Millennial Gaia Statue By Oberon Zell
I wonder when we will trust our bodies again?
I studied under a “spiritual teacher” for several years that used the language “the highest good”. Her answer to difficult things happening in the world was to “pray for the highest good”. Her answer to when we had conflict (excuse me, when I created conflict by disagreeing or “being in resistance“) was to “pray for the highest good”. Her questions to her inner guidance were, “What is in the highest good?”
I learned many valuable lessons from her, for which I am profoundly grateful. However, when she and I parted ways was the moment I got to see (painfully) that her philosophy excluded much of All Creation from Divinity. It happened in our kitchen. My husband and I were speaking with her while carpet layers were installing new carpet in the next room. She was speaking of “spiritual people”, and how some people just weren’t able to understand or weren’t at “the same level”; she motioned with her eyes and gestured to indicate the men in the next room.
Peter and I had experienced those men to be joyful in their work, present and attentive. Yes, they were missing some teeth. Yes, they may have descended from farmers in this rural area. Yes, they had maybe dropped out of high school in 10th grade. Yes, they may not have been comfortable holding a philosophical discussion. But it was very clear that they were Spirit incarnate; their presence sung clearly in the morning sunshine streaming through the window, illuminating their work. How were they not “spiritual”? This was the end of the “spiritual training” under this teacher, and the return to my childhood knowing of Life being my truest spiritual teacher.
It has taken some time to break that spell in my own mind of thinking in terms of “the highest good”. Those words imply that there is an apex, some sort of “one right path”, as opposed to many, many paths that could be supportive and life affirming. The “highest good” implies that there are things that fall outside of the Great Wheel of Life. It implies that there are mistakes, that we cannot trust life, that we can somehow control the Divine. It is a seductive belief system to try on.
I have determined that “the highest good” is a separatist philosophy, just as much as fundamentalist religion is. That some things are somehow “outside” the embrace of Divinity is just pure madness to me.
And feelings, or emotions are part of Divinity too. Just because we don’t like to deal with all of them (those pesky “negative” emotions are quite messy after all) doesn’t mean that they are not part of Divinity, too.
Babies need diaper changes. Crops and marriages and plans fail. Folks get sick. Folks die. Animal species go extinct. Natural disasters occur. Tragedies happen. Tough, shitty stuff is part of being alive. Are these folks who don’t acknowledge emotion trying to say that we are not supposed to FEEL when these things happen?
Is there anything that is NOT part of Divinity? Is there anything that is NOT part of ALL Creation? If so, where is it? Is there such a thing as “outside Divinity”? Where does it live?
If our desire is to be PART OF All Creation, then doesn’t it make sense that we acknowledge that EVERYTHING is part of All Creation, including sadness, anger, frustration, despair, all of that messy human stuff, too?
Our bodies tell us these things, if we will but listen. We argue. We have sex. We eat. We eliminate from our bodies…is that solid mass in the toilet part of Divinity, too? (Of course it is!) We have comings and goings, happiness and sadness, fun things that happen and tragedies that happen. And they are ALL part of Divinity. Being human is PART OF DIVINITY. There is no separation.
It is a terrible trap that many people have fallen into, this philosophy that there are things that are Divine and things that somehow fall outside that category. It is a way for us to separate ourselves from other human beings, others’ feelings, and Divinity itself.
