Soul Shots With Shirley - Lets Talk About God

30:26

30:26

Soul Shots With Shirley - Lets Talk About God

by Shirley Harvey

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talks

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Meditation

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In this recording from my Insight Timer live of 16th November, we talk about all things God. God is such a loaded word, and concept, and in this live we get to untangle the intangible from the mess and come to an understanding of a different, more true concept of what God is, and how we are part of God too.

Meditation Creativity Ego Divine Presence Experiencing God Creative Expression Divinity Spiritual Journeys Spirits

Meet your Teacher

Montreal, QC, Canada

Meet your Teacher

Montreal, QC, Canada

Transcript

Today I want to talk about God. Because it's a super loaded word and it's a super loaded concept and it can be really quite hard to wrap our heads around and often really easy to slip back into kind of a not so helpful version of God. And one of the reasons why I use the word God is because, You know, I want to kind of claim it back from religion as well because the thing is with God is it's been so loaded. For me, Like I grew up in a church and it was a kind of happy, Happy, Joy, Joy, Hippie church. But I was left very much with this sense of beardy, Weirdy man in the sky sitting there judging me. And even though my church was this sort of modern, Like, You know, It didn't really talk about sin and, You know, Condemnation and things like that, But there was still this sense of judgment and of a man in the sky. And I kid you not, Like my dad, My friend's dad, Like many, Many of the men in the church had big beards and looked like God and kind of had this sort of demeaning, Judgmental kind of presence. And it really affected me. Even now with all of the work I've done to kind of uncover and kind of excavate and pull out God from this, I still find myself dropping back into kind of trying to serve God and be a good girl and be rewarded. And I can see it and it sneaks up, Right? I don't even notice it happening. And I don't think that I am by any means the only person that this happens to. So that's why I want to unpack God really. I want to really get into like, What is God and can we even comprehend it? Because we are told over and over, You know, In the Bible, It's like we are told we are made in the likeness of God. So again, We instantly assume, Oh, God must look like us. We're like, He's like a giant human. But what that actually means is we are made of the same substance, The infinite omnipresent, Omnipotent, Omniscient being, Like this life force that has been there since before the Big Bang and is what the Big Bang kind of like started, Right? It's this omni-action, This one action, Which is governed by all and it is to create, To expand, To grow. And we are as much a part of that as every living being, Every particle, Every bit of space like within our concept, Like within our universe, Right? Multiverse, Whatever. Like it's so big we cannot comprehend, But if you think that the Big Bang, You know, Specifically or whatever started it all, Like it's that driving force of energy that is inherent in absolutely everything. And it is good. You know, One of the things I've been really sort of playing with and embodying in the last few weeks is it's all good. Like, You know, And I will reference the Bible and I will reference religions because the problem is with religion is it's manmade. And when we have something manmade, Our ego has kind of got in there and it has removed God from the people. It has removed God from the picture. And so we cannot get a sense necessarily of God through any human interpretation because there is a manmade element to us delivering it. We're trying to bring it through our own perspective, Even like what I'm saying now, Like even like all of the great texts. However, The truth is written in all of them. The truth appears, You know, In the Tao in the Bible, In the Quran, In all of the religious texts, The truth is written within, Right? We can see areas where there are patterns and it repeats itself. And so one of these guiding principles is that, You know, God is everything. So how does one even contemplate like God out there and God within? And it's very easy to sort of get a bit confused with this. And, You know, I sometimes find myself flipping between the God out there and the God within. And then it's like the God within sometimes is like, Oh, So I'm God. I can do whatever I want. It's like, We're moving the human aspect of God. And so then what are we left with? We are left with life force. We are left with this omni-action of divine presence, This omni-action of divine expansion, Of divine love, Of divine reciprocity in all. Like it's eternal. It's infinite. It goes on and on and on and on and on. And there's no sort of pinpointing any of it except through our own consciousness, Which is a slight contradiction because I just said about, You know, When it's man-made, It's like we kind of pollute it. But through our own consciousness and not through our ego, We can drop in to those moments of stillness, Those moments of present awareness. And it's like connecting in with the infinite intelligence, The infinite, You know, Omniscience, The infinite power. When we put our presence and focus on the external, Like that has no power. The power is the spirit within. The power is that sort of life force seed that, Which is God. It is a driving force and that is God. And the reason why I use the word God is so that I can kind of reclaim it. I can kind of take it back from the beardy, Weirdy man in the sky judging me and I can reuse it and re sort of like, You know, It's not decolonizing, But it's like de-. . . What's the word? Like dethroning this power that we've been led to believe is like judgmental and is rewarding and punishing. But that's not true at all. Like the only sort of place that comes from is our own consciousness. And so we get to tap in to God because we are part of it. Like we are not separate beings. We are absolutely all one and the same. Like, You know, Last week I talked about the tablecloth and like the fabric being God that permeates everything and the little points being pulled up being our separate points of consciousness. And so each one is this unique individual expression of the whole and each one is working in reciprocity, Whether we think we are or not as a vehicle for the whole, As a vehicle for the one action, The one power, The one love, The one. . . And I just want you to meditate on this for a minute because I read this and it has been stuck with me ever since. I read it like a couple. . . Like a week ago I think and it was. . . God is closer than breath. And how many of us actually really know that? Because when I contemplate and meditate on God is closer than breath and then I sit with my breath and imagine what that feels like. There's nothing but like. . . It's hard to explain. You know, I guess sit with it yourselves and see what it feels like. But for me it's like this awe and complete peace and truth simultaneously. And if God is closer than breath then there's no separation. And nothing you say or do is not. . . Like it's not separate from God, It is God. It is God living through you. It is a force living through you. And what we need to do is provide those moments of stillness within ourselves where we kind of surrender to that life force. Where we surrender to the divine blueprint that we are. I'm a big fan of Derek Rydell's work Emergence. You know, He talks about the acorn has the full capacity of the. . . I've got to get the right tree here. Oak tree within it. It's not an apple tree, That's the whole point. It's the oak. . . The acorn will never be an apple tree, Right? It will always be an oak tree. But in that little seed is the print of the oak tree, Is the print of generations and generations of future oak trees. And because the tree sort of doesn't have the same level of control of consciousness that we have, Like it literally just does that. It loses itself. The acorn loses itself. You know, It allows itself to crack open. It allows itself to surrender to the force of nature and the force of creation inside it. Whereas we as beautiful, Lovely little humans are so busy trying to manipulate and twist and squeeze into it and squeeze ourselves into what we think is expected of us and trying to not only please, You know, People and society, But also please this kind of corrupt idea of a man in the sky, This god. You know, Only we can do this, This and this. And I see this in the manifestation world too, Right? It's like we're trying to, You know, Trying to do all the things and trying to be this good person and then hopefully my life on the outside will look better. But if we can just surrender to the power that is omnipotent, The one power, Which is this driving life force that is in everything, And we allow ourselves to crack open, We allow who we think we are, You know, The acorn, The seed, The coating to crack open and fall away, Then what we're left with is the magnificence of who we truly are, Which is a unique expression of the divine. Which is a unique expression of etern. . . Like, Of. . . I keep saying eternity, That's not what I mean. I mean, In infinity. That's the one, Infinity. And we allow that cracking open, And that's when it can come through. I'm just gonna read Anami's comment. So, I think perhaps religions were initiated because we started becoming aware that we were expressions of divinity and if we all came to recognize this, We'd be far more powerful. Whereas creating a sense of separation was used to keep us in smallness. Absolutely. I mean, There's. . . I think there's no denying the patriarchy and control of religions, And I think that there's no denying the power, Like, Not only mentally, Emotionally, Spiritually, But also like, Fiscally that religions have had and have, You know, And politically, You know, They have so much power and control and have had in the past and that, You know, Gratefully that's. . . I don't know, Is it falling apart now? Sometimes I feel it's like even more fanatical, But to me when things get fanatical, It means that it's like last-ditch attempts to cling on to what was. You know, If you're about to fall down the side of a cliff, You're going to do absolutely everything in your power not to, Right? So, When I see fanaticism in the world, Then I know that that's coming to an end, You know, That there is a last-ditch attempt to cling on to the old and, You know, Whether that takes another millennia, Who knows, Right? But it is no longer sustainable and so there is this like, Scrabbling for power, Scrabbling, And so there is that. And then the separation as well, It is kind of a sole choice, Right? Because as I've talked about in the past in other lives, We get to forget our connection so that we get the bliss of reconnecting, We get the bliss of remembrance, We get the bliss of like having to be so focused and committed to our vibrational frequency, You know, That we get to become master creators in our world. We get to be part of the creative force, We get to allow that through us. And so, You know, I don't necessarily think that the separation is a bad thing as long as you keep remembering that you're not separate, You know, It's like we learn to step out of it and then come back, You know, We learn to keep having that experience and as human beings we literally signed up for that when we incarnated here, We said I'm going to come. You know, Like, Imagine if you. . . You know, Like, If you are just spirit and your consciousness, But you have no ability to physically create. It's like being a sculptor and never being able to touch the clay. So we. . . As souls we want to come in and play in this 3D field, We want to come in and play with the material substance using the tools, Which is our consciousness to create and not manipulate, But yeah, Like to manipulate our lives, Like to become this creative power, This co-creator with God, Like because that all creative omni-action that is in everything, Which is God, Is in us and it is our joy to be part of that and we get so mired in the, You know, When our creations aren't what we want them to be, We focus on the outside and we focus on that and we're very. . . We can become very stuck on that and very upset by what is happening, That we've then taken our focus from the inside out, Like we've gone and put another God before God, Right? We've turned money, We've turned love, We've turned, You know, War or whatever's happening onto the news into the power. There is no power but God, But when we place our attention on what's happening in our external world, When we. . . When we look at our bank account and we put all of that focus on what that figure is or we look at our business and we look at those numbers or we look at, You know, Our relationships or lack of, That's. . . And we think that that's the problem. That's when we're putting power in an external source or in an external God, Like an idol that isn't God. It's. . . The God is within and it's the omni-action of everything wanting to work towards creation. I'm no expert either, Right? This is a daily like meditation for me is like, Well, What is God? And where am I still remembering, You know, The A-hole in the sky, Judging me with a beard? Like, You know, There were so many times when even with all of the spiritual work I've done that I come back to that. So I'll tell you a story actually about church and my growing up experience as well. So I was in my teens and of course I'd grown up in this church and it was a community church and so I had many. . . Like, There was many young families in the church and so a lot of my friends from when I was born had kind of. . . We'd all grown up in this church together. As I said, It was kind of a happy, Happy, Clappy church, Like a hippie. . . I mean, It was literally psychedelic orange and purple inside. It was like built in the sixties. And so the church was very much part of the community, Part of my social circle. So a lot of my friends were in this church too. So it was like an incentive to go each week, Right? Because you'd see your friends and like we'd just sit on the back eating jawbreakers. And a few of us played instruments so we'd get to play like instruments along with the hymns. So it was kind of like this. . . It wasn't this bad experience while I was like probably up until about 14. And then something happened and what happened was my older sister who's five years older than me and I go to my first nightclub. And I grew up in the early. . . So early 90s, Like 90-93 and it was like the big dance scene, The big rave scene in Britain at the time and ambient trance was just this thing. And I went to this nightclub and on that dance floor was the first time in my life that I experienced God. While I was on that dance floor and I was dancing to the music and I was in the trance of trance music, I found God. And I had this like magical experience of knowing and understanding what God is outside of judgmental man in the sky with a beard, Outside of the church. And like anyone who wants to keep finding God, One kept going back to the nightclubs. And like, I said my journey sort of progressed where the nightclubs became like my church and the church became less and less important. And one time we were away on a weekend and the group like that I'm with are all deeply in prayer. Well, All of us but me. And I'm doodling with a pen and paper. We're in a group prayer session and I'm doodling like little Fibonacci spirals, Which I've since, You know, Like I didn't know at the time. I was like 15, 16. I'm doodling these spirals that spiral out into infinity, Right? And in the middle of the prayer, The minister who I'd known all my life, Who'd married my sisters, Married my gran, Like christened, Like baptized all of us, Like, You know, Super entrenched in family history, Stood up and when I like slammed his wrists on the table in the middle of the prayer and said, I cannot continue while one of us is not here spiritually with us. Aka judgmental man in the sky. And it was very obvious it was me, Right? It was, There was like, I don't know, Seven of us in the room. So it was so obviously me and he stormed out and I remember standing up and thinking, Okay, Well, I better go talk to him. And I went out and even at such a profound young age, I just knew that his reaction wasn't to do with my lack of belief, But I was reflecting back to him, His own lack of beliefs, His own doubts in this God that he was believing in. And I remember thinking like, You know, And I even said to him, Like, I don't feel anything, Any connection to this God that you preach about. I sit in church, I sit in these things and I have no connection or understanding of this God, But I know when I'm on the dance floor, I am in a zone and I feel God everywhere. There's nowhere that God isn't. And so that was when I decided like, You know, Enough with the church and I went down a different path. But this was my very first experience of understanding and having an introduction to a different God. And then as years progressed and I remember when I moved to Montreal, Like, You know, In my thirties, And so I literally moved about nine years ago to the week and I started to draw again. I did a degree in fine art and then stopped doing any art for like 12 years. And then I went back to it when I was here. And I remember in that moment when I was drawing, I felt connected to God. And I remember thinking, Oh my God, Like the minister, His name was Ernest, He missed the point. Like when he was in prayer and I was doodling, Like I was as connected to God as anyone in that room, But we were just in very different ways connected. There was this reverence of seriousness and religion where they were trying to sort of connect to this God and still very much this man in the sky, Whereas I was just absolutely connected to the moment of my pen hitting the paper and drawing what was channeling through me, The divine blueprint of my life. That's God. When the actions come from this place so deep within that you don't even think about it, Like because it's this built desire to create, To nurture, To be this being, That's God. When you're in the zone, Whether it's through meditation or dance, You know, And you reach that place where everything dissolves and all you see is love, Like all you see is bliss and beauty, Like that's God. And it never goes away, Right? What goes away is our remembrance of it. And what goes away is when we, You know, It's so very difficult to kind of. . . It's like hacking through tangled weeds and overgrowth of like cultural and religious impressions and beliefs of what God is that have been sort of passed on to us for generations and generations and are really ingrained in these dogmas, These religions. And it's such a shame because we all, Like so many of us miss the truth. You know, Like can you look back in your life and find those moments where you felt that peace, Where you felt that connection? Hi Jessica. That sounds rather beautiful. I find I'm in deep freedom whilst dancing, Yeah, And some time ago made a connection of abundance, Yeah. I painted for a client and she always used to do the abundance. Whenever anybody came in, I was like, I'm going to do the abundance. Whenever anybody came in, Her and her husband would stop and do the abundance. Anything that sets us free or brings us into the moment can be re-moments of true connection to infinity in the midst of the human experience. Anything that sets us free or brings us into the moment can be re-moments of true connection and infinity in the midst of human experience. Absolutely. Absolutely. And when we are creative, It's those moments where we allow spirit to move through us, Find the same in my music. It's magical, Especially when shared with others. Exactly, Right? This is how. . . Because what we're doing is in that moment when you're creating or when you're playing or when you're. . . You know, And again, It doesn't have to be the arts, Right? It can be anything. When you find that connection to, Like, That blueprint that you're here to bring, It is a bliss, It is an act of. . . It is an act of divinity, It is an act of God. You know, I've seen. . . I've seen crossing ladies who literally, One in particular, You know, And she literally brought God to the crossing. Like, The joy, The delight, The smile she always had for every single child, For every bus driver, For every police car, For every regular that went and got a coffee. Like, She was there and she was a regular, You know, And God channeled through her. And it's the same. . . And it's very obvious when it's music or when it's art or when it's writing, You know, That you can. . . Because there is an expression there of the beauty, But you see it in every walk of life. And when we find that within us, When we tap into that, It really is this most powerful, Beautiful, Wonderful experience because it is the divine blueprint and it is the omni-action. And where you, You know, Especially if you stop that, You know, It's. . . When we. . . When we put all these expectations on us and try and push ourselves into this, That and the other and try and push ourselves into feeling it, You know, Again, It's. . . It's really hard to maintain that, But when you find those moments of bliss, And that's why, You know, Sometimes meditation is an amazing tool and then sometimes it can feel like you're trying too hard. You're trying to please this external power. You're trying to get back to something that you've lost and that's when it's not such a good thing anymore. It's when it really disconnects you and remembering those moments. Ruth, I had a strict religious upbringing, But have gradually had the courage to let go. . . Let that go and find my own meaning. Yeah, Exactly, Ruth. And one of the reasons why I wanted to do this as well is because it's very easy to slip back into those old patterns, Right? And so it's just bringing awareness as well, Like, You know, How. . . Are you showing up still trying to please an external God? Because I know multiple times in the week I will do that and I have to really kind of be on it and aware and be like, That's. . . That's actually not God. That's actually a very false idea of what God is. And so I'll bring. . . Let's, You know, Let's just. . . We can close our eyes and just come back to the meditation of God is closer than breath. Closer than hands and feet, Closer than breath. If God is closer than breath, Where is God? Because if God is closer than breath, You can't even breathe God in because it's closer than that. And that's a little beautiful little meditation that I think I should just leave you with for the week. You know, Just contemplate on that. Journal on it, Think about it, Bring it into your meditations, Into your daily actions, Just a little reminder God is closer than breath. You know, Like, It's a really lovely one to remember. So, Thank you for joining me. If you want to come to my profile and follow me, It all helps. If you want to leave a donation, Then that's awesome too. Every penny helps. There's also meditations on my profile and I have a really beautiful five-minute meditation called Be Still and Know That You Are God. And for just those moments when, You know, You just want a little pick-me-up. Thank you ever so much. I will see you again next week and I wish you a beautiful, Beautiful week and enjoy contemplating God is closer than breath. What does that feel like? Can you tap into that? Can you get any sense of that? It's a beautiful meditation to leave you with for the week. I love you all so much. Have a great week. Bye.