SYNTHESIS

If you begin with the idea that your beliefs strongly influence your perceptions (as I do), you open significant possiblities for new ways of looking at the big questions of life.

One thing that becomes apparent is that there is some kind of Intelligence at the center of everything. The incredible complexity, beauty, and synchronicity of our universe is obviously (my bias) the result of Something pretty smart.

The difference between most orthodox religious beliefs about the nature of this Intelligence and New Thought beliefs are mainly about the "humanness" and the "physicality" aspects of this Intelligence. Traditional western viewpoints posit a "God" who has a form, lives in a physical place called "Heaven," and generally acts like a human being. He gets angry, has his moods, punishes with vigor and can be very unfair and unloving.

The New Thought God or "Spirit" or "Universal Intelligence" has no person, nor any personality. It (rather than He) is First Cause, the Creator of all, Infinite Intelligence - containing all of creation within Itself. More like "The Force" in Star Wars, Spirit is the energy and intelligence that is Infinite and inclusive of all that exists. You and I exist within this Spirit, this God as It exists within us - we are not and can never be, separate from It.

This description of a deity, one that is Pure Potential, unfolding as the physical universe and all of its creatures, is one that many scientists can embrace, because this viewpoint allows for all scientific discovery. In fact, scientific exploration and discovery are the Creative Expression of Spirit in action - totally in accord with a viewpoint of an Infinite, Intelligent Spirit and the evolving and unfolding universe of Its creation.

So evolution becomes the natural and divine method of expression to bring the physical universe into increasing levels of complexity - Spirit does not "direct" evolution, Spirit IS evolution. Scientist Ervin Laslo calls this "The Informed Universe," that is, a universe that contains the seed of God, the seed of Intelligence, within every particle.

This viewpoint also allows the end of the false duality between matter and spirit. When you think of everything as infused with the spark of divinity, then everything suddenly has divine potential and divine value. No one is left out, nothing is "less than." There is no more Satan - no power in opposition to the One Power. Our difficulties flow from our failure to see ourselves as part of something magnificent, and as worthy of good and joyful lives. While we will struggle within the biological level of existence, we can release the emotional and relational struggles which are all based on ignorance and fear that is based on that ignorance.

As we celebrate nationalistic freedom this Memorial Weekend, can we not also celebrate a more essential freedom as well? I am talking about the essential freedom to live from the deep realization of your own divine nature - a nature that you share with every person, animal, plant, planet, and particle in the universe.

Love and Light,

RevLockard