Nothing exists outside of God. Everything in creation, at its most basic level, is filled with the essence of God. There is nothing else!

It's like the connection between the power plant fifty miles away and the light bulb in the lamp next to your favorite chair. The chair, the lamp, the household wiring, the high tension lines, the power plant itself are all secondary, all merely part of a delivery system. The invisible energy produced by the generators flows through those lines, and it is that same energy which warms the filament in your light bulb and illuminates the words in your book. The rest of the hardware is dead and meaningless without the energy which flows through it. The only difference is that at its source the power is rated at a million megawatts and in your light bulb it is stepped down to a mere hundred watts.

In the same way, God and we are part of the same energy system. I may be as tiny compared to God as my light bulb is compared to the power plant output, but the same energy flows through both of us. That is what God meant by saying, "Let us make mankind in our image." That is what Jesus meant when he said, "I and the Father are one."

Now, having said that, we have to recognize the opposite truth, that the difference between my little light bulb and a megawatt power station is enormous. The station may power my bulb, but if it were to shoot all its power my way, it would not only explode my little bulb, it would burn down my house and probably most of my neighborhood. That power has to be stepped down through a series of transformers in order to be useable down at my tiny level. Those transformers do their job so well that the power of the station is completely tamed, and it comes to me in a tiny trickle which is able to be tolerated by my simple system.

The same thing is true with God. God's power flows through me, surrounds me, energizes me, gives my life vitality and imagination, and guards me as I venture day by day to fulfill my mission. But it is stepped down as it comes to me so that it doesn't totally overwhelm my limited awareness. Different people receive this power at different frequencies. Those to whom it comes with higher voltage exhibit certain traits which seem unusual - psychic powers, healing skills, spiritual wisdom, and so on. But in every case the transformer steps that power down from a divine frequency to a human one. To broaden the image, if God is 100-dimensional and we are merely three-dimensional creatures, then we cannot conceive of anything beyond those three dimensions. We even have trouble trying to fit time into our awareness as a fourth dimension, so imagine the impossibility of understanding the 43rd or the 87th dimension of God.

Thus, God's energy is stepped down through a transformer which vibrates at a three-dimensional rate, changing everything that comes to us into a mode which we can understand. As a result, we see God as a three-dimensional reality, with all the characteristics and failings of our three-dimensional world - love and blessing, but also anger, punishment, warlikeness, and jealousy.

Yet, this humanoid God - an old man with a long white beard - fails to show us the true nature of God. To find a more accurate image, we must move outside our three-dimensional heritage and go through a reverse series of transformers, stepping up our understanding until we come nearer to the original power plant. This is the function of faith. Ironically, the Church has never learned to do this very well. It is still reading the truth of God by the light of a 100-watt bulb. What it tells us is not untrue, but that feeble light leaves a lot of the truth in darkness.

[Excerpted from A Handbook For Heretics, pp. 45-46]

Posted 8-15-04

Copyright: John W. Sloat 2004