Although I don’t believe in the concept of God as a supernatural being with an interest in the thoughts and action of human beings, I do believe in a collective consciousness.
The simplest term to describe this, is to call it the Universe. I see it as the amalgamation of the spirit in all living things – from people to animals to plants. This collection of energy makes up the spiritual world that resides just outside our sensory experience.
A worm has no light receptors on his body, nothing approaching would we would call eyes, so a worm doesn’t know the difference between light and dark, between a sunny day and an overcast one. It doesn’t mean light does not exist, just that he is incapable of seeing it. If he were a thinking creature, he might surmise that the heat and cold he feels at different times are caused by something he cannot name.
In the same way, I suspect there is something outside of this physical realm that we notice when we open our hearts to the possibility. The characteristics of this force are difficult to describe because we cannot ‘see’ it. We can only feel the effects on our lives.
We experience the wonder of the Universal collective when a sunrise takes our breath away, when an orgasm cracks open our hearts, and when the softness of a cat’s fur brings us comfort and peace.
The Universe is responsible for the synchronicity in our lives – when the phone rings just when you were thinking about the person on the other end, when you wake up before the alarm goes off, when you read a book which answers a precise question you’ve been grappling with.
The Universe bestows good fortune upon you – when a fallen tree misses the window, when a flat tyre happens close to home, when you meet the (wo)man of your dreams.
The Universe is full of mysteries we are yet to understand, but accessing its benevolence is easy – compassion and gratitude. When you reach out in love to your fellow man, the Universe stops to listen. And when you pause to say thank you for all your wondrous blessings, the Universe remembers your name.
The power of the Universe doesn’t reside in an amorphous cloud in the sky, it resides inside your heart. We are a single drop of water in the ocean of the Universe, but that single drop contains the wisdom of the entire sea. If there is divinity to be found, it is to be found inside us.
The Universe is a grand, majestic collective force, made up of the combined energy of all living things. But we don’t need to seek it out in the world or in the heavens, because it lives right here inside us.
This post is part of the April A to Z Challenge.