Humanity’s Natural State? Children of God (Known by Many Names)
by Rev. Cory Coberforward
Readings
John 1:9-14
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Matthew 18:2-5 (responsive reading for live service)
And calling to him a child,
he put him in the midst of them and said,
“Truly, I say to you,
unless you turn and become like children,
you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Whoever humbles himself like this child
is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me...”
Read the written message below with music videos
It says in the scriptures that God gives light to everyone and is the true light. This clearly metaphorical phrase, although perhaps also literal, seems to point to a number of things that we call light: truth, wisdom, understanding, spiritual insight, perception – which all come back to the most fundamental light of all, the light of consciousness itself, without which none of these could be perceived. Despite being so prominent in the Christian scriptures, delving into this line of thinking and further inquiry seems to often take a backburner to more surface understandings of Christ, which can keep God at a distance from us while also limiting our understanding of the shining unity at the core of most religions. Even more pluralistic approaches can miss this important point, that God is the pure light of consciousness itself – at no distance from our seat of perception – and that coming to better know this Alpha and Omega of our lives can awaken us to all to our birthrights as children of God, not stepchildren.
It may seem too simple: truly turn within and you’ll know God. But indeed, this is the teaching of many sages, ancient and modern. Jesus himself is reported to have said, “Turn around! Turn around! For the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” Unfortunately, the phrase “turn around” is often translated as “repent,” which can delude the clear invitation to turn away from our earthly centeredness (also called our monkey mind!) and back toward the seat of awareness itself – what could be nearer than that? To find this seat, we must turn our attention toward the place of watching itself. This point within is beyond normal terms of perception – it just is. And it’s also one with us and is the same in every moment, and yet it seems relatively unknown to us and so we miss out on its deep intrinsic love and truth.
The lesson of scripture is often that although this seat of awareness is largely unknown to our minds, it is also the thing that is closest to us as we can’t perceive a thing without it. You could say that it is closer than our sense of self, as that is perceived within its very light. One of Jesus’ core teachings was to let go of your attachment to our mind’s divisive nature, lustful and arrogant, dominating and distracted, and turn our attention more and more toward the seat of life within, the wellspring of love, truth, and everlasting life. This is indeed what Jesus found in himself, coming to say that he is one with the Father and that we should find unity with them as well.
But here’s the trick, part of our minds doesn’t think this is possible and another part is too distracted to care. Sometimes our understanding and our spiritualities centre on distance and difference between us, each other, and the Godhead, using the evidence of human nature and misunderstandings of the sages as proof that we can’t find unity with God – at least, not in this life. If we seek evidence of God, it is outside of ourselves and definitely not at our core. Our ideas of ourselves and of others also seem to affirm our limited nature (one could say fallen), and we spend our lives concocting an image of who we are through biased stories and limited thinking, although somewhat based on events as we perceived them. But the teachings of Jesus and other awakened masters, from Hindu to Buddhist to Muslim, all say that we should allow ourselves a complete awareness of our unending connection to God, diminishing or humbling our separate history or identity (“id” or ego plus “entity”), and that in this we find our natural infinity and oneness with the Father, the Mother, the root of all being. Jesus says this is to become a child of God.
What stands in our way to realizing this fully is the very thing that says it’s impossible: our attention to our deluded thinking. The blessing here is that once you’re tired of your mind’s incessant negativity and distractedness and come to believe that there’s a higher place within, then all of its wanderings serve to remind you to turn back toward the light of God at the seat of perception itself, while also reminding you to reject the idea that you must follow these thoughts (“shun evils,” as the Bible often says). We are not our deluded minds, we’ve just empowered them by not turning around to our true selves. This is what it means to turn around or repent, as well as what it means to release our “sins,” more literally translated as “missing the mark” of turning back to God-consciousness.
Only things that catch on to our sense of ourselves can attract our attention, we don’t give everything around us the same type of attention. We attach importance to our minds’ wanderings as well, partially because we believe that every thought that connects with our sense of self is “mine,” the others just pass on by. The questions then to ask ourselves is, “Who wants this, and who thinks that, what or who am I truly?” while actively reflecting within and not so much outward to the rambling, conceptual part of our minds. Then we often find that we’ve been pulled back into id-entity, following the concerns of our false egos instead of the advice of the Lord because “this is so important!” Asking, “important to who?” pulls us out of following our thoughts and into a self-inquiry that will ultimately find… Well, you tell me.
Our inner turning and inquiry should be continuous, at least until we settle back into our natural God-centeredness. We come to find that even our ideas of ourselves are just transforming shadows of feelings and hazy drawings or fleeting thoughts. As we come to see this more and more, we find that our most stable and truthful self is at the seat of perception itself, beyond words and depictions as it is the light shining on these things.
If this idea is so clear in the scriptures, why the lingering doubt then? We can’t expect our mis-empowered ego-minds to necessarily come to clemency with an idea that undermines its power to proliferate in our heads, at least not immediately. But the more we simply turn to the light of God within, call it what you will, our qualms with the many limited words describing this natural state fade away in the light beyond words.
See for yourself. Jesus called on us to realize our potential as children of God, also saying that God is already closer than we can imagine (quite literally, as imagination is seen by the light of consciousness!). He gently asked us to let go of our hard-heartedness and heavy minds to the lightness of being saying, “My burden is light.” He himself embodied transcendence of earthly delusions and even death, saying that he had conquered the world. What did he mean by that, perhaps that he had taken over as emperor? Clearly not in the way that we think of that, he was pointing toward his conquering of his earthly mind, his transcendence of the anxieties and attachments of this world into his Divine, natural state, even as he continued to work toward social justice and a greater awareness of universal love for each of his beloved.
Peace is you,
Rev. Cory