Principle

Our class discussion today brought up a topic that I have been considering a lot lately: the idea of God as Principle.  In order to know change, there must be something that is not changing.  The challenge is to discern what that something truly is.  In my own journey of spiritual growth, I created certain unchanging truths for my life in order to stabilize and ground my inner journey.  These were powerful guidelines that kept everything in place.  Truths such as: "God is Love." "All is One."  "Thoughts are Creative."  It is interesting for me to observe that ideas that were once felt by myself to be immutable, are now being brought very subtly to deeper places in my consciousness.  I am beginning to realize exceptions to the truths and principles that I thought were so unchanging.  As a result, vast new vistas of freedom and lightness are opening for me.

When someone has had many challenges in their life, challenges such as addiction or abuse, the idea of God as Principle is very comforting.  It gives us all something totally stable, trustworthy and all-supportive to fall back on.  It also gives our mind a rest. 

When we start learning mathematics, we must begin with counting and arithmetic.  Gradually we move on to algebra, geometry, calculus, and higher mathematics.  Eventually we reach a place where our core principles, those immutable truths we once held onto for the foundation of all our growth, are broken wide open!  We start to prove that 2+2=5.  We do things that once seemed unimaginable, and as a result, our entire understanding of math is broken wide open, and the discoveries and applications are exponentially increased.  If we began with 2+2=5, this would lead to great confusion, but when the time comes, this leads to incredible clarity and wonder. 

The same is true with thinking of God as Principle.  In my growth, I am challenging the fact that God is Love.  I am challenging the fact that God is One.  Maybe there are vast degrees of God, broken into higher and higher energies.  Maybe a set of energies that we called God created the universe in which we reside and that consciousness is changing.  Maybe there are God Beings, or sources of energy that are creating Cosmos within Cosmos beyond that.  Maybe God is evolving and changing, and at the same time is not.  Perhaps some vibrations of thought have no creative effect on the physical realm if their vibratory frequency is not in alignment with the physical matter on our planet.  And what is physicality?  From my inner experiences, what seems physical changes infinitely throughout the vast cosmos and is actual a function of our own consciousness.  What seems physical to some beings, would not even be visible to our eyes.  And what seems solid to us, would appear as light to them. 

As I grow more and more, I become very cautious about what I chose to call the "Absolute."  I have become very humble with respect to what I perceive as the unchanging, absolute truth.  And I become extremely cautious in what qualities I assign to God as Divine Ideas. 

I used to think that "I knew."  Then I thought, "I know some things."  Now I find that everything is getting to be so multifaceted, and so open-ended, that it seems like I know very little at all.  I enjoy being kind to people, serving people.  I love meditating and teaching.  I like taking care of my health, smiling, laughing, and singing to God.  But as to whether the truth that all thoughts are creative....I just don't know if I can assign that understanding to the entire cosmos.  I have become very humble about all these vast ideas we speak of in Unity.  I just don't know.