What can be known about God is perfectly plain, since God has made it plain. Ever since God created the world, God’s everlasting power and divinity, however invisible, has been there for the mind to see in the things that God has made. —
Romans 1:19-20
Every day, we are given a natural way to reconnect with God. And it doesn’t depend on education. It doesn’t depend on getting a degree in philosophy or theology. Or what period of history we lived in. Or what our religion precisely is. It depends on really being present to what is right in front of us. Or, as Paul says, “God has made it plain.”
The missing element for many of us in the developed world has been contemplation, which allows us to really see the natural world. Without this, I don’t think religion achieves a deep level of authenticity—or joy! Many people don’t seem to be highly transformed. They are stuck in a dualistic belief system that doesn’t synthesize reality very well. But if they were to spend time in nature, alone like Jesus or the hermits or the desert fathers and mothers, they would know many of the same things religion has been trying to teach, but they would know them on a cellular level, on a physical and energetic level. It’s not contradicting the rational, but it’s much more holistic and heartfelt.
That’s the way that religion is supposed to know, and it’s a kind of knowing that really changes people. It rearranges one’s worldview at a level that actually cannot be contradicted by mere words or passing ideas. Instead of undergoing this wonderful transformation, most Western religion has been simply transmitting information, and then we argue about it. What a waste of time. There is nothing that is not spiritual for those who have learned how to see.
Adapted from The Soul, the Natural World, and What Is (CD, MP3 download) and The Cosmic Christ,
disc 1 (CD, MP3 download)
Gateway to Silence:
God is all in all
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