Humanity finds itself in a predicament. Human consciousness is designed to bring divine cosmic consciousness on earth, connected to the physical level of being. That was the intention behind the creation of the human form. Cosmic consciousness is that presence throughout all of creation that’s coming to focus right here and now and that seeks to express itself through you and through me. It is the power of the universe that has created all that has been created over eons of time. It is the impulse behind the transformation of human consciousness and the evolution of this planet. That consciousness is characterized by love and intelligence, and love brings blessing to the world.

We are made to be a living temple for cosmic consciousness. The predicament for humanity as a whole and for individual human beings is that many other levels of awareness have gotten mixed up with cosmic consciousness within humanity, so that human consciousness is not free to know cosmic consciousness. There is a place of pure awareness within all people. Humanity is designed to witness the world from that place of pure awareness without reacting to what is seen emotionally and mentally; because reaction creates a condition in which the pure awareness of cosmic consciousness is mixed up with all the experiences that accompany reaction—worry, desire, fear, anger and shame. What a volatile combination! Cosmic power and reactionary human consciousness. In this condition, the place within humanity that should be reserved for pure awareness is a complex, confused state.

The way through this predicament is simple. It cannot be taken by humanity as a whole except as individual members of the body of humanity take the steps that are needed to solve the predicament. The solution is for the individual to let there be space within them reserved for the welcoming of cosmic presence. For the solution to work, that welcome has to be offered without reference to all the levels of awareness that have created the confusion in the first place. As long as cosmic consciousness is being seen in terms of the existing human world, it will not be allowed to be what it truly is.

The ancients described the process of coming into cosmic awareness symbolically in the story of Creation. It was described as letting there be a firmament in the midst of the waters that divides the waters. Firmament is a word for sky, or heaven. Symbolically, the waters represent human thought and emotion. So from the standpoint of consciousness, what is being said is that there has to be a space within consciousness that is reserved for pure awareness, undiluted by reactive thought and emotion. Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters. Let all the layers of human awareness be divided from each other in the sense that they go to the level where they belong. For instance, there is nothing wrong with our awareness of physical thirst or hunger. It just isn’t supposed to intrude upon the space within us that should be reserved for cosmic consciousness. There is nothing wrong with right care for our personal finances. But financial concerns should not be dominating our spirituality. Let there be a firmament. That is the only way that there can be a pure awareness of cosmic presence.

Humanity is designed so that the center of the field of human consciousness is clear space. We are not made to be pulled in many different directions by reaction, full of fear, full of worry, or full of trying to be something that we are not. Humanity is made to embody cosmic presence.

There has to be a sorting out of the levels of awareness within a person. There are things that are supposed to be in one place in consciousness but not in another place. There are things from our everyday world—there are jobs to do and processes at work—but they don’t belong in the holy of holies, for you or for me. The awareness of our world around us belongs outside that most central space. The awareness of those things belongs someplace in our feeling perception, but it doesn’t belong in our holy of holies. There needs to be space at the center of who we are.

The spiritual path a person walks to know these things is at the same time open and available to anyone, and full of apparent contradictions as a person moves, step-by-step, in a pure awareness of themselves as cosmic presence. That path begins when a person wakes up to the sense that who they have known themselves to be isn’t true to the reality of who they are. They have touched something wonderful, and naturally a person wants more of that in their experience. As far as the outer experience of a person goes, there is a process of becoming; there is growth and change. But somehow, at some point along that path, if a person is to know that they are cosmic consciousness present in human form, they have to let go of all that developing, all that wanting to be something, all that aspiring to be something that they’re not; because as long as you are aspiring to be something that you are not, you aren’t being who you are. The continual self-improvement project has to give way to an experience of being cosmic presence, which is the impetus behind the development of humanity.

Other people, in various ways, tell us who we are. Growing up, maybe our parents did that, inevitably, in one way or another. Our friends tell us who they think we are, and maybe criticize us or judge us when we’re not being what they think we should be. Those perceptions may belong somewhere in the realm of consciousness, but they don’t belong in the holy of holies for you or for me. We cannot be the reality of who we are by trying not to be something that somebody else doesn’t want us to be, or trying to be what somebody else thinks we should be. Sometimes people spend their whole lives running away from the guilt that they feel about who they’ve been. If you are running away from the guilt that you feel about being who you have been, you can’t be who you are.

Because there is so much that has infected the holy of holies for humanity, it has corrupted the human experience. I am not talking about corruption in a moral sense particularly. I mean in the sense of having introduced things that don’t belong there, and that keep the human experience from being what it ought to be.

If we pause and become still in ourselves, we can move into a deeper appreciation that this consciousness—not something I can observe outside myself but this that is me, that is looking out at my world—is divine consciousness. I say that, not trying to claim to be something I’m not, which is part of the complication, because it is very easy for people in a confused and disturbed state to try to claim for themselves what they imagine a divine experience would be. What a mix-up! It’s mixed up because the person is not really having a clear, pure experience of the divine, and then they claim that they are. All the while, the reality of the person is divine cosmic presence.

What a predicament! And yet the answer to it all is simple: it is the willingness to be present. In those immortal words, “I am.” In that, a person can let this place of being be itself. Can we be still long enough to become fully aware of the presence of who we are? There is so much that comes from that. Without trying to be something else, without being invaded by all kinds of thought and feeling, all kinds of concern, worry and shame, and the judgments of other people, which aren’t half as problematic as our own judgments of ourselves…I am.

There are other ancient words that carry the essence of this experience: “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10) Be still. The words are said to one’s own thoughts and feelings: Be still, and know that I am cosmic consciousness, that reality within all things, which incarnated into this living form to do, through this living form, exactly what it’s doing through all form already.

The Song of Solomon speaks of the Beloved as being the one who looks forth from the windows and shows himself through the lattice. What are those “windows”? It is said that the eyes are the windows of the soul. Our eyes are the windows of cosmic presence. The Beloved is looking out at his or her world through each one of us and revealing himself or herself, to whatever degree, through the lattice—thelattice referring to the fact that, for most people, the reality of cosmic presence is partially obscured.

Nonetheless, humanity is created to be cosmic presence. Has the marvelous, incredible truth of what is occurring hit you between the eyes? When all the reactive thoughts and emotions are allowed to recede from your holy of holies—when there is a firmament in the midst of your waters—there you are as cosmic consciousness, looking out at creation.

Part of creation is the renewal, learning and transformation of our own humanity. So we do not have to claim that we are a fully evolved human being to know that we are cosmic consciousness.

Our core lives in the clear space in the midst of the waters of our awareness. Our part of the bargain as human beings is to provide that clear space. All the rest is already set up for us. We don’t have to invent cosmic consciousness. Our part of the bargain as human beings is to create that clear space in which cosmic consciousness can be in us, as us. If it is, it is present in our world. If you receive that blessing, you have it to give. But you have to receive it, and you cannot receive it if there’s not space. Cosmic consciousness is the blessing.