Lately, I’ve been working on devoting my mind to transcending itself for the purpose of getting closer to God. To get closer to the realization that we are one with God and that nothing and nobody is apart from us, including God.

This is a pretty tall order for the mind, because it’s the mind that’s the obstacle. But, it’s our minds in which we live on a daily basis. I understand exercises that can help with transcending the mind such as meditation, surrendering our thoughts, and  focusing on the moment. And I do those things whenever possible.

What if we could come up with things in the mind that lead us to understanding? We read spirituality books. We love to hear the words of Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra. They have the words that make sense. The words they express are signposts for getting beyond the mind. Signposts leading to the Source of Life. And lately, my mind has been trying to come up with it’s own signposts. Or even, I might say, doorways of understanding.

I’m not there yet. I want to come up with a metaphor that will help me to understand the nature of God/Source/Universe and how I fit in. I want to understand in my puny little mind how it is that we’re all one, that we’re all connected to God and to each other.

In Dr. David R. Hawkins’ work (which I love) he uses the metaphor of the sun to depict God and the clouds as our ego. And that our ego is simply an obstruction and once we clear it away then the sun shines forth. It didn’t suddenly arrive, it was always there and simply becomes visible by removing that which is blocking it. I love this metaphor and my mind is using that type of conceptualization to figure out my own little mental construction of oneness and allness.

In the Dr. Hawkins metaphor, the sun is like the higher Self, it’s us. The part of ourselves that’s always there but is blocked by the ego. But, in my new metaphor I think of the sun as God Itself, the Source of All-That-Is. And I think of humans and our higher Self as the rays of sunshine. This idea helps my mind to understand how we are actually God or another way of saying it, not apart from God. Can you separate out the Sun from the Sunshine? Our soul, our Self, the energy that is spirit which gives us life is what I think of as the sunshine. But, here is where my mind is having trouble. I haven’t flushed out the metaphor quite yet. I’m still working on it. Where does the human body fit into this?

One possible extension of this metaphor is that our human selves is that which the sunshine illuminates. A ray of sunshine casts its light on a mountain top and through the cycles of the universe and the evolution of life that mountain top someday becomes a river bed or vice-versa. Is the ray of sunshine the mountain top? Of course not. Does the changing nature of the earth change the nature of sunshine? Nope. The ray of sun continues to shine forth. (The sun is literally part of this cycle of the universe so of course it is actually changing too, but, this is just a metaphor for our little minds.)

Writing this out right now is actually helping me to conceptualize this a bit better. I see other people as illuminated beings of light. Some are better lit than others. But, all are lit by the light of “God” or the “Sun”. The spirit that is within them is but a beam of sunlight. The same beam of sunlight that shines in me. Well, a different beam, but all beams of light are the same and all come from the same source and are not separate from that source. Simply Sun on it’s way to illuminating life.

I think I need to leave the metaphor there for now. What do you think about this perspective? How would your change it to fit your own mental perception of Oneness?

Last week on Grey’s Anatomy, the character Miranda Bailey said something that I loved. It was in reference to another character’s parents who were giving her a hard time for marrying a woman and having a baby “out of wedlock”. She said, “[The disapproving parents] just haven’t caught up to God, yet.”

I feel like as a whole we humans are slowly but surely catching up to God. Even to have a mainstream tv show that says, God is in you and in me and in between you and me, I think is revolutionary. But, not everyone feels this way about God and spirituality. There is still a lot of catching up to do. There are a lot of people who are behind.

Another interesting thing I heard last week was on an audio recording of Deepak Chopra’s “Book of Secrets”. He was talking about one’s spiritual growth and that the spiritual path (or “catching up to God”) doesn’t need to be a struggle. He says, you would never expect a 4 year old to struggle to turn 5.

Dr. Hawkins also says something this. He says we can only be that which we are. And he says that being more enlightened or having a higher level of consciousness isn’t “better than”. Everyone’s current level is appropriate because that’s where they are. And simply by working on oneself, a spiritual seeker can elevate the whole world.

Because we are always able to make choices on a moment to moment basis, people seem to think that other people should choose better. They think that they shouldn’t be so concerned about money, that they should respect the earth and support those less fortunate. I notice this a lot in the queer community. There’s a lot of righteousness. We’re fortunate to be outsiders. As outsiders we can see that people need help, need services and resources. As outsiders we gain a perspective that reveals the complexity of poverty and addiction and disability and a whole host of other social issues that affect many people. As women we are caring and feel compelled to help. But, as strong characters we get angry at the people in power who do nothing to help and even hinder those who work so hard to help “those less fortunate”.

But, you know what, the politicians and especially the system that they all work in just haven’t caught up to God, yet. And they deserve our compassion just as much as the drug addict who chooses to harm himself. Everybody needs compassion.

I was going for a walk the other day and I began to have a conversation in my head to someone who was angry about a social issue and I was imagining this conversation steering towards appropriate ways to be an activist. Personally, I don’t go to rallies or get angry about atrocities or yell and fight about issues that are important. I simply do my best to catch up to God and be a loving and good person. So, as I was walking and having this imaginary conversation I asked the universe, “what is the best way to affect change in the world?” Not long after an answer came to me. What would be a perfect world? What qualities does it have? Do you have those qualities? Can you? Do you try? Isn’t that the most important thing to focus on? That’s taken directly from the notebook that I stopped and wrote in when these thoughts came to me. Interesting how my “answer” was a bunch of questions.

I believe that compassion is the best way to fight in this world. And compassion needs to be for everyone – not just the down-trodden. Even the money-hungry disrespectful arrogant people who do their best to oppress us need compassion. They’re like 4 year-olds. Someday they’re going to turn 5. There’s no point in being angry about it or trying to shame them into being 5. They are 4.

Let’s focus on creating an environment that facilitates growth and evolution. Gandhi says, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” It’s so obvious and simple it’s easy to forget. Create your perfect world from within. If you want a compassionate world then see what happens when you extend that compassion to everyone and everything, rich and poor, the oppressed and the oppressors.