Cultivating an Intimate Relationship with the Divine

There is a "quickening" upon us. Great leaps of evolution are occurring as we sail into the Golden Age. The best thing each of us can do to ease our journey is to Lighten Up! It's time to heal old wounds, forgive old quarrels, and most of all learn to love ourselves just as we are. The Divine dwells within us. Our opportunity is for loving more.

As some of you know, I've had my share of challenges in recent months, plenty of opportunity to grow accustomed to high levels of stress. There are many of us who have had to face unexpected difficulties and life changing experiences, and many others who have witnessed it happening to friends and family members. Current events have placed a fair amount of stress on all of our nervous systems.

Paradoxically, our nervous system may be a valuable asset when it comes to the evolution of our species. Could it be that we are being "set-up" for a major shift in consciousness? Sitting in a presentation by Stuart Mooney this week (The American Buddha – (www.stuartmooney.com), he stated that in order to become "awakened", our nervous systems have to learn to handle “God’s energy flowing through it”. He describes "enlightenment" as like having a finger stuck in an electrical socket permanently.

Recent emotional challenges may actually be making us stronger.

I have learned to cultivate a positive attitude in the face of surmounting difficulty by maintaining an unshakable trust in a higher organizing principle of life. I look at it this way: if we're going down, no amount of worry is going to make a difference. But just in case there is a good reason for the changes that we are going through, conscious alignment with the highest and best outcome can further our collective success.

There is no better time than right now to strengthen (or develop) our relationship with that higher intelligence. Gone are the days of a vengeful, punishing God. The Divine dwells within us. The opportunity presented to us at this time is to learn to love more. How we define "the Divine" is an entirely personal choice. If you could have any kind of relationship at all, how would you like to relate to the Supreme Creator?

In truth, every one of us is a spark of Divine light expressing in human form. To acknowledge that we are limited in our ability to fully comprehend the true nature of God and Creation is the first step in developing a relationship with that power.

My choice is to relate to the Divine (God, Higher Power, Organizing Intelligence, Creator, Creation, All that Is, the Light of Love ...) as a trusted, caring, highly skilled, compassionate, omnipresent and omnipotent best friend. Think of the most loving person you know, someone who has been kind to you in immeasurable ways, who you can trust with your life, who loves you unconditionally. Why would you expect anything less than that from your God?

When we learn to see the Divine as someone or something that we can relate to, sit down and have a heart to heart with, speak honestly about our fears, tears, and desires, we find ourselves having a truthful, intimate and trusting relationship. The more truthful we can be when relating in this way, the more intimate we become in the knowledge of our own being, and the more likely it becomes that we will receive, and recognize the guidance that we are asking for. When that happens, trust grows stronger. And when that happens, well, then we truly are co-creating the reality we want to experience.

We sometimes need a refresher course on how to talk to God, especially if we don't have someone close to us with whom we share our deepest truths. It's important to know ourselves well, to be truthful at least to ourselves. This inner truth is the gateway to our own Divine essence. We are the stuff that God is made of. Each one of us emanates forth from the One Source of all Creation. As Alan Watts put it, "We don't come into this Universe, we come from it."

My dear friends, do yourself and our world a favor, please. Work on your inner smile, and let the light of God's grace shine on! After all, we are the world!