AN ARTICLE:
THE SPIRIT WITHIN
Thoughts by Robert Egby
Various writers over the centuries have pointed out that God is tucked away or "somewhere up there." If you were a classical artist pondering the waterways of Venice, you might depict God as an elderly man with long flowing white hair, and surrounded by nymphs playing harps and admiring the gentleman with unabashed adoration. This is the seemingly indelible image carried by millions of children and adults. Somewhere in the recent past, Bette Midler added to the mystery by singing "God is watching from a distance."
Is it not strange that while so many people believe in God, they all like to think that he is "up there," or "out there." Anywhere but in their homes watching their every physical and mental movement. Hey, it's OK for God to be in the Church - that's his domain, quiet and religious. Just do not have him too close. A student once told me: "If I thought God was looking over my shoulder, I'd go nuts!"
So, over the centuries God has become nicely and conveniently hidden to many people. The appropriate word is "Occult" a Latin word that means secret, hidden, concealed. It's difficult to comprehend if you associate the word with psychics, astrologers, tarot readers, Spiritualists and metaphysicians, but the truth is God is Occult - hidden, concealed. That is, if you have THAT belief in God.
Many poets , writers and philosophers have been among pensive souls who pondered the question: What devious Earthly mind set up the ridiculous "duality" of "us on a rock" in the Solar System and God "up there someplace." Plus what tortured, power-hungry, manipulating mind created an Old Testament God who became incredibly angry and ordered tribes and communities destroyed en masse. Unwittingly, they painted a so-called God with a human ego problem.
God never was separated by being "out there" or "up there." Jesus, the Galilean teacher put it bluntly when he announced "God is Spirit." Spirit is an energy force with a consciousness. The Star Wars movie summed it up quite well: "May the Force be with you."
THE LIFE FORCE
The English word "spirit" is derived from the Latin "spiritus" meaning breath. Another word of Greek origin is "psyche" which has present day off-shoots such as psychology, psychiatric, and psychic. Psyche means "breath." But that's not all. Writing in the Psychiatric Bulletin in 1991 British Consulting Psyciatrist, F.E. James said the word "psyche" also referred to "life as action or as soul, some special force or spirit which entered living creatures."
Thus, spiritus or psyche - it is spirit, the life force, and it's in all of us.
The Force is never absent, never away. If one pauses for a while from the helter-skelter world, the place where many humans live chaotic, mechanical lives, one can see this special force or spirit at work. For instance, when I planted some Swiss Chard seeds in the spring, they were so tiny, for a moment I hesitated to think they would amount to anything. But life appeared and up came very green, healthy plants. Nearby, are some trees standing over 100 feet near Lake Ontario. Once upon a time, many years ago, those trees were tiny seeds. What was the force that empowered those seeds to grow into giants?
Watch the colorful array of pansies in the flower beds. They all came from seeds, and what power, what hand, what thought process created such beauty. How is a sunflower seed pre-programmed to produce tall, lanky plants with large yellow flowers that amazingly turn their faces to follow the sun as it crosses the sky each day? And here's a kicker: When the sun goes down, the sunflower slowly moves back to the east to await the rising sun in the morning.
Every year, Pacific salmon brave the rigors of the Fraser and Thompson Rivers to spawn in Adams Creek in the Shuswap region of British Columbia. They arrive battered and hardly alive. They lay their eggs and promptly die. The young salmon are born as orphans into the world and as they mature, seek their way back to the ocean where they will live for four years until its time to return to Adams Creek. No one seems to guide them. No one seems to say: "This is what you do." They just do it.
Watch a young spider. Something in its consciousness tells it build a complicated web, a net that will catch flying insects, enabling it to eat and live. Scientists will tell you its instinct. It's inborn. Instincts are unlearned, inherited fixed action patterns of responses or reactions to certain kinds of stimuli.
THE HUMAN DILEMNA
In all these things there is a consciousness, an energy, a spirit force that propels life. The sunflower has a consciousness, so does the salmon, as well as the spider. Humans have the same instinct but it appears lost, suppressed by so-called logical reasoning that is alien to instinct. It's a human dilemma.
Instinct has been replaced by a neurosis called judging. Humans thrive on a largely meaningless occupation of expressing opinions and judging. The news media and so-called researchers encourage and thrive on opnions. It's a combination of tragedy and hilarity to hear sidewalk interviewees expressing judgments on various figures in public life.
When was the last time you heard a tulip compare itself to a daffodil, and say: "I'm more beautiful than you," or a giant oak tree looking down on a tiny bonsai and saying: "You'll never get anywhere. You need growth."
Logically, we should be encouraging children to empower their instincts, their intuitive abilities instead of programming them to be robots in a mechanized, materialistic society. Intuitive youngsters would be an asset in the business world, and perhaps CEOs would not make so many costly and hurtful blunders.
Many people ride the eternal roller coaster of life oblivious of the world around them.
For instance, have you ever heard the true sounds of crickets, those pesky little insects you may wish to swat out of existence? True sounds? Recording engineer Jim Wilson took the taped chorus of crickets and slowed down the sounds to match and mirror the length of the average lifespan of a human being. The sounds suddenly took on a different dimension, a chorus that created a natural soothing atmosphere for calming and healing. Thus came about his CD "God's Cricket Chorus." How many other creatures are there in our Universe manifesting songs and choruses and perhaps, more importantly, messages for humans on vibrations which right now soar obliviously over our heads.
THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF WATER
Another major window that has opened in recent times is the fact that water possesses a form of consciousness. It was discovered through the groundbreaking work of pioneer Japanese researcher Masaru Emoto. He found and photographically documented evidence that when prayers were said over polluted water crystals, a major change takes a place. Crystals that were dark, ugly and with malformed shapes transformed seemingly miraculously into beautiful shapes, much like snowflakes. Water possesses a consciousness that responds to human thought? The idea seems preposterous. But it's a fact. It's been proven countless times, and you can do it.
The human body, give or take a few percentage points, is about 75 per cent water. If you mechanically down several pints of water a day without giving it a second thought, the action is thirst quenching, but little more. However, if you take a glass of water, conduct a ritual for a few moments in which you tell the water: "I love and appreciate my body…and I love you too. Please carry my messages of love to every cell in my body." Then drink the water. Be in the Here and Now and consciously taste the liquid, confident that it is empowered to carry the potent love message to the billions of cells in your body.
And you thought water, which covers about two-thirds of this planet, does not have a consciousness. It's just that annoying wet stuff on a rainy day. Don't feel badly. Love yourself for what you thought and are thinking now. Simply correct your thinking and move on a wiser pilgrim.
So God, the Creator, the Spirit is hidden? That's occult. But do you know something? So are we. We are all hidden from ourselves. It's a little quirky thing set up by the Creator. Consider this. When you look at yourself in a mirror, you view your face, your eyes, everything is in reverse. If you stand in front of a video camera and watch your image on a screen, that is not you in the Here and Now. You are watching at yourself in the past tense. Simply put, as a physical person walking the planet, there is no way you can see yourself in the Here and Now.
But don't worry about not being able to see yourself in the Here and Now. Nobody else can. So love yourself unconditionally , and get on with your life.
WATCH THE WORLD AROUND YOU
Perhaps you will find time to watch the world and spirit around you. Birds soaring on the afternoon breezes, the wind gently caressing the leaves of the tall trees, a fish casually wandering through the reeds of a stream, the water tumbling over the rocks…rocks dating back to the volcanic origins of the planet. Observe a flower and wonder how it is made. Think about how a beautiful flower can come about from a seed you can hardly see. Feel the breezes coming ahead of the rain showers, and when the drops start to fall from the sky, feel the freshness. Smell the air and remember that spirit and psyche mean breath - the air we breathe. Feel the air saturating your lungs and know that the system inside you is taking that oxygen to every cell in your body. You may think that's blah, or you may consider that it is an ongoing miracle.
God, the Creator, the Source of your being, is not up there, out there, or watching from a distance. The force is within you, working, doing its stuff, and trusting that one day you will recognize the fact that the God Force is everywhere. There is not a place that the God Force does not exist. As you read this, your body, mind and psyche are all powered by the God Force. As you learn to become aware and understand and love it unconditionally, all your vibrations will change onto the Cosmic net.
Next time we'll talk about why the human ego cannot help you evolve spiritually, but there is a way.
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