The Map is NOT the Territory

 

Getting Oriented

Exploration of the Territory aided by a Map		Experience of God aided by the Bible and Tradition
Map	Territory	Bible/Tradition	Experience of God
Using a compass pointing to magnetic north, orient the map to True North	Verify landmarks are properly placed in case compass is miss-directed	Using What Would Jesus Do/Say, orient the reading toward God’s Love.	Verify the Presence with God’s Peace and Joy in case Ego miss-directs.

 

Symbols

Exploration of the Territory aided by a Map		Experience of God aided by the Bible and Tradition
Map	Territory	Bible/Tradition	Experience of God
Lean-to, spring (fresh water), privy, Red/Blue states	Only being there confirms the reality for each symbol	Salvation, Love, Sin	Fewer words and labels, more awe and One-ness

 

Topographical lines

Exploration of the Territory aided by a Map		Experience of God aided by the Bible and Tradition
Map	Territory	Bible/Tradition	Experience of God
Detail of cliffs, gorges, contours of land	May be real terrain challenges unseen at the detail level of the map.	Well-worn lines of traditional interpretation can obscure details of the actual walking & waking experience.	Real life challenges might need miraculous solutions unavailable at the level of our symbol interpretation.

• No purpose to debate the reality of the symbols.  We will better know their reality when we experience them.

• This is offering a different experience of God – not right/wrong – a view from a different perspective.  If you like it and it serves you, use it – otherwise, discard it.  It’s more than OK to say, “I sure don’t see that from where I’m standing.”
• Ask “What was my experience of God in that situation?”  Most likely, I’m experiencing judgmental Ego-talk drowning out the “still small voice.”

 

When we see the moon reflected in a still, clear pool, is it real or a reflection?

What can change the quality of the image?   

Clouds passing before the moon.  Breeze/rain disturbing the pool surface.  Our viewing position, our eyesight and dirty window glass?

Do we confuse the reflection with the reality? 

We have framed the reflection with our chosen beliefs. 

• If we are looking at the pool from a window and the window frame is very thick, we have only a small opening to see through.
• If we make the belief system frame thicker, we go to a distorted image (bad) eventually to darkness (evil).
• If we diminish the belief system frame and enlarge the window, more light can come into our lives.  It is still reflected light.
• If we get really preoccupied with the frame (body, outward appearances) and make it really elaborate and ornate, no one notices the Face of Christ the frame was meant to display.
• Christ is the One True reflection of God in Creation and in each of us.

 

Another image of the illusion in our lives is a projected movie that we get “in to” as if it is really happening now or the dreams we have at night.

 

In what sense can I believe that Evil is not ultimately real?

• We understand that our bodies are composed of atoms constantly being replaced by atoms from around the world.
• The outward “form” of our bodies seems to change slowly in time – slow enough for us to usually be re-recognized.
• The substance of that form is cosmic dust originally from the stars which will eventually return to the stars and space.  Ashes to ashes.  Dust to dust.
• Most Christians believe in something about us that is permanent.  Soul?  Spirit?  This permanence is created by God in His Image.
• Evil is as “real” as this physical body and its suffering  — and as impermanent.
• Personally, my experience of God has never included the dark side of judgment, vengeance, or any hint that God “created/allowed” evil as a co-power.
• My reason cannot accept ONE God Who “really” fell and was humpty-dumptied into separate pieces struggling to re-join.  Our perception and understanding is mistakenly fragmented – not the reality of God.
• My reading of world scriptures, including the Bible, provides ample passages attributing God and His Creation with characteristics from good to evil – clearly the best descriptions the writers could manage given their available vocabulary and culture.  Spirit is tough to communicate in worldly terms.  It is easy and natural to create god in our own image.
• Traditions around the world have always described a necessary protagonist with which the powers of Good and Light must struggle.

The Oneness of God

Dictionary Definition

Oneness: n. 1. being one, singleness.  2.  unity, union, agreement, concord

Some thoughts on our use and understanding of the word Oneness:

• Because we can label parts doesn’t interfere with the truth of oneness.
• Because we prefer specialness (good children of God or bad sinners) doesn’t impact the reality of God’s Oneness.
• Is there concern with the idea of Oneness implying Sameness or Equality?
• Is there concern that if we acknowledge our God’s oneness with creation and humanity, that we somehow demean God or artificially elevate humankind?
• Is there concern with the use of “oneness” with God while it is OK to say that Creation is composed of or one with the Holy Spirit?

Perspective

Looking from the outside, we would say, “Yep, there’s only ONE of them.”  Only one God.

Looking from the inside, we would talk in terms of unity union, agreement or concord.  It doesn’t have to be just singleness.

In the Sacrament of Marriage, two become one.  What converts two to one?  Love. 

 

Jot down responses to questions A thru D. 

A.  With Whom or with What is God unable or unwilling to:

• offer amazing grace?
• extend forgiveness?
• share love?  (His Enemy Satan?)
• be present with?
• be connected?
• “know” intimately?

 

 

B.  By what is God limited?

• time?

[ God must wait for…

[ God “hopes” for…

[ God regrets and judges the past, makes corrections and does better with…

• chaos in Creation – disasters, sickness, etc.?
• Evil – Satan’s actions?
• Human Disobedience?

I AM THAT I AM…

except for…?

C.  What in REALITY is outside God’s sphere of influence/connectedness/love?

(Real, not imagined or illusory (e.g. I can “imagine” that God is limited because He can’t

make a rock so big that He can’t lift it.)

 

 

 

 

D.  What remains permanently unrelated or disconnected?

Some other ways to understand Oneness:

• Overlapping circles which share a common area can be said to be One.
• Geometrical shapes which “contain” different shapes within the larger shapes integral structure.
• Parts in a whole

[ is my heart “one” with my body?

[ are my cells “one” with my body?

[ are the planets “one” with our solar system and galaxy and universe?

• We can be said to be “unified” or “one” because of a high percentage of the same shared components, traits, etc.

[ One in the Spirit

[ One in composition of atoms, DNA, etc.

• Oneness over Time:

[ Is an acorn “one” with the oak tree it becomes?

[ Is the baby “one” with the man into which he grows?

[ Is the sinner “one” with himself who moves through Wesley’s stages of Grace to Perfection and who then reflects the Image of God?

I find nothing in the Bible that speaks directly to this except through the action of Love and the statements about God/Christ (Alpha and Omega, I AM THAT I AM) that fail to end with qualifiers, exceptions or limitations.  Also Christ’s parable about “doing unto the least of these, you do unto me.”

The scripture about “in whom we move and breathe and have our being” and the image of the birds of the air immersed and supported in their environment like we should feel supported in God.

You asked me a question about “Why, over all our years of discussions, do I have such a problem with the existence of evil?”  My response is “because from my EXPERIENCE OF GOD in prayer and otherwise, I continue to see no evidence that it is real in the way that God is real.”

In terms of my beliefs, I rely first on my Experience of God, second on my experience of the Mind of God as witnessed through my Reason, third through my experience of God as I read Scripture, and practically never on Tradition.

Two questions for you. 

Why is compatibility between Christ’s teachings and the teachings of Eastern thought of concern to you?  The Judeo/Christian thought system can be shown to have sprung from those seeds.  There are many Biblical metaphors, stories, parables, images, etc. recorded long before the Bible in Eastern scriptures.

Have you noticed in your struggle over the pastorate last year, that it was when you opened to God’s Word “to your heart-experience” rather than just what you could find printed in the Bible, that you began to know God’s Will for you?

The Bible isn’t a manual for heart surgery.  Many things are not confined and limited to “Biblical.”  Oneness is one of those.  Our experience of God has only the limits that we impose.

 

 

 

^{Ge 2:24} For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united ^b  to his wife, and they will become one flesh. ^c  

 

^{Mt 10:29} Are not two sparrows sold for a penny ³⁹ ? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.

 

^{Mt 10:40} “He who receives you receives me, ^m  and he who receives me receives the one who sent me.

 

^{Mt 19:4} “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ ^{79 w}   

^{Mt 19:5} and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ ⁸⁰ ? ^x   

^{Mt 19:6} So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

^{Mk 10:18} “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.

^{Mk 12:28} One of the teachers of the law ^l  came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

^{Mk 12:29} “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵² 

^{Mk 12:30} Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ ^{53 m}   

^{Mk 12:31} The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ^{54 n}  There is no commandment greater than these.”

^{Mk 12:32} “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. ^o  

^{Jn 3:13} No one has ever gone into heaven ^r  except the one who came from heaven ^s  —the Son of Man.

^{Jn 5:22} Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, ^o   

^{Jn 5:23} that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.

^{Jn 8:15} You judge by human standards; ^j  I pass judgment on no one. ^k   

^{Jn 8:16} But if I do judge, my decisions are right, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me.

^{Jn 10:14} “I am the good shepherd; ^a  I know my sheep ^b  and my sheep know me— 

^{Jn 10:15} just as the Father knows me and I know the Father ^c  —and I lay down my life for the sheep. ^d   

^{Jn 10:16} I have other sheep ^e  that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock ^f  and one shepherd.

^{Jn 10:27} My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, ^v  and they follow me. ^w   

^{Jn 10:28} I give them eternal life, ^x  and they shall never perish; ^y  no one can snatch them out of my hand. ^z   

^{Jn 10:29} My Father, who has given them to me, ^a  is greater than all ⁵⁴ ; ^b  no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 

^{Jn 10:30} I and the Father are one.”

^{Jn 10:38} But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.”

^{Jn 17:11} I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, ^f  and I am coming to you. ^g  Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one ^h  as we are one.

^{Jn 17:20} “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 

^{Jn 17:21} that all of them may be one, ^w  Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. ^x  May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ^y   

^{Jn 17:22} I have given them the glory that you gave me, ^z  that they may be one as we are one: ^a   

^{Jn 17:23} I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me ^b  and have loved them ^c  even as you have loved me.

^{Jn 17:24} “Father, I want those you have given me ^d  to be with me where I am, ^e  and to see my glory, ^f  the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

^{Jn 17:25} “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, ^h  I know you, and they know that you have sent me. ⁱ   

^{Jn 17:26} I have made you known to them, ^j  and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them ^k  and that I myself may be in them.”

^{Rev 1:8} “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” ^x  says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, ^y  the Almighty.”

^{Rev 22:13} I am the Alpha and the Omega, ^z  the First and the Last, ^a  the Beginning and the End.

This explains the notion that we continually share atoms with every living thing on earth and also contain atoms from every person who ever lived on earth.  It also reinforces the idea that our bodies as something permanent is illusion.

Excerpted from a conference in Massachusetts, 1992, The Higher Self, Deepak Chopra, MD

“In every second of your existence, you are renewing your body more easily, more effortlessly and more spontaneously than you can even change your clothes.  In fact, the physical bodies that you’re using to sit on these chairs are not the ones you walked in with a little while ago.  One can take a number of life processes to see how literally true that is.

Even with one breath that you inhale, you take in 10 to the power of 22 atoms from the physical universe, it’s an astronomical amount of raw material that comes into your body, and ultimately ends up as your heart cells and brain cells and kidney cells and neurons and DNA and so forth.  Each breath that you exhale — you breath out 10 to the power of 22 atoms — you’re literally breathing out bits and pieces of your heart, kidney and brain tissue, and technically speaking we’re all intimately sharing our organs with each other all the time.  The great American poet Walt Whitman said, “Every atom belonging to you, as well belongs to me.”  And this is not a metaphor of poetry, it’s fact of physiology.

The fact is that every atom belonging to you really does belong to me.  You can do mathematical calculations based on radioactive isotope studies and show without a shadow of doubt that right now in this moment in your physical body you have a million atoms that were once in the body of Christ, or Buddha, or Leonardo De Vinci, or Michael Angelo, or Ghenges Khan, or Mahat Magandi, or Saddam Hussien, or Edie Ameen, or anyone else you care to think about.  In just the last three weeks a quadrillion atoms have gone through your body that have gone through the body of every other living species on our planet.  You could think of a tree in Africa, a squirrel in Siberia, a peasant in China, and you have raw material in this moment in your physical body that was circulating in that body just about three weeks ago.

In less than one year you replace almost your entire body — 98% of all atoms in your body have gone.  You make a new liver every six weeks, a new stomach lining every five days, a new skin once a month, a new skeleton — it seems so hard and solid — but it is renewed every three months.  Even the brain cells that you think with have carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen — they weren’t there one year ago.  And the DNA which holds memories of millions of years of evolutionary time — the actual raw material comes and goes every six weeks like migratory birds.  And if you want to be a bit of a stickler about this, and account for the last atom in every little bit of collagen and cartilage, then in less than two years you replace your entire body down to the last atom.

So if you think you are your physical body, you certainly have a bit of a problem — about which body are you talking?…the body I had last year is dead and gone — it came from the dust, it’s back into the dust, it’s recycled earth, water and air.  My body from 1991 (since I spoke here the last time) is dead!  And since I haven’t died, I think it’s quite obvious that we don’t need to look further for scientific proof that life exists after death.”