MORE ON DIVINE UNION
In further reflecting upon union with God, I marvel at the profound way it's impacted my approach to the divine.
When I was a Christian in my younger years, I believed in God; however, belief in that sense was weighing the available facts, considering the unknown and what is deemed unknowable, and drawing a conclusion that lines up with one's understanding and life experiences. In those younger years, God experiences were emotional in nature, oftentimes triggered by peak experiences or prompted by uncovering new understandings about God, life, or myself. They were attached to external events or fruitful insights and would subside fairly quickly because they were little more than a response to specific events.
I don't believe in God like I did in my youth. I sense him. It's not an emotional phenomenon, and it's very hard to describe. He is both motion and stillness. In him I both lose and find myself. I both rest and act. In this quiet, the shadow in my unconscious mind stills. Fear evaporates and ego-centered thinking cannot gain traction.
When immersed in him, I recognize what happens to me personally is inconsequential. When I walk in the living awareness that the Father and I are One - that I cannot be diminished any more than he can, for there is no difference - there is a lightness of being that renders all temporal concerns silent. It is freedom. It is love. Perhaps it’s God showing me what life is like on the other side of the The Wall.
I get the sense when God's love is fully manifested in a person, the very concept of sacrifice loses its meaning. Love empties itself and sees it as the culmination of its purpose and its joy. Iv'e often heard it said we are not worthy of God's love, but that, in his mercy, he gives it to us anyway. This is a corrosive lie and only leads to psychological damage. We are worthy of it, were in fact made for it, and cannot be complete without it. It is the reason we exist.