All that is (including us) is an indivisible oneness

I now know what it is that causes me grief in the church. Somehow in conversations with many ministers of the church, I get the feeling that they see God as something separate to and from us. Like living outside of all that is. “Big Daddy in the sky” as my friend and mentor Webster used to say.

So much of present Christianity is intellectual. It is the product of this rational way of western living that has brought us so many material benefits. However it has difficulties with the irrational. “If we can’t measure it or taste touch or feel it; it doesn’t exist’. Consequently God has to be like that, too.

“A mighty fortress is our God” as the hymn says

In the depths of my deepest meditations, I become aware of a kind of cloud of loving compassion enveloping me. I am at once part of it yet it exists and I am part of it only. It is living and I am in it, yet not all of it.

I know some Buddhists talk of we human beings as like being whirlpools in a river and this idea appeals to me as that cloud of loving compassion is at once me and beyond me yet is not separate to me.

The “me”

How much has biology got to do with it all? As I meditate in my body, all the products of evolution are involved. My evolved large brain is pulsating away, shooting neutrons thither and yon; my body is at rest, almost not detectable (except for my bum and limbs) but there just the same.

So it is a within body experience; yet somehow outside, too. I am seriously beginning to wonder if somehow that cloud I experience is at the heart and is the heart of all that is.

Somehow, could that cloud of all that is include “The Big Bang” that created time and the laws of physics.

Some ancient religions talk about a monster vomiting all we know as this existence, but to me that is just ‘Big Daddy’ stuff. I tend to think of it more as like this; a cloud turning in and on of itself, like those beautiful translucent multi-coloured Jellyfish as they expand, deflate and flow with the currents. Somehow the ethical eminences of this cloud sing the laws of physics into being.

The now is healing and transformative

Jesus talked a lot about the now. Really it is all there is. The past is a memory and the future is yet to be. I have learned in the now there is no anxiety, only rapture. The now is healing and transformative.

In my meditations I have been aware of the space between my thoughts. At first it seems like there is nothing there, but there is.

It all began by my finding that instant between breathing in and breathing out and extending that so on that cusp I would try and listen intently to all the sounds around me. I pretty soon realised I was in the now and it was a pretty nice place! The silent now – immediate and eternal. Jesus talked about eternal life being in the now.

In the silence of the now there is joy. It’s the only way I can describe it. There is no silence, only joy.

I am realising also that gap between our thoughts is not empty. It is actually part of the silent, compassionate, all loving all knowing cloud of all that is.

It is the now

There is a song “When you say nothing at all” which is all about what can be communicated in silence. I now believe all that is is communicated in the spaces and silences of the now’s of our lives. We need to learn to “listen”.

Webster used to say “we live within the spaces of our bodies”. I now think all that is can be found within the spaces and silences of all creation.

I have been influenced to write this as I read “Sky Country” by two Aboriginal women astro-physicists who have written a book linking Aboriginal culture and astro-physics.

They showed me the interconnectedness of all. They could tell the upcoming seasons and animal behaviour from changes in the night sky. The stories, the night sky and nature were all in one. What I noticed was the patches of light and darkness “up there” were all one.

The great silence and the pinpoints of light, the blackness, the plants animals and human culture were all intertwined and all mattered.

The spaces and the silences speak if we want to hear.