The Nature Of God & Wisdom

Well,

Well,

Well.

Welcome to the Conscious Life Design podcast.

This week we have a special treat as it is a 30-minute excerpt from the recent live satsang.

The title of the broadcast was Seeing Through the Eyes of God.

It was 90 minutes in total and this segment is pretty much the first 30 minutes or so and I'm going to title this The Nature of God and Wisdom.

It's a super gentle and meditative exploration and so it's an opportunity to just really be present with me,

Take your time,

No rush,

And soak up whatever is discovered.

In addition to that we'll be having more of these online sessions at least once per month.

I'd like to see maybe two or three per month but for now we're going to commit to one per month.

We have another one scheduled coming up here in a couple weeks but other than that I hope you enjoy this.

I had a tremendous time hanging out with some folks live online and then also going through and editing this little segment to make it a beautiful audio experience.

So enjoy!

So the concept of God is something that I find both fascinating and hilarious.

Fascinating because of what stirs inside of me when I contemplate something that might be referred to as God.

And hilarious because of the impossibility of defining God with words.

Additionally hilarious,

Any argument over what God is or is not.

Once again implying that it could be captured or defined by human language.

And I think in approaching an inquiry about the nature of God,

I find it monumentally important to establish an understanding that words,

Symbols,

Images are so far removed from the reality of what is.

And I don't say that lightly when I say so far removed.

In the same way that your name,

What you're called,

Is so far removed from the reality of what you are.

For someone to call you whatever your name is,

In a real way it says absolutely nothing about the totality of what you are,

Let alone a significant fragment of what you are.

The benefit of having a name is so that we might communicate with one another.

Which is also to say so that we might play with one another,

Be in relationship,

Be in relationship with one another,

Be in relationship with one another.

Which is also to say so that we might play with one another,

Be in relationship.

In this way,

Labels,

Words,

Symbols,

And images,

They have an appropriate place as it relates to communicating.

However,

It does absolutely nothing to see the truth of something.

At best,

Those words can point.

Your name points to you in the way that if you're in a crowd of people and someone yells out your name,

That's a way of pointing.

Yet it doesn't define.

And this is the hilarity around the concept of God.

Let alone,

If somebody asks me,

Do you believe in God?

How do I know what they see as God?

It's like asking me,

Do I believe in the God that you think is God?

First of all,

I can't see that.

And so it's adorably silly.

And so now we've established the impossibility of what's going to go on here this evening.

Talking about God.

Hence the playful nature of the inquiry.

I will use words and paint pictures and point to something that I find to be incredibly profound.

But let us explore the nature of God and man's attempt to point toward this something called God.

And throughout all of human history,

There's been this display of a deity or deities.

One God or many gods.

And what I notice among them all is that in some way,

It points to or illustrates that which is in control.

And so I'm going to use words and paint pictures and paint pictures and point to something that illustrates that which is in control.

The God of Thunder is in charge of the thunder.

The God of Thunder,

Its domain is thunder.

It does all things thunder.

There's been gods of the ocean,

Gods of the sun,

Gods for everything.

And let's just recognize this for a moment.

That all of these gods that have been spoken about,

It's man's way of pointing to that which is beyond itself.

Pointing to that which is beyond its humanness and that which is in charge,

So to speak.

And naturally throughout time,

In an attempt to illustrate that which is in supreme control,

Man does what he does best and tells stories.

You know,

And this is fascinating,

And I've pointed to this a lot recently.

And that is the play of myths.

Throughout history,

There's been countless myths told.

And the point of a myth is to illustrate a wisdom that is beyond the mind's ability to articulate directly.

And so a fanciful story is told in order to communicate a message that looks to expose something profound.

And throughout time,

In all of these different stories that have been told,

What I find fascinating is their commonality in the wisdom that they point to.

In not just these myths,

But also religiously speaking and spiritually speaking.

Isn't that fascinating?

That in all of the tales of wisdom,

In some way or another,

The message remains the same.

It has like this similar endpoint.

Let's look at that endpoint for a moment.

What would be the point of wisdom?

Of wisdom?

Well,

We can see that what we might call the prize of wisdom is some sort of expression of harmony.

It's to move in such a way where we are present,

Grounded,

And in a place of addressing what is true.

Do you notice this about the quality of harmony?

That when you feel at harmony within your being,

There's a presence that emerges.

In contrast,

There's the experience of conflict where things are not harmonious.

And in such a space,

It's like we're doing everything we can to get to the point where it's like we're doing everything we can to get away from the present moment.

There's a painful conflict,

And this conflict tends to fuel that which is opposite of harmony.

Chaos.

And we can see this reflected directly in our own lives that if we're not in a space of harmony,

That if we're in a space of chaos and conflict,

In a very sincere way,

We're moving in a violent way.

And I guess it could also be said that if we're not moving in a space of wisdom,

In accordance to what's true,

Then there will be these displays of violent tendencies.

We might call them agitations,

Anxiousness.

Some way of seeing the present moment as an obstacle that's in the way.

So throughout time,

The invitation and the pointer to draw near to God,

In many ways it could be said that it's an invitation towards harmony and presence.

Which in a fun way is like an invitation to see that God is in control.

To explore the nature of God from the perspective of a single deity.

From the perspective that there is one God.

Throughout time,

The story ultimately points to an understanding that God is supremely in control and totally aware of everything.

Another way of saying that God sees all.

And you can see the beautiful invitation in this that invites one to surrender themselves to God.

Because God can see what you cannot see.

It speaks to the stories of faith and trust.

And even hope in its more grounded interpretation.

And so before we dive more deeply in seeing what God sees,

In seeing what God sees,

We can look at the contrast and look at what man sees.

Most notably,

What we point out is that man's vision,

Man's way of seeing,

Is incredibly limited.

Just recognize that for a moment.

That as you either look at your own life,

Whether you look at the world,

Or you look at the world,

More so than looking at what you can see,

See how much you don't see.

And not just how much you don't see what you could see,

But also the unseen.

That which cannot be seen by the human mind or human eyes.

Look at how much you can't see.

In one way,

I get a visual as I explore this,

And my own seeing becomes very,

Very,

Very,

Very small.

And then that which is unseen becomes very,

Very,

Very,

Very big.

We can also acknowledge that this play of what is seen and not seen is also the play of what is known and what is not known.

And the challenge for the human being is an anxious state of always trying to know.

If you explore the chaotic mind,

That's what it's doing.

It's trying to know something that it doesn't know.

And then often it tricks itself into thinking it knows and then finds out it didn't actually know.

And you can see in this is the wonderful invitation to look in the direction of God.

Spiritually speaking,

That's been the pointer that says rather than you anxiously trying to know,

Why don't you connect with that which already knows?

And in that knowing,

You will find the comfort that you long for.

In this also is as a way of illustrating just a beautiful invitation to look through God's eyes.

And I guess such a statement could be dramatically misunderstood because I'm not insinuating that one could look through God's eyes and know everything that God supposedly knows as it relates to intellectual information.

More so,

It's an invitation to see the harmony that God sees.

Man's perspective,

Man's way of seeing,

Yours and mine as human beings.

We can recognize that it's extraordinarily narrow.

And in contrast to illustrate,

God's perspective is extraordinarily vast.

And there's a funny thing in this that in many ways,

The more narrow your perspective,

The more problematic the experience and the more vast your perspective,

The more your perspective sees,

Then the more harmonious your experience.

And to illustrate this,

We could simply look at the pointer that I would refer to as zooming out.

One of the things I like to look at is if you were to look at anything going on in the world that appears to be chaotic,

If you zoom out as if maybe you were in outer space and you look at the planet and you say,

My goodness,

That's beautiful.

Or you zoom out even more and look at the solar system or the galaxy or whatever.

And as you zoom out more and more,

You start to see how harmonious everything is.

And naturally,

The illustration that I will use always is that of the forest.

To zoom in on the forest,

It looks like absolute chaos.

It looks like a mess.

And you zoom out and you see the whole thing and you say,

My goodness,

That's beautiful.

And so do you see what happens here?

To zoom out and to see the whole forest in a way that's like seeing what God sees.

It's to see the whole thing.

And what happens when you see the whole thing?

You say,

My God,

That's beautiful.

And in the same way,

When you look at yourself,

Do you notice that when you feel chaotic and conflicted inside about you,

There's a pretty narrow perspective about yourself?

But then if you were to zoom out and see the whole thing,

You can see the whole thing.

And you can see the whole thing.

But then if you were to zoom out and see the whole thing beyond the mind's little judgments,

But to see the totality of what you are,

Say,

My God,

That's beautiful.

And so playfully speaking,

This is the adorable way in which God sees,

Man,

My goodness,

You're beautiful.

It also speaks to the play of a parent and a child,

That when a child might be conflicted inside of themselves,

The parent sees more of the child than the child sees of the child.

The child has a very narrow perspective on their current dilemma.

And so in many ways,

The parent sees the child as just adorable in their frustration,

Not particularly concerned about the child.

What I recognize in my own experience,

As it relates to those moments of being at peace,

Those moments of profound presence,

What's recognized more so than what's seen from behind the eyes,

But what's recognized is a wellness in all things.

Do you notice this about your own experiences of peace and well-being?

Do you notice this about your own experiences of peace and wellness?

It's like everything's perfectly placed.

Everything's right where it's supposed to be.

And do you notice that that particular state of wellness isn't because everything's looking a certain way,

But it's because of a way of seeing,

Almost like there's an inner knowing that regardless of what it looks like,

That doesn't matter.

There's a knowing of wellness.

In the same way that regardless of how unorganized the forest might appear to look,

There's a wellness that knows everything is perfectly placed.

It can't not be perfectly placed.

And this speaks and points to what I would refer to as the wellness in God,

Which is a knowing that everything is exactly where it's supposed to be.

And surely man will have his argument with that.

In this perspective of seeing more harmony and more of a sense of harmony,

Of seeing more harmony,

I'd like us to see how harmony resembles wholeness.

It's almost as if that which is harmonious is what appears to be many things moving in unison as if they were one thing.

They're moving in harmony with each other.

In this we could see it as a display of wholeness.

Everything goes together.

This wholeness is mirrored in the concept of understanding.

And do you see as well the concept of understanding also has this sort of spiritual connotation to it and in the spiritual sense of understanding what comes next?

Compassion.

Another spiritual pointer.

In the way that if you're sitting with someone who's going through a difficult time,

The more you have a sense of understanding for what they're going through and understanding of their pain,

You'll find some display of compassion.

Do you see how this understanding is to see more of the full picture?

Which is also like recognizing that what is showing is perfectly placed.

If someone's having a hard time,

The compassion understands that their pain is appropriate.

It's understandable.

You see,

All of these spiritual qualities,

Which we might also call spiritual words,

They're all pointing toward the same thing,

Which playfully we could say is seen through the eyes of God.

Which is also saying,

And hear me on this one,

Seeing what's actually true.

Notice this,

Seeing more of the bigger picture is seeing more of what's true.

And what happens when you see more of what's true?

You connect with these spiritual qualities.

And what are these spiritual qualities if they're not simply illustrating what we crave as human beings?

Love,

Peace,

Kindness,

Joy,

Harmony,

Contentment.

Notice this,

Everything that we so fully crave is a byproduct of seeing more wholeness,

Seeing more of what God sees,

Which is also a deeper understanding of what's actually true.

You know what's fascinating in this?

Is there anything else that you crave if it's not simply to see more of what's true?

Which,

In a playful way,

We can say is not true.

Which,

In a playful way,

We can say to be closer to God,

To see more of what God sees.

You see how we can tell stories to illustrate this.

But yet the power is not in the stories themselves.

It's in what it's pointing to.

And it's fascinating because this is what's been pointed to throughout all of time.

It's been an invitation to let go of the limitation within being human,

Which is the limitation of what you might call the human senses,

And connect to something within us,

Which you could also say something beyond us.

And in connecting with that,

Allow your perspective,

Your understanding,

To expand.

This is very,

Very simple in nature.

Whereas we could say the mechanics of genuine spirituality is very simple.

Draw nearer to the truth of life.

And in that,

You will connect with everything you crave.

With everything you crave.

With the only thing that you crave.

.