A message channeled during a group session on September 1, 2024, by Rev. Jeff Munnis to help us understanding what it means to be both human and Divine.

Transcript

There is always death around you. Sometimes there is death within you. And isn’t it such a part of us that we think of death as the end of life, when really it is just a part of life that continues. And if we think of that death as a transition, where there is an opening into a different life, that changes our understanding of who we are and what our purpose might be.

The “who we are” part of that question is so difficult for us to comprehend, not because we have limitations or because we have fears or because we don’t feel good enough, it’s hard to comprehend because the truth is there is Divinity within us that is part of our very being and connected to that network of Divinity that makes up the universe of which we live.

But this idea that we are Divine, especially when we are in the midst of fear or feeling incomplete, or when we feel incapable or without some ability that we wish to have, this Divinity feels so far away. And when we call on it, when we pray, we pray, many of us or for most of us as if that God that answers our prayer is somewhere else, rather than inside of us. We pray as if there is the need for the words of our prayer to find an ear, someone that listens. All of these things inside of us make it so difficult to understand the answer to that simple question, “Who are we?” Because if we do have a life that continues—and we do—then the idea of our purpose can change very dramatically. It can change from something that lives inside of time that’s been bracketed with a beginning and an end. And we see ourselves in the work that we do, or we see ourselves in the effect we have in the world, and we see those kinds of things as our purpose, when really, if it goes beyond that, and those things end, our purpose is not over.

Our purpose as human beings is the full and complete realization of the Divine that is within us. It is in that Divinity with us, that understanding of that part of who we are that our purpose unfolds. And it’s okay to think of this in terms of a God that we’re approaching, rather than a God that we’ve already reached. That movement toward that understanding of God and the life that is in God will still reveal itself to us. But that moment of understanding when we realize the Divinity within us, that moment is like putting your foot on the gas pedal and accelerating your movement into that union—a union, which if we fully understand, already exists. So those barriers to that understanding, those barriers that prevent us from seeing the natural and innate goodness of our own being, the barriers that show us separation, those are really the barriers to our purpose, meaning they are the barriers to the full realization of God within us.

There is a saying that even a fool who persists in his folly will someday become wise. And this is true, but the journey that that fool takes is a much different journey than the journey that’s available to us. So, on one very basic level, we might say it doesn’t matter what we do, but on a much deeper level, that saying that it doesn’t matter simply because we will get there is a form of denial. And, when we have a form of denial within us about who we are or about the meaning of something, in a way, it is like denying God.

The God that I am speaking of is a God that can speak through us, but also a God that speaks to us. It’s a God that can seem hidden yet is in everything that we see. That one fear of death, even it holds part of the mystery of life in God. So, we can see that part of our way of understanding God is understanding the unity that exists between things that have what we call separation or where we feel a difference, where we don’t see the connection, where we can’t find the Divinity.

Every human being approaches these problems at some point by using their mind. And our mind functions, or appears to function, so well when it can catalog and separate and compare. And so, we have to understand that our mind can be like one of those obstacles that was mentioned just before. Inside all of these conundrums, inside all of these little paradoxes, when we access the Divine and when we ask the Divine to reveal itself to us, one of the first things that we’re going to see is that paradox, is that difference, that seeming coexistence of two different things in the same space. In order for that space to unfold for us, using our mind gets in the way. So that if we want to look into that mystery of those things that seem to occupy the same space, we have to access a different part of our being.

It may seem simple to hear this or to hear it said, but part of the way the access or to get through that paradox is to sit in that paradox, but to sit in that paradox with the recognition of our own Divinity. The recognition of who we are. And as each moment comes and goes, we can allow ourselves to recognize the truth of that moment. The truth that at some moment, we will feel weak. The truth that in another moment, we might feel strong. The truth that in one moment, we’ll feel vulnerable. In another moment, we’re fearless. So, we take that journey in to those differences, and when we sit fully in that moment, we realize that we are the intersection that exists in that same space. That we are the intersection of those things that are both present and not present throughout our lives.

This is not always a comfortable place to sit. One of the things we do as human beings is we tend to sit on one side of that space or what feels like one side of that space in the negative. We forget that the positive exists in that same space. And the only way for the positive to reappear for us is to remain in the same space. We can’t run away from that space because it is going to reappear in that same space so running away takes us away from where we need to be.

All of this should sound very confusing, but that’s part of the mystery as well. That’s part of the ambiguity that presents itself to us.

So how do we keep moving, in a sense? We know we’re going to stay in the same place, but how do we feel the movement toward resolution? How do we feel the movement of unfolding out of that still small point that’s within us? Well, we don’t use our mind. We ask for and we call on a separate part of our being. And we can say that it’s our heart, that it’s a different center of intelligence within us, and that would be true because that’s the way most of us experience it. Or let’s say that we experience that in the beginning, but as time goes on, even our idea of what comes from our heart can feel like it is corrupted. That’s not a statement about love or compassion. That’s a different kind of statement.

We have a capacity—you can call it a sense or one of the senses, just like sight or touch or smell or taste—a capacity that we group different capacities into one word, and that one word we use is intuition. But because we don’t see our ability to access these other senses, we call it intuition and sometimes don’t see the distinction between the things we experience. Intuition works in some ways like instinct. It’s a natural capacity of our being. For some of us, that intuition can be through our hearing. The hearing of sounds or the hearing a vibration, which is another way of saying sound, but to know through a vibration or a sound a direction that comes to us through that sound is a form of intuition. And there’s a different kind of sight—a seeing that sees past the surface appearance of things, that allows us to see, you might have heard someone say, “I can see into that person’s intention” or “I can see into their care,” even though the outward appearance is not there. But our way of saying that we see means that our intuition perception is analogous to sight for us. So, there are some who see, some who hear, there are some who feel, meaning that they experience the energy in a room, or they experience the energy of another person. They experience a sensation. It’s easy to identify all the sensations that we feel as being our experience, but when those sensations come, if we are sitting in that centered, Divine place, then we can distinguish between what we are feeling, what comes from us, and what’s coming from the environment around us. And this would be another form of intuition. To access even one of these senses, and we can call them a spiritual sense, leads to a great deal of understanding when we know the purpose of that. And there are some people who might even have the capacity to use all of those, but that’s rare.

So when we say that it’s our purpose to experience the Divine, to find and have the revelation of our own identity, that we have a purpose of illuminating, not just ourselves, but being a light for those around us, the journey into that space is the journey that I’ve just described, where we sit in the middle of those puzzling things, those paradoxes, those conundrums, where we’re the intersection, where the mind can be an obstacle, and where we need to learn to access a part of ourselves that might feel like it’s the heart, but it’s coming from this deep, intuitive capacity within us. It’s a knowing kind of capacity. It’s a kind of knowing that knows us, has always known us, and it’s helpful in knowing that that is part of us, the part of us that knows us as ourselves as well.

There are many things that spiritual teachers have said over the centuries of human existence. For example, for Jesus to say that he is in God, and God is in him, and that he is in us, and that we are in him, is an expression of the mystery that was just described. That’s not just a statement of his identity, because if it’s just a statement of his identity, then we miss the whole point. We miss the point that we are part of that same Divinity that is in him, and the same Divinity that is in us.

We know to be cautious, meaning, that essence of God that is in us does not mean that we are God. And so, we have to work with this kind of knowledge with great humility. And because this knowledge is very powerful, the idea that we are Divine frightens people. It frightens them into denial not just of who they are but who we are. But there are promises that have been made by the same teachers that reveal to us that these capacities exist for us, in service to us, in service to our purpose as both human and Divine beings. And the nurturing of this capacity, the growth of this capacity is central to our purpose in this life.

There’s a very fine distinction that exists between intimidation and respect. Don’t be intimidated by knowing that you carry the spark of the Divine within yourself, but at the same time, respecting the sacredness of that and the power of that is essential to that spark of the Divine being received like a gift.

(S.G. – Do you think that the analogy of putting our foot on the gas pedal, as we step toward furthering that union, do you see it kind of like a self-initiated? I kept getting this analogy as you were talking, kind of like cruise control in car, that if we initiate it, that maybe it has its own after that, it can be regulated like the analogy of cruise control. Something of that initiation of stepping on the gas pedal and us moving toward that.)

I think I would say that that’s the feeling of what happens, the effect, perhaps. But this is another one of those mysteries that exists in our relationship with this energy that is God, meaning that there’s a part of it that feels like it comes from us, and sometimes when we’re so in that space of us, it feels like we’re the one controlling it and directing it, and we might even say that we have the capacity to create it. But then, in that same space is also the understanding that there is a truth that is so much bigger and more powerful than us, that we can’t own it and we can’t control it. So that dynamic of being accelerating or decelerating, reaching out or being reached toward us, is simply, those are simply ways of describing the mutuality that exists. And, in a way, the mutuality is what is the motion. All of these ideas about going up to heaven or going forward or growing or progressing, we’re still all in the same place. We’re still, in those descriptions, we’re using our mind to describe our experience because we’re kind of enmeshed in this material reality right now, and in this material reality, our mind, in order to function, defaults into sort of a chronological perception of time. So those movements—up, down, sideways, growing, us moving forward, it coming toward us—are all really related to our experience of that energy in a material world with a sense of chronological time. So that’s my best way to not answer directly what you said.

(S.G. - That’s perfect. Thank you.)

I don’t know why this analogy popped into my head, but maybe somebody here was thinking of this. There’s an aspect of it that’s a bit like skiing—and by that, I mean water skiing. There’s a part of it where you hold onto the rope, and as you turn, and as you use the skis, you can kind of push your way into the water to resist, but then you kind of pop out. And, if you don’t allow it to pull you, if you resist it, then you wipe out. There’s a little bit of that kind of dynamic to the process, especially if you think of the boat that’s pulling the skier as being that energy. So, it’s there if you can grab on, and you learn how to let it be the thing that moves you forward, yet at the same time, knowing that you can—and this is I think part of the reason for this analogy—you can experience the joy of taking that journey with all kinds of flips and turns and jumps and weaving back and forth and around in the water, because that’s kind of how life is designed if we’re willing to let it happen that way.

There’s also another part of water skiing that’s very interesting. And I think that it just came to me because that’s the way I was when I water skied. And that is that a beginner who is water skiing, one of the frequent mistakes they make is they pull on the rope, rather than let the rope pull them, and when you pull on the rope, you wipe out. So, there’s that element of us trying to be the one in control or taking control that interrupts the beauty of being pulled.

(SM – This way of being that you’re describing, I can’t think of an example of a human that I know that embodies that. Even, I know a lot of people really liked the Dali Lama, then he did something weird, stuck his tongue in somebody’s mouth or something, and then all of a sudden, everybody’s like, oh, well, he’s human too and still has his issues. I don’t even think he’s a good example of somebody who embodies this way of being. Is there someone that you can think of that we would all know, that we could be like, “Oh, that’s what it looks like.” Or maybe it’s more of an internal thing? It’s somebody we don’t know that maybe does this. It’s the quiet person. It just seems like such a hard thing to embody.)

Yes, it’s very hard to embody. It’s hard to embody in a material sense, meaning that if you try to see this process occurring over deciding which bank to put your money in or which car to buy or if you see it and want to know how the Divine might look in choosing different colors for the interior of our house, you’re’ not going to see it. And part of the reason is that those concerns, for the most part, are neutral, meaning they’re not choices that are necessarily representative of a greater understanding of the world. So, that’s one thing.

The second thing is that we’re in this world as part of our purpose because we need to develop this kind of capacity in this context. And so, no one is here that doesn’t have some struggle with some part of what we just described. So, to look and see an example of a person who completely embodies this capacity would be very difficult to find. But, on the other hand, there are many people who rise to the occasion in their lives where they are faced with choices that completely embody this capacity in the moment. And so, it’s more a matter of seeing these moments that happen with people. And one of the best things that we can do as human beings is try to acknowledge that when we see it in other people, when we see them do something in the moment that embodies wisdom or embodies love or embodies the kind of kindness and compassion that we believe is representative of God. And then what that does, our encouragement, is the very thing that awakens that to some degree inside of us.

So, this world is always going to have that difficult appearance to some degree. And it takes a very special being to be able to see the innate or essential goodness that exists in everything in this world. Our minds are still a huge filter of our experiences, and so, when we see things like death and disease, we frequently don’t have the capacity to see the Divine at work in those moments. And so, those kinds of mysteries for us in this realm require a very deep and very powerful ability or access to that Divinity in order for us to understand. And so, there is an element of faith that it is there that is important for us. And it’s very important for us to have that ability to see that in other human beings because that’s a reflection of our ability to see it within ourselves. But the wholeness of it, meaning seeing all of that all wrapped up in a human body with a human mind, living and existing in this material realm, I won’t say that it didn’t exist, but it would be so rare, very few would see it.

(S.M. - Thank you.)

We could also say that there are some that are better at it than others, but so you might see it more with some people, but that might just be our own ability to see, meaning it’s dependent on the viewer. We might have way more doers out there than we realize.