Tag Archives: spiritual reality

December 31, 2016 · 11:59 am

Love and Material Reality

God is love and God is Spirit. Each member of the human family is also created in this image or pattern. Turning water to wine, multiplying food, and healing the sick are all results demonstrated by Jesus of Nazareth while a member of our human family. Likewise, any person with a deep spiritual understanding also has the capacity to make material reality subject to spiritual law.

Love for example is a spiritual law that is simple enough for any human to exercise, experience, and experiment with. In the same way, that the laws of flight overcome the laws of gravity, love is a law that over comes most laws of material reality. This is the reason Jesus demonstrated and taught the spiritual truth of love as the basic way of living. Jesus used the condition of blindness as both a literal and a metaphorical teaching object. The material reality of blindness is powerless when confronted with the spiritual understanding of the power of the law of love.

Spiritual understanding is simply conscious awareness of an existence beyond this material world. Faith in the possibility of spiritual truth is a start, but it is not until one has a conscious experience with spiritual truth does this material world begin to yield and reveal its weakness. During the holiday season of Christmas there is an atmosphere of love, if one can become consciousness of it. When we allow ourselves to get caught up in the spirit of the season any impediments to our peace and happiness that was erected in the material realm, seem to dissolve. However, most people dismiss such disillusions as Christmas magic.

Because very few of us humans have attained the understanding or awareness of the spiritual realm, we settle for the peace and happiness that the illusions of material wealth and health give. If those that claim to be disciples of Jesus obtain even a little success in the mastery over this material reality, a joy unspeakable would reverberate within their being. To be able to pass on an inkling of this consciousness to their children would be an inheritance fit for a king. Imagine a generation of humans having beliefs beyond what passes as normal religious faith.

Jesus said, “Love others as self”

Yet, He always demonstrated,

“Love others before self”.

So the question becomes how can, any human operate a love that transcends this material reality. First, we must awaken to this simple insight. Jesus said, “Love others as self” yet, He always demonstrated “Love others before self”. Secondly, one must make an effort and assault the common notion that love is a two-way street. Holding that belief as truth will make it impossible to walk on water, disappear through a crowd, or walk through walls. When love flows from God, through you, toward others it is an indescribable feeling. In that moment, we need nothing from material reality, and there for we are no longer subject to its laws.

Galatians 5:23 (NKJV) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

We hold beliefs that God is infinite and that we are created in His image or pattern. Yet most religious and scriptural interpretation does little more than give an infinite God the human attributes of a face, arms, and legs. Very few if any appropriate the infinite qualities of God like an infinite conscious, one that does not slumber or sleep, or infinite presence. We lay down to rest the body and our consciousness soars as it returns to the greater realms of what we misname as the realms of dreams and deep sleep. When we return to the smallest realm of the material reality, we say we are awake, all awhile we are blind and dismiss the greater realms we just left. We must let go of the belief that the “I” of our being shares the limits of our material body

Psalm 82:6-8 (NKJV) I said, “You are gods, And all of you are children of the Most High. ⁷But you shall die like men, And fall like one of the princes.” ⁸Arise, O God, judge the earth; For You shall inherit all nations.

Luke 6:40 (NKJV) A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.

We humans were created for so much more, yet we are stuck in our traditions. A box of no escape may be good for building an earthly organizations and protecting its membership, but it will never get humanity to see itself as sons and daughters of God.

Escape velocity is a term of violent revolution for earthlings that have not achieved travel at the speed of light. Likewise, we humans holding a set of beliefs that exalt the laws of material reality need a violent revolution of love as demonstrated by Jesus in order to become transformed. We need to redefine the common definition of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. My suggestion:

A Disciple of Jesus is a believer, motivated by the belief that within a single human lifespan, any human could be trained to replicate any of the works of Jesus, and live as the child of God they were created to be. Upon graduation the child of God lives out the remainder of their days in the office of Ambassador to God’s Kingdom.

If humanity is to complete its evolutionary journey and reach its full potential, we need a constant update of our beliefs, as we consistently become more conscious of spiritual reality. Love is the doorway out of a belief system that material reality reigns supreme.

Humans Evolving Spiritually

Human evolution includes the development of that part of us that exist at our core. What makes this evolutionary period unique is our ability to observe on a global scale this process in real-time. For thousands of years our developmental feedback has also evolved. Where once we were only shaped by our local tribal community, and then molded by patriotic influences of the nation-state. Today there is a global cross-pollination effecting human spiritual development.

More than anything else, religious traditions continue to provide the greatest framework for human spiritual development. They set the parameters for describing the spiritual nature of humanity. The institutions that keep and dispense the parameters are also subject to today’s global evolutionary influences. The questions proposed in this post concerns itself with the limits of human understanding as it relates to the reality of the nature of human spirituality.

Genesis 1:26-27 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” ²⁷So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Exodus 3:13-14 Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” ¹⁴And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

John 17:22-23 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: ²³I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.

Most, but not all religions define human spiritual nature in relationship to their understanding of God. If that God is infinite then spiritual nature tends to be infinite. Some religions derived their spiritual understanding and practice from a God that is perceived to be finite.

Religious tradition has much to say from both fronts. However, because of its slowness to adapt to the new outside global influences it is losing its ability to shape the moral consciousness of the current and therefore the next generation. Religion had been the go-to institution of society for ethical values. However, Its slowness to adapt has caused secular schools to pick up the slack in human spiritual evolution.

To counter this, there is an emergence of a global consciousness bought on by technology-based, virtual social constructs. Traditional religions are passing on an opportunity by using its resources to defend long-held traditions that they will eventually abandon as human understanding evolves. Technology based schools and technology driven social constructs are by default filling the vacuum by providing new paths to understanding human spirituality and ethical values. Internal to the major religions and yet outside of its hierarchical authority a grass-roots emergence of sorts has been taking place over the last 20 years if not longer. This emergence has led to a growth of external movements that attempt re-transmit or re-communicate only the revelations of peace and love from the world’s main religion traditions. Members of these technology-based constructs consider themselves no longer affiliated with the traditional institutional culture of these main religious traditions.

Spirituality without judgement is not a new concept, but it flourishes in an environment where there is no requirement for group identity and membership.

Spirituality without judgement is not a new concept, but it flourishes in an environment where there is no requirement for group identity or membership. When group identity is no longer required spiritual understanding expand and evolve. If we live in a world where we change software on our phones every two years, why is it we are afraid to upgrade our beliefs and understanding concerning human spiritual nature? If God and His realm is truly infinite then there is more that we do not understand, than we do understand. Today’s traditional models effectively binds understanding to that model. Traditional cultures could provide a greater service to humanity if the ratio between defending beliefs and exploring human spiritual nature were reversed.

Once and individual or a group awakens to the evolutionary waves that are moving through the human species, the resistance to the waves of change decrease. As it relates to spiritual evolution, resistance is futile. However, the developmental journey needs the wisdom of the ages as we chart our unknown course into the future.

It is my hope that both traditional and these new religious social constructs will not abdicate their responsibility to human society and remain engage in the moral and ethical development of humanity’s spiritual evolution. I have no fear because like water, moral and ethical advances will find its way around any blockage and therefore peace and love will prevail. I encourage the non-affiliated technology based adherents that have escaped the limits of major and minor religious faiths of the world, to remain independent.

Our independence is evolutionary for human spiritual development on two fronts. Firstly, traditional institutions of religion are taking notice of opportunities missed when we opted out from them in pursuit of deeper spiritual understanding. Secondly, as spiritual freedom increases so does our ability as a human species to freely and lovingly respond to infinite God. This creativity will only be discovered and experienced as we shake off hierarchical relationships as the only path to seek the face of God. In an environment of pure freedom, prayer and meditation the only judgement that remains are the motivations of our heart. Are they arrogant and presuming, leaning on tradition or are they still and silent, in freedom and humility, soaking in the Presence of God. Human Spirit, locate at the heart of our being, is a manifestation of the infinite and diverse Presence of God.

Spiritual development that is free from hierarchy, doctrines, and practices is evolutionary and its awareness connects to an infinite God in ways inexperienced by the human generations before us. We must remain thankful and respectful to our ancestors who helped us to this point. However, future generations are counting on us to explore and push the spiritual envelope and evolve spiritually. Infinite God is pure freedom.

John 4:21-24 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father.²²You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. ²³But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. ²⁴God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Non-Local (Infinite) Love

One of the qualities of being human is our ability to exist simultaneously in the realm of the infinite (non-local; spiritual) and the realm of the finite (local; material; 3 dimensions + time). Western thought traditionally separates these realms and relegates mystical and supernatural events to the spiritual realm. This perspective has given rise to a culture that has a preference towards a rational and scientific approach to life. Or does it?

Fundamentally and traditionally we westerners still dream of a love that never dies and we blindly enter marriage relationships with a fantasy like expectation of a love that will last beyond our human lifetime. Even today, when gifts are exchanged as token of marriage they are forged with materials such as diamonds, gold and titanium. These materials are used because they symbolize our hope for relationships to last beyond our physical lives.

Western civilization rests its stability on the foundations of these marriages that produce families, which in turn produce communities, which in turn produce the nations of the earth. These fundamental relationships of love are expected to transcend the current generation and leave an inheritance, which is an expression of love, for the next generation. Institutions that memorialize persons who have moved into the next phase of existence provide expressions of love that transcend and strengthen the foundation for future generations.

Even though love is eternal or non-local it requires an expression in the real-time. Any husband that forgets a birthday, anniversary or valentine’s day is quickly reminded just how long-term a relationship can be. When the spark of love begins there is a hope that it will never die and there is an expectation that each love will be continually expressed to reinforce its existence. The fact that God created the universe as an act of love, or a proposal for marriage however unique or grand the gesture holds very little meaning as we proceed in time without subsequent expression.

So what happens when the chain of love is broken?

We humans create and imaginary timeline that began with the big bang and it stretches towards the infinite (non-local) future. This current moment of “Now” is where we reside. This universally agreed slice of time has no standard duration but is imagined to be moving along the timeline towards the future. For each of us there was a spark of love that created our being. The big question is what person, what culture or what religious or secular institution is responsible to express love to us as individuals?

Before I answer that question, let me inject 2 points. The first has to do with language and the way we describe the reality in which we exist. Albert Einstein documented the principles of relativity and its language continues to dominated the context of western thought. An example would be the way you would describe the relationships and interactions of pool balls on a pool table. During the cold war nations and cultures related in a paradigm of the pool table and the ball with the greatest momentum had the greatest political influence. Religious thought also operates in this paradigm. However, Einstein also discovered the principles for quantum physics providing us with another language context with term like entanglement, non-locality and de-coherence. This posting uses the term non-locality to describe love as an object in hopes that we can discover its operations outside of our dimensions of time and space.

The second point is a real-time example of a broken timeline. If you are in relationship with a person suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, you are as witness to someone who experiences non-locality. People with Alzheimer’s are unable to communicate in-synch with you and our universal concept of the timeline. Short term memory storage areas of the brain is where each human correlates space and time and when we lose access to this we become separated from others that are bound to these universal dimensional constructs. These constructs vary for every individual, every culture and every religious and secular institution.

Today we are living in inter-national global societies and regardless of where you find yourself on this planet at any moment technology is making that place a nexus of multi-cultures and institutions. It used to be that home was where our heart was, that singular place of time and space, where we left behind and sent the expressions of our love. That collapse of distance and awareness, creates an entanglement between individuals cultures that were once isolated. For many people today home no longer has a fixed location, in other words home has become non-local as it relates to time and space.

What’s love got to do with this?

So right where we stand in this moment, who or what culture or what religious or secular institution is responsible to express love to us as individuals? If “God” is not the answer to that question you have just discovered why there are problems in the world. Simply put the definition of being lost is the inability to see God and His love for us in the moment and in that space. Traditionally we humans look to people and objects to generate the forces that influence feelings of love. However, in the quantum state all things are entangled and all things are possible and all things that exist, are from God.

As disciples of Jesus we are authorized to love everyone. Yet, we live on a planet of 7.5 billion people who are looking for love in all the wrong places. The thing that is supposed to set followers of Jesus apart from the crowd is their ability to love and reveal the true source of love. God is the source and for persons that understand their connectedness to God’s love should flow easily. If I could encourage anything it would be for every person to discover that they are linked to God as either His daughter or son. Like the air we breathe His love flows through each of us. Understanding God and His love of all is a privilege and honor I hope each human experiences God’s love the local and the non-local realm of reality.

Gen 1:27, 31 (NLT)

²⁷So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

³¹Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!

John 3:16 (NLT) “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

Romans 8:31-39 (NLT)

Nothing Can Separate Us from God’s Love

³¹What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? ³²Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? ³³Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. ³⁴Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us. ³⁵Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? ³⁶(As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) ³⁷No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. ³⁸And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. ³⁹No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Tag Archives: spiritual reality

Love and Material Reality

Humans Evolving Spiritually

Non-Local (Infinite) Love

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