, politics, even camps were we play. We could be taught another way, but that day is a long way off. And how could we possible mete out rewards without competition? Think outside of the (imaginary) box, we are now encouraged. Go to your garage and work it out. In the meantime, we have these opposite ways of being we may write or talk about, we may gather together intending to change the world and maybe little by little some things change to love, peace and whatever other good things we can imagine. Could it just be our fate to not listen because after all we are only children in the grand scheme of things. And if we are eternal or reincarnated, it only matters until we destroy the earth upon which we live or each other. Either way we lose the game of life and violence won’t triumph either.Is it easier to accept what is when the possibilities diminish? Or is that just an illogical conundrum? I love words; rather than play in sand, I play in words. As long as I am functional, I’d rather be depressed about it than medicated to ignore it or not let it bother me. If I am the home of the beloved too, than that is sufficient. I can can only be what I want everyone to be and that is hard enough. And if we give meaning to everything we think is real (I include ‘values’ in that too) than we have developed crowded insane countries that reflect our preoccupation with the past in our futures. Most of us will never make being present a priority in our rushed and crazy days. But then if we all work from homes using our computers to extend our selves into imaginary worlds we want to play in….but that hasn’t worked so well either. The bad seeps in as long as there is the good. The balancing act keeps us moving; our faith keeps us energized. We hope for better and sometimes we experience it. Are we lucky or what? The questions never cease and the answers get more inventive. We are entering the counter intuitive now. When I can be two places at once, I know I will be happier or will I just be busier? Operating on the level of our thinking minds with our ego at the wheel, we are headed for the spirit world of love, peace and acceptance. There are even songs about it. Isn’t Lady Gaga amazing! And saying, No, No, No, to possibilities, well isn’t that crazy. Is healing is a multifaceted endeavor or simple a quick decision. Ah, plastic surgery. Words obscure and separate us. It’s only possible cause it’s so impossible. Just give us the facts, please. But even these are disputed. The scientific method won’t answer everything we want to know. Our built in mechanisms just may be the only thing we can rely on. ISO intuition classes. I’m going to think about it some more and then I’m going to act in service to a good intention. I will consider the traffic, the husband and the family and should I buy a Geiger counter for the next birthday present to my self? No, I’m going to lose my self in a play or two and then get back to the job of living my life. If each one of us finds one pure heart to reflect our own, well, that is a good thing. But will it last? What are the odds? I’m imagining that.
It is my joy to awaken the Beloved in All, but I realize that in some forms in which jhe is experiencing this world, jhe is just as likely to look back at me and put a finger to jhes lips and say, “Shhhhh, I’m watching the movie.” And that’s OK too.
But when it comes to finding a pure heart to reflect my own, odds don’t come into it. I know that this is not a random universe. The Beloved will come to me in form always in perfect timing and perfect satisfaction of my Spirit’s need. The more clear my call, the more clearly I experience this. If I send a mixed message, I will get a mixed response. So my challenge in this moment is to focus.
All I want to say is, “Amen to that, sister.” Spread the word particularly among the Christians who really need to hear it. Many of us have been having this experience for a while now.
I am drawn to creating a bridge to the fundamentalist Christians. It is very difficult, because there is an incredible wall of fear that has been built up over the last 2000 years. The first Christians knew what they were doing, PR wise, I give them that! They claimed to have the only path to Heaven and the only other option was eternity in hell, no questions allowed. But the requirement for entry was easy, so they flourished. The ultimate hard sell technique.
In Divine order though, I see that the Gnostics, who had a deeper realization of the Presence, could not have carried the basic message of the Christ for the last 2000 years as the orthodox church did. They required much more of their members than what we now call the orthodox church because a true experience of the Divine does take some practice and commitment for most people. Christianity needed numbers to survive and the simple, “Accept the Christ as your Saviour” message allowed the expansion needed. The message that we have now from the Roman Catholic church is diluted and twisted almost beyond recognition, but it still has great power. And now that we are ready, the Gnostic knowledge is “coincidentally” surfacing to be incorporated.
It is clear to me that some of what the Gnostics were processing was egoic confusion also, which is a part of the experience of transformation, so they were not ready to lead a movement that needed expansive growth.
It seems to me that everything is coming together as it should.
Hello my brothers and sisters
Your hearts ache with love. Ultimately pure love is the most terrifying force in the world because it ends all separation, all alienation, and heals the rift between the heart and the mind so that there is only the miracle of wholeness in its full integrity.
As we used to say when I was coming up, Get Down Sarah. Tell it like it is and let all of God’s creatures rejoice! Amen. Amen. Amen.
Thank you, Beloved! Amen, and so it is…
The problem I have with the “God is Love” mantra is that it fails to explain the horrors of the world. How does the divine love explain the Holocaust, or more timely, the death of those by the tsunami in Japan? I fail to see some “greater purpose” or “divine plan” in the death of so many innocents. If God is all and everything, then God is horrible and callous too. That doesn’t mean we have to be, though. As humans, we’re in a unique position to witness the suffering of the world and do something to alleviate it. This Love that you talk about, therefore, is a very human quality and not something I’d ascribe to a being who supposedly created us and then caused us to suffer relentlessly.
I experience the Beloved not as a Creator who made me from nothingness and is allowing me to suffer. I experience the Beloved as All. I think the main difference between the Eastern and Western perception of God is this — God who created us from nothing, separate from jhemself, or God who “created” us from jhes own being. If the Beloved is omnipresent, then the Western thought is impossible. If the Eastern thought is the reality of our being, then God is not a creator at all, but an organizer. We are simply more and more complex forms of Being.
I have another article which shares my personal experience of this realization, which I hope to publish here soon.
*(jhe is a pronoun I created to mean both male and female. It’s our language, we can do what we want, right?)
Call me a spiritual party pooper… but I have to agree with Matthew. God as Love and God as Creator & Manager of the Universe are two incompatible concepts. In fact, the second concept is, I suspect, infantile theology and completely passé. Who, in this day and age, would believe in the literal existence and characteristics of Zeus, Athena and Poseidon? Well, I’m sorry, but the traditional Christian God is just as flawed and childish and contradictory a concept. As Matthew points out, no loving god could ever create a world where humans “suffer relentlessly”! June mentions above “A Course in Miracles”, and in that luminous book, Jesus makes it abundantly clear that “God did not create the world”. Phew, that’s a relief! Only an insane and cruel God would create such a world.
All concepts of an EXTERNAL God must ultimately hit a brick wall : what kind of God would allow such suffering and misery? The only true God is the One within, the Love, the Compassion that abide WITHIN each and every one of us and that call us HOME to our true healing. Call me an atheist – yes, I know, I’m going to hell… – but I do NOT believe in an external God, that God has too often let me down… Even Jesus yells out from the cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” But the DIVINE WITHIN will never forsake you, because It lives in you as the Real You. I’m not a Hindu, but I have a feeling the Upanishads have understood this far better than traditional Christianity: “I am Brahman… All is Brahman… THAT THOU ART”. And the Sufis and even a handful of Christian mystics, such as Angelus Silesius, Mechtilde of Magdeburg and John of Ruysbroeck, seem to have come to the same sublime realization.
We are in complete agreement. I am talking about the DIVINE WITHIN and how to experience it more completely, to REALIZE it fully. God is not doing anything TO anyone. God is just Being — being you. If you see the Beloved as separate, you will experience yourself to be separate.
There is no separation from an omnipresent being, except in the mind. We are One.
When I had this realization, I fell in love with God. To fall in love with God is to fall in love with Life. I do not blame the Beloved for the suffering of the world, I ache to free the Beloved FROM suffering.
You are the Beloved.
P.S. I realize that I just spoke very bluntly and may have offended some sensibilities. It was not my intention, believe me. I was just speaking from the heart, as I would with an old friend, after 48 years of thinking and writing almost daily about these matters… So, while I may sound irritatingly dogmatic to some, I most certainly meant no disrespect for anyone sharing other views and would in fact welcome PASSIONATE debate on the subject!
My background is in Unity, a New Thought group, and I have studied A Course in Miracles for years. I see the Beloved as within -and- without, everywhere. I don’t think you’re an atheist at all. I don’t believe in an old man in the sky either.
My experience of God would be best described this way:
Everyone I’ve ever loved
and everyone who has ever loved me
All rolled into One
And multiplied by infinity…
Thank you, Sarah, for your luminous insights. As Rumi said : “To find the Beloved, one must become the Beloved”.
But I still think we haven’t adequately addressed Matthew Kressel’s poignant comment… WHY is the world like this??? I can see in my own life how a certain amount of suffering has on occasion helped me to grow, but so often the “dose” seems so totally out of proportion… And in many ways, I’m one of the lucky ones! So many have suffered ten times more, with no respite whatsoever. WHAT IS THE POINT of the neverending horror story that constitutes “life” for so many millions of innocent human beings? (Forgive me, all you traditional Christians out there, but the “original sin” explanation is IMHO garbage, a theological “rabbit-in-a-hat” pulled by Paul which appears nowhere in the teachings of Judaism or of Rabbi Jesus.)
Perhaps I am simply not advanced enough, but at this point in my life, much like Matthew, “I fail to see some “greater purpose” or “divine plan” in the death of so many innocents”. Some call life a “school” and for these fortunate ones, it may well be the finest of schools, but for millions of others, it feels more like a medieval torture chamber. In this insane world, the only sanity I manage to hang on to is SELF-COMPASSION. “Have mercy on you!” cries out Stephen Levine, the great Buddhist teacher. And a young professor at the University of Texas, Kristin Neff, who has made self-compassion the main thrust of her research and in fact her “life-mission”, has just published her first book on the subject, which I cannot praise too highly.
absolutely! thank you!! may each of us come to this awareness, & bring that light into its full expression!
With all due respect, Matthew, your key words are “I fail to see” … and Lewy, too. There is a deeep insight trying to be expressed in this article and thread. You cannot grasp it with your dualistic intellect. One aspect of it is the insight that the Whole is Radically ONE. Also, we are reading a feminine writer so there may be a bit of unbalance towards emotional sentimental preference for Love, Oneness Feeling Absolutely Gooood, etc. And, yes, that is the -Ultimate Reality-, the Good/ True/ Beautiful. (Try reading The Supreme Doctrine by Hubert Benoit for a simple picture of how the relative dark/light, good/evil, etc., the >perfect< balance of opposites/dualisms inherent in existence add transcendently in "God/Good/Yes/Love/Perfect, etc…..). Back to Radically One. It is not just the infinitely diverse and divided existent manifest universe that is mystically and paradoxically One, but also the Unity and the Multiplicity are One on an even higher level, meaning both goin on at the same eternal time. You guys still want the universe to be your mommy, be nice, like you AS YOU ARE; GET that the horrors you abhor are within you and that this because you are Radically Not What you think you are; we are not here just to go on being 'people', procreating, pleasing our little mammal selves, 'pursuing happiness', etc. We are not "natural"; the Beings that are continually unfolding this infinite Creation are not "supernatural"; There is no such thing as the "natural/supernatural" dichotomy, because the whole bloody thing is a ""Miracle"". As one of the sages said "nobody. knows. what. any. thing. is." What could be more absolutely amazing and incomprehensible than … say, just for example, our author's image that "you" are God/ Lover/ Beloved/ Maker/ Creator right 'here'/'now' [wherever could THAT be?], always and forever.., and that I, and every other, also is, too. You don't like "original sin", well, "sin" means "without". Stop doing the perpetual violence of separating yourself from your Real Self, and the horrors of the world will stop. It's not so-called "God" doing it; it's ALL US.
Thank you so much for your understanding, Richard. You explain it from your masculine perspective in a way that I could not.
This is an -experience- that I am doing my best to express. I also had a longer experience in the Presence than I felt in this glance, (I existed in the bliss of that loving Presence for a total of 5 months after receiving revelation directly from the author of several spiritual books) but what is different about the glance is that it is -not- only my experience. It is a shared experience. Once it is experienced, it is undeniable.
If anyone has trouble with what I am saying, I invite them to simply -try- what I describe. This is, after all, something of a ‘how-to- article. But remember, forgiveness is the first step, including forgiveness of God, whatever your concept of God is.
Sarah. I been tryin to come up with genderless pronouns ever since people felt the need to take issue with the fact that the genderless and the masculine pronouns appeared identical in English. I don’t quite get your ‘j’ (?). I tried ‘hrs’ for his/her and his/hers, ‘hrm’ for her/him…, none of them is catchy…, ‘heshe’ for he or she?? Can we go back to the old way eventually, after feminism feels secure enough to let the current awkwardness go? I ask cuz it sounds so natural, and always worked for me…, and for my mom the English teacher, incidentally, who gave me a great headstart in language, and who >also< was a proto-feminist from her college days at Rockford College in the 1930s. Can't 'he', 'him', be neuter again, as they always were? Maybe they were neuter first and only later came to be masculine, as opposed to the other way around, as is so vehemently assumed.
I have to admit, I feel most comfortable referring to the Beloved as He, but that may be because I am female and I am drawn to the Divine Masculine energy. But I see some men who are blocked from a closer relationship with the Beloved because they have issues with that masculine Father concept. These men might grow closer to the Beloved if the Divine Feminine were allowed to come through and be accepted. There is so much either/or in our thinking that is totally unnecessary and limiting.
Language is always awkward in expressing what cannot be defined. Using a soft sounding pronoun with the primarily masculine form is the best I could come up with. If you have a more effective way of addressing this imbalance, I’m certainly open to it! Thank you so much for your offering of insight, Richard!
Sarah: thank you for your luminous energy. Your piece tapped right into an experience I had last week, goes like this. On Thursday I made the mistake of thanking God for a week with no technological or other worries. Everything humming along; all without brokenness. The next day my therapy office lamp stopped working, it’s heavy, couldn’t figure out how to get it fixed. The lamp repair guy asked:don’t you have anyone to help you? No, I don’t. I felt abandoned and anxious. I worriedly put my predicament to the wonderful man who parks my car every day. Oh, he said, Don’t worry, I’ll help you. Came up to my office, took the lamp apart, got it in my car so I could drive it to be fixed.
What I realized was that God had invited me into a deeper, but more difficult place of finding God’s love and Presence. It isn’t in my illusory sense of independence and a false sense of well-being; when I think I won’t have to turn to another for solace and support. But for me, God’s real gift, is in that experience of faith that we are not alone, that there are always others to come forth and show us that shining. It’s in the broken places that the light, (in this case, literally) comes in. Instead of praying for light, what about praying for the darkness that allows our loving neighbors to light a candle for us. Sending you blessings.
That is such a beautiful illustration of acceptance of the Beloved in all jhes varied forms of Love. Thank you for sharing this.
Sarah and Richard,
I must confess I’m a bit surprised at the defensive stance you seemed to adopt vis-à-vis Matthew’s comments and mine – as if it were absolutely necesssary to prove that you are “right” and that we are “wrong”. Dismissing us as having “dualistic intellects” and “still wanting the universe to be our mommy” doesn’t strike me as being particularly mature…
I’m sure you guys have read “The Book of Job” and I would invite you to reread Matthew’s comment in the light of this important book which is included, after all, in the Torah as well as the Christian Bible. I’m sorry but, dualism schmooalism, there is NO PAT ANSWER to the question of suffering in the world! Remember Elie Wiesel’s poignant questioning of G_d concerning the Holocaust. It is Job in the 20th century!
I’m quite prepared to read “The Supreme Doctrine by Hubert Benoît” or any other book which Richard may wisely recommend, but allow me to doubt that ANY book may contain THE definitive answers, THE absolute and final TRUTH on such difficult questions. Of course, the Roman Catholic Church and other institutions of similar ilk seem to think otherwise, but that is their problem, isn’t it? I for one have far greater respect for Socrates, who confessed that “all I know is that I know nothing”.
In the Book of Job, have you noticed how G_d respects Job for standing up like a man and demanding that his grievances be heard? By contrast, G_d dismisses the so-called “friends” who attempt to drown Job’s poignant lament in a sea of words and theories and poor theology.
In closing, Richard is absolutely right in pointing out that I “fail to see”. I do fail to see! I humbly confess my profound ignorance of the meaning of this “grand bordel” that we call life.
Louie~
I am surprised that you saw me as coming off as defensive. I would not have used the tone that Richard did but I attributed that to my feminine perspective and approach and simply thought that perhaps you could understand the way he said it better than you could understand it from me. Actually, I felt that I might also be included in the group of people who “want the Universe to be our mommy.” That’s quite true. I think the Universe has been an excellent “mommy” to me and has accepted me just as I Am.
But as for defensiveness, in Unity, we have a saying that I took to heart long ago: Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? I like being happy. I’m not going to argue with you if you don’t. You are absolutely right, Louie I’m wrong and there is no way that you can experience the bliss of Oneness with God as the Beloved in this life.
So. Are you happy now, Beloved? *wink* I just want you to be happy!
As I said, this is a how-to article. It’s not about me being “right” or “wrong.” Just try it. I think, really, that you are trying it and this back and forth is allowing you to address the forgiveness that must occur before the separation can be healed and this bliss can be experienced fully. This Divine Glance is something that I experienced only after living in the bliss of Oneness with the Beloved for three months, though.
Matthew thought I was not addressing the question of suffering when I answered you by pointing out the difference between Eastern and Western thought on the creation as separate from God or as from God. In my experience, the belief in separation from God IS the cause of suffering. That is the critical point that must be addressed for you in order for you to find your own freedom from suffering. You are blaming a God that is outside you for your suffering.
I am very happy that you continue to work with what I have offered in this article. I hope that I am helping you to look at what is blocking you from a full experience of peace in God and the knowledge of your own true nature. I can tell you in my experience that suffering dissolves when I accept that I create it myself and I can choose differently. I have seen other people only react with guilt and self-blame though, instead of empowerment.
Frankly, I never cared for the book of Job, especially when God takes the “look what you made me do” attitude with Satan.
Keep trying, Beloved Louie… You’ll get it. Have you seen the movie “Bedazzled?”
Lovely, Sarah. Thanks. The best “explanation” I’ve seen of the problem of evil is that the Harpmaker made a perfect harp and we choose to play a lot of lousy music on it. Then we blame the Creator for the discomfort we suffer as a result (“wrathful God” and all that). Of course this just shifts the question to “Why do we play lousy music on our perfect harp?” A question well worth pondering; it’s tremendously important that we have this ability which, when we learn to use it rightly instead of wrongly, will lead us to our destiny.
So far as I can see, it’s really simple. 1) “God” is the word we use for “That Which Created All Things” (It must be real if what It created is real). 2) God has a plan (Can we not see this every time we look at a flower and the way it grows?) 3) There are rules involved in this plan; the mystics call them “cosmic law”. 4) If we violate these rules (do Wrong) we suffer pain as a result (Thank God; if we didn’t, we could theoretically go on doing wrong for ever); when we obey them (do Right) we experience pleasure. Pain is God’s “No!” sign; pleasure is God’s “Yes!” sign. 5) The pain of any given mistake increases as we continue to make that mistake with increasing power. Sooner or later the pain of wrongdoing must become unbearable and we come to our senses. Bob Dylan said it so well: “He who is not busy being born is busy dying.”
When we get it really Right (“Be ye perfect…”) there will be no reason for pain of any kind, and we will exist in a state of bliss, satori, nirvana, heaven, whatever (we have all of time; we don’t die, our bodies do). So all we have to do is to do Right instead of Wrong and the way will open. As the great Lord Buckley said, “It was SO simple, it evaded me!”
I comfort myself in the face of the evening news with the realization that by the law of conservation of energy no created thing can possibly be more powerful than that which created it (self-evident, right?); therefore God’s plan MUST be fulfilled eventually. But dear Lord, what is it going to take to get us to wake up? I reckon we’re about to find out.
Oh, one other thing: when God set about the process of creation, what did God have to make anything out of? God, that’s what; there wasn’t (and isn’t, and never could be) anything else. Therefore every created thing is a form of God; God being that thing. The human creature is (arguably; how about whales and dolphins?) the only creature we’re aware of that can see itself in this light as you so beautifully set forth, Sarah.
Remember Walt Whitman’s statement about “how certain the future is”? Let us not despair; let’s get busy being born.
Thank you, Peter, for your very thought-provoking comments. I could go all day on this one!
I like the image of the perfect harp and us, as God’s children, whamming away on it and wailing gleefully. Why do we do that? Maybe we’re just having fun. After all, if we are as eternal and invulnerable as our Creator, part of jhem and host to jhem, why not? It’s not like we could die or anything. Maybe we’re just learning. Or maybe we really know how to play perfectly and we have forgotten so we can experience the sensation of learning and eventually, accomplishment. It also calls to mind a picture of a loving God, watching us creating this horrendous din and saying, “That’s my boy! Isn’t he precious? He tries so hard, but watch what happens if I try to do it for him…”
Cut to scene of boy screaming and clinging to the harp as his Father tries to take it away.
This may be hard for people who have experienced really dark and painful evil in their lives to see. War is the depth of evil on this planet but it is still a choice we make as children of God. We always drag up Hitler as the ultimate example of evil but Hitler couldn’t have done it by himself.
The 60′s children said it best — “I’m waiting for the day when they decide to have a war and no one shows up.” A lot of us still choose to listen to some politician who says we have to go kill our brother who we have never seen, instead of our Beloved who says quite clearly and simply “Thou shalt not kill.” There’s no “unless some political leader says you have to.” Some of us are seduced by the concepts of self-sacrifice, honor, duty, defending our country (what is a country anyway, but an area outlined by imaginary borders? And from whom are we defending?) Richard Bach, author of several very enlightened books, said he joined up because he wanted to fly those awesome fighter planes. He presented a very sweet alternative plan for men like him in his book, “One.”
Some people also love to justify murder by saying, “If you could go back in time and kill Hitler, wouldn’t you do it?” I would have gone back in time and tapped that guy who refused Hitler’s application to art school on the shoulder and said, “You know, I think you should give this guy a chance.” Maybe violence is just a symptom of a lack of imagination? But first we must forget that we are all connected, we are all One, in order for it to occur. We are only hurting ourselves.
Your five point breakdown of reality is great! I have come to an even simpler conclusion though. If we agree that God is omnipresent and as far as I know that seems to be accepted as an attribute in every religion I know of however misunderstood the concept of omnipresence may be, then:
To be in the Presence of God is Heaven. God is everywhere. This is Heaven.
It’s just a matter of awareness of the Presence. But our intellects want to argue, what about this and what about that? That jerk that cut me off in traffic isn’t God! Or maybe He is. Maybe He is God in form, acting in your life as a reminder to be patient, forgiving and non-judgmental. We choose. We can live in a world full of jerks or a world full of God. Shoot him a bird or blow Him a kiss and smile.
You mention the passage, “Be ye perfect.” I am terrible at remembering where I get things — I read every science fiction, fantasy and spiritual book of interest in my local library in a year or so, so please forgive me if it’s all a mash. But I read somewhere that that that passage may have been mistranslated. The word “perfect,” could have been translated as something more like all-inclusive or all-encompassing. If you read the context of the passage, it seems to fit better in that light. So we are back to omnipresence, acceptance and understanding of the All-in-All.
It is comforting to feel that God is in charge and He is greater than his creation. I don’t think I’m really ready to say anything more than that, myself. But I remember Neale Donald Walsch speaking as God, too, saying that we don’t want to know that we are One with God because it is too much responsibility. Very, very scary for me at one time. It’s a balancing act between God transcendent and God immanent. Stay connected to God transcendent for the ultimate guidance and let God immanent work in and through my life. And I do have that feminine need to adore the Beloved, which requires a little otherness. Maybe I am decided to create this illusion of separation just so We can look into each others eyes…
I completely agree with your last paragraph, about creation from God. And as for dolphins and whales having higher consciousness also, you might like to read my short story, “Little Things.”
I have tried to share the Divine Glance with animals. I honestly don’t know if I am succeeding or not. They certainly didn’t take it the “wrong” way and snarl at me in terror.
I’d like to try it with a dolphin. It would be difficult to tell if they were receiving it since they are always smiling though, wouldn’t it? Perhaps they are always offering it…
I am from Germany, and there we use one supposedly Native American saying which I love:
GOD sleeps in rocks, wakes up in plants, starts moving in animals and gains consciousness in people.
This makes me look at everything, every piece of stone, every beautiful tree, every sweet animal and all of us as the place were GOD (I am Unitarian and call GOD “The Spirit of Life”) is at all times.
I like your article, there are a few people I have problems to forgive, like Adolf Hitler (I left Germany because of what he did and promoted) and my ex-husband, who deeply hurt my children. It seems like a natural (all animals have it) feeling that if a mother’s kids are deeply hurt the mother gets very angry. But every Yom Kippur I work on forgiving, ex, Hitler, and me, for the things I did. I believe what you say, that forgiving lets us see GOD.
I love that saying! Perfect!
I mentioned Hitler in my response to Peter. Maybe that will help with your forgiveness too.
Thank you so much for this! I feel in my heart that you will see God, and very soon. And as I say that, I think, wow, it’s sad that we have been so programmed to associate that with dying that that comment sounds ominous! Believe me, it’s not meant that way! It is a joyful experience in LIFE that is beyond words. I wish I could be there when it happens for you!
Sarah,
From your last comment I can see that you are deeply immersed in the “Course in Miracles”. That teaching has touched my life very deeply for the last 18 years. Unfortunately, the “official” version of ACIM that most of us are familiar with left out some extremely valuable material that can now be found on the Web under the title “Urtext”, or original text. Have you had a chance to read it? I heartily recommend it to anyone who has read ACIM or is curious to delve into that amazing book.
Yes, it is an AMAZING book that opened my eyes on many important issues. It is particularly brilliant on the question of Love versus attachment. And yet, it does not answer all of my questions. Perhaps I’m simply not advanced enough, but I confess I’m baffled by passages such as “sickness is impossible” and a bit surprised to find so little in ACIM concerning sexuality or social justice, for instance. If I remember well, the Course even goes so far as to state : “There are no injustices”. I was a member of an ACIM study group for several years and one day the wife of the group leader privately confided that she felt that ACIM was “not grounded enough in human reality”. And I found myself agreeing. Personally, I need to supplement ACIM with other, more grounded approaches, for instance Thich Nhat Hanh’s recent, marvelous book, which I recommend to all, “Reconciliation”. As I explained earlier, I doubt that I can – or would ever want to – become a “one-book person”. I’m the lost sheep of the Gospel, I need to leave the beaten path, I need to question, I need to admit to myself that “I DO NOT KNOW”, and I’ve found that when I dare to live in the discomfort of “the Great Dunno”, new certainties eventually do arise, certainties that are the gift of Holy Doubt.
I’ve never heard of the Unity group that you are a member of – I imagine it must be excellent – but I do know about a study group in the States where some members became so fixated on ACIM that they became dogmatic, intolerant of other religions, “ACIM-fundamentalists” if you can believe that! I also found that some members who were on a strict “ACIM-only diet” for too long ended up seeming a little disconnected from reality and from themselves. They were obsessively quoting from THE Book, but it all sounded too “airy-fairy”, to the point of unreality, as their lives, their relationships, etc. were not really transformed for the better. And isn’t that the real test of the depth of any given spiritual path?
I will close this long comment simply by stating that I learned in school that “God is Love”, but Life has taught me something different – and quite close, I think, to what you and others have been saying on this blog : “LOVE IS GOD, THERE IS NO OTHER GOD”. I think Verena might enjoy Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi’s concept of G_d as “an emerging Reality” toward which the whole universe is moving, albeit very slowly and with quite a few bumps on the way…
You’re right, I was very involved in ACIM for several years and I got a lot from it. I saw the same issues with it as you did. The biggest jump I made in my spiritual journey from that came from the lesson “God is in everything I see.” I actually had a moment when everything around me just dissolved into this beautiful sparkling Light and I felt complete joy.
But I really received my original “awakening” from Neale Donald Walsch, who does not see this world as emanating from an error in thought as the Course says but as an explosion of joy in completeness. That makes more sense to me, because I can’t quite get how a perfect being can make an error, even in thought. We must have created this illusion for a reason.
The two paths agree that it is still illusion, however. According to Neale, it is an illusion we do not want to destroy because that’s game over. We still want to play the game. We just enjoy it more if we do know that it is a game we are choosing to play.
I’m not sure I agree with you that the test of the depth of a spiritual path can be seen from what the world sees as successful relationships and lives. Sometimes following a spiritual path can completely destroy the relationships we have, the living we make. Whether or not we can handle that with inner peace is the real question. Sometimes we have to experience a stripping away of what we no longer need in order to step into a new understanding and a new life. Maybe you and I just caught the students of the Course in the midst of that.
There are people in my life who saw me going through a stripping away of my ego who had a lot of trouble understanding that process but I wouldn’t change a thing. It was worth it to have the peace that I have now. I am so grateful for every step on the path that allows me to know a joy in my life that most people can’t even imagine. I’m sure that sooner or later, they will know it too, and it adds to my joy to share what I know to help them find it.
LOVE IS GOD… I love that! That is amazing!
Looks like we’re coming together on this, Beloved Louie…
Sarah,
I am fascinated by your approach and the path that has lead you, or maybe that you have followed. I turned my life over to my creator justoverthre years after tremendous grief. Life is now more balanced and joyful. I, saw, I the eyes of another, something I simply had to learn more about. I came to believe it was the best part of me, reflected mirror like, in her eyes. Later, I came to believe it was the essence of Christ, within me, that I saw in her. I a now leaning more and more…..and am a true believer. Sadly, she is not a part of my life now as she is not ready to walk that path with me……but that’sOK too……he will reach her when she is ready.
I would really like to learn more. I am about to take a huge step and live a life …… remote. A life here I Alaska we call remote. I hope to help show people there is still great beauty in the world, and a lot of peace. I will speakofGod with then when that door is open to me. Much of my time will be spent in solitude, preparing for the next year, living as green and I dependant as possible. Reflection and reading will be important, reading more of your insights will be helpful as I go.
Thank you….
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You said if wanted to did you we would/could…..I made it a LOT easier for you.
Terry