Part I, Chapter 1. ABOUT GOD
(1)
A PREAMBLE (1A)
In which we explore what God might be considering when designing a
system for life eternal, where we human beings can explore….
It’s all about God dreaming up a way for Her to have fun forever,
which is a very long time.
SO, WHAT IS FUN? (1A1)
God likes finding out things about herself that she didn’t know
before and she likes figuring it out herself, and when She really works
it out She wants to Shout about it. This is called Expression. ‘In the
beginning was the word.’
God knows she only really learns and understands things through
experiencing them. Understanding is enthralling and a nice ‘ding’ or ‘aha’ when
a Light comes on. The more experience, the more understanding; therefore how
get to experience everything to the max?
God likes ‘SEEK’. (see GRANDIN. The term is used by Panksepp
quoted in Grandin and Panksepp uses capitals for this drive/emotion.) (Another
name for this is Exploring)
Imagining and Creating all sorts of things in a self-sustaining
system is pretty interesting too.
God loves what She has found, and wants others to have lots of fun
too, so then She can share with them and they with Her.
Well, what about splitting into billions of little sparks of
awareness that are like Her (‘cos they’re part of Her) and want to have fun
forever with lots of different experiences? Since they are part of Her, they
are going to find experiencing and finding out about life, the Universe and
everything lots of fun too, and they will want to share what they have found.
So, what would keep them entertained and occupied forever?
Now this is complex and there are some things to think about here.
·
They will need methods to
See themselves because it is very difficult to work out who they are in the
absence of anything else around them. They will also need contrasts so that
they can experience All of it and learn to work out what they do and don’t
want, and the consequences of that.
·
Any spark of Me will
contain and have access to infinity, because they are part of Me so they will
need large worlds and lots of little ones with plenty of scope for plenty of
experiences in all ways.
·
Some things will need to
last forever, and some things won’t, and these little bits of Me will need time
to understand what they’ve learnt, and if they’re beginners they’ll want a
chance to do things over again if they don’t like it, or they may want it
differently, or better or not at all, because they’ll want free choice, as I
have; yet forever is really a long time, so they may want time out, as well as
feedback…..
·
Also, the best fun is when
they work it out for themselves, so they’ll need a system that can maintain
them, and give them hints all the time so as they will know where to look.
So, I’ll set up a closed system that will look after them, and
then they can explore.
It has to be…
·
Absolutely absorbing and
involving.
·
Utterly fascinating
forever.
·
Always learning,
developing, creating, experiencing.
·
Encompassing growth.
·
Feeding Seek, ie,
exploration and curiosity to search, investigate and make sense of what they
find.
·
Able to make mistakes and
start again.
·
Free choice to do whatever
they want, so as they can find out what happens and learn to understand the
consequences of their choices.
·
Ultimately highly rewarding
as they learn to express themselves.
·
Emotional measuring system
to tell them how they’re going.
·
Built-in feedback mechanism
including pain to let them know when they need to talk to Me or someone else.
·
Others to act as mirrors,
so that they can See if they wish.
·
An assessment and
debriefing system so they can recap and refine.
·
Time out for a breather and
can come back to Me.
Excellent!!
THE SPARK. (1A2)
The spark is part of the Creator, as the sperm is part of the
father, or the drop of the ocean is part of the ocean, the cell is part of the
body, or a flute is part of an orchestra.
The qualities here are that the spark is an individual that is
separate but is also part of a whole. Here is the first duality.
Characteristics are shared between source and spark, yet the spark is not the
source. The part is the microcosm, the source is the macrocosm.
Thus, as a spark of God, you have all the time in the world and
out of it. You go on forever. A life eternal. What are you going to do with
that? Play harps forever?? Forever is a long time. What about Seek/Explore?
What about Express? You are part of God; you will want Seek and Express, and
you will go on desiring that. It is built into animals as well.
Life is an experience. We truly understand nothing unless we
experience it. The rest is simply theory.
So --- POP! HERE YOU ARE. (1A3)
Well, here you are – a person born on earth and you’re not that
impressed.
A vale of tears.
Suffering in all directions.
Famine, fires, and floods – fat lot of fun here!
“Yeah; well; I suppose there are some compensations, but I’m
getting fat and tired and sex isn’t much fun anymore and the kids are so-so,
and nearly off our hands – thank God.”
What a strange world? It’s lasted billions of years say the
geologists, and just over 4,000 says some religious groups. At the rate we’re
going, it won’t last much longer thinks everybody except businessmen and
politicians. What will the rat race do then?
So here you are? What on earth for? What’s all this about?
This is you – a piece of humanity in the physical – different from
anybody else – as unique as your DNA says you are.
You have a personality. Your friends seem to know what it is – you
seem to know what theirs is. You don’t really know what yours is. Do you?
You have the potential to be and do what? Others tell you. There’s
things that you want; things you have to do. Others seem to have it all.
Where’s mine?
Does everybody go through this eat, sleep, grow up, school
(maybe), learn the rules, earn a living, just so the next generation can eat,
sleep, grow up, etc…. what for?
All looking for love, striving for what?
So many things the same; so many differences; so many things I
know; so many things I don’t.
Every person different; the more you know them, the more you
realize their world is different from your own.
We have one life only to encompass this. What? Really?
We have lots of lives to encompass this. What? Really?
Who’s right? Who’s wrong? The whole thing is a heap of hooey,
isn’t it?
We have history – do we still have all these wars?
What about all those who have been before me? Who were they? What
did they think?
But the great cry is…
Who am I?
Why am I here?
What for?
How does any/all of this make sense?
What is the point of it all?
How do I make sense of all the things we’re told to do ‘out
there’?
Who’s right, who’s wrong and Why? Why? Why???
WHAT ARE MY ANSWERS HERE, AND WHO AM I TO GIVE THEM? (1A4)
In the end, what follows are my own answers that make sense to me
out of all these questions. They help me and greatly, which is why I’m
writing them. They delight me, and I must own them to know them. This is my
‘’teaching’ that I most need to learn’. What I have found may or may not be
correct, and they are certainly likely to be incomplete. They may or may not
help you, but it is my responsibility to write what I have found to be true for
me, and it is your responsibility to do with them as you please.
Naming and Exploring.
NAMING (1B)
In which we explore how to refer to God, as well as concepts that
‘belong’ to God, such as Creation, Manifestation and Expression.
WHO OR WHAT IS GOD? (1B1)
The Language problem. (1B1a)
This discussion is about our personal relationship as a human
being with a single source that some of us call God, and who we are in that.
First, we have the problem of naming and referring to this Unity;
God, Unity, Universe, Life, Spirit, Creation, Nature, the One, the Source,
Allah, and so on. BECK uses ‘Whatever’ which is as good a name as any.
(NB. Spirit is used by many ‘new age’ people to refer to God, but
throughout this discussion I will not be using this word in this manner. Thus,
when I use ‘spirit’ I am referring to the individual part of us that is
spirit.)
I could ‘cook up’ a single word to try to cover these concepts, or
Unity could be a useful choice, but for this writing I’m going to use the word
God because that is the word that means the most to me.
The English language has the pronouns ‘he’ ‘she’ and ‘it’ for
males, females, and things. ‘He’ has traditionally and supposedly been taken to
include ‘she’, but many women are quite tired of this, as in fact, they do not
feel included much if at all. However we do not have a pronoun to encompass a
concept of Unity or a single source. If we use ‘It’ for God, we still get into
trouble because it depersonalizes Her and feels essentially incorrect.
I am going to use Her and She when referring to God. Most of my
readers will be women and of course (!) men should automatically feel included
when I use ‘she’ in this discussion. [After all, ‘he’ is included in ‘she’.] I
have kept the capitals to remember the largeness of God.
The irony in this modern business of 'he and she' is that we all
get called 'guys' nowadays which of course includes women as equals! Well, try
'gals' and see how far you get with that.
God and Her Names. How to Refer to this Bigness? (1B1b)
God has a lot of names which basically boil down to…
·
the ONE; Unity, Source, Allah,
Spirit, etc. ie, the Creator
·
and the EVERYTHING;
Universe, Nature, All, etc. ie, the Created.
Thus, to repeat; God as a Unity or a Wholeness as a single
source is the Creator of Life, as well as Everything that She has
Created.
‘God as Unity’ implies that the creation of life comes from
this particular Unity, a word that intrinsically implies that a. something
is unified or whole or complete, as well as b. it is possible for there to be a
dis-unity or dis-union of something, ie, there can be more than one part and
these can be separated or split. These concepts are key elements in this
discussion.
The crux of this is then, that this Unity is required for the
Creation of Life. What then, is this Unity of something that has been Split?
I tackle this question later, because it is a very big one. And really,
this whole book is about this business of unifying 2 things; ‘Making the 2,
one.’
God is Exploring Energy and Expressing what She finds.
She does this by Creating Life.
GOD CREATES LIFE. (1B2)
What then, is Creation? (1B2a)
It is an idea that has been manifested; it has been made in the
physical world. It may have originated as an idea or inspiration, but now it
can be seen in the physical. It is an expression of God’s concepts made apparent
to God; God’s expression of Her Self for Herself. God’s expression is her
owning of Herself to Her Self (and us). God knows Herself by owning Herself. It
is the expression that is the key here. ‘In the beginning was the word.’
And This Creation has Life. (1B2b)
The definition of Life is that it can itself give life to
another form in whatever manner, which can include service or support for the
growth of that other life. Maybe we could say it has and gives energy for
growth to another.
Thus, these creations have a life of their own apart from their
creator. They can stand apart, by themselves.
That manifested thing, by definition, is part of the energy of the
creator, and in the process of manifesting this creation the creator has learnt
and now knows more about Her own Self and her possibilities.
God creates Life for Her own sake and Her own expression, as an Exploration
of the limits of Her own energy for Herself. This exploration teaches Her about
energy and who She is in that. She loves doing this and loves what She finds
out about Herself as She does it.
Since this God-created thing has Life, it will want to find out
about its own energy because that Life is part of God. And as it does so
for itself, God finds out even more about Herself. [Consider for a moment what
you have learnt about yourself from your children.]
Since God is exploring energy, Exploration will be a
primary drive for living things. This fits in with Panksepp’s SEEK emotion in
animals. (see GRANDIN).
It is something so intrinsic to all life that we can fail to
notice its importance to us to be able to do so.
And so are we exploring.
HOW WE EXPLORE (1B3)
How then, do we as human beings, and thus part of God and Life,
explore the energy of ourselves to find out who is there and express what we
have found?
We do this by…
·
Being manifested/created
ourselves; ie we are alive on earth. And
·
Checking out (exploring)
what else God has created, and
·
Checking out (exploring)
what we ourselves are able to create/manifest/express in our own lives.
·
Checking out what others
have done and found in their explorations; ie their expression.
This exploration and what we make of it comes through our
experiences of being human beings and there are an awful lot of experiences to
be had on earth alone, not to mention anywhere else.
Thus, we need experience of life, as in, lots of ways of being, to
explore fully the limits of our own energy. This experience brings us
(eventually) an understanding/realization of what is intrinsically our own
essence; our ‘who is in here’. Learning what is our own takes time. Our
understanding of Life is what we ‘make of’ our experiences of life.
TO SUM UP THIS FAR. (1B4)
·
God is a Unified Bigness
which is exploring the limits of all energy.
·
This ‘Bigness’ can create
Life which can create and/or support other life. It can give energy to another,
and so on. (This is ‘life eternal’)
·
Creation is the
manifestation of a concept. But the Creation of Life is something else.
Creating is an exploration of self, as is the creation. (That which is created
contributes to the creator’s exploration of self as well as the Created’s
exploration of self.) Exploring is built-in to Life.
·
In fact, Life is for
exploring. Exploring leads to understanding.
·
We explore through the
experience of what is manifested in our lives. And thus we need Life on
Earth for these experiences.
All human beings are part of Life and Nature and the created, and
must therefore also be part of God. All Life is God. The
challenge for human beings is not only to Create but to figure out how they can
consciously Create Life from within their own self, which is what God is
doing.
Notice here that the terms God, Life, Nature, the Universe, and
your own self/person (as a created entity and part of Life/Nature) can be used
interchangeably. What?! Really!! Well, that’s the logic of it.
A drop of the ocean is still part of the ocean and holds its
properties within itself. What then? Does this make a difference to you and how
you might treat yourself or others?
The next concept is..
EXPLORING ENERGY IS A DELIGHT. (1B5)
God loves exploring and what She finds out about Herself and She
loves her creations and what they find out about themselves. This ‘finding out’
gives us Insight.
Insight = to see inwardly/Internally/inside; to gain an
understanding about our internal or intrinsic truth or beingness or the energy
of our own self.
[I will be using See with a capital ‘S’ to denote insight.]
Seeing is an Internal Insight into the Truth of Self. It is a
making sense of a plethora of information of any kind from our own and others’
experiences. It is an internal certainty that arises as we remember and
understand who we are bit by bit. We have learnt something about ourselves and
it is as if we have given ourselves a gift. The body sensation is of a ‘ding’
or an ‘aha’ or ‘the light turned on’ or we feel ‘lighter’. It is delightful and
it de-lights us; there is a bit of joy here. We also tend to feel more relaxed
and can breathe more easily. We ‘encompass’ more and become a bit ‘bigger’; we
grow. We learn more about ourselves and that discovery feels good.
NB. Having Seen It feels good; the process of getting there may
not.
God delights in her Insights and so can we.
There are some other things to notice here as well.
·
Insight takes time; a lot
of time and a lot of experiencing. Yet, once we have it, we don’t really care
any more about how long it took to get it, and that can be a long time.
·
Once we have it, we cannot
lose it, ever. “Insight is the wealth of the Soul.”
·
It does not come through
theory; it comes through experience and the understanding we gain through that
experience.
·
It makes us feel bigger in
terms of allowing Life to be as it is. We have encompassed more of our own
energy; we know ourselves more and have thus ‘grown’. We can allow and accept
Life and what it has shown us. ‘Live and let live.’ This process can ultimately
lead to trust.
Thus, the logic of Creation, Manifestation, Exploring, Expression
and Seeing implies that we must be alive on earth for us to be able to
See ourselves. We can only gain Insight into ourselves through experiencing
what we ourselves are manifesting in life. How do we know who we really are if
we have no experience of/from/within ourselves?
NB. The use of the words ‘understanding/realization’ and ‘insight’
are being used as, ‘there is no real understanding without experience’. The
trouble with using words such as these is that it is possible to think you know
or have knowledge of, or understand, or have insight into something if you have
studied it enough and so on. In all this discussion I limit the use of the word
‘understand’ to what you end up realizing out of your own experience. We may
sympathize with others, but in fact rarely really ‘understand’ another’s
experience unless we have pretty well experienced the same circumstances.
SO, WHAT MIGHT GOD BE WANTING FOR HERSELF? (1B6)
How do we think that we might know? If we are a part of God, then
God can’t be that much different from us. Well, what gives human beings the
most pleasure and satisfaction and can we extrapolate back up? In this I am
using human psychology to ‘guess at’ God’s.
·
We know that creativity and
self-expression are important.
·
We know that relationships
are important.
·
We know that family and
children are important.
·
We know that feeling good
about ourselves is important.
·
We know that exploring is
important.
·
We know that experience is
important.
·
We know that we need
experiences to truly find out about ourselves (Insights).
Consider This Extrapolation. (1B6a)
The crux here is that God wants to explore and experience
everything because She knows that truly Understanding Who She Is and what She
can encompass comes only from experience and that these insights or
Understandings are fun. She learns more about herself as She experiences it
all. She loves finding out about Herself and expressing that.
She also loves her creativity in terms of both loving the act of
creating and feeling good about what She has done, as well as loving the things
that She creates. She wants to share this creative ability and this great
delight in it all.
So God breaks Herself up into squillions of bits so that each can
have fun as well. She is now nothing but her creations and yet She is in
everything. (Nowhere, ‘now-here’, and everywhere at the same time. A fine
example of God’s many puzzles.)
Since they are part of Her they get to experience and understand
for themselves and so does She. As we learn to know ourselves, God learns more
about Herself. In this manner everyone wins.
and we want what God wants because we are each a bit of God.
To See, to Know our Selves and to Create New Life as we Express
that Self.
Your experiences and understandings help you define you.
The experience is absorbing and the understanding is enthralling.
We’ve ‘Seen’ something.
We are creative beings; it is automatic, but the real question is
‘what have we created?’ and thus ‘how do we feel inside about what we have
created out there, i.e. the result’? We too are looking for that feeling of
satisfaction with what we have created or expressed from within ourselves; to
feel good about what we have done.
We Are Parts of God. (1B6b)
Each of us is created by God and are a part of God and are thus
also God, because Everything is God. Well, logically that’s what the names we
use for God are implying.
But, as parts of God, we need/want to be able to explore our own
energy and to experience what we manifest in Life. If we want to See ourselves
(and thus God) we have to be apart from God to be able to do this.
WE ARE A PART OF GOD HAVING TO BE APART TO SEE GOD. (1B7)
God has worked out that the only way we can See ourselves and See
God is to be apart from Her.
When we are a part of God, we are simply God. As a foetus growing
in a womb is part of the woman and not an entity in its own right, so are we
when we are part of God, and it feels 'heavenly' to be merged in this way.
As the child separates from the mother as it is born to begin its journey of
differentiation, so we need to be apart from God to enable us to See Her plus
define/know Our own Self as separate or differentiated from others.
Humans do seem to have this basic feeling memory of ‘heaven’
internally and do want to find it again. But my argument here is that this
‘heaven’ feeling comes from being part of God which we actually are always, but
in Life on Earth we are learning to see God and ‘know’ ourselves by being apart
from God.
But we don’t like feeling apart. It hurts and we feel frightened
and lost and cold and alone.
