Maybe the only question that needs resolution is “Who am I?” Especially when the answer is my answer, “Manifestation of God.”
Not “Child of God” as so many sages say. That doesn’t satisfy me because I infer its meaning to be something different from God, the way we are different from our parents. I think of myself as fundamentally the same as God except for one teensy point: my soul has yet to consciously realize that oneness. Rectifying that imbalance is inherent in the purpose of existence, if not its sole purpose.
What if “Manifestation of God” were the core of all considerations, all problem solving—and growing attunement to that reality was, I like to say, the only game in town? Certainly that notion is in harmony with my childhood demand of the universe to give me a single idea with which to guide my every choice, my every action. “Everything is God” being the reply.
The joke of course is the challenge of living such simplicity in the ego amusement park where every ride, game and cotton candy stand is animated by the delusion of duality. The exquisite design of that park, however, leaves every moment of wackiness full of grist for the mill of awakening.
There is much wisdom in the call to make meditation the core of our human life, but I’m not mature enough yet to make that call my own. Instead, what I cultivate is the all-consuming passion for oneness to the point that meditation is the equivalent of breath, and the ego amusement park the equivalent of the Boston Strangler.
Steve,
Beautifully said. I have been listening to Rupert Spira explain non-dualism and our predicament. He would love this.
Doug
The capacity to imagine and concepts, what profound and useful tools. As if what you call God, infinite entangled quantum potential, was jello or iron filings given shape by a magnetic form created by, not thought, but something far more fundamental, what the old one’s called ‘belief.’ Here we make a critical distinction between ‘thought,’ which draws upon conditioned memory, and ‘creation,’ what Physicist David Bohm described as ‘infinite potential.’ Clearly, the term Ego draws upon conditioning. And that causal-creative force which jello expresses as ‘everything,’ we call God. Indeed, the drop contains an ocean’s wetness but is not the ocean, but that is not thought. The degree of our self-realization is defined by identity or identification. Which side of the Ego/God fence is our identity rooted? When the limitations imposed by our conditioning cease to fill our imagination, so does our identification with the deception, concept or image, that there is a separate entity called me calling the shots. It is the movement of thought that creates that appearance, not the other way around, an independent thinker creating what we think. The observer is the observed. Both our God like wetness and our capacity to imagine are real. The murderous deception, identity/delusion, that we are the Boston Strangler is simply a misperception, believing in a false identity. Of course, you know all this. We use imagination as a scalpel or hammer, and put it away when its job is done, returning home to the other side of the fence, infinite potential, given shape by what we ‘believe,’ our true identity. Or remain enchanted, day-dreaming we are what we imagine.
“Kriya Yoga plus devotion cannot fail. It works like mathematics. Paramahansa Yogananda
We cannot merge through intellect alone; only through love and stillness can we merge. Kriya gets you to the door of stillness. Devotion gets you through the door.
Love and stillness burn karma and delusion.
This is a long and difficult process, achievable only through the patient daily practice of love, service, and meditation. Chip, chip, chip. Effort is progress. 1,2,3,4 little steps, little victories. Slow, steady, this step, this act.
Really???
“Who am I?” Especially when the answer is my answer, “Manifestation of God.”