Pulse of Spirit

Today, in the United States, we are facing a massive issue—people being used. And the issue doesn’t stop at our border. It is a global issue manifesting in human culture around the world.

There are the outer manifestations of this that show up economically, politically, and legally. Behind all the outer manifestations of the abuse of people—a disrespectful using of people for ulterior motives—there is a spiritual issue. And we wouldn’t have the cultural issue without the spiritual one. So, in this Pulse of Spirit I’d like to get to the bottom of that spiritual issue, believing that in doing so we liberate our culture.

I think we could acknowledge that there is a right use of us all, yes? We are here to have our talents and our abilities rightly used. That is righteousness, or right-use-ness. But there is a massive difference between that and the use of people for aberrant ulterior motives—ones that are not life-giving but which carry some kind of self-serving personal agenda.

What are the spiritual roots of this? Whatever your religious beliefs might be, I propose that there is a long human history of an unhealthy relationship with God, or with gods and supernatural powers. That unhealthy relationship is reflected differently in cultures around the world. But it is shared in common by most of humanity. And that unhealthy relationship has set the pattern for our relationship with each other.

I won’t try to rehearse all of the history here. I set forth some of it in my book Primal Christianity. What I’d like to do in this Pulse of Spirit is name the unhealthy dynamic that keeps being replicated. It is a dynamic that appears in relationship to God or to gods when that relationship contains ulterior motives on the part of people. Human beings have not only sought to have a connection to the Divine. They have sought to have God or gods do what they want them to do in our world. So, sacrifices were made to get a god to make the Nile flood or the crops grow. Prayers are offered, petitioning God to influence worldly events in a certain way. Chants and incantations have been used in an attempt to avert disaster or hurt enemies.

One of the versions of this is played out by some contemporary Christians who attempt to use what are believed to be spiritual principles to manifest success and wealth. 

If you practice these attitudes, God or the universe will appear like the genie in the lamp and give you what you want. You will gain God’s favor.

In this pattern, there is also a belief that God or gods have ulterior motives regarding us, as human beings. God wants to punish us or make us achieve His purposes. God wants us to worship Him, honor Him, or sacrifice to Him. From this perspective, God doesn’t want a relationship with us. He wants what He can get from us, or what He can get us to do.

Savannah Guthrie’s #1 best-selling book addresses this issue. The title is Mostly What God Does. And here is the rest of the sentence…is love you. Here is a radically different view of the Divine. It doesn’t want to punish you or bend you to its will. It is not demanding something from you. Mostly what God does is love you.

Any healthy, generative relationship has profound implications for the world surrounding the individuals involved. And a relationship with God is no exception. When a person knows they are loved from within, that love radiates through them. The American viewing public is a witness to the glow of that love from Savannah Guthrie every day on her morning news show. But something is spoiled in relationship when we think the other entity is trying to get us to do something or wants something from us, even if that other entity is God.

Uranda said it this way:

You were created for God’s pleasure. If you so function that you give pleasure to God, do you think you will have pleasure? Do you think you will receive pleasure?

The Four Beasts, July 9, 1953 

What an extraordinary view of our relationship as human beings with the divine source—that it is based on mutual pleasure.

The ancient view that we have to gain the mercy and favor of the gods for our purposes has been maintained throughout history and manifests through the religion of today. For a person who thinks that way, it is not surprising when they attempt to use another human being for their personal purposes. And for a culture that has thought that way for millennia, it is understandable that it is rife with the human tendency to use other people at all levels—economically, politically, emotionally, and personally.

Immanuel Kant, the central figure in modern philosophy, brought this instruction as one of the formulations of his Categorical Imperative in 1785:

Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end. 

These are subtle matters that relate to human attitude and emotion, whether it is with respect to other people, God, or life itself. But the subtle distinction between seeing another primarily as an end, and not a means, is profound for the individual and for human culture. And the way we relate internally around these things as a culture is reflected in how we relate to each other. There is an economic level at which these dynamics play out and there is also a more personal level.

Are we enticing another person into relationship because we want something from them? Some external benefit? When you name that approach for what it is, isn’t it repulsive? And when there is no such ulterior motive, we have the opportunity to experience communion and co-creation with that person that is joyous and generative. That generation inevitably manifests something in the world. But if the relationship degenerates into something that is only a means to an end, it is spoiled.

Generative relationships contain mutuality. There is an exchange of value back and forth, and in that exchange there is generation. For many, the very idea of experiencing mutuality with God might seem unthinkable. The apparent inequality of the relationship can make it seem impossible. With a lack of mutuality, people can end up feeling like there are demands placed on them by the Divine. And they can end up wanting things from God that He seems unwilling to give.

The truth is that while we are not the same as God, we have the opportunity for an equal partnership and a mutual exchange—an exchange without ulterior motive or demand, an exchange of love. Communion.

Jesus spoke of these things in the two great commandments. This is from Mark 12:29,30. Jesus was under pressure with the clerics of his day questioning him. His answers hit the ball out of the park:

And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: 

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

Mark 12:29,30

The use of the word shalt is interesting in the culture of today. It is so directive. It underlines the imperative of loving God. It is interesting to employ a more commonly used word that can mean something similar: will. That translation of the first commandment as stated in Deuteronomy would be a fair, if less common, translation of Hebrew. In contemporary English, the first commandment would read like this:

And you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength: this is the first great commandment.

The word will carries the imperative of this “commandment” in the human experience. But it also opens other meanings. It becomes a prophecy and a blessing. Without these meanings, we are left with a demand from God that we love Him. Is that really how love works? Do we love on demand?

As originally presented in Moses’ day, and re-presented by Jesus, this teaching was radical in the ancient world. You wouldn’t think of just loving Zeus. That was not the kind of relationship that people expected to have with the gods of the ancient world. You didn’t just love them. You begged and pleaded with them and sacrificed to them. This was radically different. Just love. How about that? And it doesn’t say so right here, but then there’s a love that comes back, a mutuality.

Here is the second commandment from Jesus:

And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

Mark 12:31

It’s such a brief statement: Love thy neighbor as thyself. What does it mean?

You might read it to mean that your neighbor is you. He or she is part of who you are. Or it could possibly mean as if your neighbor were you.

This teaching is often understood to be similar to the Golden Rule: Love your neighbor as you would like them to love you. 

Another reading could be this: Love your neighbor in the same way that you love yourself. This would presume that you do love yourself.

However you read it, there seems to be a leap between the first commandment and the second. Jesus does indicate there is a relationship between them. Perhaps there should be a commandment 1.5 that takes the reader from the first to the second.

I think it goes like this. When we ourselves are led into a mutual relationship of love with Father and Mother God, we know we are loved. And then, with that same love with which we are being loved, we can love another. So in loving God, we know self-love and love of another.

Where there truly is communion with the Divine, that sets up a pattern of love that can be replicated with another person. If—consciously or subconsciously—you think you’re being used unfairly by God or by life itself, you’re probably going to relate to your neighbor that way.

These two commandments are inviting a pure-hearted exchange. How deep does that go? That exchange is a life journey. As the song simply puts it, it is a journey of being loved and loving in return. This journey relates to the vibrational factors in ourselves and in the world in which we live. The exchange re-patterns our own heart and our subconscious mind. It re-patterns our personal vibration. But we are not an island. At the same time, it is re-patterning the vibrations of the world, beginning with the people closest to us.

I observe in my own experience the focused passion this takes to come to a point when the old patterns are transmuted and love’s pattern is established. It takes a fierce devotion to a truth that has not yet manifested for this to really happen. Otherwise, our love falters and we fall back into the old vibrational pattern with the accompanying state of mind and heart.

Wherever the outer pattern of our lives takes us, there is this pattern of inner work that makes all things new. Each of us have that work to do for ourselves. And when we do it, we find we are doing it together. We are collectively bringing a higher love to the world, establishing a new vibrational order that changes everything. We are changing patterns that are based on ulterior motives and abuse to patterns based on mutual love. We are changing patterns that treat people as a means to an end to patterns of relationship that are based in the radiation of love, without concern for results. This is the pleasure of true relationship.