What is Spirituality, Anyway - GODSEARCH Episode 2
Hi, this is Michael Chevak. Welcome to God's Search. This is podcast number two. Now I say that because two follows one and one precedes two. And we're going to talk here about a really important part of your God's Search.
And that is growth. G-R-O-W-T-H. Growth. We're going to do that because we want to talk about spirituality. Now these days, people don't like to use the R word. If you talk to people and you say, well, do you have a religion?
Well, I was raised this, I was raised this, but I left this. I'm more spiritual. That's what everyone likes to say these days. I'm more spiritual. They don't even want to mention religion. And as I said, there is a plummeting of mainstream religions in the United States because people are moving away from the cultism.
They're moving away from the authority. They're moving away from the idolatry that makes no sense in classic religions. They're moving away from that. And what they're discovering is the living, breathing God's Search experience, which people call spirituality.
Spirituality. Now, before we go into that, I just want to kind of recap where we were. There are some very important benchmarks. They're like a pegboard. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. You've got to be aware of these things because if you're not aware of them, you will have problems on an authentic, living, breathing, exciting God's Search.
One of those things, as we spoke about, was idolatry. Be very careful of fixed, inflexible, cemented ideas where there's no room for breathing, no room for... growth. There's that word again. No room for flexibility.
It's a cement box, a cement box that you can't get out. That will stop you obviously from growing and expanding on your God search. It will also set up the problem of authority as we spoke about, meaning people will claim to know 100% the truth, 100% how to achieve unity, 100% how to use your power as a creative being to affect causality and create good or bad in your life.
So be very careful because when you have fixed idolatrous ideas, the next thing you have is authority problems, and you have a kind of intellectual fascism that doesn't respond, that's always controlling, it's all about controlling crowds and controlling thinking processes, and you have to be very careful.
Remember what I said last time. Whenever there is a conflict, there is missing knowledge. Wherever there is a conflict, there's missing knowledge. There's good knowledge in the blue team. There's good knowledge there.
There is good knowledge in the red team, but they're both missing a true, living, breathing, correct spiritual context, and that's why they're fighting. It's not spiritually correct. So be very, very careful with divided thinking, and pay attention because on your God search, you're seeking good.
Good, we're viewing God as a contraction of the word good, concentrated good if you think about it, and that has truth in it, it has unity in it, and as God is oftentimes called the creator, it is the embodiment of causality, that ability that the whole universe has to create new forms and new variations, including you as a conscious person, which brings us to the issue of spirituality.
Many, many years ago, I think it must be at least, I'd say 35 years ago, one of my teachers pinned me down and put a little crazy glue on my seat. That my teacher liked to put me on the spot, and he glued me down with some crazy glue, and he says, what spirituality?
Everyone's talking about spirituality, but they don't know what they're talking about. tell me what spirituality is. So I was on the spot and I elaborated a very quick answer to that question and I said spirituality is the conscious growth of each individual to become more and more aware that they are made in the image and likeness of God.
That spirituality is the process by which the individual becomes more and more aware that they are made in the image and likeness of God. Well my teacher liked that but there's a problem with that. No one knows what image and likeness of God is.
It's in the Bible. People use it all the time. It's a mess. The phrase comes from the Hebrew word for tselem which means more of an image or to reflect. In other words, the human being reflects a certain quality which is identified with the God experience.
We reflect certain things about the nature of God, such as the fact that we're very creative, and if God is the creator of everything that exists, which is a belief, then we are creative as God is creative.
That's what image means, to reflect the nature of God. Likeness is a very, very bad translation. It comes from the Hebrew demut, which means we are kind of cut off, we are parceled out of God, we are made into an individual, we are individualized, which is a really great expression that comes from the New Thought Movement, which is kind of an 18th century, 19th century, early 20th century spiritual movement that is designed to bring back the life and the God search to Christianity.
Very exciting. We are made in the image and likeness of God, meaning we reflect the nature of God, which on an authentic God experience, you will notice that for yourself, and we reflect that nature and we individuate and individualize that we are uniquely ourselves.
Now, spirituality begins when you begin to affirm the uniqueness that you are, that each and every person is a unique individual expression of God. No one sees the world exactly as you do. No one. When you think about it, billions upon billions of years.
years, constant permutations and new organizational structures of reality, of planets, of galaxies went into a unique moment when you were created and born. The configuration of everything that exists, universes beyond universes perhaps, certainly galaxies beyond galaxies, had a unique structure and a unique moment when you came into existence.
There will never ever again be another Michael Chevak in the exact same way that I am. Maybe I'll have hair next time, that would be nice. There will never ever ever be exactly another you as you are now.
That is how special, that is how important, that is how absolutely unique you are. Authentic spirituality and an authentic God search begins when you honor that uniqueness, that uniqueness that only you can have, only you can have.
Now here we run into a little bit of a curious opacity. There was a philosopher, his name was Heraclitus, and he made the observation, you may have heard it before, that no one can step into the same river twice, meaning if I step into the river, the river is not the same river, it has changed, the waves have changed, the currents have changed, the temperature has changed, different fish are swimming by than other times.
In other words, when I step into the river, it's not the same river. However, it's pretty much the identical river, meaning if the river is there from one moment to the next, the same rock will be there, the same tree will be nearby, okay.
The markers and the relationships between the river pretty much can stay the same unless you're dealing with a galactic time frame when everything will change, but that river has the same relationships to other objects around it, including your feet.
So it's the identical river, meaning the river can be identified with itself, it is the identical river, but that identical river is never ever the same. Here's a god search challenge for you, I dare you find me one thing, anything in the entirety of existence that is exactly the same.
I dare you, I dare you. Think about it, you'll be thinking a long time. I tried it. I couldn't find it after 10 years. I thought it for 10 years, I couldn't find it. Even if you have on, let's say, two atoms of calcium, which have the same atomic number and have the same number of electrons that are so-called circulating around the orbiting the nucleus, even if you have that, the quantum configuration of the atom is not the same.
They're identical, meaning they fit into the category called calcium, but they're not the same. If you run into two leaves that are both oak leaves, they have certain similarities, certain pedunculated leaves and veins and stuff like that that make it an oak leaf.
But if you look closely, they're never, ever the same. On your God search, it is important, it is critical. It's even counterintuitive and we use the word same. all the time, as if it's a reality. There is no such thing as same.
It's a human fiction. It doesn't exist. What we mean by same is kind of self-same, meaning it's kind of the same to itself, which is another way of saying identical. Same-ness does not exist. And recognizing your differences, recognizing your uniqueness, recognizing that you are an image and likeness of God that is unlike in many ways everything else in existence is honoring yourself and knowing that you are what is commonly called a soul.
A soul. Now, here's where the difficulty comes in. Although we are not the same, we are oftentimes identical. We all eat, we all sleep, we all need love. We all need money to live nicely. There are things that are identical to us, even though we're not the same.
And here's where the tension comes in. You have the uniqueness and the individuality and the differences and all of these wonderful things that are very important and very spiritual. And you also have the need for systems, organization, mechanisms, and government to help us on those things that we all need.
You know, what the Constitution of the United States calls the common good, but they're lousy at defining the common good because they don't want to have authoritarian systems like we had when we were back in England.
So they... don't, you know, they let common good be kind of loosey-goosey other than life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But here's where the tension comes from. Spiritually, and this is why we are missing knowledge in the United States and why our spirituality is floundering, is that we have to take the uniqueness and the individuality and the absolute lack of sameness from one individual to another,
which is a spiritual gift, a fiat by the design of God. And we have to also have certain commonalities and agreements and certain things that we need to participate in together. If you take the individuality to its extreme, it becomes sociopathic and you cannot function together.
However, if you take the groups and the religion and the government and the structure and the economic system to its extreme, You do not allow for breathing and differences, you create the problem of authority, and this is dangerous.
I am calling here for spirituality, correct spirituality, a correct, healthy God search in our democracy, and in each of us on the inside. Let me tell you a story. Many, many years ago, I think it was right now, it's like over 45 years ago.
I was going through a dark night of the soul, and I was smart enough to know that I didn't know how to solve the problem. I stopped eating lunch. I wasn't fasting, I was saving my lunch money, and I actually found myself a therapist, and it was very interesting because God sent me, that's a nice phrase, we'll talk about that.
God sent me to another soul who turned out to be a Catholic who had a fascination for the works of Rudolf Steiner, who was a clairvoyant in the early 20th century. Fascinating guy, created the Waldorf schools, amazing literature.
Anyway, Frank, who's still alive, he's 88 years old. Frank began to help me and walk me through the process of therapy, I had never been in therapy. But over time I noticed, and I'm sure a lot of you out there have noticed it, that as I began to think differently, and as I began to change, reality changed.
Events started to take place on the outside, the so-called outside of me, that were linked to it, they were geared up. So when I changed on the inside, it changed on the outside, life began to change.
improve. You know, Jesus says in in Christian Scripture, you clean the inside of the cup and the plate and then the outside becomes clean, meaning as you change inwardly it's outside. This is what classic religions call sin and repentance.
Very, very, very scary words because they're all attached to control and heaven and hell and all sorts of stuff that are giving people problem in a democracy. But as you change inwardly it does affect the world because I used to think I had two completely different worlds, me and outside me, my individuality and them.
On an authentic God search you're going to learn to discover that even though you are unique and you are in so-called your own little world, which is true, it's unlike any other. anyone else's, you are not only in that.
There is a connection between your inner world and the outer world and the outer world and your inner world and they are part of one singular consciousness that is much more expansive and embraces both things.
So in true God searching, one must be aware of something which is a complexity. You must honor your individuality one after one that comes to you must honor the fact that you're part of a group and part of a society and that's pretty obvious.
We're all born from other people. We don't pop into existence out of the thin air. We are connected deeply to other people other people and deeply connected to us and in our God search what we want to do is embrace our uniqueness and individuality and our deep connectedness to everyone else at the same time.
But three what we want to do is bring in the good the goodness that we contract and experience as God the experience called God and we want to expand it from ourselves personally to personal goodness and we want to expand that for those people who we touch in our lives the people we were born to our parents our spouses or partners our children our communities our nation and the entire world authentic spirituality is dynamic.
It translates truth and goodness and correct causal relationships sewing and reaping into a magnificent spiritual process that embraces not just your own personality. and the two sides of yourself, your inner and your outer, but embraces that in every single other person and creates a living fabric of that experience called God.
It's very dynamic. Now here I want to make a distinction because it's messing us up. It's messing us up. Spirituality is oftentimes identified with spiritism. Spiritism has phenomena in it like clairvoyance and astrology and, you know, psychokinetics, moving things with objects, shape-shifting, ghosts, you know, channeling, medium, and all that stuff, okay?
And we sometimes lose the sense of what's rational here, so it's not easily teachable. Those things are definitely part of spiritual spirituality. They're definitely part of an authentic God search. But here, we're going to examine those later.
They're kind of like an appendix on the book, not the book itself, because we want to develop an authentic spirituality that is not just inward and mystical and embraces all of the different levels of the inner world.
What we want to do here is begin with some basic stuff. We all have to eat, we all have to sleep, we need homes, we need basic things that are identical for all human beings, if not, in part, all living beings.
So we want to embrace first what are the needs for human society and human civilization. That's a really critical thing, and this is the distinction oftentimes that religions make between a natural religion and a historical religion.
Historical religions care about the entirety of human civilization and the entire world, including our economic system, our ability to manufacture, trading, and all these parts that are human life. So let's focus more on this God search.
We're going to begin with basics, such as basic human life and how to live. And then we can progress as we continue, God willing, I go from podcast number two to podcast infinity, we can discuss other things that are very more rarefied, such as psychic awareness of other animals.
We can discuss astral projection. We can discuss the phenomenon of ghosts. These are all things that I'd love to get to on podcasts, but I want to start with some basic stuff first because that's where we're having problems right now.
We're having problems. with basic human spirituality, basic human life. And as I said, I'll quote it again. If I'm boring you, send me an email, go right onto the God search, yourgodsearch.com and send me an email.
If I'm boring you, let me know. But wherever there is a conflict, there is missing knowledge, missing knowledge. So I'm repeating that again because I don't want any more conflicts in my life and I don't want any more conflicts in my world.
I'm a father of three children and I have two grandchildren and I really want to leave the world in a much better place. So podcast number two is about dynamic spirituality which requires you to grow, to grow.
Then my therapist who was the anthroposophist said to me, look, let me tell you how it works. You're beginning to notice that life is different outside of you than it is on the inside of you. And you're noticing when you change, it changes life.
So this is how it works. Life requires you to grow. That's what Frank said to me when I was 16. It was worth not eating, by the way. Life requires you to grow. It requires you to grow. It requires you to grow.
It's designed so that you have to grow. If you grow willingly, it will go easier for you and you won't have to suffer as much and you'll have a lot more fun and joy. If you fight growing, life has a way of causing problems and kicks you right in the butt so that it forces you to stop being fixed in your idolatrous ways, in your fixed ways and thinking everything is identical and it forces you to approach your uniqueness and your dynamism as a spiritual being.
In other words, as Frank would say, you have one choice in life. Do you wanna grow easily or do you wanna grow through suffering? Well, I was 16, it didn't take long for me to realize that I only had one choice and that was, I was gonna grow willingly.
I was going to allow myself to grow and seek growing, which I never stopped doing since I was 16 years old and I did not know at that time that that was called a spiritual path. No one had the language for it, okay?
But I knew from that moment in time that my purpose in life was to grow and grow and seek growing and never stop growing and to use a word, which is a dangerous word? I hinted at it in the first podcast, evolve and we'll talk about evolution in a much more detailed way.
It has to be talked about. carefully. Right now, it is talked about in a way that is offensive to science and offensive to religion at the exact same time. Anyway, so this is podcast two and I hope you're gonna get the fundamental lesson of growing.
You don't have any choice. This is your God search and if you're alive, you are already on a God search and you are already growing. The issue is, will you embrace it? So, this is Michael Chevak for God search.
Uncover God, discover God, and recover God if you've lost God. You'll find God. It's a living, breathing experience we call God. Enjoy it. It's fun. It can also be difficult, but it can be great joy and great fun.
Until next time, ciao. Thank you.