{"id":266,"date":"2008-04-05T05:45:33","date_gmt":"2008-04-05T05:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/04\/the-case-for-a-new-spiritualit.html"},"modified":"2008-04-05T05:45:33","modified_gmt":"2008-04-05T05:45:33","slug":"the-case-for-a-new-spiritualit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/04\/the-case-for-a-new-spiritualit.html","title":{"rendered":"The case for a New Spirituality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Does the world need a ‘new spirituality’? A new way of viewing and experiencing God? There are those who say ‘yes.’ There are those who feel that we can no longer sustain life harmoniously on the earth within the limitations of our current belief systems. Others disagree. What do you think?
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\nNOTE: Saturday is Prose & Poetry Day here on the blog, a time to take a moment once a week to relax the mind, open the heart, and access the soul through the gift of prose from one of the many books of The New Spirituality, and through the poetry of m. Claire, author of the forthcoming volume, Silent Sacred Holy Deeply: Heart.<\/em>
\nFor this week’s prose we offer…the fourth in a series of excerpts from Tomorrow’s God<\/em>…
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\nChapter Three
\nINTRODUCING TOMORROW\u2019S GOD
\nSo we\u2019re right back where we started.<\/p>\n

Yes. When I said \u201cThis book is meant to save the world,\u201d I meant it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What is it going to tell me that other books haven\u2019t?<\/p>\n

Nothing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nothing?<\/p>\n

Nothing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And this is going to save the world?<\/p>\n

It could. It was meant to, and it could.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, if all that I\u2019m going to read here has been in other books, why bother reading this book? The world is on the brink of disaster, and all the stuff in the other books hasn\u2019t helped.<\/p>\n

Correct on the first count, incorrect on the second. \u201cAll the stuff in the other books\u201d has helped humanity stave off disaster is the past. The world\u2019s esoteric wisdom has helped it correct its course before, and it can do it again. But that wisdom must now be expanded to take into account humanity\u2019s expanded possibilities for self-destruction.
\nEducation is the key. It is the most powerful tool you have. Educate everyone. Tell everyone about God and about Life. Eliminate illiteracy, then eliminate functional illiteracy, then eliminate spiritual illiteracy.
\nWhat is required is nothing less than a new worldwide communications network\u2014and a new worldwide message from humanity to humanity itself.
\nThe more you know about how to destroy yourself, the more you need to know about how to save yourself. It is time now to expand your base of knowledge of God and of Life, to grow in your understandings, to increase your awareness, and to enlarge your consciousness.
\nIt is time to move from the Old Spirituality to The New Spirituality, to let go of Yesterday\u2019s God and to embrace Tomorrow’s God.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is not going to be easy. People don\u2019t like letting go of the old for the new.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s make it clear one last time that what we are talking about here is not a new God, but a new experience of the \u201cold\u201d God.
\nSometimes it takes a new saying of an old truth, a new sharing of old wisdom, for that truth to be heard and for that wisdom to be understood.
\nAll the truths and all the wisdom that I will share with you here have been shared before.
\nEvery so often in human history your ancient understandings have been restated for modern times. Thoughts previously expressed have been expressed again, in a new and expanded way. Abraham did this. Moses did this. The Buddha did this. Jesus did this. Muhammad did this. Baha\u2019u\u2019llah did this. Jalal al-Din Rumi did this. Joseph Smith did this. Many masters and many teachers, known and unknown, have done this. Many are doing it today.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Okay, but what if I say that my old ideas do not include any belief in God at all? What if all this talk about \u201cGod\u201d just turns me off, makes me frustrated, or takes me to no place in my mind in which it has any meaning or reality at all?<\/p>\n

Tomorrow’s God will not require you to believe in God. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He won\u2019t?<\/p>\n

No, she won\u2019t. And that\u2019s the First Important Difference between Yesterday\u2019s God and Tomorrow’s God:
\n1. Tomorrow’s God does require anyone to believe in God.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wait a minute. Tomorrow’s God will be female?<\/p>\n

Yes. Except when she\u2019s not. Then, he\u2019ll be male. Unless he\u2019s not. In which case God will be neither male nor female, but, rather, without gender.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Without gender?<\/p>\n

Without gender, size, shape, color, or any of the characteristics of an individual living being. And that\u2019s the Second Important Difference between Yesterday\u2019s God and Tomorrow’s God:
\n2. Tomorrow’s God is without gender, size, shape, color, or any of the characteristics of an individual living being.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You mean that Tomorrow’s God is not a living being?<\/p>\n

No. Not in the sense that you mean those words.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How can that be? If God is not a living being, then what is God?<\/p>\n

Well, now, that\u2019s what this conversation is going to be all about. But, let me tell you a story.
\nA woman steps onto a balcony late one night to gaze at a diamond-filled sky, tears in her eyes, seeking answers to her questions, healing for her breaking heart, as she searches the heavens.
\nShe feels alone, desperate. \u201cGod,\u201d she says, \u201cif you\u2019re here, show yourself to me. I can\u2019t go on like this anymore, all alone.\u201d Abruptly, a shooting star streaks across the velvet sky. The woman\u2019s heart stops. She can\u2019t believe her eyes.
\nNow, I have a question for you.
\nWas that God?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, I believe it was God who made that happen.<\/p>\n

No, I did not ask you if it was God who made that happen. I asked you if that was God, happening.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, I don\u2019t know how to answer that. It could have been a coincidence.<\/p>\n

And what caused the coincidence?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, I would say that God caused it, but then we\u2019re back to the definition of God which states that God is the Cause of things, not the things that are caused.<\/p>\n

Do you suppose that God could be both the Cause and That Which Is Caused? Do you think that God could be both the Creator and the Created?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I never thought about it that way. But no, on first glance, I would say that God is the Creator and we, and the world, are the Created. And if I didn\u2019t believe in God at all, I would say that what caused the shooting star to fall just then was random chance.<\/p>\n

And random chance randomly selected that random moment for that random occurrence?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes. If I did not believe in God, I would say that, yes, the occurrence was caused by randomness. What do I know? What are you asking me? I am telling you that it could have been nothing more than what happened. The fact that it happened just then would have no meaning at all, except the meaning someone gives it.<\/p>\n

Now you have hit upon something. Nothing has any meaning at all, save the meaning you give it..
\nNow, in the story above, what meaning do you give to the star shooting across the night sky at the exact moment the woman is asking God to give her a sign of God\u2019s existence?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don\u2019t know what meaning to give it, really. I don\u2019t know what to make of it. I was not there, having the experience, so I don\u2019t know what to say about that.<\/p>\n

What do you think the woman might say about it?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She might say that the shooting star was caused by God, or that the shooting star was God, answering her prayer right then and there. She might be moved to believe either of those things, given the synchronicity of the event.<\/p>\n

Indeed. And if she believed the shooting star was God, do you think she would experience God as male or female?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Uh\u2026.I see what you mean.
\n(Next Saturday, installment #5 from Tomorrow’s God<\/em>.)
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\nThis week’s gift of poetry<\/strong><\/em>
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\nBeloved,
\neven when you are
\nnaked before Me,
\nfiltering Spirit through
\nthe smallness
\nI listen for,
\nI hear,
\nthe music that plays,
\nin the spaces between
\nWho You Think
\nand
\nWho You Are.
\n*
\n(I Listen For – m. claire – copyright 2007 – all rights reserved)
\nFor more of the work of this new poetic voice you are invited to visit www.mclairepoet.com.
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\nIf you liked Conversations with God<\/em> you are going to love Happier Than God<\/em>, the newest book from Neale Donald Walsch. Described as “a Master’s Guide to Spiritual Awakening,” this extraordinary new work has just been released and is available now. Click on the Happier Than God icon at the right of this blog page for more info, and enjoy the most empowering book you have read since CWG-Book 1!
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