Month: July 2016

“Organic denoting a relation between elements of something such that they fit together harmoniously as necessary parts of a whole. Of, relating to, or derived from living matter.”

Divine Humanity is an organic religion. It is a natural religion, full of the experience of life from the awe of a sunrise to the first kiss of spring. The earth is Divine Humanity’s temple.

There is no doctrine only experience with Divine Humanity. The religions that are based on textural books are artificial—there is no beating heart to them, only guilt, doubt, and false hope. When a religion is based on a “sacred text – a book” and not on one’s heart and personal experience of life and mysteries of life, the only conclusion to be derived is that these religions are a stain and blight on humanity which permeates throughout the earth affecting all living things.

Divine Humanity is not based on a sacred text. This allows personal freedom in establishing one’s personal spiritual beliefs and practices drawn from the experience of life and nature. This is heart-based religion where we are in partnership with nature. A biosphere that is alive and conscious that extends throughout all of creation. This consciousness is divine consciousness (the sixth element), which permeates and connects all things together.

Within the totality of creation there are six elements: earth, water, fire, air, space, and consciousness. Things that arise by dependent co-origination from the six elements fall into two categories: physical things and things of the mind. Physical things arise from the first five elements while mental things arise from the sixth element, consciousness. All six elements are mutually pervading. The first five elements wholly permeate the sixth, consciousness, and consciousness in turn wholly permeates the other five elements. In other words physical thing and mental things interpenetrate without hindrance.

Consequently, all things have consciousness, not just humans, and will respond accordingly to our consciousness. This is the reason that human’s physical acts of pollution of the environment are not the totality of the problem. Nature and creatures are affected by the fear and anger of humans. Furthermore, humanity’s mindset of separation, where humans are superior to all other things of the earth, is caustic to nature and the environment. This is humanity’s mind pollution. Instead of fear and separation, what nature needs is a nurturing spirit of unity, loving kindness flowing from our hearts, and our sincere gratitude for nature’s beauty and its garden paradise. As we nurture nature, nature will nurture us.

Is there any proof to this theory of an all pervading consciousness? There is according to new research from the Aerospace Institute of the University of Stuttgart in Germany. It supports the theory that water has memory (thus consciousness). “This theory was first proposed by the late French immunologist Dr. Jacques Benveniste in a controversial article published in 1988 in Nature as a way of explaining how homeopathy works.”[i] Think how this supports our theory on consciousness. “More than 70 percent of our planet is covered in water. The human body is made of 60 percent water; the brain, 70 percent; the lungs, nearly 90 percent. Our energies might be traveling out of our brains and bodies and into those of other living beings of all kinds through imprints on this magical substance. The oceans and rivers and rains might be transporting all manner of information throughout the world.”[ii] Now, you may see the connection between human’s mind pollution and its effect on the earth.

We may view this knowledge from a spiritual perspective. In the ageless sanctification rite of bathing, a person enters a river to submerge themselves three or four times in an attempt to access the Otherworld. However, entering into a river does not unto itself provide access to the Otherworld. It is the spirit song sung at the beginning of the ritual by a person of power—a shaman (in Jesus’ time a Chasid—a Jewish shaman) and his/her intention and strong mind that “opens” the river and provides the access to the Otherworld.

 “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

This great teaching reflects our theory of divine consciousness. Love in its truest sense means unity or oneness. All other shades of love flow this foundational meaning. As an example, sexual love is the unity of two humans, which may or may not include emotional love or oneness between the two. In other words, love your neighbor as yourself means there is no separation yourself and others. And love of self means unity of body, mind, emotion, and spirit.

We must realize that our divine consciousness underlies but blends with our dualistic consciousness which makes the actual mindset and practice of this teaching difficult. The quest is to make this great teaching simple—part of our daily consciousness; keeping in mind that our thoughts flow from our consciousness.

“The great interpreter of Torah, Rabbi Hillel, was challenged to recite the entire Torah while standing on one foot. Hillel responded: “Do not do anything to your neighbor that is hateful to you. This is the entire Torah. Go and learn.” And the greatest expositor of Jewish law, Rabbi Akiba, taught that the central principle of Torah was, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”[iii]

According to Bernie Sanders, religion “essentially comes down to ‘do unto others as you would like them to do unto you.’ And what I have believed in my whole life (is) that we are in this together. … The truth is, at some level when you hurt, when your children hurt, I hurt. And when my kids hurt, you hurt.”

The Key to the Kingdom—The Oneness of Self and Other[iv]

Today’s cultural mantra is me, me, me! There is no consideration of others—human or the earth and its creatures. It’s all about me—a shallow and highly self-oriented and self-focused worldview. Recognizing this worldview and the unhealthy egos of people who are totally focused on the I, the corporation marketing geniuses who are focused on maximizing their greed through the bottom line have subtly reinforced people’s unhealthy egos through the names of their products—think iPhone, iPad, and iTunes.

To the majority of people, life is nothing more than an obsessive, materialistic philosophy of consuming. In our so-called democracy, it’s hard to believe, but people seem to be more focused and concerned about the style than about the substance of a political candidate’s debate, even a presidential one. Wealth and external status rule the day. “But what would happen if someone refused to define himself or herself by his or her economic status? What if someone came along and insisted that there’s nothing ultimately valuable in material progress? What if someone were to treat the getting and spending of money, neither with contempt, nor with respect, but with indifference?”[v]

That someone was Jesus. The key to the kingdom was not to be found in external wealth and power. It was not to be uncovered in the rules and regulations of finite institutions. It was unearthed by discovering the oneness of self and others and following natural law. Accordingly, the secret to a peaceful and fulfilled life, one resulting in happiness and love, is to be found within our relationships to our own selves and to others—others including the world at large (animals, etc.). Love and forgiveness begin with self and then expand out to others. This was, and still is, the mystery of transformed consciousness—the mystery of our kingdom within and the mystery of self and other. When Jesus taught “love thy neighbor as thyself,” he was referring to the metaphysical realization “that you and that other are one, that you are two aspects of the one life, and that your apparent separateness is but an effect of the way we experience forms under the conditions of space and time. Our true reality is in our identity and unity with all life.”[vi]

[i] Satyapriya, New Research Supports The Theory That Water Has Memory, July 25, 2013, http://collectivelyconscious.net/articles/new-research-supports-the-theory-that-water-has-memory/

[ii] Ibid

[iii] Michael Lerner, The Left Hand Of God, 84.

[iv] Rev. Dr. JC Husfelt, Do You Like Jesus—Not the Church?, 107 – 108.

[v] Duncan Holcomb, The Gospel According to Us, 92.

[vi] Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, 110.

Excerpted from Do You Like Jesus—Not the Church?

For eons humans have gazed at the night sky with feelings of awe and wonderment. For the earliest religious leaders and philosophers, the stars and the moon, as well as nature, were teachers and seen as a source of knowledge and wisdom. To these wise ones, the night sky was a starry script that could reveal the mysteries of life and death. With creative imagination, these wonderworkers assigned symbolic names for the various groupings of stars with the realization that “as below, so above; as above, so below.” This was the knowledge of the oneness of heaven and earth—the one a reflection of the other.

In the night’s angelic script, there were thirteen groupings of stars known today as constellations. Two of these were named Leo and Virgo—the lion in the night sky was followed by the maiden. These two constellations and their symbolic images are the gist of the eleventh tarot card—the Tamed Lion—Power. Modern tarot decks have a propensity to use the exoteric name for this card and call it Strength. Additionally, in some modern decks, it is tarot card eight, not eleven. But the esoteric number placement was eleven, and the card’s name was Power.

And what is the greatest power? Love. Love conquers all, even the king of the beasts. The eleventh tarot card symbolizes the transmutation of the energy of the beast within—through love. This is the card of the mastery of one’s self and one’s own actions. It portrays a maiden with her hands on the open jaws of the lion, symbolizing that she has tamed the beast. It is only through the maiden’s “loving acceptance of its bestial nature that the animal is not only tamed but is transformed as well…when human consciousness recognizes and accepts its untamed, primitive nature, it not only frees itself from the instinct’s autonomous power but liberates and transforms the instinctual side as well.”[i]

As the eleventh tarot card, the Lion and the Maiden are connected with the eleventh letter of the Greek alphabet—lambda, which symbolizes balance. In this case it means a balanced use of power. This is the ability to know when to let our lion roar, when to let it be silent, and when to “unleash” its power.

When we tame the beast within, we open the “book” of natural law as our behaviors become empathic and altruistic—prosocial behavior.[ii] We become responsible for our actions and our behaviors. The key is once again the relationship of self and other—being responsible and caring means that we will not consciously hurt anyone else through our actions.

However, we do not metaphorically become a saint. We still have the basic primal survival, safety, and sexual wants and needs. Through the process of taming our beast, we are able to let go of some of our destructive behaviors but not all. When we don’t let them go, we symbolically “press them down” or “bind them.” (For this “binding knowledge” please see Return of a Green Philosophy)

[i] Sallie Nichols, Jung and Tarot, 203.

[ii] A term used by psychologists referring to empathy leading to helping activity.