God, Where Are You?

When I was six years old, I knew exactly where God was. She resided in my bedroom, on the window ledge in a cardboard cut-out of the manger. The whole gang was there – Baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and a few barn animals who grazed on cardboard hay.

Wearing a tattered and multi-colored terry cloth bathrobe, a gold-colored tiara and clutching a baseball bat as my staff, I’d while away the hours, kneeling and bowing, pretending I was a powerful priestess of the church.

For me, ‘playing church’ was the equivalent of playing with imaginary friends. Baby Jesus was my best friend. Making the sign of the cross and standing in front of my cardboard manger was pure fun. It made me feel special.

As a child, I felt the presence of God, but family life eventually pulled me away from this feeling. God and I didn’t always bathe in the glow of heavenly bliss. I was a flawed human-being. My mind and spirit were damaged from the get-go. Somehow, I felt that something divine resided deep within my heart and soul, and just knowing that kept me searching for God.

During my early twenties and through into my early thirties, I immersed myself in ‘seeking’ activities. I hung out with God in Ashrams, attended numerous spiritual retreats, counted dozens of out-of-body experiences, snowed shoed in the forest alone (this was the time when I felt God with me the most), wrote heart-wrenching music, spent a million dollars on alternative spiritual healing and cried a lot. There were plenty of ‘coming to Jesus’ moments too. God heard from me, but I didn’t always hear from Her.

For many years, my life was primarily centered on healing my trauma, and I had no time to hang out with God. And I surmised God didn’t have time for me either, because she was busy attending to others who were more deserving than I. Still, there were moments when God’s motherly and loving hand either ‘tapped’ me gently on the shoulder to make me notice something or she’d flat out give me a firm ‘whack’ on the head. “Wake up”, she would say, “wake up!”

Sometimes, this would make me angry at God. How dare God tell me to wake up and then not tell me how?

 

Turning a Corner

While living in Hawaii, I became interested in the teachings of Baba Muktananda and Gurumayi Chidvalasananda. On the day of the 1987 Harmonic Convergence1, I was meditating in the Siddha Yoga (2) Ashram located in the Catskill Mountains.

On that momentous occasion, Gurumayi walked into the Ashram, looked around at us, and started to laugh uncontrollably. She spoke to us ‘Seekers’ and said: “You come here every year to hear me talk about God and every year I tell you the same thing – ‘God is Within. You are God’. Now, you are back here again for the Harmonic Convergence, and I tell you today… ‘God is Within. You are God’.” Then she roared with laughter, as only a Guru can.

Could it be that simple? Is God really within me? Don’t I need to struggle through life, being miserable, and have only death to look forward to? And how would I experience this ‘God is Within’ business?

So many pathways, so many “ah-ha” moments, so many falling backwards and picking myself up again…so many highs with equally astounding lows. I yearned to find the right spiritual path, and I amassed a huge collection of books on spiritual matters in quest of it. Surely I was getting to the truth with so many books?

 

First Stop: Nature

It seemed to me that native peoples inhabiting every continent had a deep understanding of the world, seeing it as being ‘alive’. Spirits resided in mountains and trees, and great reverence was paid to Mother Earth.

For a few years in my early seeking days, I followed the teachings of Shintoism. Shintoism is based on the premise that God resides within Nature. This made perfect sense to me, for I experienced some of my deepest levels of peace whenever I was surrounded by nature – actual and profound peace.

But living in the city, where I was unable to find peace, forced me to dig deeper. Why is God with me in Nature, but not when I’m driving my car, cussing at rude drivers? Recognizing this division in my feelings made me feel ‘not so spiritual’.

I wanted to experience the Satori moment, that ability to see into oneself and understand and hold onto it, not just for a second or two, but for all of the time.

Conversations with Grasshopper

New levels of experiences began to unfold after I read a verbatim dialogue between theoretical physicist David Bohm and spiritual philosopher Krishnamurti. Dr. Bohm and Krishnamurti appeared to be speaking two different languages to explain cosmology and the mysteries of the universe. These non-judgmental discussions led to a new means of observing how people communicate. Dialogue is a give and take kind of communication, based, in principle, on listening to another person (without judgement) when they speak. Bohm and Krishnamurti were part of a movement to change a 400-year Newtonian divide that had existed between scientists and spiritualists. Finally, scientists and spiritualists were talking to one another to explore the human and spiritual meaning of God.

For fun, while in graduate school, I found a way to give voice to these theoretical discussions in a series of short conversations. I created two cartoon characters that I named Grasshopper and myself. Grasshopper was my Higher Self, and I was the Seeker who would pose questions to Grasshopper, such as How does prayer affect one’s life? Does our thinking affect physical reality? What did Jesus mean when he encouraged people to believe in the kingdom of God? Was he referring to the God that is within?

Effortlessly, my Higher Self knew the answers to these questions and could express them clearly, without struggling to articulate a calm knowingness. Few of these questions with Grasshopper would have found a non-egocentric perspective if it had not been for an introduction to theoretical physics. In theory, and with a dose of scientific backing, a philosophical language emerged for me that gave a cognitive voice to examining the God phenomena.

 

Paradigm Shift: We are Jiggle People  

The age of the Harmonic Convergence had arrived, and the effects of its arrival were felt deep, albeit painfully slowly. For me, this energy gave birth to a new way to have a dialogue about the ‘God is Within’ concept.

The concept, in a nutshell: everything that we perceive in the world as being solid is not solid! The All of everything – people, places and things – is composed of pure energy, vibrating beyond human comprehension. The human eye cannot see how all solid matter is made up of space and energy. We humans are not solid at all, but waves of pure energy. We could call ourselves The Jiggle People.

One way to visualize this is to look at the intelligence that keeps our heart beating. Located in the brain is the autonomic nervous system, and there are tissues that keep the heart beating. Cells make up these tissues, and the cells are made up of molecules. The molecules in turn are made up of atoms, which are made up of subatomic particles.

Physicists have found that subatomic particles are primarily composed of energy. This composition of energy is 99.9999% empty space. Particles within your everyday molecule comprise 1% in that space of energy. The same definition of energy/space holds true for hydrogen atoms in the air and carbon atoms in the objects of this world that we see as being solid. Everything we think of as solid is primarily made up of space and energy. The stuff of actual matter – particles – is less than 1%.

In other words, the material world, the one we think is real, is nothing but dense energy and unbounded energy, vibrating so fast that it is beyond our ability to measure and observe. What we think we see, we don’t really see. And what we think we know, we don’t really know.

Quantum physics has discovered that space and energy appear to have a profound effect on subatomic particles. The language of quantum physics defines this 99.9999% empty space as a field of ‘invisible moving forces that influence the physical realm’. Physicists have named this phenomenon of space and energy ‘The Field of Potentiality’.

 

The Face of God Resides in The Field of Potentiality

Over the past 100 years, new quantum discoveries have deduced that the field of potentiality connects all of us, as well as all of the places and things we see and believe in. This space has no walls or boundaries and through its very existence, it affects all that exists in the universe. Exploration into ‘The Field of Potentiality’ has ignited and transformed the dialogue between scientists and spiritualists regarding cosmology, metaphysics and God.

It is the 99.9999% energy that vibrates and jiggles the particles (1%) in molecules. Life could not exist without this vibrating energy. We are part of one underlying universal energy field. As Einstein said, “The field is the only reality”.

Perhaps, ‘The Field of Potentiality’ is the field that Rumi spoke about when he said, “There is a field. I will meet you there”.

God: The Glue that Connects all Things?

To be clear, God is not a quantum physics experiment. I believe that the language employed by theoretical physics and its discovery of the energy that holds all of life together to be the cosmic and divine consciousness of God. This is also known as ‘God is Within.’

I believe in prayer, and I believe that God listens. I believe that God is personal and She shows herself through the spiritual intelligence of pure love. She is a reminder that we humans are unable to not love because ‘God is Within’. So the pure essence of love already resides within us. It is our job as humans to awaken to the ‘God is Within’ – the glue that connects all things.

 

A Word about the Soul and True Will

I believe that one’s Soul comes from the heart of God. The Soul is the divine intelligence of God’s consciousness, and she holds all remembrances of one’s past lives and karmic stories. The Soul’s role is to help us to remember God by nudging us to recognize and to honor our ‘True Will’.

The funny thing about the Soul is that once the Soul reincarnates into a physical form, She finds herself wanting to immediately return home. A silent scream – “get me out of here”!

But the Soul stays because She doesn’t want our human mind to forget God. The Soul gently whispers to us that we should continue to grow. Sometimes, God just insists that the Soul have a certain experience in order for one’s Soul to evolve.

The Soul can best be experienced when we are being aware and listening to our intuition. Meditation helps the Soul to feel comfortable in its human form. God and Soul are energies that reside in each and every one of us.

The Soul’s voice can best be heard by plugging into one’s ‘True Will’. ‘True Will’ is the Soul’s game plan for one’s life. Finding and knowing one’s ‘True Will’ comes about when we listen to who we are and what we are meant to be engaged in for Soul growth, each life time around.

 

True Intention and Angels

We nurture and cultivate ‘True Will’ by being actively engaged in ‘True Intention’. ‘True Intention’ is conscious action, being mindful and aware. As long as there is a willingness and an intention to acknowledge all or parts of one’s ‘True Will’, ‘True Intention’ leads us to one’s ‘True Will’. “Ask (True Intention) and you shall receive” (True Will).

God doesn’t make understanding any of this easy, even though She gave us a brain and an enquiring mind to ask questions and sort it all out. If we forget or put on the shelf, our ‘True Will’, we may have that nagging feeling that something isn’t quite right in our life. Divorced from our ‘True Will’, we can feel unhappy, completely alone and depressed.

Angels are the celestial champions that root for us. Angels want us to know they are around. They are pranksters too, making themselves known to us in dreams. They can be seen in physical signs too, such as when we experience synchronous circumstances, or see a digital clock display 10:10, 12:12, etc.

 

A Work of Art

I like to think that the loving consciousness of God is ever present. We humans consciously and unconsciously choose our “Thoughts” how God’s prescription for us, which is embedded in the Soul, will be discovered. Each personal story is up to us to honor and to acknowledge, in whatever way we choose to do so.

What I have written about in this Cliffs Notes version of God, Where Are You?, will, undoubtedly, continue to transform and evolve into new thinking. A Course in Miracles said that a miracle is a change in perception. I expect to have a few miracles under my belt before Grasshopper, My Soul and all its Karma return Home.

 

References

1. Harmonic Convergence was an event that took place on August 16 and 17 1987 and which shifted the general level of vibration of the world and advanced the awakening of humankind. Believers of the Harmonic Convergence ushered in a new period of the earth’s astrological alignment. The Harmonic Convergence occurs once every ten thousand years. When the planets align, spiritual energy is greatly amplified, causing the earth to be engulfed in a blanket of spiritual energy. Wikipedia

 

2. Siddha Yoga is a spiritual path founded by Muktananda (1908-1982). The present spiritual head of the Siddha Yoga path is Gurumayi Chidvilasananda. Om Namah Shivaya – “I bow to my inner self” – is a reference to the concept of “God is Within”.

 

3. About-ConsciousPersonsBooks.com

 

Jan-Michelle Sawyer Ph.D. is an educator, sculptor and a self-described Life-Long-Learner. Over a period of 20 years while living in Hawaii, Jan-Michelle experienced a family of healers and teachers who inspired her to explore the human pathways of what it means to be a divine being, all of which led to her spiritual growth and personal transformation.

 

Her desire to explore the multiple depths of what it means to be humanly conscious led to the development of a website entitled The Conscious Person’s Guide to Being Conscious. This site: http://www.theconsciouspersonsguidetobeingconscious.com is an opportunity for authors to share their articles, writings or eBooks related to exploring one’s human potential with other Life-Long-Learners.