Archives for posts with tag: Science of Mind

Metaphysical Maps

August 17, 2011 //
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Today—the metaphor of the map, how we seek their guidance and a very basic metaphysical map of the Science of Mind and Spirit.

I love maps.  When I’m in a new city, one of the first things I do is pull out a map and orient myself to the layout of my new locale.  Online mapping websites and the map app on my iPhone are my frequent friends.  I know I’m not alone in my desire to understand where I am, where I want to go and the best route to get there.

Seems like we humans have always had an innate desire to map our surroundings.  Where we now employ talking GPS’s in our cars, I can still remember back in the day pulling into the gas station to look at the big map they had on the wall or buying the local foldout map that never quite seemed to have the ability to fold back up in its original condition.  I still find it amazing that early settlers of the American west set out in covered wagons with only minimal maps to guide them.  Yet they did have some maps – the rough approximations sketched out by those who first traversed the wilderness.  And what about those early ocean explorers from the middle of the last millennium?  Is it any wonder that one of their main tasks was mapping what they saw Read the rest of this entry »

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Categories Conscious Bridge Website, Featured Article, Positive Evolution, Spirituality

Oneness Goes Global: New Film Shows Us How

May 6, 2011 //
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Today, I want to simply bring to your attention a recent article of mine about filmmakers Kell Kearns and Cynthia Lukas which came out this week in Science of Mind Magazine’s online edition.  I have known Kell and Cynthia for several years and twice hosted them for presentations when I worked at New Dawn Center for Spiritual Living in Aurora, Colorado.

Kell and Cynthia are all about bringing the experience of Oneness into our lives…..something that is obviously near and dear to my heart.  Their new movie is called “Globalized Soul”.

Here is the link to my article at Science of Mind’s website.  Check it out….and check out the trailer there for their new film!

Peace and love,

Mark

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Categories Bridge Building, Culture, Entertainment, Featured Article

We Are Already All One

February 23, 2011 //
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Next week I’ll be in San Diego participating as two organizations who teach “oneness” decide whether to become one. Over 50 years ago, the one group that taught Ernest Holmes’ Science of Mind philosophy divided into two groups. Operating for many years as the United Church of Religious Science and Religious Science International, they created their separate operational processes and developed their own cultures all while teaching the same beliefs.

In today’s article, we sprint through humanity’s evolutionary path in honor of these two groups (now known as the United Centers for Spiritual Living and the International Centers for Spiritual Living) for taking this important step. They are evolving to their next logical step, just as you and I are.

To begin this jaunt, let’s consider that there are two ways by which we humans come to experience life – peering inward and looking outward. Gazing externally has allowed us to develop the wonderful gift of science, a tool which allows us to make sense of the external world.

Science has looked back into the past and offered us conclusions about how we got where we are now. Although they cannot tell us why or how everything started, most scientists believe that at the beginning of the universe all matter was compressed into one very tiny spot. The familiar “big bang” exploded outward disbursing everything that had been one into the vast recesses of space.  From that moment that all substance moved apart, science suggests that all the physical laws that we have discovered that act upon this matter existed as well.

As matter expanded from its initial state of oneness, the laws of gravity, strong and weak nuclear forces and electromagnetism began guiding it into clumps which eventually became stars and planets. Planets with the right conditions saw the elements combine in a form of self cooperation to produce simple organisms.  Science says something called “life” emerged and it grew more and more complex as it followed processes that later we described as evolution and survival of the fittest.

Eventually evolution led to something called consciousness emerging within these more complex beings and ultimately one of them became so complex that it crossed a threshold into becoming conscious of its own consciousness –humanity was born. As humanity’s evolution continued, so did its development of both its ways of experiencing and understanding life – that is, peering inward and looking outward.

The outward empirical gaze of science has served us well, bringing increases in our standard of living, technological advances and greater understanding of our universe.  Yet this outward gaze also tends to reinforce a perception that we are separate and apart from one another. It calls our attention to our differences. It fosters our sense of competition.  And, it contributes to our dividing ourselves up by our dissimilarities, be they our different races, cultures, countries, religious or political beliefs – and sometimes even our different organizations who teach oneness.

But just as we can peer outward and gain understanding on our evolutionary path, we can also peer inward and gain equally valid insights. Mystics and sages have been looking inside via meditation and reflection for years and reporting back their discoveries – we are already one. They remind us, as does science, that we were born from oneness. At the depths of that inner awareness, they sense that in spite of outward appearances to the contrary, we are still one. They state with conviction that as we continue to evolve we will return to truly living from that oneness.

Interestingly, in our past knowledge was knowledge – we valued both inner and outer wisdom without distinction of its source.  Hundreds of years ago a great “split” put the physical world under the domain of science and left the world of the nonphysical – God, consciousness and so on – to be the concerns of religion/spirituality and philosophy.  Along the way, each developed their own processes and cultures.

In recent years, there has been a move to reunify our inner and outer ways of understanding the universe – an integration of science and spirituality.  This was certainly one aspect of Ernest Holmes’ work in the creation of the Science of Mind early in the 20th century.  Individuals such as Sri Aurobindo, Ken Wilber and others have made contributions to this aim in creating “integral” philosophies.

The melding of the outer and the inner approaches to understanding have offered some interesting insights.  For example, many now realize that observed evolution of physical life growing into more complex forms is mirrored by a similar evolution going on inside everything.  Many philosophers suggest (and mystics concur) consciousness is embedded in everything.  As physical life evolved in complexity so did the consciousness embedded within it.

Here’s how Ernest Holmes put it – ” Through eons of time life has been slowly climbing up the ladder of unfoldment to the present self-conscious state achieved in man.   Some degree of consciousness exists in everything because everything is some form of Spirit, and Spirit is Intelligence.  However, there are degrees of intelligence, or consciousness.  We often hear the expression, “Consciousness sleeps in mineral life, dreams in plant life, awakens in animal life, and comes to self-consciousness in man.”  Man, then, stands at the very peak of the evolutionary climb.  He is now a self-conscious individual which means that he not only knows, but knows that he knows.  He can think about his own consciousness, and he now has the power of choice – the very summit of life’s upward striving.  Evolution, through infinite ages, has done much for him.”

So in essence, our journey has always been one that follows the same path.  That path begins in unity, it wanders into the experience of separation, and when that sense of separation has served its purpose, it returns home to the unity from which it began.

Millions of years ago, Spirit-God-Consciousness began in oneness and cast itself out, splitting itself up and embedding itself into all of its creation and allowing itself the experience of separation.  Yet the forces that would lead us out of the wilderness of separation were embedded within us from the beginning – evolution.  Evolution has allowed both the outer expression and the inner consciousness to simultaneously grow– along the way experiencing greater complexity, greater levels of self cooperation, greater degrees of conscious awareness, greater involvement in directing the evolutionary process.  There appears to be a direction to the progression.  Where is it going?  As Holmes put it, “Evolution is the awakening of the soul to a recognition of its unity with the Whole.”  In other words, we are remembering that we are already one.

Hundreds of years ago, our ways of knowing began in oneness but humanity split them into science and spirituality.  We have allowed ourselves to believe that there are two separate ways of knowing – the outer and the inner.  The material successes of science has on the one hand contributed much to the quality of our life while on the other leading us to turn against ourselves in conflict as we believe ourselves separate.  Something within us says it is time to move beyond this duality.  The evolution of our understanding is reuniting in an integral viewpoint where we realize that everything is connected.  In other words, we are remembering that it’s already one.

Tens of years ago, the philosophy of Science of Mind began in oneness but our humanness allowed it to split into two organizations.  We have allowed ourselves to experience separation via different rules, different structures, different cultures – forging different relationships with different people.  Evolution has now brought us to the point where we realize that separation has served its purpose and now returns us home to the unity from where we began.  In other words, we are remembering that we are already one.

Some years ago, your essence born of the oneness came into physical form at the moment of your birth.  Your senses have allowed you to experience separation from everything that appears “out there” in the earth.  You have believed that you are different from others, that you are in competition with humanity, that competition and conflict are appropriate in this world of duality.  But forces and urges within you question this sense of division, pushing you to grow beyond it.  Evolution and love call you to a sense of connection with others – to truly know your unity.  In other words to remember that you are already one.

Blessings

Mark Gilbert

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Categories Featured Article, Spirituality

Seeing the Perfection in an Imperfect World

August 12, 2010 //
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Things in the world show up based on the way we look at them.  The more we look at the imperfections of the world, the more imperfections we see.  The more we see things as perfect, the more the world shows us its state of perfection.

Our Challenge

One of the most difficult tasks for all of us is to turn our attention away from all the problems we see out in the external world and to focus our attention on our dreams of what we know is possible.  This is not a call to hide our heads in the sand and pretend that issues don’t exist.  Yes, the world may currently exist in its manifest form in ways that are less than what we desire.  Our goal is to use those conditions to give us guidance on what we don’t want so that we can turn our attention towards what we do.

Each of us must learn to spend less time whining about what we currently see that we don’t like, and spend more of our time on the perfection we know is possible.  If we were to perform an “energy audit” on our thoughts and actions, where might we find our energy flowing?  Let’s close the negative energy leaks and be more positive energy efficient.  Can we move to seeing the perfection in an imperfect world?

What is Perfection?

The Wikipedia article on perfection shows that the term encompasses a number of concepts including — that which is complete containing all its parts, or that which is good so that nothing of the kind could be better, or that which has attained its purpose.  Can we see the world in this light?  Does the world contain all of its parts?  Is it so good that it could not be better?  Has it attained its purpose?  What do you think?

Metaphysical traditions such as the Science of Mind and Spirit state that each of us as well as the world is already “perfect, whole and complete”.  Newcomers to the philosophy often struggle with this concept as they mentally compare the state of their lives and the state of the world against a vision of what is truly possible.  The gap between what currently exists and the vision of our potential makes it hard to see the perfection.

Yet the perfection that the Science of Mind claims already exists is not necessarily a description of the current condition.  As its founder, mystic Ernest Holmes described the concept of perfection, he used words such as “the real state of being” and “the divine attribute of complete excellence”.  He advised us to “see only perfection… regardless of appearances”.  In other words, he was pointing us to focus our attention into the realm of the divine beyond the realm of what might be right in front of us.

Behind the world of the “seen” is the world of the unseen.  Here is a reality that metaphysics frequently claims is “more real” than the external world demanding our sensory attention.  Here is the world of our consciousness, of energy, of thoughts and visions, of our dreams of what is possible.  Here is the world that creates our mental picture of perfection that we use in comparison with the material world and its seeming imperfections.  Here is the world in which our free will exists to move our thoughts in the direction of our desires.  Here is the world in which all of our collective consciousness joins together in one divine consciousness where our highest dreams combine to know at the deepest level of our soul what is truly possible.  This is where real perfection exists and serves to call us towards it.  Our seeking this perfection is truly a motivating force in our lives and on our planet.

Similarly, philosophers have long pointed to a paradox is contained within the human concept of perfection.  If the world were totally perfect, then there would be no room for improvement and therefore be imperfect.  This paradox claims that true perfection depends on the ability to grow, evolve and make progress.  Ironically, true perfection involves our movement towards that perfection.

Quick Summary

  • There exist in our inner realm of consciousness a vision of what perfection is.
  • As we look at the world, things appear to be less than perfect.
  • Our judgment of imperfection comes from noticing the gap between our inner sense of our highest potential and our outer experience.
  • We are at choice as to whether we focus on the vision of perfection or the worldly imperfections.
  • That which we focus on tends to grow in our outer experience.
  • Regardless of where we direct our attention or any imperfect conditions, there always exists the state of true perfection.
  • True perfection is a force that is calling us towards it.
  • The process of our moving towards this true perfection is part of the true perfection.

Our Charge

So what does this means for our lives? Armed with this knowledge, let us all:

  • Be aware of our vision of the highest state of perfection for humanity.
  • Turn our attention more and more towards this perfection.
  • Experience the perfection of our vision as more real than the outer world.
  • Recognize the perfection in the process of our evolution from the imperfect outer world towards this greater inner true perfection.
  • Allow that true perfection to be a force that calls us to learn, grow and evolve.

So how can you actually apply this in your life? I’ll be sharing some ideas in the near future, but would love your thoughts!

Mark Gilbert

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Categories Consciousness, Featured Article, Positive Evolution, Spirituality

The Evolution of Consciousness, God, and Prayer

February 23, 2010 //
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Moving up the spiral of life....our view of God and prayer changes

The title sure sounds pretty heavy.  Don’t let it scare you away.  First, a brief reminder… the underlying theme of all the articles I write here is that there is a direction to life… that things are evolving and that evolution has a positive direction… that within evolution’s “arrow” there is free will choice which leads to an infinite variety of experiences…some of these experiences, we label positive, others negative, but the general direction of evolution is ever upward and higher… therefore, my continuous hope is that you take from these writings the reminder that you live in this upward evolutionary spiral of life, that you see the interconnectedness and value of all levels of this spiral, and you understand the role you play through your thoughts, words and deeds to move your self and the collective in a positive direction towards our return to our realization of oneness.  Whew!

So here’s the connection I want to make today… as humanity evolved in its consciousness, so did its picture of what God or Spirit is.  Then, as our concept of God or Spirit evolved, so did our form of prayer… prayer being our way of communicating and experiencing the divine.  This is not necessarily a new concept, of course, but an interesting connection for me is that if we step back and see the complete unfoldment, it shows us the direction we are heading as we continue to evolve.

Let’s quickly look at the evolutionary path of humanity using Spiral Dynamics memes as the underpinnings.  (As always, more detail about Spiral Dynamics is available in other articles or links on the website.)  When early humanity crossed the threshold in consciousness  to the level of becoming self-aware, our ancestors lived off the land and sought basic survival (beige meme).  In time they began to see the value in living together in clans (purple meme).  At this level of consciousness, our ancestors were in tune with the passing of seasons and their interconnectedness to nature.  Their view of God was one of magical powers rising out of a nature world.  Their prayers came in the form of seasonal rituals, full of music, rhythm and dance.

As humanity evolved, individuals developed strong personal egos and sought power.  This gave rise to the survival of the fittest, kings with their servants, tribal leaders with their followers, the haves and the have-nots (red meme).  At this level of consciousness, our understanding of God grew out of “gods in nature” to the gods that were behind nature to a pantheon of gods ruled by one God (such as Zeus).  Our new view of God brought a new way to honor him… temples and monuments, gifts and offerings, sacrifices.

The sense of inequity at the tribal level led to a new level of consciousness where humanity sought order and structure and rules.  Here we sought meaning and purpose in living and attributed a divine plan that was beyond our comprehension to explain life (blue meme).  Our new view of God shifted from one powerful God who ruled other gods to simply being one God.  This God communicated to us through tablets with rules, sacred texts with laws, through others who claimed to be our intermediary.  We prayed to this God through prayers of petition, asking for favors and intervention in our lives.

The Enlightenment brought the rise of science and rational thought.  Humanity shifted its view of the world to sensing it as a machine that we could learn to control for our own benefit.  Competition, technology and material abundance (orange meme) brought with it a sense that the old man God in the sky was a myth we needed to release.  God is dead.  Prayer is an outdated superstition.

Material wealth did not satisfy us and we sought meaning in community and relationships.  We began to explore consciousness itself, turning inward to find meaning.  We believed that everyone was equal, and the earth was here for all of us to share (green meme).  We released dogma and sought to become spiritual but not religious.  God was resurrected but not as an external being.  God became a “unity”, a unified field of energy, and underlying intelligent force that pervaded everything.  How do you communicate with an intelligent field of energy?  You direct its flow as it moves through you.  You see the power in your thoughts and consciousness and consciously work to direct that power.  As your development had just come through the level of science and reason, you attempt to apply logic to your prayers to convince yourself and shift your belief.  Prayer is now an affirmative statement of truth placed into the infinite field of possibilities, collapsing the quantum uncertainties in the desired direction.

People new to New Thought teachings such as the Science of Mind generally resonate with applying logic and reason through a predefined five-step prayer process.  Ernest Holmes called it “argumentative” prayer, as we argue with our own minds to convince it of the truth.  The five steps take us from identification with the external world of matter to an inward world where we sense the interconnectedness of everything, the power embedded in it, and our ability to direct that power.  Through connecting with Spirit, stating our truth, sensing gratitude and releasing our awareness “into the flow”, we convince our logical minds of the truth and power of our prayer.  Our emotional certainty is seen as a critical factor in directing this flow.

By now you’ve probably stopped and considered where you are in this evolutionary process.  In 21st-century America, most of us fall in one of three general categories, in our belief of God and prayer.  Either (1) God is an external being to whom we pray; (2) God is a myth and prayer is superstition; or (3) God is an intelligent power that we can tap via our consciousness.

Robert Wright outlined in great detail how our view of God has changed in his recent bestseller, “The Evolution of God.”  There were several key points that he made that are worth listing here…. God doesn’t evolve, we do; our perception of God changes as our cultural needs change; and there is a continuous direction towards positive change over time.

In fact, Wright sees this positive trend as potential evidence of a divine power when he says: “If history naturally pushes people toward moral improvement, toward moral truth, and their God, as they conceive their God, grows accordingly, becoming morally richer, then maybe this growth is evidence of some higher purpose, and maybe — conceivably — the source of that purpose is worthy of the name divinity.”

So where then is this evolution taking us?  How is our perception of God continuing to evolve?  How is our method of communication with the divine growing?  Both mystics and Spiral Dynamics point in the same direction.

Joel Goldsmith, founder of “The Infinite Way”, gave a lecture in 1959 where he outlined this evolution of prayer we have been discussing.  He said, “Most in orthodox religion still use pagan forms of prayer, which came to them when their churches were first founded, and their own forms of prayer had not developed: they used the prayer of petition… these ancient paganistic forms of prayer were the only forms of prayer the church had to work with… there is nothing wrong with these forms of prayer, anymore than there is anything wrong with our form of treatment… it isn’t a question of right or wrong, it is a question of the degree of consciousness.  Because we are in a human state of consciousness at the moment, it is necessary that we start our prayer work with words and thoughts.  In the metaphysical world these are called treatments; in the mystical world they’re called realizations.  The attainment of harmony is never accomplished by words or thoughts… they are but the introductions, the aids, given to bring us into an atmosphere where words and thoughts are no longer necessary to lift us to an inner communion through which God’s grace reaches us.”

Ernest Holmes also spoke of this evolutionary process.  He advised us that “God comes to us as we come to him” meaning that how we see God and communicate with God depends upon our consciousness. “God is not a becoming God.  God is not an evolving God.  God is that which was, is, and will remain perfect, complete, happy and harmonious.”  Again, God is not evolving — humanity and its perception of God is evolving.

As stated, Holmes taught an argumentative style of prayer designed to shift our consciousness.  In other words, he gave us a method to meet us where we were in our awareness (desiring logic and reason and applied science).  He also taught another method called “realization”.  In this method, you did not need convincing, you went straight to the truth.  He defined realization as turning “to that Living Presence within… recognize It as the  One and Only Power in the Universe, unify with it.”  He added, “there is a point in the supreme moment of realization, where the individual merges with the Universe, but not to the loss of his individuality; where a sense of the Oneness of all Life so enters their being that there is no sense of otherness.”

Spiral Dynamics tells us that humanity is making a great leap in consciousness.  As we step into the second tier of awareness, we are able to see the entire spiral below us and value each level and stage as being necessary for our perfect unfoldment.  We see the interconnectedness of all of nature, we understand its natural systems and flows (yellow and turquoise memes).  We begin to see our individual self is part of a greater Self… the conscious, spiritual whole… where everything is part of one great living system… where we value all religions and all spiritual paths, seeing their necessity to bringing us to this point on our journey… where we live and wonder, awe, unity, harmony and love.

My wish is that as you have read through this, you have stepped outside our evolutionary path for a moment in your awareness and witnessed it from a higher level where you can see its beauty and perfection and view where you are along the road.  Hopefully, you have glimpsed both the path you have walked spiritually and the road that lies ahead.  Evolution’s arrow is returning us all back home.  Our consciousness is evolving back to unity with the divine.  Your next step calls you.  Surrender to your evolution.

Mark

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Categories Consciousness, Science and Spirit, Spirituality

Is Reality Real?

January 25, 2010 //
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What the heck does that mean?  I guess I’m asking is what comes to us through our consciousness a true reflection of the world?  Or, is it somehow colored by factors of which we are generally not aware?

I’m sure most of you know that what is delivered to our consciousness by our senses is simply a limited snapshot of what is going on around us in the physical world.  Obviously, we only hear a small range of potential sounds and see only a small sliver of the light spectrum.  Dogs howl at sounds we cannot hear.  Our skin burns when we are outside on a cloudy day from ultraviolet rays cannot see.

Even within the sensory inputs that are within the range of our physical senses, we tune out most of it as unneeded background noise.  Our consciousness delivers to our awareness only those sensory inputs that are deemed important.  Simply consider those times when you’ve been in a crowded room and tuned out all the noise but immediately came to focus upon your name being spoken across the room.

So yes, there is a lot going on around you of which you are unaware.  Even so, can we rely on the validity of that which is both delivered to our senses and then delivered to our awareness?  More and more science is telling us no.  Studies have shown that our awareness is colored by our history, our background, our worldview.  These factors interpret our sensory input invisibly.

But what about the information that comes to us from beyond our senses?  What about that “inner knowingness”?  What about intuition?  What about spiritual experiences such as those received during meditation?  Can’t we trust those to be true and real?  Unfortunately, the answer according to Integral philosopher Ken Wilber is no, we cannot count on these experiences to be untainted either.

Wilber says that the failure to consider the extensive evidence that shows how our subjective personal reality is constructed by intersubjective cultural connections leads us into naïvely believing that there exists one purely objective, pre-given world for all to experience free of any cultural bias.  One of our greatest mistakes he believes is that we inaccurately think that our inner experience, no matter its original source, is a pure reflection of reality. 

The reality Wilber says is that no matter how much we meditate and develop our consciousness there will always be invisible structures which play a role in constructing our consciousness awareness.  Without an awareness of the impact of these structures, we may think something is ultimate truth when it is not.  Some of these structures include linguistics, cultural beliefs, and our level of development on what Wilber calls “lines of development.”  A simple way to think about these lines is like multiple intelligences… cognitive, social skills, moral, emotional, etc. will speak more of this at a later time (or you can go Google “integral lines of development”).

What I want you to consider for a moment is this….you are born on the planet and you are growing… not only physically, but that there are aspects of your being within you and your consciousness which are also developing through various stages… and these inner states of consciousness generally settle into one stage which then becomes predominant in “coloring” your awareness of life. 

One model which has been helpful to me in understanding these stages of development has been Spiral Dynamics.  An understanding of this model will help you better see how these invisible structures are at play. For the next few days, we will look at Spiral Dynamics and its relationship to the Science of Mind. I hope you will find it as fascinating as me!

Mark

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Categories Consciousness, Science and Spirit

Is God evolving?

January 24, 2010 //
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I mean, it makes sense if you think about it… if evolution is real… and I believe that it is… then why wouldn’t God be evolving?

Now let’s stop and check in… did you have a reaction to that question?  Did something inside you say that can’t quite be right?  If you read yesterday’s article, you might be thinking right about now, well “maybe the answer to the question is God evolving is–it depends”.  Hmmm?  Depends on how you define God?  Let’s think about that….

First off, if your worldview is one that includes what I called the old myth of God (that is of the old man in the sky that is external to us), then you might be thinking: “how can this all-powerful Creator God be evolving?  Would not this God be outside the physical realm of man and not be subject to the evolutionary forces we see at play?”  That sounds logical to me.

Secondly, if your worldview is one that says there is no God and everything is simply part of the physical universe subject to physical laws, then you might be thinking: “the question is meaningless, as there is no God to evolve”.  That sounds logical to me.

Thirdly, if your worldview is one that says there is a God but God is an infinite intelligence and energy that permeates everything such that everything is in God but God is greater than everything, then you might be thinking: “God or Spirit has infused everything with its energy and intelligence as well as created such forces as evolution.  Hence, Spirit is not evolving, but is experiencing the process of evolution through us.”  That sounds logical to me.

So then, is God evolving?  The answer seems to be yes and no.  Within an individual worldview, the God or non-God of that worldview is not evolving.  But if we step back and look at the worldviews of humanity, then we can see that our concept of God is evolving in our consciousness.

The mystic Ernest Holmes wrote “We can know no God external to that power of perception by which alone we are conscious of anything.  God must be interpreted to humanity through humanity’s own nature” as well as “God comes to us as we come to him/her.”  What he seems to be saying to me is that who or what God is to us depends upon our level of consciousness.  God shows up to us in exactly the same way that our own awareness defines how God should show up.  Holmes is not alone in this viewpoint.

Robert Wright, in his recent bestseller “The Evolution of God” agrees as he makes the following points:  God doesn’t evolve, we do.  Our perception of God changes as our cultural needs change.  That we experience continuous positive change in the quality of our lives over time, therefore life has a “direction”.  That “salvation” works to arrange the world so that its people find themselves and think of themselves more and more as interconnected, which is part of evolution’s direction.

Wright concludes  that the fact that there are religions and this evolutionary direction affirms the possibility of an actual divinity:  “If history naturally pushes people toward moral improvement, toward moral truth, and their God, as they conceive their God, grows accordingly, becoming morally richer, then maybe this growth is evidence of some higher purpose, and maybe – conceivably – the source of that purpose is worthy of the name divinity.”

So if we have come to a conclusion that perhaps it’s not God evolving, but rather our perception of God that is evolving then how does that come about?  Do we really have a worldview that colors our perception?  If so, then how did it come about?  How does it evolve?  Tomorrow we go deeper with those questions.

Mark

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Categories Science and Spirit, Spirituality