Yet Ever Distinct....

On Emerging Universalist, on a thread called Jesus and Buddhism..which evolved into a discussion of chirst in us/as us...someone posted the following quote that I thought succinctly explained the concept that God is all of us, but individually (or corporately) we are not all of God.

each is as a-hair on the skin of Dog*,
not all that Dog* is... but... completely Dog*.

Yep..well said, samuel. 

Sometimes, I get this little check in my spirit at the "we are god" teachings.  A few times, I have been at praise and worship services where we were encouraged to substitute OUR name in place of God's name in some of the songs.   Ahhhhh...that just does not feel right.  I get a huge check in my spirit about that.I am a hair on the skin of Dog....but not all that Dog is.  And when I sing praises to my heavenly father, I don't feel as if I should stick my name alongside his name....as if I deserve that same level of glory.  Nope. Just does not feel right. 

I think a lot of the "Christ as us" teachings over estimate our worth...our level of "godhood."

Don't you think that God is an entity/being/force outside of us that is not limited to what is in humanity?  If I look out at the universe...it is God.  I feel Him all around me....in the air I breath.  He encompasses me.   I know He is not a bearded guy in the sky, but I don't think all that he is is contained in humanity.  Like Stacey Wood's analogy of the ocean and the glass of ocean water.  Everything that is in that glass is "ocean" but it is not THE ocean.  I've been rereading some of Eckhart Tolle's writings again and in the first few pages of The Power of Now there were two quotes similar to this.....

On page 15 it says:

There is an eternal, ever present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death.  Many people use the word God to describe it; I often call it Being.  The word Being explains nothing, but nor does God.  Being, however, has the advantage that it is an open concept.  It does not reduce the infinite invisible to a finite entity. It is impossible to form a mental image of it. 

To me, when we limit the totality of God to his manifestation in humanity we are making him into a finite entity.  Some of the websites I have visited lately seem to say God exists only in the portion of himself that he deposited in humanity.  There is no God outside of us.  I don't think I agree with that, because to me he seems so much more.  Infinite and endless. 

And on page 21 where Eckhart is discussing catching glimpses of this Presence within he says this:

And yet this is not a selfish, but a selfless state.  It takes you beyond what you previously thought of as "your self."  That presence is essentially you and at the same time inconceivably greater than you. 

I am still at the level of God as Father...greater than me...greater than the sum of his spirit in humanity....immeasurable, mind blowing, yet infinitely personal and closer than breath....all the while being omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient and what was the other omni someone coined....onmicapable????

A few posts ago I mentioned a web site with comparisons of sacred writings from many different religions listed topically, I came upon the following verse....

Why do you go to the forest in search of God?
He lives in all and is yet ever distinct;
He abides with you, too,
As a fragrance dwells in a flower,
And reflection in a mirror;
So does God dwell inside everything;
Seek Him, therefore, in your heart.

9. Sikhism. Adi Granth, Dhanasri, M.9, p. 684

He lives in all and is yet ever distinct...yep, that sums it up well, don't you think?