Holiness III, The God behind the Christ 


In this, the capstone article of this 9 essay series, Jim looks at his relationship to God. 

I see now why religion is necessary. We are just fooling ourselves if we think that we are in the world alone. Actually, we are a point of view in the world with billions of other points of view, and we need them all to be a complete whole. So a religion is nothing more than a linguistic structure for people to talk about and come closer to God. It is a way of life that morphs out of some other way of life and will morph into others.

I have two religious practices: I meditate in the Self-Realization Fellowship and I attend Trinity Episcopal Church. And, I also think for myself, unapologetically and proudly, but hopefully not arrogantly and close-mindedly. These three modalities keep me in touch with God as I see it. The focus of SRF meditation is devotion to God, and through these practices, I daily set my mind on the God behind the Christ, and I try to unite with God. My weekly attendance at Trinity connects me with a spiritually oriented community. The church feeds the poor and needy people and we share a common meal in Christ's name. I love these people as an extended family, and that is what we are to each other. I see my continual reflection about the nature of God to be my own mind evolving and growing to comprehend the infinite—I know that I cannot be entirely successful with thinking alone. These three things: connecting to the Divine through meditation, staying in touch with other spiritual people, and monitoring and evolving my own thoughts about God keep me on a centered and whole spiritual path.

I would also say that you, too, would profit from such a path. You may be so lucky as to be able to collapse the first two into one: that is, you might find a religion (or a group of people) that provide you simultaneously with solitary time to focus your being on the Divine and connects you with like-minded, spiritually-oriented people. I have not been able to accomplish this, and may never do so. For one thing, I actually might be able to find a single community to replace the other two in function. Fortunately, however, once you join a community or a practice, if it satisfies you at all, you begin to form commitments and loving relationships that you are loathe to break off. However, I would say that, regardless of whether you have one religious community or two or even more to meet your needs, you must NEVER stop thinking about God. That is death to the spirit. GOD LIVES IN YOUR UNIQUE POINT OF VIEW. The more that I can understand that, the closer I will be to God.

In conclusion to this series, I would like to say that I have discovered many doorways to God in my lifetime, and I have listened to a lot of stories about other people's doorways to God. I have experienced a wide range of phenomenon that are "out of the ordinary." These include energy healing, faith healing, past life regressions, mystical encounters with the infinite, lucid dreaming, astral projection, manifesting objectives through the technologies for creating methodology, miracles (my own and others), telepathy, dowsing for water and other needed objects, visitation by UFOs, being spoken to by God and by a Higher Power, fortune telling, the healing power of prayer, and meditation. Let me be clear. I am not claiming to be an expert or proficient in any one of these things. I am just saying that my world view has a place for this kind of phenomena. What they basically all have in common is that they transcend the known laws of physics, and hence represent a non-causal relationship of an individual (in this case, me) to the unknown (God, to be so bold as to propose it).

Everyone of us is a God channeler and perceiver, we have holiness potential, and we are holy because of this potential. We are evolving to an only partially known destination. I look forward to dialog with some of you.

P.S.: It didn't escape me that I finished this series on Easter Sunday. Now you know how I can say, "The Lord is risen indeed," and mean it. 

Posted: Sun - April 16, 2006 at 11:52 AM          

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