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“You are something that the whole universe is doing, in the same way that a wave is something that the whole ocean is doing.” ~Alan Watts
Everything is connected to everything else. You are an integral aspect of this interconnectedness. In fact, as far as you are concerned, you are the pivot. You are the universe becoming aware of itself. When you finally let this sink in, the implications can be life changing.
This is no small thing. In the time before this sinks-in, you were merely a thing—filled with doubt, existential angst, and mortal dread—tossed about on an ocean of uncertainty. In the time after this sinks-in, you realize that you are the ocean itself—filled with hope, curiosity, and humor—diffracted into a unique wave of miraculous probability.
You were always God in disguise. Especially when you realize that God was only ever the infinite interconnectedness of all things. As a crucial aspect of this interconnectedness—indeed, as the only aspect of this interconnectedness that’s aware of itself as far as you know—you are the infinite cosmos individuated. You are Infinity pigeonholed into a finite construct. You are the finite integration of an infinite expression.
You are God playing peek-a-boo with itself.
So, Nietzsche said, “God is dead”? Well, yes and no. It depends on how you look at it. Yes, the old caterpillar God of religion had to die for the spiritual butterfly of God to reveal its true nature: Infinity itself penetrating in and through all things and connecting everything to everything else.
In this sense, yes, the old gods had to die for God as Infinity Itself to shine its true light. No belief required. Just surrender. Just faith, honest circumspection, and open curiosity.
Here’s the thing: God has always been a psychosocial symbol for our finite perception of an infinite reality. It has always been the symbolic personification of our utter inability to grasp the infinite. It’s the archetype of pigeonholing the incomprehensible into the comprehensible.
We must destroy outdated notions of God in order not to get hung up on obsolete evolution, antiquated wisdom, and parochial notions of permanence. Indeed, we destroy God in order not to fool ourselves.
But we also must rebirth God in order to humble ourselves. So as not to get too far ahead of ourselves. We rebirth God in order to rebirth meaning itself. For there will always be the unknown. There will always be the Infinite which dwarfs our finitude. There will always be something bigger than us. There will always be a Greater Mystery, and we will always be trying to figure it out.
As Bruce Lee said, “All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.”
This is why it is your responsibility alone to break your fixed pattern of yourself (your cultural/religious/political conditioning). The truth will always be outside your fixed pattern of yourself.
This is the power of discovering the God within. When you can finally admit that you are God, you can finally get down to the difficult task of self-overcoming. You can finally get down to the brass tacks of your own empowering life-death-rebirth cycle.
Self-overcoming is a chisel for the hardened beliefs within you. Use it to humble yourself. Use it to destroy your illusions and murder your delusions. Use it to unsettle your settled mind, to shock your chakras, and to reevaluate all your values. Use it to discover the God within yourself.
As Camus said, “The greatness of man lies in his decision to be stronger than his condition.”
You were always God in hiding. Discovering the God within yourself is merely the parting of the veil. It’s the cutting away of delusion. It’s the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of all the religious pretense that came before. It’s the complete eradication of everything you were culturally conditioned to believe.
Discovering the God within, is a mighty blade that cuts through delusion, illusion, and belief. It reveals that God was always hidden within you. That Man is God asleep, and God is Man awake. That the Self was only ever a vital illusion, a tool you were culturally conditioned to use to leverage the overwhelm of cosmic interconnectedness.
As Plutarch stated, “The eye with which I perceive God is the same eye with which God perceives me.”
Discovering the God within (enlightenment) is the eye with which you perceive God seeing clearly enough to realize that it is the same eye with which God perceives you. Suddenly, you are fractal Buddha. You are Christ consciousness. You are the pinnacle expression of the human condition heretofore. You are the fountainhead, the source, the center of all things in circumference with the center of all other things.
As Black Elk said, “The center is everywhere.” You are the center. Once but a mere moth, now full-frontal fire. Before this realization, you were merely God asleep. After this realization, you are God awake. And you can no longer pretend to be asleep.
You become a firebrand so red-hot that the outflanking universe has no choice but to take it right on the flank—seared and sealed and put on notice that you’re not just a speck in the universe, you are the entire universe in a speck. You are God coming out of hiding and there is adventure to be had, there are connections to be made, there are outdated gods to kill, there are settled mindsets to unsettle, there are deaths to rebirth.
For the God in yourself is on a Truth Quest. It’s the part of you that understands that everything is connected to everything else. It’s your disconnected self in search of connection. It’s your independence in search of interdependence. It’s the part of you that understands that religions are merely steppingstones toward true spirituality.
The God in yourself understands that the search is the thing, not what’s found. The Truth Quest is the thing, not the “truth.” The journey is the thing, not the destination. The interconnectedness of all things is the thing, not the experience of being a single thing.
The God in yourself isn’t looking to follow a religion. It doesn’t necessarily need to follow this or that law, tenant, or commandment. All it needs is the Truth Quest, the open-ended journey, the vital inquisition. It is a questioner, an explorer, and a creator. As Lao Tzu said, “Highly evolved people have their own conscience as pure law,” And there is nothing more “highly evolved” than an individual who has individuated the God in themselves.
The world doesn’t need more run-of-the-mill people pretending to be asleep who believe God is something outside of them; it desperately needs more courageous people no longer pretending to be awake who realize that they are God personified.
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About the Author:
Gary Z McGee, a former Navy Intelligence Specialist turned philosopher, is the author of Birthday Suit of God and The Looking Glass Man. His works are inspired by the great philosophers of the ages and his wide-awake view of the modern world.
This article (Stop Pretending You're Not God) was originally created and published by Self-inflicted Philosophy and is printed here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Gary Z McGee and self-inflictedphilosophy.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this statement of copyright.