I told a friend that I have to testify about all that God has done for me.  He said, correcting me, “You mean all that you have done for yourself,” as if to say, “You don’t believe in yourself.  You believe in an external (e.g., nonexistent) entity.”  I explained my belief in the Indescribable Energy, Force, Spirit, That Which is Unnamable, that I call God.  Even though my view of God is unlimited, I use that term because that is the name given to the Presence by the people who raised me.

I read to my friend the part of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho in which the boy realized that the soul of God was his soul.  Therefore, he was able to perform miracles.  Similarly, I use separation terminology to express my realization that I am part of a greater something.  I am a drop of water in an ocean. I am a particle of sand within an infinite beach.  The drop is still the ocean, as the sand is the beach.  Because I am aware of who and what I am, I can freely use “God” and not diminish myself.

I understand what I mean when I say “what God has done for me.”  It is an easy and simplistic way of saying that, as I grow in awareness and understanding of that which is greater than me, I manifest the harmonious conditions that are Reality.

It is a luxury to believe that success and achievement are solely a result of one’s own actions and abilities, when such things can be gone in an instant.  Throughout the natural world, people have believed that they are self-sufficient and superior when, in fact, their physical ownership and dominion was and is often a result of conquests, colonization, and elimination, or because they accommodated and acquiesced to those who wield power and might.  There can never be enough money and power for those who derive fulfillment from foundations of sand.  Why else do those who have much continue to seek more?  Such desire is neverending.

I will go one step further and state my belief that life is eternal and that human incarnation repeatedly occurs.  We live the effects of causes created in past embodiments and are constantly creating causes that will have future effects.  Unfortunately, with little or no memory of our pre-birth selves, we experience each life anew, believing that our prosperity or indigence is totally the result of our own efforts or lack thereof.  If the former, we are prone to believe in ourselves as stand-alone islands, solely empowered by our personal strengths, capabilities, and external connections.

I believe that all power is within me, but stems from a Universal source that is in and through all of us.  It is not an individual power.  It is a communal power.  That power is manifested individually as and through me, but does not originate in me except to the extent that I am one with that which is original, that which has always existed and will always exist.  As I am It manifested, I am the past, present, and future.  However, my limited, not fully awakened consciousness is usually only aware of linear time.

We must re-ignite conscious awareness of the One Power in order to manifest our individual intentions through It.  Many of us already do this unconsciously.  However, without awareness, our intentions can create disharmony.  We have lost the knowledge of the source of our dominion.  It has been beat out of us, terrorized out of us, killed out of us, and ultimately forgotten as though having never existed.

In the modern world, there are no indigenous rituals connecting us to a power greater than ourselves.  Until we are born again into a society that values higher consciousness over individual achievement and hierarchical power, we will repeatedly have to relearn and reconnect with our Essence.  In the meantime, we go forward with only stored abundance that may last for centuries, but gives only the illusion of security.

We see this throughout history.  We see it now.  Civilizations that prospered throughout the millennia have been destroyed.  Because of war or repressive governments, rich and middle class citizens of formerly stable countries leave everything they have to start anew in foreign lands.  Powerful dynasties have ended, the last descendants reduced to poverty. Earth has endured ice ages that totally destroyed all that was.  Yet, beings again emerged. Whatever is mortal ends.  Nevertheless, life goes on.  The Source cannot be depleted.  It is eternal.

If we believed in the infinity of our beings, perhaps we would take better care of our natural world, knowing that we will have to live again in it at some point in time.  Because we live as finite beings with finite mindsets, we don’t see ourselves as interrelated and interconnected with each other, with the environment, with our planet and the moon and the stars.  We have individualistic states of mind, constantly seeking personal power and wealth.  That is why we are constantly at war – with ourselves, with others, with the earth and, ultimately, with all that is.

And that is why I continue to believe in Spirit.  As more of us re-awaken to the Reality of Light, we must bring forth the peace, joy, and harmony that express the Truth of our being.