Midweek Faith Lift
September 20, 2023
Unity, the Mystics &
Quantum Leap, Part 2
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Spiritual Reflection
September 8, 2023
Our early ancestors came remarkably close to extinction 900,000 years ago say scientists in a recent report. The population dwindled to about 1,280 individuals and remained at that level for more than 100,000 years. The die-off is likely to have been caused by changes in the global climate resulting in a prolonged drought and a drop in ocean temperatures.
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin
Affirmative prayer: Infinite Presence, I am thankful for the emergence of new experiences in my life: new encounters, challenges, insights, and whole new vistas. I welcome change and am glad to be on a life-journey of renewal and transformation. My mind is bright, my creative powers are activated, and I am poised for richness. Thank you, God, forever. Amen.
This is a great awareness of our human condition on this earth as together, we contemplate and explore more of the mystical path in our journey today. To imagine that the population of humans on earth was only 1280 people and that this was only 900,000 years ago is sobering, especially in light of the 11 billion or so and the changes in climate we are experiencing today. If we remember the words of Richard Rohr from several Sunday’s ago, that the purpose of the church is to wake us up and keep us awake, this information is a highly charged alarm bell, for sure!
I love this quotation from Gary Zukav-“If we perceived life with reverence, we would walk the Earth with a deep sense of gratitude. Reverence is an encounter with the soul, a natural aspect of empowerment.” The quiet, contemplation of the mystics is for sure an encounter with the soul, and a profound aspect of empowerment, for the true power comes from within- from within each and every one of us. The shift in the perception of the mystics is to see each living being as holy, sacred and as essentially blessed and good. God is not outside of us, God dwells within each one of us. The energy of that Presence of God is what the mystics experienced and that experience drives their perception and spiritual understanding.
One of the voices of mysticism in England in the 1600’s was that of George Fox and the Quakers or Religious Society of Friends. The spiritual practice of the Quakers is to gather in and sit in the Silence each Sunday with no one speaking until clearly moved by the Spirit. The essential belief as expressed by George Fox is that the “Lord…dwells in people’s hearts….His people were his Temple and he dwelt in them.” The Quakers were seen as heretics in England for this radical belief and sought refuge in the Netherlands and then in the New World in the colony of Pennsylvania. William Penn was the benefactor of this movement and it is no accident that the city of Philadelphia is called “The City of Brotherly Love.”
The American Transcendentalists are also part of this connection to the mystical or transcendent path in the US in the mid-19th century. Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson were part of the New England Transcendentalists whose work and writings and practices greatly influenced Charles Fillmore. Theirs is an understanding of a kind of nature mysticism that deeply values nature and the worth of each individual as part and parcel of God. There is a “numinous” spirit in the Universe to which we are all deeply connected and contained within.
Rev. Paul Roach quotes on page. 26 from Emmerson’s essay, “Nature”:
Standing on the bare ground,-- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,--all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.
Emmerson is describing a mystical experience, which for him came most frequently in nature, not in a church. The ancient forest was his cathedral. The Transcendentalists sought to have a direct experience of the Divine and the Oneness of all of Creation. One does not worship God, one encounters and experiences the energy of God, the Allness of God, primarily in nature. It is interesting to note that Myrtle Fillmore writes about very similar experiences that she had in nature, especially as a young girl. It would not be inaccurate to characterize Myrtle as a “nature mystic.”
We should also note that the Unitarians also arose from these same Transcendental roots as they primarily questioned the notion of “Trinity” choosing to see God as One, they defined themselves as “Unitarians” rather than “Trinitarians.” We share their questioning of the “doctrine” of the Trinity, casting it instead into the metaphysical language of “Mind, Idea, Expression.” We have taken it even further, to describe it as Human/Observer/Divine Self. This very much in keeping with another more modern mystic, Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
Teilhard was a French philosopher, paleontologist and Jesuit priest. He died in 1955 and his writings were published posthumously, as they were banned by the Catholic Church during his lifetime. They are now widely read in seminaries and philosophy classes all over the world, which demonstrates the real success of banning books! Teilhard developed a cosmology of the universe and the role of humans in it. To him, God, or the Universe is in Process, moving toward the Omega point where all beings would rise to a new level of awareness or consciousness. There is a dynamic evolution in which the One, God, is seeking full expression in the many, which is all of us, all of creation. And the many are seeking unity in the Oneness or Allness that is God. In this dynamic relationship, more of God is made known, reavealed and expressed.
This is described as “Process Theology” and is very much in keeping with Unity teachings. It is also very much in harmony with the domain of science and all that we have learned and are learning about the essential nature of reality through science. Charles Fillmore was not acquainted with Teilhard but my guess is that he would have been intrigued and inspired by his writings and ideas. Fillmore frequently asserted that God was unchanging Good much like the Omega point. The nature of God is continually being revealed through all of us as we awaken to a higher reality. Contemporary writers such as Ken Wilbur call this “Second Tier” consciousness. It is very much still a work in process for sure!
In order for us to make the leap to “Second Tier” consciousness, to be woke and stay woke, we have to become uncomfortable enough to be motivated to truly make a change and those changes are internal, within each one of us. Price Pritchett, once again in his book, The Quantum Leap Strategy addresses this need to get uncomfortable as he has a chapter called just that. We cannot make quantum leaps unless we are willing to become uncomfortable. He writes on p. 26
The psychological discomfort comes from having to destabilize yourself to make the quantum leap. The breakthrough from you to you2 involves new behavior, and that disturbs your personal equilibrium. Since the natural tendency of a human being is to seek homeostasis, you feel emotional pressure to resume your usual routines. Old habits don’t give up easily.
True quantum leap consciousness will require us all to wake up to what is no longer working and begin to envision and embrace what does serve us all.
It is a kind of resurrection process that we individually and then collectively experience. And it is often simple, but not easy. I am reminded of the collective consciousness that finally said no to smoking on planes, in restaurants and indoor spaces. It wasn’t possible, until it was! Likewise, when Mothers Against Drunk Driving finally got MADD enough, we began to see laws against drunk driving really get serious and impactful. It was a result of a consciousness shift due to a change in life conditions. In the fullness of time, we will most likely see that kind of change with respect to the prevailing use of guns to resolve conflict and violence to address anger and other difficult emotions. We are capable of more we just have to wake up to that, and stay awake! Individually and collectively! We aren’t there just yet.
Likewise with regard to religion and church, things will continue to change.
In his 9-4-23 blog, “Letting Go of Churchiness,” Richard Rohr writes:
Nothing dies; it just keeps changing form. So, we have a natural foundation for what we call resurrection that isn’t a unique belief of Christianity—it is in the very shape of the cosmos. What this leads us to is a whole new partnership with what we used to negatively dismiss as “mere science.” Sadly, we split the universe when we did that. We said that our form of knowledge was the only true form and all those other knowers were ignorant unbelievers. We can’t do that anymore. We now know that truth is one, and we’re all seeing it from different angles and at different levels. Just because one group uses the vocabulary at one level, and those in our group use the vocabulary at a different level, what right do we have to say our vocabulary is the only true description of the universe?
Religion is no longer a spectator sport, an observing of some distant, far- off truth, but it’s an observing of what is true in me, and what is true in me is true of the cosmos. It’s all one reality. Frankly this makes the job of evangelization—if we want to use that Christian word—much easier because we’re not bringing in an extraneous message. We’re simply naming what is.
One of the many blessings of the mystics is a deep appreciation for the ordinary, for what is. I leave you with a poem from the Taoist’s:
Make the Ordinary Come Alive
Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is a way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.
~William Martin from
The Parent’s Tao Te Ching
Ancient Advice for Modern Parents
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb