God experience is to love, serve and give
(Part 2 of a series on Bringing us together as a human family)
Dr. Wayne Dyer, a psychotherapist, is the author of 11 books, including What do you Really want for your Children and Manifest your Destiny: The Nine Spiritual Principles for Getting Everything you Want. In his chapter The Secret in the Center, Dr. Dyer stated: “One night, my wife and I had gone to sleep without resolving some differences. The next morning, I awoke, unusually early at
“I have endorsed the practice of meditation for a long time, but have done it only sporadically throughout my adult life. While I was meditating, I experienced euphoric love – as if I were actually talking to God, as if I were in His presence. I came back from the walk, discussed what had happened with my wife, and soon everything was fine between us again.”
“I decided to do the same thing the next morning. I heard myself talking to God and receiving messages about the nature and purpose of life. Since then, I have redirected my life to assess all my behavior, my thinking, and my actions in terms of whether I am able to love, give, or serve.”
One God – different names
Dr. Dyer continued, “Over the last 15 years, my emphasis and path have shifted toward the spiritual. That magnificent experience showed me there is a powerful world beyond what we usually see – a world of thought, of spirit, and higher consciousness – a world of God that is within all forms.”
“Some call this infinite world God. Others call it
Instead of being concerned with whether I am a Christian or a Jew or a Buddhist, we should strive to be Christ-like or Buddha-like and see these spiritual masters as offering incredible role models of loving and serving and giving to each other and to the world.
We are spiritual beings living temporary lives
Dr. Dyer explained, “I look at my own form and see hairs falling out where I want them and growing in places where I don’t want them, with skin hanging less tightly on the bones — a bag of bones who’s shriveling up and withering away to an abyss of nothingness. But, when I experience God, I know I’m only occupying this present form and all the rules that apply to the form. I know that I’m a spiritual being having a temporary human experience. Then, I begin to see an enormous harmony in life and discover the connectedness of everyone and everything.”
The only way the world will be transformed is for the world’s inhabitants to make changes in their individual levels of consciousness. As we do this, we experience God – the harmony. Robert Frost said it beautifully: “We all sit around in a circle and suppose, but the secret sits in the center and knows.” The center is where we go when we meditate. We go into the light and bring it to ourselves. Like an axle that turns but whose center doesn’t move — God is the unmoved secret in the center.
To be spiritual means to experience ‘your own death’
To be spiritual, to awaken, or to be detached means to experience ‘your own death’. It means coming into contact with part of you that does not constitute your humanity.
Dr. Dyer observed: “I find God by giving myself time every day — through prayer, or meditation, or whatever you want to call it — to go into another level of consciousness. I close my eyes and breathe and empty my mind, and begin to feel the love when I quiet down enough to feel the presence of God.”
We should experience the love in everyone. We should not judge others for being overweight, for being too young or too old, for having their hair a certain way, or for how they dress. Our goal is to experience unconditional love and acceptance and joy for everyone, even those who are behaving in ways that we find difficult to accept.
An invitation to God
Dr. Barbara de Angelis, one of
Dr. Angelis stated in her chapter An Invitation to God: “…When I was 18, I started on a conscious spiritual path and tried many different practices. Finally, after more that 25 years, I found a consistent means of invoking and maintaining that inner awakening, which has brought the richest, most grace-filled time of my life.”
“The biggest misunderstanding people have about God is thinking of Him as a man in a white beard, who punishes misdeeds and rewards good actions.”
“When I started my search, it was for spirituality not religion. Spirituality is about your own personal relationship with God. I found that God was not separate from me or some being whom I needed an intermediary to contact. As my spiritual practices deepened, I had the most amazing revelation of God awareness inside myself — a oneness with Him.”
The throne room
Let this prayer from the Quiet Talks with the Master by Eva Bell Weber say it: “My child, at the very center of your being, there is a golden throne where Divinity dwells. Here you can come and meet your Lord in the quietness of your own soul. Come each day, my child, set apart some special time; come, knock on that door of your heart and, it shall swing open and you shall come in and hold sweet communion with the Lord of your life.”
“Day by day, I shall talk with you as we meet face to face… in the early morning when the world awakens to its loveliness; during the heat of the day when work must stop and you rest awhile by the roadside from life’s activities; during the hour of sunset when shadows fall quietly over the land and the colors change and soften and the very air becomes calm and sweet with My Presence, and often again during the quiet darkness of the night. You shall awaken, not in restless turning but lie quietly and talk with Me.”
Judging others
Dr. Angelis illustrated an experience essential for creating a relationship with God in our everyday life. “While attending a meditation retreat, waiting for a teacher to give a talk, I was seated with several thousand people.”
“I had just come out of a long period of meditation. The next speaker, who was a visiting professor, was not really being very effective, I thought. He was reading his talk – not giving it from the heart. He was quoting a lot of esoteric references that people won’t relate to. I began to feel restless and irritable. Then, all of a sudden, critical thoughts and judgments began pouring out of my mind. I watched in horror as my ego revealed itself in its full negative glory, until at the end of ten minutes, I felt, angry, dry, separate, empty, miserable and completely devoid of love.”
“At that moment, my beloved teacher appeared, ringing with her an ocean of joy, laughter and delight, which everyone proceeded to bathe in for the next hour — everyone but me. I couldn’t feel her love because I had cut myself off from the love inside. I saw exactly how, with the tiniest critical thought, I separated myself from God, from His vision of love, and from my own loving heart. I had never seen so clearly how much the mind’s negativity can bury you in your own darkness.”
Nature’s wonder
Following the path of the heart requires surrender. It doesn’t mean giving up, but yielding to something much greater. For instance, when standing on a mountaintop, the mind that normally says, ‘I am smart,’ or ‘I’ve accomplished so much’ just can’t maintain its sense of importance in the face of mountains so glorious, clouds so beautiful, and nature so exquisite in her perfection. In that second, the mind just surrenders. All of a sudden, you are filled with God. You think it is because of the mountains, but actually it is because you have allowed yourself to slip beneath your sense of who you are and taste the wonder.
(Reference: Quiet Talks with the Master by Eva Bell Weber and For the Love of God: Handbook for the Spirit by Benjamin Shield and Richard Carlson, California: New World Library, 1997.)
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