Looking for God in All the Wrong Places: Wake UP! Part I

We must begin to see: God is in all as all! Photo Credit: Relaxxx Music

"We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move. We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it livable. We work with being, but non-being is what we use." tao de ching

Wake Up! Wake Up! Wake UP!

The world is waiting for you.
The world is waiting for you to begin to really create yourself in its space and leave an imprint.

We're all bakers, makers, candlestick makers.
We're all writers, poets, doctors and lawyers.
We're all preachers, teachers, leaders.

Whoever created this bench was highly creative! Photo Credit: Pictures World 

Just wake up and find your way.

The potential to be and do and achieve and become anything is there. We just have to unleash the creative powers within.

We can be all that we want to be and more, if only we can wake up to all the creative resources waiting patiently within us to be used. The problem is that the world puts limits on us and this brakes us into molds and folds where we believe that we can only do and achieve at certain levels. Truthfully, those limits can be removed, and we can work with the "open sky" to create a new way of being, seeing and doing in the world.

Before we can do any of that, though, we must wake up to the truth of WHO we are.

Look at the young woman pictured at the top. Do you think she can help but do what she does? Do you think that she came to this talent by accident, or was she wired this way? Of course, the young woman honed her skills and talent over the years to go to higher and higher levels from where she began. But from inception, she was "born that way."

Look at these images of dancers in New York City, defying gravity. (Dancers in Times Square Defy Gravity). They've honed their natural talents and abilities to the level of mastery.

That's the physical part of ourselves. Less obvious is the spirit within all these "acrobatic" moves that allowed them to do what they do.

*Steve Jobs was able to tap into the power within himself and reached out to the power within others to create products that now serve us daily in magnificent ways throughout the world. 

Whether we're famous or not, we're always contributing to the greater whole by producing goods and services that evolve from our natural talents and abilities.

We may be a stay-at-home mom, baking, cooking and sewing; an office manager, a lawyer, a scientist, mathematician, teacher, doctor, but what we all are naturally doing is tapping into the source within. From there, everything flows.

When we're not "in the flow" with our talents, skills and abilities, our lives become very uncomfortable and can even become our nightmare.

"In the Flow of Life," Master Teacher Eric Butterworth shows us how our lives get off track and how we can get back into the flow. I highly recommend this great book on the flow, but it's to his other book I now want to steer your attention. 

In "Discover the Power Within You," Butterworth emphasizes that Jesus' teachings were to educate us on the power within us all, not just in him, Jesus.  Butterworth went to great lengths explaining how Jesus' works and words were really invitations for us to look within ourselves.

"In his search for the 'holy grail,' man has looked everywhere and in vain, but he has failed to look within himself." -Eric Butterworth

He explained that when other prophets, too, have tried to teach us the way, we have turned to worship them, ignoring their teachings, and essentially making"a god of the prophet...worshiped him and built monuments to him.." 

With the advent of religions, we trapped ourselves in "the religion practices that had no 'within.'"

How do we extricate ourselves and seek the truth within us?

We must first wake up to the role of religion in our lives:

"The institution of church is always dictatorial, no matter what outer form it takes. It does not convince you but gives you directions on how to behave." - Immanuel Kant 

The late Eric Butterworth

Once we're able to understand that our religion may get us to navigate our way successfully in the world but may not get us to truly explore the power within us, then we will begin to wake up to Truth. This is what Jesus tried to teach and what Butterworth covers in his book.  

We must Wake UP! You can't keep looking to the preacher, the teacher, the spiritual leader to guide you. Begin to look for yourself...by digging into yourself! 

(WARNING--Please always keep in mind
this caveat as you walk the spiritual path: We should
not give up our lives to go "looking"
for God. Rather, live our lives with a consciousness
of Spirit within! There's real danger in going "looking."

Live your life by doing what's right moment by moment;
connecting within should be the only "looking" you do. If you find yourself

wanting to give up careers, jobs, husbands, wives and/or children, you've

traveled into dangerous territory. We'll explore that next month.)

What we must learn

1. We must change our Consciousness in order to Change our lives.

The world will continuously try to seduce us into believing that it, and all its trappings, is what life really is all about. We must resist the temptation to conform only to the ways of the world and reach for a higher level of being, as Paul noted, "Be not conformed to this world, but ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." Romans 12: 2 

"...the greatest mistake is in believing that we are 'only human.'" Butterworth says. We must try to go deeper within and touch the core of our being by not giving in only to worldly standards.

Photo Credit: "Stunning photos"

In other words, set higher standards of behavior for ourselves. In doing so, and in constantly searching to the core of our being, we will reach that higher level. We will begin to operate from the level of our Soul, which always seeks to guide our steps. 

When we begin to go inward, seeking to connect in every moment, in every way, we set into motion this "Soul operation."

2. We Must Accept Our Unity with God, as Jesus did!

"We must begin to see Jesus as the great discoverer of the innate Divinity of Man, the supreme revealer of the truth about man, the pioneer and the way shower in the quest for self realization and self unfoldment."- Eric Butterworth 

This is the part of us that makes many of us want to go "Aww Shucks! No way!" 
But it is the truth...the only truth...that will set us all free!

Emilie Cady, another master spiritual teacher who authored many great books, recommends that the way to truly do this, i.e.discover the divinity within, is "to make a conscious decision to let God really take over in every area of our lives." Cady has written powerful books like "Lessons In Truth."

Why is this so difficult? Why don't we simply allow this?

Our egos. Our very humanity gets in the way.
Our first instinct when challenges arise is not to go within but to go seeking without, i.e. friends, advisers and anyone who would listen to our plight. Then, we begin to plan and plot how we're going to "fix" the problem. It's only when we've exhausted ourselves in trying that we finally "Let Go, and Let God."

Often, it is within that short hour that the answer comes through us.

3. We Must Realize that God is The Spirit, The Energy that Surrounds Us and Dwells Within Us!  He is the energy that is in all living things ...creates all things and even permeates all things...

There's a story Butterworth tells in his book of a child being reminded that she should not be afraid for God is always with her. "But I want someone with skin on," the child cries.

Isn't that like us?

"Where ever we are, GOD IS!" But do we believe this? 

No!

According to Butterworth,  Meister Eckhart, the great philosopher, said that God expects only one thing of you, "and that is that you stop thinking of yourself as a created being and let God be God in you."

"The true self of you, the Christ, spiritual man," Butterworth urges, "is the individuation of God. You are the Presence of God at the point where you are."

Each of us are members of the ONE body of God, the ONE Spirit, the ONE Energy holding up the universe through all and in all.

"God is dead to you, if you are asleep to the activity of the Presence in you." Butterworth says.  

So, how is it that if God is dead to our conscious minds that we are still able to reap the benefits of the God connection?

By Grace.

With that, I conclude the first part of Wake UP!

As you contemplate what has been written so far, I invite you to think about the tremendous feats accomplished by the "Steve Jobs" of the world, the contortionist above, and the many other famous people you may know. Doing so, I hope you begin to see a common theme:

Whether the persons "deserve" the gifts given to them or not, based on the public profiles we see of them, they still were able to exercise and claim those gifts.

All by Grace. All by the Spirit Within.

"...Only in Me does the world have meaning; only out of Me does the world take form; only because of Me does the world go forward.I am the law on which the movement of the stars and the growth of living cells are founded...."James Dillet Freeman

 (Click here for the entire poem :"I am There" by James Dillet Freeman)

Wake UP to Truth! Wake Up to the Spirit Within!

Namaste',

Che'




*NOTE: As October 5 comes around and I celebrate a birthday, I also think of Steve Jobs who died on that day in 2011.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The three-part "Wake UP" series is being based on three books in consecutive order:"Discover The Power Within You," by Eric Butterworth; "Dark Night of the Soul," by St. John of the Cross, and "Exquisite Risk" by Mark Nepo