Larger than Ourselves: Jan 9, 2007
We humans have a great and organic need to understand ourselves and our lives as part of something larger or greater than ourselves. We have many names and accompanying conceptions about just what this "Greater" power may be.
For some it is "God", for others "Allah", "Buddha-nature", "God and Goddess", "Goddess", "Nature", "Sacred Mother Earth", "Sacred Mysterious" and I am sure many others.
The conceptions involved in the varied naming and and accompanying belief systems can be just as varied as the naming and are not altogether unimportant as they can express many things that do not easily fit together, one unto the other.
Nevertheless, this is my meditation...that in fact this awareness of being a part of something Greater or Larger than ourselves is the haunting memory of wholeness that can so easily escape us in our immersion in human-ego related activities and understandings.
Great crisis may bring this memory back to us. Sometimes great ecstasies may do as well. It is a first order truth that will leave those who cannot "re-member" feeling in particular alienation within themselves and within our experience of our life and existence.
We are peculiar beings. The gifts that have allowed so much to become can at the same time remove us from awareness of being part of something larger and/or greater than "ourselves." This can cause great suffering.
How we understand the relationship between ourselves and the "greater" is perhaps a individual quest but it is a time honored journey as well. Not everyone understands the nuances and meanings of this relationship in the same way. Nor are the belief systems that arise from this understanding known in the same way.
Nevertheless, it strikes me that much of what is wrong with things in this world comes from an ignorance of knowing or understanding the truth of being that we are all a part of something greater and bigger than ourselves. And the failure of coming to terms with our own seeing and understanding of this truth.