“Consciousness as God” (excerpt - ‘From Science to God’) by Peter Russell —— bonus content: Youtube interview entitled, ‘A REVOLUTION IN CONSCIOUSNESS ’
To many, the statement "I am God" rings of blasphemy. God, according to conventional religion, is the supreme deity, the almighty eternal omniscient creator. How can any lowly human being claim that he or she is God?
When the fourteenth-century Christian priest and mystic Meister Eckhart preached that "God and I are One" he was brought before Pope John XXII and forced to "recant everything that he had falsely taught." Others suffered a worse fate. The tenth-century Islamic mystic al-Hallãj was crucified for using language that claimed an identity with God.
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"The Evolution of Consciousness as Recorded in Ancient Times " by JC Tefft
When considering the underlying meaning and message of ancient scripture from the standpoint of evolving Consciousness, biblical stories reveal that the flowering of conscious Awareness amidst the Hebrew tribes was less about a ‘chosen people’ searching for their ‘promised land’ and more about a transformational progression within certain personages in Hebrew society from lower to higher ‘levels’ of conscious Awareness in their lifetime and in generations that followed. First one, then two, then four, and so on down the line, as an ever-growing number began to awaken unto the Light until at one point, in an instant, a sort of ‘grand mal’ awakening occurred in the person of Jesus wherein attachments to mental constructs of Mind collapsed entirely. Two others that we know of, the Buddha in India and Lao Tzu in China, were similarly transformed more than five centuries before.
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"The Evolution of Human Consciousness: and why we should be more open about The Bible" by Devon Bailey
It’s impossible to look at the human race and not see an evolution of awareness happening. Each generation brings about new questions about who we are and who we are supposed to be. Often a former way of thinking is challenged by an oppressed group and allies who have seen a different way to be in the world. In America, this is usually marked by marches and protests. Take the Civil Rights Movements of the sixties, the Woman Suffrage movements, and today’s movements for LGBTQ persons.
It also happens with the advent of a new technology. We once thought the earth was flat. We once thought the sky was a glassy firmament with windows that let the sky waters in. But now we have photographs of our round home and we’ve sent men into the sky so that they could walk on the rock that lights up our nights.
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Richard Rohr’s Levels of Spiritual Development (Part 1-4) by Wes Eades
This morning at St. Paul’s I’ll begin to raise questions about what we mean by “spiritual formation,” which is the fancy term we now use rather than the older term “discipleship.” Anyone raised in a religious setting is familiar with the concept of “spiritual growth.” This concept is all over scripture, especially in the writings of the Apostle Paul:
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me (1st Corinthians 13:11).
There have been many, many attempts to describe, in more detail, what this process of growth looks like. Rohr does an excellent job of integrating many of these attempts into the following “levels.” He presents this material in his book The Naked Now. I’ve relied very heavily on the summary is from this site in presenting this material.
I’ll open the conversation this morning with my elaboration on Ken Wilber’s metaphor of the warehouse, and then get into Rohr’s material.
Here’s the basic list of the stages:
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