Category: Theory

The Message

Merry Christmas, from this little elf on the shelf! (I hope you are laughing.) Sometimes I do feel somewhat like this, like this mythical creature who has landed here to watch over humans. It isn’t for the sake of judging naughty or nice though, it is more to gauge the degree to which we are getting “The Message.” And I do mean we, because while I do feel alien at times, something always comes along to whack me right back into the reality of my own humanity. In my moments of observation, I often find myself looking out at humanity thinking, “What in the hell are you doing???” Then the whack comes and I have to turn the question inward to, “What in the hell am I doing???” So it goes. As I look into that question I remember, it is always the being underneath the doing that is in need of attention.

In honor of Christmas, I’d like to have a heart to heart about who we are being. That is my signal to slow down and get centered before we move on. Get comfortable. Take a few deep breaths. Do whatever you need to do to know deep within yourself that you are safe. We are going to get uncomfortable. Yet at a time when we so often hear people complaining that we need to “put the Christ back in Christmas,” I think it is time we have an open, raw, real discussion about the elf in the room. (That was your comic relief!)

To begin, I have to again confess that I am not a Christian. In part this is to say that I was not raised a Christian. I am not a Christian by default. My parents insisted, in my Mom’s own words, that my brother and I “come to our own conclusions about God.” So I wasn’t raised in any religious tradition, and I have never adopted one. Furthermore, we didn’t discuss God in our household one way or the other. This is to say I wasn’t raised an atheist either. I truly was given free reign over my own beliefs. I will forever be grateful to my parents for that decision. The result was that I have always enjoyed a natural and direct relationship with God.

It helped, of course, that I had a direct encounter with the Divine right out of the gate. That established a relationship that continued onward such that I have never not known God. Nor have I ever questioned the existence of God. That doesn’t mean that I have not questioned God, because believe you me I have! Let me describe a little more about how our relationship functions. First off, I have never envisioned God to be an old, white, bearded male. I have never envisioned God in any form of embodiment. When I visualize God, what I see is pure white light. That’s it. God does, however, have a voice. So my communication with God has always been primarily in the form of a conversation. That conversation happens through my own internal voice. I don’t hear dead people, or deities for that matter. Yet it is a distinct voice.

Not that God always answers to my whining and bitching and questioning. When I get into that mode, I know God is listening and that the response is going to be to just let me play myself out. For example, I have given God considerable grief over my lifetime about whether or not humanity was the best design They could come up with. What can I say, I am an architect! I know the answers to such questioning at this point, but that will have to wait for a future post. What I want you to hear now is that my relationship with God is nothing special. Not at all. This is the relationship we are all meant to have. God also speaks to me through the world. They might speak to me through a series of events. They might speak to me through you. No matter what the mode of communication, I hear when I have the ears to hear… which is not always.

That is my relationship with God in a nutshell. Now for my relationship with Jesus Christ. I don’t really have one. I know that probably makes a whole lot of Christians sad right out of the gate. I’ll ask you not to be, for reasons that I am about to explain. The deeper reason I am not a Christian is that I am not by choice. I have never been in need of a mediary between me and God. That is why I have never adopted any religion or guru. Please understand that this is in no way an act of disrespect or a prescription. As a case in point, it might make you feel better to know that I wholeheartedly believe in Jesus Christ. Although I am sure I have now confused a great many of you, so more explanation is in order.

I believe that Jesus Christ was exactly who he said he was. I believe that Christ was God. No question. Of course I believe that there is nothing but God, so how could I not? Yet I also do consider Jesus to be an enlightened master, in the same way that I consider Krishna, Buddha, Moses and Muhammed to be enlightened masters (among others). Now some Christians are going to be mad at me again, because that seems like I am demoting him. I am not. I am simply promoting everyone else. Hang in there. Breathe. Let’s talk about what an enlightened master is. In the way that I use the designation, an enlightened master is somebody who has completely and utterly removed all boundaries of self to realize that he/she/they is in actuality The All That Is. In short, enlightened masters have truly realized that they are God, and they furthermore abide in that knowingness. This is Christ Consciousness.

So I can buy into all aspects of Jesus’s life story. When one lives beyond the veil of separation, one is not bound by the rules of separation. Yet not adopting Jesus as my Savior and my Way disqualifies me from being a Christian as Christianity has defined it. I do not accept that Christianity is the only way to “reunite” with God. I do, however, accept it as one way. I further do not accept Christianity’s adoption of the story that humans are inherently sinners and that only Jesus sacrificing his life for us would save us from ourselves. I don’t buy that. Take a lot of really deep breaths now. Maybe get up and stretch. Pour yourself something warm. Calm your heart. We are all gonna be o.k.

The reason that I don’t buy the story that Jesus had to sacrifice his life for us and that the only way to God is through that sacrifice is because I don’t believe that is what Jesus actually intended. To be more direct, I believe that interpretation of the story to be antithetical to The Message that Jesus came to deliver. And let’s make no mistake about it. Jesus’s mission was one of the most, if not the most, daring, ambitious, moonshot attempts ever made to deliver The Message to humanity. It was also, for sure, the most excruciating, exacting, sacrificial, and ultimately brutal in the attempt. It wasn’t these latter things by necessity. It was that way by our own choosing. We chose to do to Jesus what we have done to each and every one who has ever attempted to deliver The Message. We crucified him (literally, in this case).

Now of course Jesus was warned that this would be his fate. That doesn’t mean that he just accepted it. He questioned God in the exact same way that any human who is being honest has, “Why have you forsaken me?” That is to say that Jesus was every bit as human as the rest of us. He wouldn’t dispute this. Why? Because Jesus ultimately came to know beyond the shadow of a doubt (although it took some strife) that there is nothing but God. Therefore he would never, and did never, place himself above anything else. To do so would be to place himself (God) above God. It doesn’t work. That we have placed him above us is the result of us not yet having the ears to hear the very Message that he came to deliver.

This is not what he wanted for us, I would say. To be more specific, the world we have henceforth created is not what he wanted for us. Here’s the thing. When Jesus said I am the beggar at your door, He. Was. Not. Speaking. Metaphorically. He was simply stating the literal truth: there is nothing but God. We are all that. Yes, Christ = God. Christ knew that. He also knew that as God he was all of it. Literally. I can’t stress that enough. The irony here is that we have managed to turn things meant to be taken literally into metaphors and things meant to be metaphors into things to be taken literally. We got it all backwards. Why? Because we haven’t yet had the ears to hear.

To accept The Message is deeply terrifying. It is terrifying for us individually on multiple levels. On the surface level, to make such a declaration means facing the crucifixion by our fellow humans that is sure to follow. No thanks. On a deeper level, to accept that we are God means that we have to accept responsibility. Ugh. You mean I have to take responsibility for this disaster of an area that we have made? Yes. On a collective level, the powers that be can’t have us all going around believing that we are God. How on earth would they maintain power and control if we knew that? All hell would surely break loose. We honestly believe that. The irony here is that the exact opposite is true. When we all realize that we are God, all heaven will break loose. This, my friends, is what Jesus intended for us. Heaven on Earth.

When I think about Jesus, I can only imagine him in a facepalm. Of course I can only imagine him from my own perspective. I would be pissed as all get out if my name had been used to wage wars, kill, oppress, enslave, hoard, other, separate, withhold, hate, etc. I would be wondering to myself, “What did I do wrong??? Didn’t I tell them and show them and demonstrate to them that there is nothing but God?! Didn’t I prove to them that death is an illusion? Didn’t I lift the veil so that they would understand that they too are God? And what is God, if not Love? How are they not getting it????” That would be me as Jesus right about now. Then again, I am not looking at it from the perspective of an enlightened master, because I am not one. The enlightened master knows that it is just a matter of time, and we have all of the time in the Universe.

And then we don’t. Not in this world. Really, folks, we don’t. Not this go around anyway. We will have infinite chances for sure. But this one is almost up. In the short 2,000 plus years since Jesus’s great attempt to deliver The Message, we can now only view it as a great Hail Mary pass. Will we catch it? Or will we drop it? It truly was a moonshot given where we now stand. It is with this in mind that I will now make my grownup Christmas wish. Here it is:

If anybody- I mean anyone– should walk up to you and ask the question, “Who am I?,” I wish every human to be able to wholeheartedly respond beyond the shadow of a doubt, “You are Christ.” No matter the circumstance! We will know we have it when we do so without hesitation, or judgement, or disbelief. I further wish that every human be able to look themselves in the mirror, look directly into their own eyes, and be able to say, “I am Christ” without flinching or shrinking for fear that a lightening bolt might strike us down. When we are able to do that, we will know that we have gotten The Message. Finally. Then we can actually get to the work of turning this thing around.

For those of you who are not Christian, simply replace “Christ” with the enlightened master of your own choosing. For those of you who are spiritual/not religious, simply replace “Christ” with “God” or “The All That Is.” For those of you who are atheist, simply replace “Christ” with “Everything.” It really matters not which direction you come from, as there is only one destination- and it is Oneness. We will arrive when we realize that is what we are. This, fellow humans that I love so much, is The Message. It is time for us to have the ears to hear. We cannot wait any longer. Our survival depends upon us getting it.

As I always do, I honor Christ on this celebration of his birth, for his daring attempt to deliver to us the most important Message of all time, whereby, yes, we will be delivered if only we can hear it. For those of you who celebrate the deliverance of The Message by one of the many others who have also attempted to deliver it, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Happy Holidays, and Seasons Greetings. Let’s celebrate the season together by doing our best to recognize and abide in who we truly are. What we need to do will become clear from there. Much Love to you all and Godspeed.

Human Things

Rated T (for theory)

There are heavy things and there are light things in life. My last two posts demonstrate that. How we experience anything, however, is related to one common thing. That common thing is our worldview. Our worldview, in turn, is supported by a “sponsoring thought” about the world. That sponsoring thought is what enables us to believe whatever we believe in the first place. I teach a class at PVAMU called Ecology and Man. The purpose of it is to walk students back through their worldview and the sponsoring thoughts beneath it in order to reconsider our entire notion of “self,” where it comes from and what it could be. Let me just go ahead and say it now for the light hearted among us, this is going to be a heavy lifting post. The work that I am doing via this blog is the same work that I ask of my students. It is the collective work of humanity at the moment. That said, I am doing my best to treat this as a marathon, not a sprint, even though the moment feels urgent. I’ll walk us through the theoretical stuff as gently (which may not feel so gentle) and as slowly as I can, one step at a time, with plenty of breaks in between for experiential life stories. If a post like this proves too much, just put it aside for now and come back to it later when you feel ready. If you have questions, just ask. Dialogue is good.

What led me to wanting to address this notion of humans and things was Micki’s comment to my “Umbrella” post. Micki, incidentally, is that crazy extrovert from hell best friend of mine that I described in my “Friendship Guide” post. She also happens to be a gifted Jungian psychotherapist. Here is what she said:

I heard a teacher say one time “The greatest spiritual lesson is to accept the humanity that we all are. You can’t be so busy being spiritual that you forget your humanity- That is the highest lesson.” 

Just hold that thought for now. I have something to tell you. If you are a Westerner, your worldview is supported by the same sponsoring thought as every other Westerner. That is to say that the same sponsoring thought has given rise to Western religious, spiritual, agnostic, and atheist worldviews. Easterners are not immune either, although it may be less complete in its domination due to Eastern wisdom traditions. This sponsoring thought came to us courtesy of René Descartes, the French philosopher/mathematician/scientist, in the early 17th century. Um… that is to say that we are operating on a 400 years old understanding of what is what! Please let that sink in. He didn’t necessarily pull this idea out of the blue- there were precedents- but he did solidify it with the phrase “I think, therefore I am.” The phrase has become so ubiquitous that it needs explaining.

What Descartes did was to definitively separate the material world (matter) from the mental/spiritual world (mind). Henceforth these became two entirely separate realms. The world was reduced to a place of mere objects, that were inherently only mechanical (dead) in nature. Mind, as he defined it, included only what we today call “higher consciousness.” Higher consciousness, the ability to remember the past and project into the future, was afforded only to humans. Frankly, the science of the time couldn’t explain where consciousness came from, so it relegated it to some other non-material realm, the realm of God. That is to say that because science couldn’t explain it, it was simply removed from the scientific equations that sought to understand the world.

The sponsoring thought is this: being is a mental/spiritual state that comes from a divine realm that is completely separate from the material world which is itself nothing more than a mechanical/dead universe. If you are of the religious/spiritual persuasion, this is already starting to resonate with you. Just wait atheists and agnostics, your turn is coming. It is important to note that neither animals nor plants were considered to be sentient at the time, which is to say that they were as dead as doornails although they had acquired some ability to appear otherwise. Due to their lack of being, it was perfectly o.k. (virtuous even) to reduce them to resources that existed only for the benefit of humans. Matter became the realm of science/technology, consciousness the realm of religion/spirituality, and the two were expected to stay within their newly defined boundaries.

And these were newly defined boundaries. The original human spirituality was animism. Animism held no such separation. In animism, every single material thing (even a doornail) is spiritual, is sentient. To be clear, matter doesn’t have spirit, it is spirit. Matter and spirit (consciousness) were not separate things, they were the same thing. God wasn’t in some other place watching us with disgust or perhaps chuckling at our clumsiness, God/spirit was right here in us and as us through and through- in physicality. The Cartesian split was a radically different sponsoring thought. As it played out, people took sides. You kind of had/have to. The religious/spiritual identified their “self” with mind/spirit. Want proof? “I am a spiritual being having a human experience.” The implication here is that the human side of the experience, the part of the experience rooted in matter, is not really being at all- at least not in the divine sense. It says that our divine nature is not of this world. It is a temporary state of confusion at best. The material world, in this sense, is imaginary. I’m pushing buttons, I know. Breathe. It’s o.k. You are divine beyond your wildest imagination. There is much more to say about this which I won’t cover in this post.

The atheists (many of whom are of the scientific persuasion, although not all scientists fit this bill- such as Einstein) identified their “self” with matter. As science gained more and more confidence in its ability to explain the material world, mind was pulled back into the material realm, albeit this time as a phenomenon that is itself nothing more than mechanical in nature. From this point of view it was spirit that was imaginary- an illusion rising out of material processes for reasons we don’t quite understand. In short, God was dead. Therefore, when your physical self goes, you’re gone too. Incidentally, science has to date proven no such thing, it’s just that some scientists (positivists) are confident that they ultimately will be able to prove what they believe to be true. On the other hand, science has made a great deal of progress such that the boundaries between the two realms of matter and mind/spirit are colliding in on each other. Actually, they have been for over 100 years. I’ll leave that for another time. To get back to my main point, no matter what side you fall on these days, you are doing so under the assumption that there are two separate realms in the first place. Pick your side, and there you will find your definition of “self.” Oh, and as for you agnostics, lest you think that you have avoided this debate… you refuse to take sides, but you continue to believe that the sides exist.

Of course I am speaking in generalities. Our worldview is now shifting, so you may find yours in some in-between state. My point is that the Cartesian sponsoring thought is still dominant, and therefore we are all responding to it in some way. Now let’s return to Micki’s observation above. Even that observation, although getting closer to what I believe to be the truth, is still based on the Cartesian split. It says that you have to at least balance your spiritual seeking with your human seeking and that somehow the two are related. It is pointing out that the downfall of seeking only spirit (enlightenment) is that it is attempting to escape our embodied nature, our humanity. It is trying to escape being here, as a material thing. Yet maybe now you can see that this is only true if you are operating with the Cartesian sponsoring thought that matter and spirit are separate realms. If you were seeking spirit with an animist sponsoring thought, then your spirit-seeking would actually take you deeper into your material being. And, incidentally, your physical body would not be just a human thing, because nothing is just an objective thing. Everything is both matter and spirit. Everything is both/and. The separation of the two was a bogus assertion in the first place, in the opinion of many people working on the outer edges of consciousness. And yet, that bogus assertion is still ruling our worldview today… even as science and spirituality inch closer and closer together in their observations about the world. What I would say is that healing this split is the crux of every challenge that we are currently facing. To do that, we have to reconsider the validity of our sponsoring thoughts.

This was a lot for one sitting. So I’m going to leave it at that for the moment. Just know two things. 1) There is much more that needs to be said to understand where our worldview is today, how we got here, and where we are going. 2) You are all correct from the perspective from which you are looking at it. If you want to discover more on your own, there are three books that I would recommend. Each of these books will walk you through the history of our sponsoring thoughts and associated worldviews:

The Ascent of Humanity, Charles Eisenstein

The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision, Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi

You are the Universe, Deepak Chopra and Menas Kafatos

That’s enough for now. Just sit with it. Or, feel free to ask any burning questions you may have. Lastly, you matter (pun intended).