I’ve been reading this amazing book by Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith called Spiritual Liberation. I’ve been taking my time reading it, as to soak in everything I can that it teaches. The book is about expanding our consciousness and insights into ourselves and by design, expanding our God consciousness to include everyone we come in contact with.
You ever sit and wonder why God, the omnipresent being that knows all of our thoughts and ideas, wants, needs, and desires would let such travesties happen in the world? I do all the time. I look at all the wars and all the greed and all the violence and say emphatically: “That’s NOT God!!!” And yet, every single day, people do the unimaginable in the name of “God”, but not really. The things they do is actually in the name of their own ego.
God told me to drown my kids. God told me to smite thee in his name. God is on my side and because you don’t agree with me and my religion, it is my duty to “God” to kill you. We get married in the name of “God” and in “God’s” house and then treat our supposed beloved with contempt, like they are our property, put here solely to “make us happy” and if they fall short, we toss them out like yesterday’s trash.
We use bible verse to oppress and shun and demonize people who don’t fall in line with what we believe “God” said. All of which really has little to do with the God that lives within us. It actually has more to do with our personal fears of the differences around us. And our ego needing to be “right”. Don’t shake your head at me. You can’t possibly expand your life, if your mind is stuck in auto pilot. You and I both know that just because somebody tells you something is wrong or right, doesn’t mean it is so. Somebody can look at you instantly and think you’re wrong because of your complexion or hairstyle or religious affiliation. Does that make them right? Nope. So if that’s true for their thinking, it must to be true for our own.
Work with me on this one. It is true. God is everywhere, particularly within us. But at the end of the day, I believe we all don’t really understand God as much as we think we do, if at all.
Just work with me for a moment. For one second, forget everything you think you know about God. Pretend like you are a newborn baby, fresh into this world and you have absolutely no idea who or what God is, except what you see for yourself. If you were to look around you, what would you see? Trees. Blue skies. Grass that grows on it’s own. Buildings that seem to touch the sky. People that walk and talk and breath without needing anything external to help them to do these things. Nourishment for the body that goes in one end and comes our the other end on its own accord. This invisible thing called air, that you can’t see or touch, but you instinctively need to breath in and out to sustain yourself. As a baby, fresh to this world, you realize that everything kindof works on its own. You see without much effort that everything is connected. Everything you need is already there working to keep you living. There is this intricate network of uniquely beautiful things surrounding you to help you thrive. That is God.
God is everywhere we are in everything we see touch and experience. God is in the breast milk that comes from our mothers when we’re born that is rich in every single nutrient we should need to sustain us as we acclimate ourselves to this Earth. God is the the sunlight that gives us Vitamin D to strengthen our bones as they grow on their own. God is in the greenery that replenishes the oxygen our lungs need to sustain our very life as we breathe. God literally is in every single thing we see and can’t see.
So if God is in everything else around us, why wouldn’t God be within us as well?
Why would we choose to think that God would be so connected to an ant and yet so disconnected from us, as to sit on a throne as a man or woman whose complexion is White, Black, Asian, Indian, mineral or animal? Why would a God that would create such uniqueness in every single thing around us be so limited to one kind of life, complexion, gender or sexuality?
The truth is, God didn’t create the divisions or religions or wars over religions or genders or sexualities or any of the things we experience today. We did. Human beings, with all of our opposable thumbs and reasoning minds decided that in our imperfection, in our utter humanness, God must be somewhere far and away and that there is only one path to him. Which is somewhat true. But not in the way you may be thinking. Human beings, by our own limitations, have by effect limited God. You still with me?
So I got to thinking about a lot of the challenges we come into contact with on a personal daily basis. Being single, feeling lonely. Being without work or a stable home. Being in an abusive relationship. Having anger issues. Violence, Improper schools for thriving and learning, unhealthy, chock-full-o-preservative foods in our markets, Being over weight or feeling unloved– to name a really short list.
What if I said to you that the solution to all of these things is YOU? Would you believe me and get to working it all out or would you look at this post like it stinks and move on to another note that’s far less silly sounding? No worries. If you’re still reading this, something deep inside you is ready to get to work. Something is nagging at you that while there is truth in this, there is greater truth already inside you waiting to be discovered. All you have to do is ask and it shall be given.
Whatever you choose in this moment won’t change a thing of the facts. The solution is still YOU. We all come to this realization eventually. It’s only a matter of when.
You want excellent affordable education for your kids? The solution is you. You want fresh, all natural foods to feed your family? The solution is you. You want your man or woman to stop putting his or her hands on you in a violent way? The solution is you. You want these wars to stop? The solution is you.
Any circumstance you can see yourself into, you can see yourself evolve from by putting your God power in action, simply by understanding that everything you need is already in you. Therefore, if there is something in your world that needs fixing or changing or made a way out of…the solution is you.
This is exactly as easy and as hard as it sounds. It takes work to be introspective and accountable for oneself and one’s happiness. Most of us can’t even look in the mirror for 10 seconds without seeing every single flaw. So often we look outside of ourselves to find the solutions to our problems that we’ve gotten used to not having any desire or trust enough to hear what our higher selves have to say.
If you were to pick up two blades of grass and put them under a microscope, you would see that neither of them are the same. There are different color tones, different shapes, different flecks and basically different everything. If God would be so intricate in making something as seemingly uniform as a lawn so individual, why would he not do the same for a being so complex as us? And just like there are scientifically distinct differences in breast milk, based entirely on the unique needs of the newborn–not the mother birthing her. Each of us has a unique inner reservoir of ideas that will move us through every single challenge we face.
That’s why a lot of times, therapy–at face value– doesn’t work. We can’t expect a cookie cutter explanation for our utter uniqueness. What we can expect is for our therapist to help us open up enough to get inside ourselves and trust our spirit within to guide our direction.
That, my loves is where we shall end this post. In pondering what is within us. If you never asked the question: Who am I really? Why am I here? Why would God make someone like Me to walk the Earth? What was I uniquely designed to do while I’m here? If you never thought to answer these questions, now would be the time. Ask and ye shall receive. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing with your life now. It doesn’t matter how much money you’re making or how many kids you have or how many baby daddies you made them with. None of that matters. the past is passed. You can’t take a breath in the future. This moment, right now is a gift and that’s why it is called The Present.
So sit in quiet for a few moments and ask yourself these questions and then sit in quiet and HEAR what is already screaming at you. Don’t worry about how outlandish it may seem. Don’t worry yourself about what your mom, dad, friends, foes, or church home would think. Do you. See you as the solution and watch what takes shape in your life. After all, whatever you were designed to do, if you’re not doing it, who will?
The moral of this story? I can’t call it. Just some food for thought. I thank you for reading this though. If nobody told you today, you are beloved. Peace and abundant “you are the solution!” Blessings! Stay tuned for Part 2. Love, -e-