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Who? … Me?

The statement “You are God” seems an absurd and presumptuous blasphemy, so it needs to be clarified. According to Pantheism, it’s not just you who are God; all of us are God. And it’s not just all of us who are God; everything is God. God is the universe in synergy, the whole that is more than the sum of its parts.

This contradicts mainstream Western theology, which is based on a split between creator and creature. According to this view, God made the universe with us in it and is now observing our behavior—rewarding us or punishing us based on our obedience to His rules.

The religions of the east and the mystic tradition of the west have a different view. They feel that God became the universe, manifested it, is it. The universe is God’s active side, engaged in time, space and matter. All of it is God.

But, if it’s true that we are God, why are we in such an ungodly mess?

Because reality, as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi said, is different in different states of consciousness. Our unity with God is a living reality only in a higher state of consciousness. Ordinarily we experience three state of consciousness: deep sleep, dreaming or waking. Each has its own reality with distinctive physiological parameters of brain waves, blood chemistry and metabolic rate.

Waking state is the realm of duality. We are bound in the relativity of time, space and matter, so we perceive separations between ourselves and others. In waking state the idea that we are God is nonsensical. It contradicts our perceptions.

But, it’s possible to experience a fourth state of consciousness that has its own reality and physiology. It’s called transcendental consciousness because it’s beyond the other three, existing at a more fundamental level. Here, the duality and materiality of waking state are only surface conditions. The deeper underlying reality is unity, where the separations fade and everything is experienced as one unified field of consciousness.

Here, our individual thinking mind merges with the mind of God. We’re no longer just a part of God. We transcend the boundaries of our small self and expand into the one great Self, the divine spirit animating the universe. All separations between us and God disappear, and we become one.

In transcendental consciousness we really are God, and we really are experiencing a sacred life.

The most effective method I’ve found for achieving this state on a regular basis is Transcendental Meditation. But even with TM, it’s usually a fleeting experience. In transcendental consciousness the mind is without thoughts. It reaches the source of thought, where it becomes pure being—alert and aware but without an object of awareness, consciousness experiencing itself. This state is so blissful, so all-encompassing, so divine, that we think, how wonderful! And as soon as we have that thought, we’re no longer there.

But as we come out, we bring some of the energy, intelligence and joy of this unified field back into our waking state of consciousness, where it enriches our life. And ironically, one of the ways it enriches it is by giving us a deeper appreciation of our separateness from God. The sense of separation we experience in waking state is a great aid to devotion. It’s easier to love something external to us, even if this externality is only partially true.

Each experience of transcendental consciousness also heals our nervous system of stresses we’ve accumulated in the past. It is these stresses, or karma, that make our mind unable to stay in that state while we’re thinking. Once those stresses are gone, which usually takes many years, our mind functions in that state permanently.

This is enlightenment, the height of human development in which our unity with God is a living reality, not just a concept. In this state we live the sacred life 24/7.

William Hathaway is a peace activist, award-winning author and adjunct professor of American studies at the University of Oldenburg in Germany. His latest novel, Summer Snow, tells of an American warrior in Central Asia who falls in love with a Sufi Muslim and learns from her that higher consciousness is more effective than violence. Chapters are available on a page of the publisher’s website: www.peacewriter.org.

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Editor: Nikki Di Virgilio

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