Chapter 9
All People
“So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed– We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (all people) are created equal.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
We humans were created from something, it seems. The universe was created from something. Or by something.That appears to be true. Something I call God here in this little book. Something that goes by many names in many cultures. And where did that something come from? Where did God come from? I remember asking my mother that question when I was a boy. She always had good answers. The traditional answer is that God has always existed. God is eternal. But we humans can’t wrap our minds around that. How is that possible? We can’t comprehend it. Nor can we comprehend the opposite– How could God have spontaneously come into existence? From nothing? That doesn’t seem possible either. We must be missing something. And trying to get a better understanding of that something is what we’re doing here in this little book. No, we don’t know who God is or what God is, but maybe we can come to a realistic understanding of where God is. That seems possible. And maybe that will help us answer the who and what questions also.
But not everyone is asking those questions, of course. Many people today have a materialistic outlook on life, and by materialistic, I don’t mean the love of money and all that money can buy, but rather the theory that physical matter (or energy) is the fundamental substance of all things. Many people see the fallacy of the traditional Christian concept of Godand therefore see materialism as a more viable scientific view.In a materialistic view of life, physical matter is the essence of all that exists, so there is no supernatural God of any kind. In a materialistic view, there is nothing non-physical other than that which is produced by the physical. In that view, our conscious mind is produced by the brain.
But materialism can’t explain how that happens. It can’t explain how the brain creates the thinking, feeling, conscious beings that we are. There’s certainly a connection between our mind and our brain. They’re interactive. A brain disorder can dramatically affect our mind. Wine can affect our mind. But no one can explain how the brain produces the mind. No one can explain how neural activity creates consciousness. There’s no proof that it does. And ironically, materialism also has some of the very same problems as the traditional view of God. Materialism is an objective view. Material things are out there. They’re outside of us. Like the traditional view of God above, they’re out there in space and time. So we can ask the very same questions of materialism that we asked of God— Where did physical matter come from? How could physical energy have always existed? How could physical matter have spontaneously materialized? From nothing? It’s the same old paradox.[1] So maybe we need to think outside the box.
My logical mind and my deepest sentiments tell me there’s more to life than meets the physical eye. But what is it? What could it be? It appears that it must be outside of space and time in order to reconcile the problem of how things came into existence in space and time. It must be of a different nature than space and time. It must be a separate reality, it seems, other than the objective, physical realm that we live in. And if it’s not objective, then what is it? Well, it must be subjective. And if it’s not physical, then what is it? Well, it must be non-physical. It must be the opposite— a realm not bound by three-dimensional space, a reality not governed by time as we know it. It’s the spiritual realm. The word spiritual means non-physical. I got a glimpse of it once. The subjective underlies the objective, or the illusion of it. We humans are objective manifestations of the subjective, created from the inside out rather than by an outside force. In the view of this little book, the force is within us.
And if that’s true, then it’s true for all people. (Actually, no matter how we look at it it’s true for all people.) We all come from the same source and in the same manner, so in that respect, we’re all the same. Yes, we all have unique characteristics. We’re individuals born into particular families and societies. We’re diverse. We’re like leaves on a tree, spiritually speaking. We’re all similar but we’re all different. Some come from the same branch and some from different branches. But we’re all made out of the same wood. We all have physical bodies that are born into this world through physical birth (also from the inside out, from the womb unto the world), but we’re more than just physical bodies. We’re conscious minds. We’re personalities. We’re souls. We’re conscious minds emanating from our soul, our subconscious mind, which emanates from an even deeper level of existence, the source of all things, that which I call God. This is the belief I’ve come to. God is the essence of life. God is the life that we are. God is the I am that we are. God is in me and in you and everyone else on the planet. We’re all connected to God. Therefore we’re all connected to each other.
The realization that God is within is vital to the development of our conscious mind. It’s vital to our growth. It’s vital to the development of our subconscious mind, our soul. It’s spiritual growth. And the realization that God is within all people is vital to the development of our world. It’s vital to the development of civilizations. It will make us more civil. The realization that God is within all people reinforces the American ideal that all people are created equal. God is the essence of all people. Equally. So this realization can break down the barriers that divide us. It can break down racial and cultural barriers. It can break down religious barriers. It’s our common ground. It will temper our ego. It will dissolve our prejudice. It will make us more compassionate, and as compassion grows in the world, then the world becomes a better place. Imagine how the world will be when we treat all others like family. Imagine how the world will change when we treat all others like we would treat God, for God is in all others. It will change dramatically. It could change relatively quickly. So the realization that God is within, is a crucial one. It’s crucial to our world as we enter a new millennium.
The realization that God is within will make us more tolerant of others. It will make us more accepting of others. However, that doesn’t mean we excuse bad behavior. That doesn’t mean we tolerate those who harm others. Or infringe on the rights of others. We don’t. We shouldn’t. Thus we have laws, ethics, and morality that are intended to shape human behavior. And we have a sense of moral conscience, most of us, to guide us in the choices we make. We humans have free will, apparently. We have the ability to think and make decisions, and decisions have consequences. So it’s good to make good decisions. It’s good for ourselves. It’s good for the people in our lives. It’s good for our world.
But it’s a chaotic world we live in right now. Some folks are makin’ some very poor decisions. And I’ve certainly made my share of them too, but at my present stage of life I’m getting better at doing the right thing. But life is complex. We get confused about what the right thing is. There are influences. And some of those influences are intentional and are meant to confuse, like news agencies that don’t tell the truth. Like politicians who don’t tell the truth. And some influences are primordial. Like the competition between nations and races. It’s the old law of the jungle. It’s older than people. And unfortunately it lives on in the form of prejudice and hatred, and these get passed down from generation to generation, and so the influence is deeply ingrained. And so the chains can be difficult to break.
But they do break. They break as we grow as conscious minds. They break as we grow as souls. They break as we grow as societies. Yes, life can change quickly here on this old Earth. My dad’s boyhood years were spent in the hills of Missouri with no electricity and no running water, except for the creeks. He went from that rustic life to living in the space age. He lived to be ninety-eight. His generation saw tremendous change in industry and technology which transformed our society. Physically speaking, life is much easier than it was a century or two ago. It’s much easier to start up the car than it was to hitch up the horse. But we have new challenges today. We have new problems. Plenty of them. Presently we have a huge cultural divide in our population. We certainly do here in America. There’s the left and the right and very little compromise, and a whole lotta disdain between the two. So what can we do about that? How can we change that? Well, by coming to the truth, I’d say. By realizing that God is within. By realizing that God is within all people. And by treating people as we would treat God.
Footnotes
[1] But the more we delve into modern physics, the more blurred the line between the physical and the non-physical becomes. Curved space, time that stops, and matter that is affected by the observer, are out of this world. Literally. So we can see how the two worlds— the physical and the non-physical, may ultimately meld into one, which is what we would expect in the view of this little book. Everything melds into one. Everything emanates from the same source.
PD Shoemaker 