Note: I have three blogs because I want to have spaces for the different types of thinking and exploring I like to do. This blog is about ideas, consciousness, happiness, and God. So I’m bringing over this discussion that started in the comments of a post on Tao of Prosperity, because that blog is really about business and ease and creativity and God. (Yes, everything I do is about God somehow LOL.)

To recap, Angela referenced the idea of “being used by the Universe” toward some good purpose.

Does this happen? Yes and no. I see it differently.

I think people are like cells in the body of the Universe/God.

Does a body use a cell? Or does the cell use the body? Or does the question make no sense, because neither would be able to exist without the other?

It probably goes without saying that I vote for the latter. It makes no sense. God doesn’t use me or “work through me” exactly.

That implies God is out there, distinct from me, and he/she/it (see, we are getting into pronouns already, that is an indicator of a problem!), this God entity is pushing me around to make good stuff happen, or pushing good stuff out through me.

I think the idea of being “used by God” is an artifact of thinking of oneself separate from God. It’s a product of having bodies that walk around as seemingly autonomous units, and minds that think “I’m separate, yes I am!”.

Let’s think of cells in a body. If you were a red blood cell, and you thought of your body as “using” you to deliver oxygen to the rest of the body - that seems kinda makes sense. Except the body also uses all the rest of the cells to deliver nutrients to you. And there’s not really a distinct “body”, separate from you as a cell, that is in charge of it all. In fact, each cell is encoded with the instructions to do what it does.

So yes, I think we are “used by God” in a certain sense, but only in ways that we are already built for, for things that are inherent in our unique awesomeness.

Right now in our culture we have 5000 years of habitual belief that God is outside us, apart from us, like a galactic CEO or overlord. But that whole thought arose out of disconnection from God. It’s a tragic idea, which got codified and ossified and glorified and written down. It’s gotten lots of play but it’s bogus.

You are a cell in the body of God. You know what to do. You know how to be you. You always have and you always will. It’s written in your bones.

The best thing you can do, to be most “useful” to the rest of God, i.e. your nearby cells and the whole body of God, your community and your planet, is to be as true as possible to your own personal mission in the world. To understand it, to nurture it, to listen carefully to its instructions, to follow its whisper in your soul.

Your soul is connected to the larger body of God.

You, your mind, your ego/small self, is not always aware of this connection. It thinks it is separate and it tries to protect that separateness, because it thinks it needs to for survival.

And it does, to some extent - cells need cell membranes or cell walls and whatnot (I’m dredging up some high school biology here). But a membrane doesn’t make the cell separate from the body. It still belongs to and is inherent to the body.

The ego isn’t so bright about this distinction.

That’s why you’ve got to go inside and listen. Clear away the cruft in the way of hearing that pure, sweet voice of “this is how I was meant to love the world”.

You will never be able to connect to that feeling of being part of the body of God except through doing what you were meant to do. Then you become useful to the body of God, and you start feeling that sense of being part of all that glorious goodness that works together in a magical mysterious way.

Oh geez, writing about this stuff makes me all high and happy. =)

Immanence vs Transcendence

To be fair to the other half of spirituality, you can also listen to the whisper of the body of God telling you what your function is, guiding you where you need to go, through messages from other cells or by flushing you into some other, more suitable area of the body. (OK, I’m possibly beating this metaphor to death.)

The point is that you can open yourself up to listen to something outside of you, larger than you, as well as listening inside. This is the difference between immanent and transcendent spirituality. Transcendent spirituality emphasizes listening outside, and that’s the beauty and gift that is at the heart of the big religions and “God as a big dude in the sky” kind of thinking.

Immanent tends to makes more sense to me, as I have such a strong sense of internal mission, but they are both important.

What I mourn is that people have forgotten how to listen inwardly, because the outward has been so emphasized for so long. They think they need to go find an expert or read a book or “believe” something to find God. Nope.

You just need to do what your DNA tells you is yours to do, and open up those cell walls a bit and let all the other parts of God remind you that you are part of this body too and we need you, the real true you.

So if you feel lost, try both. Try listening inwardly, and try listening outwardly. Just don’t ignore the inward, OK? =)

Tags: big ideas by emma
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This post is taken partly from my comments on Mark’s post about the bail-out.

Mark expresses a common sentiment along the lines of “I don’t know if our civilization will survive”.

Here’s my take on this, and I apply it both to our US culture and to our global situation:

I tend to take a very long view on our countries economy and structures, and our world’s struggle with environmental pollution.

I think of our country/culture/society, and the world at large in which we have a huge influence, as being in its adolescence. We are growing up…which means learning from our mistakes…which means we will make more, I’m sure.

I see them as part of a much longer/broader cycle. Our country as a whole is struggling to move from anger/blame/finding fault to responsibility and cooperation. So every “crisis” is an opportunity for us to grow, and I have faith that this is happening.

Civilizations mature over long periods of time. So I don’t worry so much about it on a day to day level. I focus more on my own maturity, and developing my own consciousness in order to help and teach etc, to move things along in whatever spheres I have influence in.

Like “Think globally, act locally”, I like to “Think long-term, act day to day”.

Will we survive?

I just have this faith that we will. I act as if we will.

I figure, if we don’t then we don’t, but wondering about it makes me spend energy in worry and hope/doubt, and that creates ineffectiveness.

I have a strong sense of faith that we’ll make it. And a sense that if we don’t commit to making it, if we stay hovering in fear/doubt–that this is part of the problem somehow.

I believe that the very act of having faith in ourselves and humanity given the current situation is a radical act that will help create the future where we do survive, and thrive. Because it seems to me that vision precedes action: you have to believe in something before you act toward it. So I feel that faith in ourselves is, in itself, important to have.

I almost see it as an aspect of growing up and developing maturity and responsibility: you see yourself as capable of taking on the things in your path, as being equal to your life. I see us as equal to our situation. It’s dire, but we can meet it, we will meet it, we are meeting it. Progress is slow in some areas, but it is fast in others, and it will crystallize soon. I have a solid sense in my body that this is true.

And I want to get off the fence with it, come out of the “intellectual skepticism” closet and commit. I think it’s important. I believe in us.

I want to help heal our culture and help it mature; I think one of the key aspects of a healer is that they can see the person they are helping as whole long before the person sees themselves that way. Through the healers eyes, the person begins to be able to see themselves in a new way, and then starts to believe that new things are possible.

They start to believe in themselves because they are believed in. From believing in themselves, they start acting in ways that support their own healing. Vision precedes action.

So what I see is that our culture has all the inner resources and wisdom it needs to heal (just like a person does). And it has the support of its community and the Universe, if it reaches out and asks (just like a person does). And, it has some roadblocks to realizing this (just like a person does). But it still has that potential and I want to have faith in it (like I would a person).

So when I look around, I don’t see signs of doom and reasons to be hopeless. I see a young culture struggling to grow up.  The US was founded on a very strong need to individuate and go our own way. We are still maturing into realizing that now we need to play well with others and what it takes to do that.

I see lots of people in our culture trying to learn just that. I see all the folks looking to the East and other cultures for spiritual understanding. That is happening. And it’s because as the people of our country mature, they realize that there is stuff out there that is wiser than our “rugged individualism” and our love of the marketplace above all else, and they seek it out.

This affects our culture. We are our culture. We are the cells that make up the body of our country, and we are healing ourselves from the inside out, and that will heal our country from the inside out. The idea that culture is created by someone else is bogus. I claim my culture-creating abilities and exercise them. I am blogging, I am creating community, creating art, creating life. So are millions of others.

Our culture is growing and maturing. And I have faith in it.

Tags: big ideas, healing by emma
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