God is Bottom-Up
Many people have visceral reactions to the word God. Fear, discomfort, aversion. But the definition of God is changing. Old ideas of God come from the top-down hierarchical paradigm. God is being understood once again as bottom-up.
| Old Paradigm Religion | New Paradigm Spirituality |
| God is the top of a top-down authority structure. God -> Priests -> Parents -> Humans -> Animals. God is the CEO of the Universe, the Principle of the Galactic Classroom. | God is like water, supporting you from the bottom, the ground of your being, the field of your existence. |
| God is an entity outside of us. Therefore God may or may not exist. | God is within us and everything else. Ultimately there is no separation, we are patterns within the fabric of God that have the subjective experience of being separate. God is the same as reality. |
| God is in charge and makes the rules. He created everything a long time ago. | We co-create with God (being little bits of God ourselves) in an ongoing process of creative unfolding. |
| God is inherently perfect; we are inherently not. | Reality has no inherent morality. Ideas of “good” and “evil” create separation and disconnection, which leads to violence. Violence isn’t “bad”, it’s just unpleasant. |
| God is watching you sleep to see if you do bad things. | God is sleeping you. |
| You know God when you have faith in things you can’t prove and seem unlikely. Faith is hard and God tests you to see if you are worthy. | You know God when you become viscerally aware of the inherent connections between things. Faith is hard because we’re trained out of sensing God directly, but once you become aware of it, that sense is always with you. |
| God has a plan for you, and if you don’t fulfill it you’re bad. | God manifests through you in a unique way and it feels good to participate in that creative process. If you don’t, you might feel unfulfilled and long to pursue it, but you won’t be punished. |
| God gave us dominion over the Earth. | The earth is part of the way God supports us, and we are a beautiful part of it’s fabric. If we play nice as part of the web of life, it will treat us well. |
| God sets the standards and we ought to live by them, even if they feel wrong or impossible (like not being gay). | There is an underlying harmony to the Universe that it feels good to be in alignment with. Our heart and body can sense it when we are paying attention. It feels inherently good and right to us, and does not require sacrifice. |
We can all be vibrantly alive and happy. Here I discuss the ideas and tools that will get us there.