Being One With God
by: Reverend August Gold
In the early 1900’s several schools of religious thought came together
and formed the New Thought Alliance. From this Alliance the Unity School
of Truth was born, Science of Mind, Religious Science and Christian
Science, among others. This alliance penned a declaration of truths,
boldly stating that all disease, illness, unhappiness, misery, and
self-punishment could be healed if we apply two principles of truth into
our daily consciousness. The first is that there is a single, divine God
that is All in all; and the second, that the Divinity which we call God
lives inside of each and every one of us.
Knowing deeply and believing completely at every level of our being
that we are not separate from God, that we are one with the Divine, will
heal us. They proclaimed that it is only when we believe we are separate
from Spirit that we remain ill, ill-at-ease, frightened, weak,
powerless, tied to the past, resentful, stuck, hopeless. It is the
belief that we are separate from Spirit that leaves us unable to release
the powerful healing life-force in us and through us.
Many of us were born into religions that claimed God is somewhere up
there: on a mountain top, in the heavens looking down on us. So, in
order to access the God in heaven or on the mountain top, we need to go
outside ourselves to look for help. We are forced to go outside
ourselves to ask that power be granted us, outside ourselves to look for
answers, and outside ourselves to find the wisdom we need to live our
lives bravely and fully.
The spiritual path directs us in the opposite direction -- it
encourages us to look deeply within ourselves. The path explains that
when we look outside of ourselves for anything, we feel weak, and
separate, and powerless, and come to believe that we must get it from
the outside somewhere or else we shall never have it. We soon become
dependent on some outside force to help us, lead us, guide us in a life
we are powerless to change.
The ancient hermetic teachings of The Kybalion explain that there is
only one mind, the God mind, and we all share that mind. If we think God
has one mind and we have a different mind, we begin to think, "I better
start begging for help. I better get down on my knees and say ‘Please
God, please, please give me something I need. Give me something I don’t
have. Please make something happen that can’t happen through me, that
only You can make happen.’ "
The next thing you know, you’re on your knees begging for help, an
utterly powerless, helpless creature. That image couldn’t be further
from the truth. Everything you need is inside you. The only reason we
don’t know it is because we don’t go inside often enough to touch that
place.
We never have to beg God for anything. We never have to beg anybody for
anything. Whatever it is we need, is already living inside us, but if we
don’t know it and acknowledge it, we can’t use it.
That is why throughout every spiritual path we are advised to Know
Thyself; because the deeper you go within yourself, the more you will
know yourself... and come to know the God within you. We can’t know a
God outside of ourselves because outside of ourselves God is reduced to
a concept, a theory. If we believe that God is outside, we are denying
the truth that the power and wisdom reside innately within us; and we
take ourselves further away from accessing the true source of our divine
power within.
If we go down deeply inside ourselves, Ernest Holmes the creator of
Science of Mind says, we will bump into God. Where else are we going to
find God except deep down inside ourselves? Until we understand that, we
are working with just the power of our own two hands. We can get some
things accomplished. We can function. We can pay our bills. We can stay
alive.
When we connect to the power within ourselves, we will lead lives that
are full, and creative, and juicy, and alive, and powerful. We will
accept that we are at-one with God, and we will be able to access that
power and wisdom. When we recognize that the power exists, and identify
that power inside ourselves, it makes a tremendous difference in our
lives. It makes God utterly real. It takes God out of the realm of the
abstract concepts, and makes God a living God inside us; moving through
us, being us.
I see the innate power and wisdom of our own Divinity in my work as a
spiritual counselor all the time. When I take people a few breaths down
to that deeper level of mind, they surprisingly bump into their own
wisdom. If I ask someone in their conscious mind, "What keeps you from
having the relationships you want?" they will tell me that they don’t
know. But when I take that same person to the level of deeper mind -- a
few moments later and a few breaths deeper -- and ask the same question,
they always know the answer.
At the ground of our being, at the deeper level of divine mind,
intuitive mind, we have not forgotten anything, we remember everything.
We can take ourselves back to the exact moments in the past when we shut
the door of our heart to ourselves, to others, to God. Once there, we
can reopen those doors in the safety of the knowledge of our unity with
the Divine and heal what we have carried in our hearts that has remained
unhealed. We can finish our unfinished business from the past. We can
free ourselves to stop dragging our past into our future.
It’s awesome how much wisdom there is deep inside us about who we are,
where we came from, and what we are here to do on earth. But in order to
touch that wisdom, to feel the reality of the Divine living within us,
to know that the Divine resides within us, we’ve got to go inside.
The only thing that keeps us from going inside, naturally, is our fear.
Sitting still is a very difficult thing to do. Try sitting still and
quieting your little mind for even five minutes. It’s very difficult.
Fear threatens that if you go inside, you will find nothing is in there,
or something scary will be there, or you will change so much you’ll lose
the life you have, or you won’t be able to handle it, or you’ll be
overcome by the feelings.
The truth is that when we get still and go within, we find out God is
within -- and that knowledge and feeling affords us an outrageous
confidence, hopefulness, connection, and power. We will never know this
power unless we connect to the Divine inside us. When you feel it -- not
just know it, not just believe it -- but when you feel it, that’s when
things really begin shifting in your life. It is an experience, a
feeling -- the presence of God within, not something we know in our
mind. And it will be different for each of us.
One of the most powerful ideas from the twelve step program of AA is
the concept of God as you understand Him. If you understand God in the
form of a she, God’s a she. If you understand God in the form of a
group, God’s a group. If you understand God in the form of a tree, God’s
a tree. If you understand God in the form of the sun, God’s the sun.
Your direct experience of God will look different than mine. It has to
look different than mine because you and I are different. And the AA
program encourages its followers to come up with any concept of God that
works for them, because if they can get personal with God, then they are
beginning to engage with God. And it’s a start. It is said that the only
thing that keeps people away from God is the word God.
Until we take God off the mountaintop and begin to seek 'It' within the
depths of our being, we will fear it. Anything we are separate from we
will inevitably fear. We will blame our hardships, failures, struggles,
and losses on God. It’s the wrath of God, we will think. The God outside
of me will hurt me, we will believe. God who sits in judgment of me will
punish me. We will believe that God is keeping score.
That is why going within ourselves is key -- when you descend into the
truth of who you are, you will come to feel the safety and love of God
deeply inside of your heart. You will feel the warmth of God’s healing
light and be moved by it. And the Divine eyes that already exist within
will enable you to see yourself through those same eyes -- to see
yourself with a new compassion and loving softness. The eyes of God that
lay buried within us allow us to see the truth of everything and
everyone around us, including and most especially us.
When we are convinced of the Divinity within us, that God is 'All in
All' and lives in us, we become bold, brave, courageous beings. We have
eyes that see past, present, and future, and we learn the truth about
who we are. Each of us has this tremendous spiritual power that is the
secret of life. It exists, and it exists inside us. We don’t have to beg
or plead that something be given to us that already exists within us. We
have only to open our awareness to the knowledge that God lives, God is
real, God is right here. God is right here inside us. The moment we
begin to open our conscious mind to accept that belief, things within
ourselves and within our lives shift, move, heal.
The secret of life lies within you. To utilize it, recognize that it
lives inside you and then identify with it as who you are: My mind is
living in the mind of God, my heart is beating in the heart of God, my
soul is living in the soul of God. God can’t do anything for you if you
don’t allow the Divine to move through you. When we access the power and
wisdom that is already inside us waiting to be tapped, then, in
partnership with the Divine, we can heal. We can move the mountains in
our lives. That’s what miracles are -- allowing that Divine power within
each of us to do its outrageous work through us. The miracle of
realizing we are at one with God.
About The Author
Rev. August Gold is a Minister and the co-founder of SACRED CIRCLE
Interfaith Ministry which offers a new way of looking at Life and God
with meaning, music and love. She lectures and conducts workshops
frequently on Practical Spirituality, drawing from the teachings of
eastern and western religion, spiritual psychology, philosophy,
metaphysics, storytelling and the arts. Since 1990, she has conducted a
private practice in New York City in spiritual counseling, directing
clients to communicate with the wisdom of their Divine Mind.
http://innerself.com/Spirituality/being_one_with_god.htm
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