One Man’s Answers to That and Other Questions
For two days, the following thought has rattled around in my mind, but I did nothing about it. Oftentimes when that happens, the thought will prove to be fleeting, and it’s hard to recapture the essence of the inspired moment that it first appeared. Not with this one. So today upon awakening, I decided not to skirt the question any more. I sat down and wrote what was a powerful essay, only to subsequently lose it while trying to save the draft. This doesn’t happen often, but perhaps I gave myself one more opportunity to let it go, or cast it aside with a “oh well, I tried.” That’s not me. After all that, I’m going to write it again.
The question starts off this way: is God a “religious” guy?
In other words, does God really care what religion we belong to, or, for that matter, our gender, race, or political group, or sexual orientation? Does God care whether we’re liberal or conservative, Jew or Gentile, heathen, heretic, or infidel? Finally, is it really correct to say that God is a “Him”?
My gut reaction to all of these questions is no. It makes no difference to God what religion we belong to, or whether we’re religious at all. It makes no difference to God what our political leanings, racial classification, or sexual orientation may be, God is implicit in each one; and in each expression of us. What matters then, is what we believe is important to God versus what is really important.
I use the term “we” in a collective individual sense. It’s what I believe that has the greatest relevance and meaning to, and power over me. I give my beliefs their power to influence me. When I get this understanding, I will then find out what are my beliefs, and be true to them, casting out all others.
Our beliefs stand behind what we give our power to, and what becomes real in our life and world. Judgments stand behind our beliefs. They are ideological positions that we assume to be “true”, but are not really so. For example, the idea of “greater” and “lesser” is the foundation of many judgments, from which the concept of better or worse is born. No such distinctions exist when we realize that a full spectrum of possibility must exist for any aspect to become distinctive and appreciated. Judgments focus on distinctions and differences, which are mere footnotes, and blow them up into entire treatises unto themselves. Beliefs form around them. Yet, over the course of our lifetime, our judgments and beliefs can, do, and will change.
Since the beginning of time we have fought wars for land, possessions, or advantage in the name of God, or so we told ourselves. In truth, we fought and killed for reasons of greed, envy, control, competitive superiority (another false concept), lust, and fear. Although God said that we should not kill, some believed that killing was the most expedient way for them to get what they wanted. Generally speaking they convinced others that there was a compelling need for them to kill on behalf of “the leader”. This was a case where the “Commandment Clause” on killing should be waived.
But does God really care whether we kill? I’d answer “No” to this question too.
I say that God doesn’t really care whether we kill because, as expressions of everything, God cannot be destroyed. A body may be put down, but an idea never goes away. Neither God, nor its embodiments (i.e., you and me) will ever disappear. Life will persist, always.
While human history on Earth only appears to go back a few hundred thousand years, evidence of civilization extends back much further. I believe we’ll uncover more, as well as evidence of interstellar travel.
While I’m thinking about it (again), using the term “He” to refer to God has never sat well with me, as it seems so incomplete to describe a Totality in gender specific terms. And truth be told, referring to God as “It” doesn’t do it for me either. But a term that does fit well for God is Living Allness. God is Life; all Life. And God is all life, Living. We are living, we are life forms. As such, we are forms of Life; creator-beings; embodiments, forms, and expressions of God.
Some people would draw the line at calling themselves creators. Others would stop at expressions of God. We’re created, for sure, but creators? We’re expressions, for sure, but expressions of God?
We create our experiences. We make choices. We feel the effects, do we not? God creates us, makes choices, and feels the effects of our choices; no? Although some may resist it, we likewise change. All of these characteristics have been attributed to God.
As to whether God cares what religion we belong to, or even if we’re religious; or whether we kill; if God doesn’t care about these things, then what does matter to God? The answer that comes up for me is harmony. We use the word love so much, for many its true meaning has been overshadowed.
In some parts of the world, children and young zealots are encouraged to strap explosives to their hearts, walk into crowded areas and detonate other unsuspecting people, all for the “love” of God. Leaders in the “civilized” world send men and women, armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction, on missions to find and remove weapons of mass destruction believed to be hidden by its “enemies.” Both believe that God is on their side, and they’re doing it for God’s love. The problem with this thinking is that both think the other is evil. And while love is thrown around loosely, there is no harmony in this picture, and it is too important to be missing.
Harmony is a vibrational quality that stands in contrast to discord and dissonance. Harmony would be considered of a higher vibrational “tone” than its counterparts. The importance of embracing a harmonic state is that it becomes the gateway to levels of awareness, power and experience that we refer to as divine.
Please note that all experience is divine experience, but few would acknowledge the divinity of their pain and suffering, poverty, and struggles that they have endured in this lifetime. Fewer still would acknowledge that these experiences are their creation. But if there is anything that God would care about, it would be that we know that the power to change what ails us, lives within us.
We don’t need this pill, that politician, or even that religious belief structure to make us whole. We’re whole beings just, as we are. We’re one with God, always and at all times, as we are. If we are in pain and disenchantment, we are still one with God. God will not have “punished” us. We will have created the experience to give ourselves some form of context, awareness, or balance, that is meaningful — and in some way beneficial — to us. These conditions don’t change on their own. They require acknowledgment and realization; in essence, a re-awakening. Upon this realization, we have the power to change.
Things won’t appear to change until we acknowledge that we can, and then allow it to happen.
Harmony is a facilitator of positive change because it requires a conscious choice in order to affect. Conscious choosing brings with it an expansion of consciousness, and greater awareness. We begin to re-cognize our connection to God, which deepens our divine experience, and conveys the know-how to make what seems to be miraculous to others, our normal experience. This makes sense when we consider that the miraculous is normal to God.
We can continue embracing discordant approaches to life, such as war and mayhem, believing it will get us to the Promised Land. All it will get us is more frustration and suffering. It will not matter to God.
It will not matter to God because, as Living Allness, and All Livingness, there is no difference. We embody God’s ability to appear to not “know” everything, be everywhere, and be powerless to change. We embody God’s ability to suffer the apparent consequences of disconnectedness and powerlessness, or discover the awesome beauty of life and inspiration. We embody God’s ability to feel fear, and be relieved when we discover that what we feared was all in our heads. We embody God’s ability to feel exhilarated when we overcome our fears, and embrace the power that was always there, committed to using it with love, until death do we merge. Then we’ll experience and practice love on an entirely different and profound level. However, we don’t have to wait until then. And, we don’t have to fear.
Who doesn’t fear death? Yet, when we know that we’re not our body and that the spiritual substance and essence that we are is eternal, doesn’t it take the edge off the fear? Now, imagine knowing everything, and being everywhere, throughout the Universe, from the subatomic to the macroscopic, throughout eternity! Imagine that.
When we put in those terms, what’s a little drama among friends and kindred? That’s really all that life, as we presently know and experience it, is. And it’s all God.
Embracing harmony opens us to a deeper and more sublime earthly experience. It brings to us what we desire with far greater ease than trying to force it and overcome. The resistance that we need to overcome is within ourselves. As we embrace and embody love and respect, and share it with others, we will change the world far more effectively than trying to bomb ourselves to peace.
God could care less whether we kill or not because, ideas cannot be killed. Energy cannot be destroyed. They will live as long as we delude ourselves about their mortality. Racial bigots speak of a race war. Religious bigots speak of a religious war. The common denominator is war, continued struggle, conflict, and conflagration.
Both religious bigots and saints are expressions of God, and God expressing. However, bigots are not instruments of harmony. They propagate separation, hatred, discord, and fear. Love, oneness, and harmony are far greater powers than fear, and any military or armed force could ever be. But we don’t yet know how to win by putting down our guns, which have become objectified surrogates of God. Neither guns nor bombs “protect” us. By design, they only potentiate more harm. Only faith in God, in the life and love that courses through our very veins can protect us… when we know that it is so.
Being in the presence of a genuinely harmonic, loving individual will change the vibratory tone of everyone who makes the connection. This is so, not because the loving being is different from you and me, but because harmony is at the core of who we are (including you and me)! We will change due to our vibrational resonance with the loving One. We won’t think it into existence, it will happen naturally.
We are love and harmony, even when our actions are unloving and discordant. We are God expressing, even when our actions seem ungodly.
If there is an area where the macro-God might care, it could be that we shift our thinking and feeling about who we are and what we want, to the extent that we realize that love is always the way to get there. We will never make peace by warring, gain respect by bullying and disrespecting.
We will never get love by hating, or know the divine by trying to divide the indivisible, separate the inseparable, and belittle the magnificent. We are all those things, and more. When we begin treating each other like we know and love who they are, we will likewise discover, know, and love who we are.
