We are verbs. God is a verb.

 Yesterday I was listening to Shinzen Young who was talking about the illusion of the ego. Every language he has studies has words for the separate "I-other" relationship. Instead, he says, we are more of a verb, not a thing. We are the activity of the universe. We are part of a greater whole. As Alan Watts would say, you do not end at your skin. 

Today Richard Rohr was saying to me that God is a verb. We make a mistake of trying to sense God in the same way we sense other objects in the world. It is a different sensing, which is why in the Western world there are many atheists because they expect God to be proven and sensed like the temporary objects we interact with daily. But God has a different sort of realness, of existence. 

Richard also mentions that the way most people end up on this path of enlightenment is through love or suffering. It was 11 years ago when I was in the middle of the worst suffering I have ever felt. I actually did not realize the human body could suffer that much and still continue. My body and mind were both breaking down. I took solace in the church and went as often as I could so I wouldn't just be alone with my suffering (since I lived alone.) 

One day, one of the prophetic people in my church said they saw behind me a black angel. He said it meant I would be given "deep revelation." Perhaps the suffering brought me here. Maybe this, what I'm learning now, is the deep revelation. It certainly feels like it. 

Of course these words are only words. "God is a verb" or "we are verbs" are only tools to get us to think differently about the world and ourselves. It's not some literal dogmatic definition I'm trying to say here. Instead it is a perspective that is useful, on occasion. 

And Also Love

I was writing about love today and was reminded of something important. The first commandment Jesus gives:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart. Love him with all your soul, and love him with all your mind. - Matt 22:37

And, it's pretty much impossible. For a couple of reasons. 

1. We cannot willpower our way into this love. We cannot push out all other concerns from our heart, soul, and mind. We cannot totally empty ourselves of everything but love for God yet this is exactly what it is asking. (At least, on the surface.)

2. Love commanded is not voluntary. Can you really love someone by force? Or is love something that is chosen? Does God want us to love her because we were commanded to? 

So what is to be done? I think there are maybe a couple of answers that, of necessity, must rise above the strict textual level of interpretation. 

Level 2 answer: To really love God, we cannot come straight at it by force. We only can love in this way if God shows us. To do this, we experience God's love first. 

"We love him, because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19

So, one answer is to throw ourselves into understanding and experiencing how much God loves us. How can we love an angry master who demands love from us? Yet this is how many of us see God. Until we truly get to know how loving and forgiving God is, we cannot voluntarily love God in this way. In fact, I believe it is the love God gives us that gets reflected back to him. 

Level 3 answer: On a level above this, where we realize that God is (through Jesus, John 1:3!) the maker of everything and is in everything. We live inside of God (Acts 17:28.) So when we love others, when we love music, when we love a good meal, or a sad story, or a work of art.... we are loving God. So, love and be grateful for all the things in your life. 

I don't know that we can ever truly and wholly fulfill this saying by Jesus, but I do believe we can know his love for us and reflect it back to him, and we can also love all the beauty around us. 

Note: I've decided that I will refer to God as both male and female for this blog, for reasons I've discussed earlier. I may even use plural sometimes since Elohim is plural. 

 

The Space Between Thoughts

Living in No Thought World

One way I have used to define one of my meditation practices is to make the space between thought and thought larger. Sometimes, as far as I am aware, I am able to not have a thought for two or three seconds. This actually feels quite wonderful.

A reason I use this definition is because I can explain it to others. Everyone has pauses between thoughts. First, you must actually turn your awareness to your consciousness to see it, even though most people would automatically agree with this statement. But if you observe, you will indeed see that there are pauses. So, therefore, can you not merely extend the pauses?

Between observing thought, and extending the pauses, you have something similar to vipassana meditation. Though it is more detailed than that. 

This description also helps people realize that they are more than thought. Who and what are you when you are not thinking? Observe. Watch. Feel. In that space between thoughts. That space is still you!

And of course God has this very same nature that he gave to us. God exists without thoughts. God is and can simply be. And so can we.

For more on Vipassana, here is a link. It is very similar to Thomas Keating's Christian Centering Prayer. Usually I feel like I am practicing both of these things. 

Blinking in and out of Existence

Some realizations of mine have sort of floated together in my stream of consciousness and coalesced into this idea. Here are the realizations.

1. We live our lives blinking in and out of awareness. There are two ways you can observe this. One is simple: when you look at something, or around a room, there are moments where your eyes quickly jump from one place to another. We are totally unaware of this. So really, the world, to our mind, simply blinks out and back into existence for that fraction of a second when our eyes move. The other way is how sometimes our unconscious takes over and we lose awareness of where we are, what are are doing, and even the food we are eating. I wonder how many meals I have eaten without tasting them because I was lost in thought? So, our consciousness leaves and returns to the present moment. I see this more like a wave, rather than a blinking, but we are at various stages of awareness. In a sense we "go somewhere else" for a while, somewhere that we basically have made up in our imagination, then return to the present. 

2. Buddhism talks about this concept, where time is really an illusion or a collection of instants. I had heard or read somewhere that they taught that reality goes into and out of existence 88 times per second, or something like that, but I'm unable to find the quote now. I am able to find some sources on the general idea which I will provide at the end of this blog. It seems to be the concept of "momentariness" which is an extension of the idea of impermanence. 

I see these concepts as methods to view our conscious experience, not necessarily as "true doctrines" to believe in, but helpful tools. There really does seem to be a sort of waveform, of our awareness going in and out of the moment, and it is an interesting phenomenon. 

Another Thought on Looking and Seeing

After my recent studies of Ram Dass and Rich Mullins, I have had a passage of the bible come to me with new meaning. 

The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! - Matt 6:22-23

I used to see this with my old, performance based, guilt infused version of Christianity where I'd be afraid to look at "evil things." (Whatever those are.) If I ever accidently saw something "impure" I'd feel guilty, especially if part of me actually enjoyed it. But now I see it more like Rich and Ram Dass. If my eyes are healthy, I will see the world with compassion. I will see Christ in everything and everywhere. If they are unhealthy I will look for division, and anger, and fear. So, if my own eyes are full of anger and fear, then I look at the world and expect to see more of that, how much more doubly dark will my soul be? 

Another way to look at being "healthy" in this context, is that the Greek word implies "generous." If we love people and forgive them, is that not a healthy way to see? If instead we are protective of what we have, and see others as competing with us for things and status, we will be full of darkness. The Greek for "unhealthy" in this case implies evil and malicious.

So the eye being full of light is NOT WHAT WE SEE but instead HOW WE CHOOSE TO SEE. 

Links:

https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780190681159.001.0001/acref-9780190681159-e-2260

https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/momentariness-buddhist-doctrine-of/v-1

Rich Mullins and Ram Dass

 I can feel the tension even as I put these two names together. Tension from people and their ideas of what is, and boundaries they have created. Rich Mullins the vagabond Christian musician, and Ram Dass, the psychologist turned guru, never affiliated with Christianity. 

Did you know that early Christian monks not only read the Bible but works of Homer and Plato during their contemplative studies?

It seems today that at least among Christians we are afraid of so many things. As if we could become influenced by evil spirits by doing yoga. As if we could be somehow turned away from God by studying other religions. This has merely served (at least in the American church I can speak of) to make us more insular and judgmental. So I feel some trepidation in my writings, knowing there are few who will understand me -- most of them because they will not even try. But this is my journey my Father and Mother have called me to. My brother Jesus walks beside me. 

So. Ram Dass and Rich. 

In at least one occasion, they spoke about the same thing. 

"Everywhere you look, you see what you are looking for. When you are looking for God, all you see is God." - Ram Dass

"Well, the eagle flies

And the rivers run

I look through the night

And I can see the rising sun

And everywhere I go, I see You

And I see You, Lord, I see You"

-Rich Mullins

If you have been awakened, just a tiny bit, just having a toe in the water of the divine ocean, you too can do this. If you are able to observe your own senses, and feel the real you behind them, then these words above should ring true to you. You know that you'll see what you're looking for. It's so much more than cause and effect -- it is a system where the universe and you are dancing together, and your eyes are open enough to see that the Source, our wonderful maker, is right there in all of it. 

And so, sometimes, when I shake off the pull of the world and my endless stream of (mostly) useless thoughts, I can see God. I see God in nature so easily. His name is in every blade of grass, Her song in every bird's call. I also can see God in people. But lately I have seen God in things his children made: a painting, a building, a rusty speed limit sign. God. God. God. Everywhere, if only we open our eyes.

So many people wander around life, not knowing there even is God. Yet God is in everything, and everything is a miracle, and a wonder. It's not something your intellectual mind can grasp. You just have to put down that intellectual, thinking bit for a moment. (Don't worry, it will still be there when you're done!) What is left? That's the part of you that can see without judging, talk without speaking, fly while you're still on the ground. There is so much more to us than thought. We are. It is amazing. We have been taught, in this Western world, as they say, "I think, therefore I am," but that's only a tiny part of us. If thought becomes all we are even less than half a human. So, sing, dance, act without thinking (when it's safe!) and see who else you are! Our Creator is already dancing, we can join with them in delight.

p.s. Did I mention that in my recent studies I found that in early Christianity the Holy Spirit was referred to as female in the bible? When I found out I thought, "Of course!" I have so much needed God's touch as a Mother, and now I have it. So fulfilling. I would add that of course God is a transcendent being and not specifically any gender, but has those gender qualities inside their being (God is sometimes referred to in Hebrew as a plural.) Since we all are made in God's image, we reflect characteristics of God. It would be neglectful and incomplete to say God does not have the feminine as well as the masculine. https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3225/7763