Follow Your Bliss

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:28 (New King James Version)

As human beings we grow up perceiving the world around us as a structured system of competing dualities. We are either male or female, free or enslaved, Christian or non-Christian. Every action is judged as good or bad, with an emphasis on being good. Aren’t we all taught that we should do the right thing? Isn’t “doing good” the best anyone can do?

No. God does not experience good or bad, right or wrong, positive or negative. There is a basic law of physics that is true metaphysically as well: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” This is Newton’s Third Law of Motion. Human life is motion. When you take the energy that is your life and focus on “good works” you are creating an equal and opposite “bad” energy around you. It’s a losing prospect, because you will always create equal amounts of what you judge as evil to go with what you judge to be good. Why? Because good and evil are human judgments that don’t exist in God’s timeless unity.

According to Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth, “All things in the field of time are pairs of opposites.” A living human being is always in the process becoming, which includes the fine balance of both living and dying in every moment. Campbell explains that “Life lives by killing and eating itself, casting off death and being reborn, like the moon.” It’s a ruthless process, and Campbell says we’re only kidding ourselves by choosing to eat vegetables over animals or animal products, because vegetables are alive, too. Herbivores, carnivores and omnivores alike must consume something living to sustain their own life. Only humans attribute good and evil motives to these events. God does not.

God is all: Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscient.

God is omnipotent, or all-powerful. Every power that exists is God. A battle between the forces of good and evil could only exist in a world where God is NOT omnipotent. There is no struggle, no battle, and nothing to resist. There is only God. The struggle comes from our illusion that we are somehow separate from God.

God is omnipresent—everywhere always. Voltaire said that God is a circle whose center is everywhere, circumference nowhere. God is the day and the night, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. God is the everything in nothing and the nothing in everything. God is the potential, the probable, the certain and the impossible all at once. From everlasting to everlasting, God is timeless.

God is omniscient, or all knowing. Wherever there is consciousness or life of any kind, that sentience is God. The human mind exists on two levels, the conscious and the unconscious. Our conscious minds identify with our bodies and believe that our “self” is somehow physically contained or individually defined. It is through our unconscious that we are forever connected to God through Spirit.

The Mind’s Eye

Picture the human soul as a modified yin-yang called “The Mind’s Eye.” We live in a world of shadows. The dark outer swirl is the human body. The truth is a world of light. The white outer swirl is spirit, but the outer edge isn’t real, because all Spirit is connected. In the center is the mind’s eye, connecting body and spirit. Our conscious mind is the light within our physical body. Our unconscious mind is the darkness that connects and separates the spiritual from the physical.

Each of us is born with a mind half-opened. Some spend a lifetime opening the eye as wide as we can. Others seem to lose their curiosity and child-like wonder. With each passing year, their Mind’s Eye closes further. They live in the darkness. Whenever they encounter someone whose light shines brightly, it hurts their eyes. They never give their eyes a chance to adjust. Regardless of how open or closed our Mind’s Eye is, when we transition from our physical bodies, the Mind’s Eye opens completely, and we abandon the shadows and return to the light.

God’s Timeless Unity includes Life, Light and Love.

It’s only in our limited human experience that we perceive Life, Light and Love to have opposites. As we grow in awareness, we understand that darkness is not an opposing force that can overtake light. Darkness is merely the perceived absence of light. In every moment of every day, precisely half of the earth finds itself in the darkness of its own shadow, not because the sun ceases to shine half of the time, but because of the earth’s own turning.

Likewise, those of us who have read Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love or studied A Course in Miracles understand that Love also has no opposing force. The perceived absence of love is fear, and fear is nothing but a call for Love. Now we must recognize that death is not the opposite of life. Joseph Campbell says, “One can experience an unconditional affirmation of life only when one has accepted death, not as contrary to life but as an aspect of it.” What we with our human attachments experience as life and death, gains or losses, doesn’t exist in God’s timeless unity.

“Follow Your Bliss.”

The Mind of Christ sees through the illusion of duality in this world and understands that all is one. Jesus said there are only two great commandments: Love God and Love Your Neighbor (Mark 12:28-31; see also Luke 10:25-37). Jesus instructs us all, “Let your light shine.” (Matthew 5:16). He never suggested that some of our lights might be better or brighter than others. This light is the very Spirit of God, the spark of Life, within each of us. Embrace yours. Let it inspire you and guide your path. Don’t waste your time doing good works. Just let your light shine. Live your life with love rather than fear. In the words of Joseph Campbell, “Follow your bliss.”