Pathways
Your steps are uniquely your own.
No one else can take them for you.
Of spirituality and religion: Souls enter through such doorways or embark on such journeys or walk among such pathways. Yet, the difference is subtle but nevertheless all consuming. Those who embrace spirituality are simply acknowledging first to themselves and secondly to the world, that there is indeed a God. There is indeed truth. There is indeed something greater. The separation is simply that those on this path have chosen to accept that the most important questions we ask are in themselves unsolvable. And in response have accepted that the God we seek has no name, has no particular religious denomination, and is unique to no certain group. And so, to the degree we’re able, we cease to place limits, or to make judgements.
Although we may have been prompted by someone or something else, ultimately, for each of us, the real starting point for our spiritual or religious journey must commence from within ourselves.
No one else can take a step in our place, nor explain the scenery, vistas, smooth places or rocky patches of either path for us, since such a path is uniquely ours alone.
Paradox
Whatsoever it is you seek, so shall you find...
The reckless seek order.
The artist seeks beauty.
Once order is restored, it is the work of the once reckless soul to seek after the art that is present within her of his life. And to seek to create such art out from the order that now exists.
The nuance moves from greater degrees of order and control to greater degrees of beauty and personal freedom.
A bridge exists which leads to such a path.
Yet, a cluster of souls cannot see width enough for that bridge to allow passage for the many. Yet, passage for the one, and for the one by one, allows for such travel and provides for crossing over.
Such a bridge leads to as many paths as there are souls who crossover.
Lenses
God is...
Human beings have worked to attach a name and a face to the creative entity since time began. This has been the emphasis. In most cases, the results of such a search have resulted in a conclusion of a God that resembles ourselves albeit a “better version” of ourselves.
The search is not “Who is God” and instead the question we must ask is “What is God.” Because as soon as we “shrink” God into a version of ourselves, we are immediately confronted with all our differences. Names for a God seen as one that resembles ourselves too easily open the way for separation to emerge. Soon after, we attach a culture to such a version of God, along with a geography, a skin color, a gender and instantly “separation” in all its forms appears!
Yet, when God is viewed through a lens of “What” versus “Whom” then the differences we perceive cannot be attached. And as we talk instead about “What God is” women and men will find superior conclusions. One of the earliest from an enlightened disciple who concluded, “God is Love.”
The Hot Glass
Encountering what is unseen but instead felt ..
To understand this revelation I describe is to experience what I call the “Hot Glass.”
Without a visual marker that is seen, the individual knows, typically at a deeply personal level that their unique, spiritual progression has led them to encounter the “Hot Glass.” An invisible line of demarcation that lets us know, even without “seeing” something tangible, that we have encountered something otherworldly. We don’t “see” this per se but we “know” that we have touched it: An invisible “place of being” that “informs us” in the moment and in many moments thereafter. This plane of being or invisible marker we’ve encountered remains mostly transparent to others lest our inner work of transformation begins to expose us through our actions, responses and way of being.
Perfection for the individual is not a goal or even a whisper of this realm. Yet, “in itself,” it is altogether perfect. At its deepest levels, this “Hot Glass” is the Light: It is a “knowing” one encounters that in its irony doesn't make one “all knowing” yet makes oneself “known.”
Religionists “teach” from something they have learned whereas those who have encountered the Light find it nearly impossible to “teach” another, beyond simply pointing or shining a light into the shadows that dogma creates. Religion, while well intended, is it’s own way like a fixed, rigid statue that while in itself may be quite beautiful, it yet towers over and casts a shadow upon the individual. The Light which one encounters is the essence that “illuminates” the darkness created within the same shadow.
For the one who has yet to find a spiritual path, very little light is needed to travel forward, onward and upward toward truth. They find there is light enough for those things they seek (or don’t seek). The shadow cast by such a statue serves as a safe place where one is neither known nor sees a reason for greater knowing. The Light is sought however by those who have sensed a need to move out from that shadow. It is needed for those who have come to realize at some level, that progress is vital and movement is critical. Finding themselves no longer content with the image that towers over them and finding themselves longing to “see and know.” Possibly longing to see with Light enough to view a deeper Truth.
Light and Truth are affirmed via the Hot Glass. There is a running into, bumping into, plowing into, or at times a crashing into that only occurs through spiritual travel. Progression and movement forward out from the shadows of conformity, pattern and structure and into a realm that is encountered and felt at some level. This encounter is what informs the individual that they can never exist again with contentment in the shadow of the religious idols that almost appear as Billboards along the highway of life. Instead, the individual begins to see signs of a different nature: From a place that is not a place; From a perspective that is not as “sight;” From an encounter. An encounter along the spiritual path which could be described as the clear, Hot Glass.
Thoughts, Meditation, Muse and Prayer
A myriad of scripture shares a central theme that is often completely lost...
Consider your thoughts and seek to learn how to guide them:
For our thoughts inform our emotions.
Our emotions influence our words.
Our words direct our actions.
Our actions will ultimately determine our results in life
...and quite possibly our fate.
God Reflects Own Own Image Back to Us
God exists as a reflection of us.
Exactly as we are—each one of us;
Whether in our "simplicities" or in our "complexities."
The irony, in its evolution - the very same image we hold of God changes as we change.
God may exist as a reflection of we ourselves.
As a mirror would reflect the image that peers into it, and the image giver observes what it sees.
There is a mirroring of sorts. Where—as we change, the reflection we present changes in like manner. And as our reflection changes so it is that naturally, what it represents to us, and how it appears to us —as well as how it appears to others— changes as well.
There is a built in reciprocity that our relationship and understanding of God reflects back to us:
If we are small—whether in mind, chronological years or limited in how we view our potential or the possibilities for our lives; so God—as a reflection of our own minds eye, peers back at us in an equal measure.
If our perspective is wide, seeing life’s horizons as vast—maybe even limitless— our “view of life” and vision of who we are and what we are capable of also serves as our very same reflection of God.
Continue to consider such implications:
Presume I’m small minded, confined in my thinking, and remain in a "mental place" or even "emotional place" —that has very defined borders and boundaries.
God, bears unto me an image-that-I-hold-for-myself. And likewise I "being of small mind," still exist as a living being—yet, one that has built-in restraints. And just possibly, the image I maintain of God's peers back at me in the mirror, as-a- reflection-of-me, just may not be up to the task of my own unique and personal growth; expansion; evolution; and even awakening.
Or—maybe if I see myself and my life from a "wide angle lens"—with a panoramic view—then God, in like manner, is reflected back to me as expansive, wide, even all encompassing.
Is there parallel; or a connection or an allegory that points to our own reflection—found in the Bibles's most profound statement?
Genesis 1:27
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
What’s fascinating is the consideration for whether it is "I" who bears the image of an immense God—capable of creating all the heavens and all the earths—or whether "I" bear the image of an unknowable, ineffective God, incapable of intervention into my life or for my benefit.
As this metaphor for how I “see” and understand God, I return to the mirror and to the reflection that peers back on me. I consider the image I see and the deeper takeaways from the traits I observe: power, presence, and possibilities; empathy, earnestness and eternity; loving, life giving, and long-lasting; knowing, knowable and known; hopeful and trustworthy; and giver of peace and joy.
Or... do I peer into this mirror and observe—other traits... Reflections that I'm not comforable with.
In the same way that we can alter our own physical appearance, such as cutting our hair or choosing to smile, we can alter the way we see and understand God. Altering the reflection that is revealed to us as we peer back into our very own, unique, mirror of faith.