Rainn Wilson expressed his connection with God in a way that mirrored my own experience.
“Who I am and what I am is not my body, it’s not even my personality, it’s not even the trauma I suffered. It’s not what I’ve been through. There is a little spark of the Divine inside of me that is reflecting the majesty of the Divine of God, the Divine presence, the creative force, that is reality. So for me to deny my reality is not beneficial to anyone, least of all to myself.”
As a follower of Jesus I believe not only the Christian teachings of the West about him, but I can also see his Eastern philosophical leanings quite clearly in scripture. Where did Jesus go during his teens and 20s? Some people believe that he went to India and learned from the “wise men” who had come to visit him as a baby. It’s not hard to feel this metaphysical influence in his words if you come at it from that perspective.
I know that the Divine lives in me.
I believe for each one of us, our humanity expresses itself according to a personality, a temperament, and unfortunately many times, a trauma. My responsibility as a human being on a journey of growth is to reveal my true self as an expression of the Divine Truth, and not an expression of my trauma and misconceptions about myself and the world.
God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, power, and a sound mind.
I’ve been confused before about what exactly is the spirit of love, the spirit of a sound mind. What is fear and where is it hiding in me? Jesus told people over and over again, do not fear. Do not worry. Today we like to think that Jesus was a hippy who gave everyone a pass, but the Jesus I see was and is the best kind of friend you could hope for: he never lets you get away with victimhood. He always holds you accountable to your best self and to the ultimate truth, which is Reality, just like Rainn said. Just look at the way Jesus healed and forgave: “Do you *want* to be healed?” is what he asked the man at the pool of Bethesda. “Then get up, take up your mat, and walk.” To the woman caught in adultery he said, “I forgive you, now go and sin no more.”
So the way I see it is that I cannot live authentically while I am concerned with what someone else thinks of me – that is fear. I cannot live authentically while I am confused about Love, and about who and what I am and what Reality is. I cannot live authentically if I still think power is about having all the things, all the money, all the “say”. I cannot be living without fear if I still think I need to check all the boxes that society, culture, government, scientists, and institutional religion say I must.
The most powerful thing I have ever learned on this journey of life is this: everything I need to know is within me. All the wisdom of the universe is to be found within me, if I will search. Infinite love resides in me. I am my own best friend. How could I ever fear anything or desire to follow any human institution with that kind of awareness? How could God’s power and love and sanity not flow through me to not only my own benefit but for the benefit of the world, even though the world may hate me?
Each of us has his own strengths, talents, and unique ways of expressing those. Some of us are table turners, some of us are nurturers, some of us are a bit of both. Whatever it is that we are wired for, it has to be tethered to Reality. Reality = Truth. Truth is not something that our culture really loves, but I am not here to be loved by culture. I am not here to require that you love me back. I don’t need that. I have Divine love in me already. My job is to express that.
