I invite you to stand in the place of the spiritual experience of humankind. As we do, we join with every human being on the face of the earth who worships in whatever way in their church, their synagogue, their home, their sanctuary, in nature, in their mosque, or their temple. As you read the words of this Pulse of Spirit, I invite you to fully own this place of primal worship transcending culture, standing in your primal reality, letting the highest love within you flow to the world.
Standing in this place, feel the flow of the fountain in yourself. Feel that flow in this spiritual community, Emissaries of Divine Light. The flow in you and in this community is not exempt from all that is happening in the world. In owning this space fully, we stand at the center of this fountain for all humankind.
Does that seem grandiose? I believe this is the calling of every human being: to stand at their own center. As a person does that, they find that they are holonically at the center for all people and for the human family.
It is baseball season in America. I’m thinking of what they call the “neighborhood play.” This is how Major League Baseball describes it:
The “neighborhood play” is a colloquial term used to describe the leeway granted to middle infielders with regards to touching second base while in the process of turning a ground-ball double play. Though it is not explicitly mentioned in the rulebook, middle infielders were long able to record an out on the double-play pivot simply by being in the proximity—or neighborhood—of the second-base bag.
Human beings try the neighborhood play when it comes to their spiritual centering—somewhere close but without making full contact with the spiritual reality that made them. Let’s make contact with our true spiritual centering and let the flow of the fountain be full and strong. It is here where the upward current of praise flows fully and where we know the rain coming down from heaven.
The truth of this place is not determined by us, nor by any church, mosque, synagogue, or temple. It is not determined by any priest, rabbi, nor by the leaders of any religion, philosophy or spiritual teaching. It is not given to the clergy of the world to alter the truth of human existence or the truth of God, by whatever name. We can point to it, we can worship it, know it, and honor it. We can be true to it, but we cannot change it. It is not ours to change.
For Christians, it is good to remember that was Jesus’ attitude. He said this:
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. (Matthew 5:17)
The same is true for the clergy of any religion or philosophy. No one is capable of changing our primal spirituality—the God-given spirituality of humankind. We did not make it. We cannot change it, nor should we want to. We are here to fulfill it.
I recently listened to an interesting discussion by an American Christian criticizing other Christian leaders as corrupt. He assailed their teaching as not following biblical doctrine because they didn’t teach original sin. He accused them of being false prophets because of that. And he asserted that we are sinful at our core.
Is sin really at the core of our primal spirituality? I believe that the meaning of the word sin in this context was something more than any single act. Original sin is not a verb. It is a noun referring to what the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines as a serious shortcoming, a fault, and a state of human nature. The phrase original sin implies that we were made that way—sinful.
I’m sure that the devoted Christians who believe in original sin would be shocked to realize that the faith they place in it contradicts the Bible they think they believe in. What does the Bible actually teach?
The phrase original sin appears no place in the Bible. Apparently, it was first used by the Roman bishop from the 4th century A.D., known as St. Augustine. To state the obvious, he was a cleric of the official state religion of the empire that executed Jesus. I never met St. Augustine. So I have no personal grudge against him, nor against the American Christian I listened to, whose name I’ve quickly forgotten. And I’ve never been to Rome nor met a Roman emperor. So I have nothing personal against Romans. But still, the truth is the truth, and facts are facts.
Here is what the Bible actually says, addressing what is original about human beings. This is a clear statement of our primal spirituality:
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth….
(Genesis 1:27,28)
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
(Genesis 2:7)
Sounds a lot more like what Matthew Fox calls original blessing than original sin. The Bible seems to attach particular significance to this portrayal of our primal spirituality. It appears in the very first chapter of the very first book of the Bible. And then in the chapter immediately following.
There is also the story of how something went wrong. That came after the original blessing. So that part does not sound original to me. That sounds secondary. Maybe that is what we ought to call it: secondary sin. It is a story of how something went wrong in the consciousness and function of humankind. It was some kind of self-centeredness; a self-preoccupation, followed by shame. It is the story of sin as a verb, not a noun. The result of this wrong function was removal from the place where the fountain of life flows, portrayed symbolically as a garden in the story.
These words are from the traditional Christian hymn It Is Well With My Soul:
It is well with my soul.
And through it all
My eyes are on You.
And through it all,
It is well, Lord.
In the Creation story in Genesis, the Hebrew words for the Creator were translated in the King James Version of the Bible as God and LORD God. I am okay with that. The song addresses the Divine as You and Lord. The Divine is Lord of my soul. I am okay with using the words Father, Beloved, Almighty, El Shaddai, Elohim, or Allah. However we open ourselves, however we address that One, it is well with our soul when our centering is exactly there. No neighborhood play. Close only counts in horseshoes or baseball.
There is a precise mathematics to the human experience. It is the way it is; the truth is what it is. We are here for the reason that we are here, and we are made as we are made. The human capacity works precisely as it works. And all of the capacity is engaged when we allow it to work as it should—when there is the supreme centering, without deviation, no matter what.
We live in a world where there is plenty of deviation. We have some people from the faiths of the world going here and going there, deviating from how we are made—from our primal spirituality—and then, with great self-righteousness, putting down others who do not likewise deviate.
I am writing here to own the space of our human spirituality, as I hope you are too. It does not bother me what a certain fellow said or what anybody else says. That is not the point. The point is, I do not concede this space to any falsehood. I claim it fully, to activate my primal spirituality as an individual. And then I do it for my community. I stand at the center of my community and say, There is a center. It is not over here or over there. It is right here. There is a space in me where I know the center of my community.
This is where the wellspring of the fountain of my community flows. And I issue forth my praise for my community from this place. Praise to the Lord! Praise to the eternal reality of Being! Praise to my Creator, my Source. Praise to my Mother! Praise to my Father! Praise to Love itself, the fire that burns within me and within us all!
I stand in this central place for myself, for my community, and for the world. That is not a claim. It is a calling. I am called to do this—how about you? I am called to stand in the most central place, in the place where I know what is true for a man, any man. And it is no different for any woman, for any human being.
Put it this way: we each have an angel assigned to us, a God-being who is the higher reality of who we are. When we are standing in the place of honoring that reality, we are at the same time standing in the place of honoring the reality of the Family of God that made humankind. And only by acknowledging the Family of the Divine can we become the Family of Humankind—one family, one fountain. We are not participating in the ignorance of competing fountains. There is one fountain. And when we stand in the place that is the center of that fountain, we are allowing it to flow for ourselves, for our community, and for the world.
It flows easily here. In this place, we know all is well with our soul. All is well with the soul of humankind. Yes, there is turbulence. Yes, there is distress of all kinds, and despair for many. And still, all is well with my soul.
As Martin Cecil said it, The truth is true and all is well. Unconquerable life prevails. And yes, we are on an evolutionary path. Yes, there is crisis in the world. There are terrible floods in Western Europe and fires in Western Canada and the United States. There is great unrest in South Africa. And all is well with my soul. What began with the breath of life becomes the fulfillment of humankind. That is our experience as we stand at the center of the fountain and allow it to flow.
The fountain surges upward in praise, lifting its waters to the sky. And then the water comes down to water the earth—this earth, our physical bodies, and our human experience, to overflow into the world. It is a flow of energy and of consciousness awareness. Consciousness streams out to the world.
Here is how the prophet Isaiah said it:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:
So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
(Isaiah 55:8-12)
This was said to be the voice of the Lord. Why can we share them now? Because there was a man who let those words be spoken through him. There was a man who stood at the center of things and who said, “So shall my word be,” speaking for the highest reality that he knew, which he called the Lord, or at least that is how it was translated. So shall my word be. So shall the stream of consciousness that I bring to the world be. So shall the light that I shine be. It shall be a living water of truth, an unfolding reality that does what it is meant to do in the field of consciousness where I am.
And so I fully occupy this place where the spiritual centering of humankind is known, not acquiescing to self-righteous misinterpretations of the primal spirituality that has been clearly laid out before us for any who have ears to hear.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
As we know our primal spirituality, we stand and speak for the highest reality we know, without compromise. No neighborhood play. With mathematical precision, this is where we belong. It is from here that we activate the entire height and breadth of the human experience—all the planes of consciousness that are available to us as a human being. And we say, So shall my word be that goeth forth from my mouth…
Hold up your hands, if you like, and bring forth the presence of the living God through those hands, streaming through your arms, from your shoulders, from your chest, from your heart center, from your spirit—living waters, the living Word, streaming consciousness, the power of Shekinah brought into the world.
Standing where we are called to stand, exactly in the center of our Being, opening to the rain coming down through us in this living fountain that we create together… Hear the gurgling waters, the rising up of spiritual power among us, the sound of our collective praise and songs of gratitude. Thank you, O Most High, for the wonder of your Being. And we receive the rain coming down, flowing through us into the world. We know the wonder of our Being and the wonder of Creation.
And so we participate in the living fountain, forever flowing, forever circulating. And at no point do we have the human arrogance to shut it off, to stop praising, to stop giving thanks, to stop looking up, to stop seeing the One that we love. Nor do we have the arrogance to cut off the flow into us and through us. With humility and pride, altogether we bring the voice of Being, the voice of the One who dwells, into the world—living waters, living consciousness, backed by the power of love.
So shall my word be that goeth forth from my mouth. So say we. It shall not return unto me void but shall accomplish that whereunto it is sent in the flow of the fountain. And we receive out of the world what returns, the love that is in the hearts of people, into this living fountain that we are made to be. And so it circulates again—more praise, more thanksgiving, all given to Thee, O Lord, in this living fountain. All returns to Thee. We keep none of it; none of it is for us as a human soul. All returns. Life is given back to us again, and so we receive the rain and bring the living Word again and again and again.
So we say to all humankind, so shall my word be. It shall be for life. It shall be for truth. It shall be for love. So we stay where we belong, at the center of the fountain, always centered in the highest love, the highest truth, in the reality of the One who dwells within me and you, and the One who dwells within us all—Lord of Lords, King of Kings, and the Queen of all, the Queen of Heaven and Earth. One God reality, one God family, one body of humankind.