What's In Your Mind?

Do you believe in God?

It have always found it quite unhelpful, how people will say "I believe in God" vs. "I don’t believe in God". What does it mean? I would find it more helpful if people would simply say "I know God" vs. "I don’t know God", like people say "I know mathematics" and "I don't know mathematics". Especially, this would allow those who don’t know God and wish to know Her to learn from those who know God, and those who know God to teach to those who don’t know God and wish to know Her (which is the way things work in the East).

Email to my friend Chris who told me today that he believes in God, which is, he argued, one step closer to knowing God than not knowing God:

"Believing is not one step away from knowing. Not knowing is closer to knowing than believing. I think believing precludes from knowing - most believers I know, don't know. Why? Not knowing triggers the cognitive functions of your brain, believing does not. In order to know you need to be INQUIRING and OPEN -- it seems that believing may preclude these 2 attitudes. In order to know you need a STRONG DESIRE. Believing (static) precludes from desire (dynamic). No desire, no knowing.

I have never believed in God or in anything else for that matter, in anything I did not Know. Now I feel that I Know God / that I perceive the Unmanifested. I think that not believing helped me get there. What I had always is an insatiable desire to Know. If you have the desire to Know, then you will Know.

"Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you." Matthew 7:7.

So, do you believe in God or do you sense that there is something which is not manifested as form? What is it exactly that you sense? In what instances do you sense it the most? Dig in! It's all there - trust me :-) - it's been right here with you the whole time..."

Another way to say it:

"Faith is the submission of that part of the mind which has not seen God to the part which has" – Simone Weil

The manifested world

Here is an excerpt from Conversations with God 2 that I quite like. "God" explains the manifested world in one elegant paragraph:

"I devised a way for you to create anew, and Know, Who You Are in your experience. I did this by providing you with:
1. Relativity - a system wherein you could exist as a thing in relationship to something else
2. Forgetfulness - a process by which you willingly submit to total amnesia, so that you can not know that relativity is merely a trick, and that you are All of It
3. Consciousness - a state of Being in which you grow until you reach full awareness, then becoming a True and Living God, creating and experiencing your own reality, expanding and exploring that reality, changing and re-creating that reality as you stretch your consciousness to new limits - or shall we say, to no limit.
In this paradigm, Consciousness is everything."

Heaven on earth

In the same vein, this is a passage of Conversations with God 3 that I find quite brilliant (remember that Neale Donald Walsch mostly speaks to the Christian world):

"My Children, who art in Heaven, hallowed is your name. Your kingdom is come, and your will is done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.
You are given this day your daily bread, and you are forgiven your debts, and your trespasses, exactly to the degree that you have forgiven those who trespass against you.
Lead your Self not into temptation, but deliver your Self from the evils you have created.
For thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory, forever.
Amen."

No need to believe, just open your eyes and see

My friend Marco brings on the topic of beliefs and believing. He says that the only thing he has found he could believe in so far was the Earth. He then sends me a poem from Crazy Horse: "How do we sell our mother, how do we sell the stars, how do we sell the air?" My reply (I am not a fan of "believing"):

"No need to believe though
Just open your eyes and see
And remember what you already know
See All That Is – the totality – the container – the space where everything gets born and dies and all what it contains
And laugh
This is what some people have called God
All That Is
God says to Abraham in the Bible "I Am Which I Am" "I Am What Is" etc
Jesus says "Before Abraham was, I Am"
I Am – Being – Life – Life Energy – the Totality
I Am That Which Is
I Am That
I Am

This is what all spiritual masters of all times and all traditions have said
Over and over again
I Am That Which Is
I Am That
I Am

The earth the stars the moon the sun – this universe and all others – Life – I am all this – I am the totality because there is only one thing expressing itself in the many in order to look at its own magnificence – only one thing – and one day you open your eyes and remember this – where you come from

Crazy Horse knew

St Francis of Assisi also: "What we are looking for is what is looking""

Another description of God

I just read that book The nature of personal reality, by Seth, a spirit channeled through Jane Roberts in the 70’s. Some say that the success of the "Seth books" was one of the key drivers of the New Age movement! On a number of the many websites dedicated to Seth/Jane Roberts, I find this beautiful excerpt:

"What you call God is the sum of all consciousness, and yet the whole is more than the sum of Its parts. He is not one individual, but an energy gestalt. He is a psychic pyramid of interrelated, ever expanding consciousness, that creates simultaneous and instantaneously, universes and individuals that are given duration, psychic comprehension, intelligence and eternal validity.

Its energy is so unbelievable that it does indeed form all universes; and because its energy is within and behind all universes, fields and systems, it is indeed aware of each sparrow that falls, for it is each sparrow that falls.

Dimly remembered through what you would call history, there was a state of agony in which the powers of creativity and existence were known, but the ways to produce them were not known. All That Is existed in a state of being, but without the means to find expression for Its being. All That Is had to learn this lesson, and could not be taught.

From this agony, creativity was originally drawn, and its reflection is still seen. All That Is retains the memory of that state, and it serves as a constant impetus toward renewed creativity. Desire, wish and expectation, therefore, rule all actions and are the basis for all realities. Within the dreams of All That Is, potential beings had consciousness before any beginning as you know it.

In Its massive imagination, It understood that the cosmic multiplication of consciousness could not occur within that framework. Actuality was necessary if these probabilities were to be given birth. All That Is saw an infinity of probable, conscious individuals. These probable individual selves found themselves alive within a God's dream and they clamored to be released into actuality. All That Is yearned to release them and sought within itself for the means to do so.

Finally, with love and longing It let go of that portion of itself, and they were free. The psychic energy exploded in a flash of creation.

All That Is loves all that It has created down to the least, for It realizes the dearness and uniqueness of each consciousness which has been wrest from such a state of agony. It is triumphant and joyful at each development taken by each consciousness, and It revels and takes joy in the slightest creative act of each of Its issues.

All individuals remember their source, and now dream of All That Is as It once dreamed of them. And they yearn toward that immense source... and yearn to give it actuality through their own creations.

Now in the same way do you give freedom to the personality fragments within your own dreams and for the same reason. And you create for the same reason, and within each of you is the memory of primal agony — that urge to create and free all probable consciousness into actuality.

The connections between you and All That Is can never be severed, and Its awareness is so delicate and focused that its attention is indeed directed with a prime creator's love to each consciousness.

All That Is knows no other. It does not know whether or not other psychic gestalts like Itself may exist. It is constantly searching.

All portions of All That Is are constantly changing. All That Is is constantly seeking to know Itself, for seeking itself is a creative activity and the core of all action.

You, as a consciousness, seek to know yourself and become aware of yourself as a distinct individual portion of All That Is. You automatically draw on the overall energy of All That Is, since your existence is dependent upon it.

The portion of All That Is that is aware of itself as you, that is focused within your existence, can be called upon for help when necessary. This portion of All That Is looks out for your interests and may be called upon in a personal manner."

To speak, or not to speak, about God

My friend Kathrin sent me an email where she shared with me how hard it is to share with people the "mystic view", and especially how the word "God" turns people off almost systematically. I reply:

"Yes, you gotta NOT throw the whole thing in people's face, it doesn't work. Only when they're ready. You gotta go really step by step, i.e. figure out what they need and give it to them.

Especially, the word "God" is a complete no-no in our society (France, Germany, etc, Europe – or among intellectuals / white-collar people in general, unless you know that they share your understanding of all this, which generally takes some time, or knowing the people very well. If you say "God" and they think "religion" (and most people will), then you're screwed. NEVER mention God if you think they'll think that it has to do with religion. You do NOT need the pointer God to explain things – look at the Buddhists. You have to learn to understand what words will work with what kind of people. And give them JUST what they need, or even less. This is an art :-)

Give them something that can immediately improve their lives – often it does not involve TALKING actually but just DOING, providing an example. If they find peace and joy and love in you, they'll be attracted like flies and try to understand how it is you have that and they don't. If you exhibit anything less than complete peace and joy and love and light, then people will not listen to a word you say."

Later:

"I think a key to not trigger resistance is to avoid by all means the word "God" – a lot of people in the Christian world have been bruised by that word. Easier to point to the moon using the "consciousness" or "evolution" fingers. I was uncomfortable with the word God myself until, say, just about 6 months ago – and I'm cool with it now, but I know most people are not cool with it at all, so careful...

Ken Wilber is a very, very good author for people like us vs. "God" talk: he introduces us to the trans-rational/trans-logic using the rational/logic approach (vs. what most people associate with pre-rational/pre-logic)."

The stone and its atoms: a matter of perspective

There is a metaphor that I use a lot, to try to explain God-consciousness, or mystic awareness, or the awakened/enlightened state, or the spiritual perspective, or what have you. I must have picked it up somewhere (but where?). It is the metaphor of the stone and the atoms that constitute it.

Human beings are like atoms inside a stone. When we operate at the atom level (ordinary consciousness) we have atom problems and don't even realize (we have forgotten) that we are the stone.

God-consciousness, mystic awareness, the awakened stated, what have you, is about all of a sudden remembering/realizing that you are, in fact, the stone, throwing your consciousness there, and operating from that level – as the stone.

It is just a matter of perspective. Nothing has changed, atoms, stone, same reality – and yet everything is dramatically different.

FAQ

Who are you and what is this about?

My name is Annelene, and, at the request of a few friends, I have endeavored to tell, in a blog format, the story of my recent "spiritual transformation", thinking that it might assist others who have engaged on a journey to "find their Self". All posts prior to today is in fact written as of today (this is what I call retro-blogging!)

What's in this blog for me?

Well, you tell me! It could be:
• Realize that there has been, in fact, through the ages and all traditions, only one "spiritual teaching"
• Make peace with the word "God", with the religion you grew up with
• Learn more about other religions, or philosophical systems (e.g. Buddhism)
• Get some answers to some of your deep questions about the reality of things
• See how you can integrate in your life the wisdom of the ages, and the teachings from some Great Masters of Life that have walked this Earth
• Get a taste of what an integral embrace of all things may look like...
• Read on how others have faced depression, questions of life purpose, or other life difficulties
• Read on how others have survived relationships and sometimes turned them into an all-encompassing Love!
• If you have already engaged on a spiritual journey, discover what are some of the steps and pitfalls!
• and more...

What are some of the immediate benefits of developing a "spiritual life"?

A few immediate, personal benefits that I found from opening up to Spirit:
• Heal relationships
• Deepen relationships
• Experience states of ecstasy, bliss
• Gain clarity, inner guidance, no more confusion
• Strong sense of purpose, of direction in life
• Better memory, easy access to all memories of life
• Better sex :-), food tastes better, music sounds better, sights look better, etc: everything acquires a limitless DEPTH dimension that was not quite perceived before
• Healthier body, more in touch with one’s body, more perceiving of what’s going on in one’s body
• No more anger, no more jealousy, more control over negative emotions
• Deep, joyful love relationship is possible

What are some of the key elements in your path?

Some key elements which have, I think, been an essential part/manifestation of my spiritual growth:
• Seek the Truth – be open – ask (and it will be answered) – listen
• Learn to control my thoughts, become the neutral Witness
• Look at negative emotions in the face: do not resist pain, dive into it, understand it
• Overcome all fears, become fearless
• Purify / heal myself of all negativity, past and present
• Create my life with intent

What are the hurdles on the path?

In my experience, here are the key hurdles:
• Pride (#1 hurdle by far)
• Taking the finger for the moon
• Failing to integrate your Practice in your Life
• All forms of righteousness
• Fear
• Lack of openness
• Lack of trust (in others, in oneself)

Does God exist? Is there a proof that God exists?

Well, no, there is no "proof of God". Asking whether God exists is not dissimilar to a fish asking: "does water exist? Can you show me a proof that water exist?" God is the ocean, and you are a wave in the ocean.

As every mystic has told you: God is All That Is.
Of course it sounds like a truism, or a paradox, but it isn’t.
God is not to be proved, She is to be experienced, and that experience is not one of the mind.

Once you experience God, you know that She is not a guy in the sky with a grey beard ;-). In fact, you don’t ever need to use that loaded word anymore. You may want to call Her Life, or Spirit, or Being, or Love, or The Ultimate Consciousness, or Pure Awareness, or The Unmanifest, or The Universe (manifest and unmanifest), or The Clear Space of Mind, or Allah, or Yahve, or Rama, or Atman (the Self), or The-Energy-that-Pervades-All-Things, or The-Texture-of-All-Experience, or What-Is, or (you get the idea) whatever fits you best. "God" is no more than 3 letters pointing to the moon! It is just a word. What it points to cannot, by definition, be articulated. "The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao".

In essence, once you experience God, you know once and for all that God is your Self, you declare like all mystics of all times have: "I Am That". You are now the ocean. Why not try to experience it for yourself? Here is a preview.

And in any case, you may want to make peace with the word "God" if you haven't...

Do you believe in God?

Well, read the answer to the previous question and decide for yourself… :-)

More generally, I have never believed in anything, so all questions that start with "Do you believe in…" don’t quite work for me. All my life has been a quest for the Truth, and it has never made sense to me to "believe" in something. In fact, I do not understand what "believe" consists in. In my world, there are things I know, and things I don’t know… (I know this statement rubs some people the wrong way – but this is how I feel).

Do you believe in reincarnation?

Same as above: I have never believed in anything, and all I can talk about is what I know from direct experience. Reincarnation is obviously not something that can be grasped by the mind and there cannot be a "proof" of reincarnation. To grasp anything that goes beyond the individual wave, you have to become the ocean – i.e. experience "God", or ultimate consciousness, or whatever you call it.

Then, once you realize that, in fact, "You Are That", you are All That Is, and that there is no time (because that awareness IS OUTSIDE OF TIME), well, you start to see that all sorts of things that your mind couldn’t grasp before are possible now... But better let you discover for yourself! :-) (for more on this wild subject, you may want to check out this pretty good essay from Ken Wilber -- may take a minute or so to download).

In practice, what is the spiritual path?

Practically, the spiritual path consists of creating the conditions in which God-consciousness (or Space-consciousness, or Emptiness, etc) may arise, and, if all goes well, stay with you. Every path is of course as unique as you are, and not two are the same, but common practices that help create these conditions include the following:
• Meditation and other contemplation, mindfulness and concentration practices (learn to control thoughts and emotions)
• Introspection, clearing the past
• Affirmation, intention, visualization: living more consciously
• Peace with the body (through exercise and healthy diet)
• Reading spiritual texts and seeking the company of spiritual friends!

The goal is the path and the path is the goal! :-)

What is the glory of God?

I quite like this article I found here, from modern (and now quite controversial) teacher Andrew Cohen:

"What is the glory of God? What is the defining expression of that which transcends yet includes all things?

The glory of God is the shattering realization that everything is always perfect. The glory of God is the inherent perfection of all things at all times, in all places, through all circumstances. Even earthquakes, disease and bloody warfare—that's all the glory of God too. The glory of God is the inherent perfection of all things as they are. You see, from an absolute perspective, the eye of the Self sees only God and makes no distinctions whatsoever. Heaven and hell, good and evil, everything known and unknown, seen and unseen are all recognized only to be different expressions of that one inconceivable mystery beyond name and form. Beyond all pairs of opposites, the glory of God is all there is—just absolute, incomparable perfection.

Before time and space, before the universe was born, there was nothing. Then suddenly from nothing came something. There was an explosion, and what we all are right now—including you and me—is that explosion in motion. That explosion in motion is one radiant being—conscious, whole and undivided.

Enlightenment is the direct recognition of one's own true face as none other than that radiant being—conscious, whole and undivided. And it is the recognition of the utterly complete and always perfect nature of that true face that releases the sense of individuality from identification with the hypnotic grip of ego consciousness.

But there is more to Enlightenment than the liberating discovery of the inherent perfection of the absolute or non-dual nature of all things. And that is the emergence of a powerful imperative to evolve. When something came from nothing, and the explosion in motion that is all of life came into being, a perpetual state of becoming was born. In the spiritual revelation, that movement is experienced as an impersonal command from the Self to transcend, to evolve, to utterly transform this world so that it can become a dynamic, living expression of the perfection that it already is. This spiritually inspired passion, which arises from the Self, unleashes the fire of absolute love and ego-defying compassion into this world. It is always a force to be reckoned with. Its unceasing demand is evolution and its tangible expression is to create order out of disorder. Indeed, the boundless creativity of this evolutionary impulse in action strives to manifest higher and higher expressions of miraculous wholeness and integration. This call for transcendence and evolution experienced in the spiritual revelation is the unrelenting scream of the Absolute beckoning all who have the ears to hear and the eyes to see to surrender wholeheartedly for the sake of that evolutionary imperative.

This ceaseless imperative to evolve is also the glory of God. And the greatest paradox is that that glory is both the radiant, ever full and complete, always perfect ground of all that is and the very foundation and essence of that explosion in motion that strives to manifest higher and higher expressions of wholeness and integration."

What is our mission on Earth?

Here is a truly brilliant piece that I cannot help pasting here in its entirety. From the Conversations With God’s mailing list, it is Neale Donald Walsch's answer to a guy, Matt, asking him how to understand his mission in a world where everybody believes different things, and how to be with such people: tell them our truth, or make friends with them? Provides a glimpse of Neale Donald Walsch’s remarkable clarity of style.

"Dear Matt...You have asked a very important question. Thank you for your beautiful inquiry. I hope you will consider my reply carefully. 

The only True Mission is the mission of the individual soul. Every other mission is an extension of that. The mission of the individual soul is to know itself as it truly is, in its own experience. This is accomplished by creating itself as that. Life is not a process of discovery, it is a process of creation.

The hitch here is that, in Ultimate Reality, it is not possible to create anything, because everything that ever was, is now, and ever will be has already been created. So the Process of Creation turns out to be, after all, not actually Creation, but Perception. It is about seeing what has always been there, knowing what has always been true, and experiencing the Only Experience There Is. We call this, loosely, God.

The challenge here is that one cannot experience The Only Experience There Is if it is, in fact, the only experience there is. This is because in the absence of That Which Is Not, That Which IS, is not.

Put simply, in the absence of black, white is not. In the absence of cold, hot is not. In the absence of up, there is no such thing as down. None of these things can be experienced, save in relative terms. The same is true about God. And, for that matter, about the human soul. For the human soul IS God, in part. It is a holy and individuated part of That Which IS.

If there is nothing that is NOT That Which IS, then That Which IS cannot be known in Its own experience. Nor can any Part of It. It cannot be known in relative terms, but only in the Realm of the Absolute. And in the Realm of the Absolute, That Which IS cannot experience Its own magnificence. It cannot know the glory of Itself, the wonder of Itself, the Truth of Itself. This is the condition faced by your soul – and this is the reason that physical life as we know it was produced. 

Physicality produced a solution to the conundrum that is ingenious and spectacular: create an entire reality based on Illusion. That phrase in itself is a contradiction in terms, of course, but it gets across the idea. And so we have this Alice in Wonderland world (an Alice in Wonderland universe, really) in which we swear that what is So is not so, and swear that what is Not So is so. It is a "wonderland" in the sense that it allows us to experience the True Wonder of Who We Really Are. We do this by calling for the Opposite of Who We Are, and experiencing ourselves in relation to that. Suddenly, we have a point of reference by which we may know ourselves. (Remember that I said that the mission of the individual soul is to know itself as it truly is, in its own experience.)

All of this lays down the theological basis for my (finally!) direct answer to your direct question. That which is opposite to us, that which is "not us," exists for a very holy reason: so that we may announce and declare, express and experience, become and fulfill Who We Really Are. Therefore judge not, and neither condemn. Raise not your fist to the darkness, but be a light unto the darkness. 

Our "mission" vis-a-vis people of other faiths is to accept them exactly as they are. Not to seek to convert them, not to judge them, and certainly not to condemn them. 

Now Matt, you have placed your question inside a riddle that offers two choices – yet these choices are not, in truth, mutually exclusive. It does not have to be one or the other, as you have posed it. You have asked: "Should we try to show others what we consider "true" or should we only try to share with others, learn from them, and build reciprocal friendships?" I believe we can do both.

As we share with others, learn from them, and build reciprocal friendships, we DO "show others what we consider true." In fact, that is the most effective way to show it! Thus, we set people free from their own limiting beliefs about US. This eventually will set them free from their own limiting beliefs about themselves. Soon they, too, will know Who They Really Are.

And so, Matt, walk through the world not as one who seeks to convert or convince others of anything, but simply as one who seeks to know others as everything. When you know all of it as everything, then you know yourself as everything as well. You see yourself in every other person. Indeed, in every other thing that exists. Suddenly, the magnificence and the glory of Who You Are becomes apparent to you. It becomes part of your experience.

Many people have had this experience momentarily. They have had it in meditation, perhaps, or in a moment of pure silence, or in the midst of an impactful interaction with another (such as sexual union or laughing or crying together), or walking through the woods on a sunlit morning, or swimming in the ocean, or, simply, washing dishes. I call this The Holy Experience. It is when we know Who We Really Are.

While many people have had this experience momentarily, the trick is to have it continually. That was the path of Buddha. It was the journey of the Christ. It is the opportunity placed before each of us. Many Masters have shown us the way.

The way is for us to BE the way. "I am The Way and The Life. Follow me." This is what all Masters have declared. This is what all Students have understood. Therefore, do not look for your Master, BE the Master for whom you have been looking. Do not seek the Truth, BE the Truth you have been seeking. And do not attempt to change another, BE the change you wish to see.

That is your mission, Matt, and there is no other.

Bless you, Matt, with the knowing of Who You Really Are. May God be experienced through you, and the living of your life."