8 ways to commune with God
We have forgotten how to listen and understand the messages of the Earth. We have forgotten that when we see the sprout of an acorn, that it is our very own nature on display. We have forgotten that the whole of the Earth and all of our material life is but a simple reflection. It’s nothing to feel bad about. It happened a long, long time ago. It’s recounted in our oral history in most cultural traditions as “the Fall,” or, the exit from Eden. What happened? For the first time, we saw ourselves as separate; we identified as our bodies; we experienced shame. We believed the dream world was real. We became captured and enraptured by the illusion, enslaved by our bodily desires and cravings. It was the first moment of forgetting. Yet, despite this, or perhaps because of it, we had help. Native American legend tells us that the animals felt sorry for us, for our weakness, and stepped in as our helpers and allies. But, alas, we soon forgot that too and broke our promises and agreements with them. We then saw ourselves as separate, superior, masters even, and the animals no longer helped us as they once did. Sickness, disease and death spread among us. We became mortal.
…we are somewhat in the position of one who having inherited from his ancestors a pair of crutches has no longer any faith in his legs. In short, it is a question of believing in our own consciousness– it has not only legs but millions of eyes and arms, and even wings. In the very history of our evolution, the consciousness, submerged in Matter, has grown accustomed to depend on a certain number of outer organs to perceive the world and because we have seen the antennae appear before the master of the antennae, we have concluded , puerilely, that it is the antennae which have created the master and that without the antennae there is no master, no perception of the world. But this is an illusion. Our dependence on the senses is only a habit, millennial it is true, but no more ineluctable than the chipped flint implements of the Chellean man: It is possible for the mind– and it would be natural for it, if it could be persuaded to liberated itself from its consent to the domination of matter, — to take direct cognisance of the objects of sense without the aid of the sense-organs.
Sri Aurobindo, or the Adventure of Consciousness by Satprem
Since then, luckily, there have been human messengers to walk among us, in our own form to speak to us in plain language and to tell us what we have forgotten. To help us wake up from the illusion. These messengers are in every culture, in each generation, coming from all religious backgrounds. Many leave legacies, stories, teachings, words, and writings that last beyond their physical lives. Sometimes, their plain words seem like riddles, so fixed are we in our material existence, our duality, our identity with the separate sense of self, our delusion.
We have to be ready to receive the messages of these masters, not just individually, but culturally; otherwise, the teaching may be misunderstood, as in the time of Pythagoras, whose secrets were so well guarded they are mostly lost to us, or worse, too threatening to exist at all, as it was with Jesus.
Cultures are never merely intellectual constructs. They take form through the collective intelligence and memory, through a commonly held psychology and emotions, through spiritual and artistic communion.
Tariq Ramadan
Communication is from the Latin communicationem “to make common,” related to communis “common, public, general.” So communication then is universal, not individual. In this way communication is yoga, or communion with Oneness.
Wisdom is a sacred communion.
Victor Hugo
In this lesson, we learn to listen to and speak with the voice of wisdom, both from within and without, as that which we call into our conscious awareness. In doing so, we remember, as Satprem says, how to fly without the crutches of the sense organs.
O Divine Mother,
Swami Rama
May all my speech and idle talk be mantra,
All actions of my hands be mudra,
All eating and drinking be the offering of oblations unto Thee,
All lying down prostrations before Thee,
May all pleasures be as dedicating my entire self unto Thee,
May everything I do be taken as Thy worship.
Science of Mind Principle: WE BELIEVE in the direct revelation of truth through our intuitive and spiritual nature, and that anyone may become a revealer of truth who lives in close contact with the indwelling God.
Lesson Affirmation: I am always in direct communication with God. I hear, feel, know and speak the word of God.
Energy Center: Throat
Animal Guide: Buffalo
Deity: White Buffalo Calf Woman
Religion in focus: Native American
Activity 1: Tell a saint story
White Buffalo Calf Woman is one of our great messengers. She came to the Lakota Sioux in a desperate time. In this story told by Red Feather Woman two warrior scouts are sent to find game in a time of great famine. The famine of course, is not just physical, but spiritual. White Buffalo Calf Woman descends from spirit and walks upon the Earth. She carefully instructs the people how to commune with the Creator, Wankan Tanka, and all of creation gifting them with the ceremonial pipe and the 7 sacred ceremonies. Modern day Lakota elders say that she came to the people about 800 BC.
Although the pipe is an important aspect of White Buffalo Calf Woman’s message and gift, I sometimes do not even use the word “pipe,” as this has negative modern-day connotation. The modern day pipe has been so abused and is rarely used ceremonially, or at least today’s children have never witnessed its use in this way, as would a Native American child. This is not a pipe that we see today, so as to not confuse it with a cigarette, recreational tobacco pipe, marijuana or crack pipe, or anything that is used for drugs. When I tell this story I describe the pipe as an altogether more magical instrument, with 7 feathers from 7 sacred birds and 7 rings. The most important aspect of this instrument is its ability to carry messages to and commune with the Creator. This is a far more transcendental and powerful experience and expression than any offered through drugs. Smoke is only word made visible, word given form. Because of the teachings of White Buffalo Calf Woman and of all of the saints, we now have the ability to teach and understand this great truth without smoke using solely the power of imagination.
Activity 2: Make a ceremonial prayer tool
Humans have probably always used tools to communicate with the Higher Power. There are countless variations, from malas, to pipes, to fetishes, to crystals, to wafers and wine, smudge sticks and many more. Like the pipe in the story of White Buffalo Calf Woman, these tools acts as an intermediary, helping to focus the mind and clear it of all distractions. Any item can be used in prayer, and in contemplation, as long as we view it as holy. For this activity, you may freely choose any item to make sacred as your prayer tool. Here are just a few ideas:
- a special stone
- local herbs gathered, dried and bundled. Once dry, these can be lit to smoke and cleanse your inner and outer spaces.
- water kept in a jar that is left out under a full moon, then used to dab the forehead or chakra points to clear the mind before prayer
- a stick or piece of wood that has been painted and decorated
- a drawing you make of White Buffalo Calf Woman, a saint, guru or other holy person
Activity 3: Aad Guray Nameh
I use this mantra at the beginning of my class to invite the knowledge of the Universe to move through me and be my voice as teacher and through the students. Teaching and parenting for the large part come in unplanned moments. Yet, it is those very unplanned moments, if allowed to unfold, that provide the richest content, the deepest heartfelt conversations, and the greatest laughter.
Aad Guray Nameh
Jugaad Guray Nameh
Sat Guray Nameh
Siri Guru Dayvay Nameh
Translation:
I bow to the Primal Wisdom.
I bow to the Wisdom through the Ages.
I bow to the True Wisdom.
I bow to the great, unseen Wisdom
Activity 4: Watch an acorn grow
Our first great messengers were and still are the elements of the Earth itself, and its natural cycles and rhythms. All the great teachings can be found here. They are in the rocks, the wind, the seasons, and the plants. We learn about birth, death, and resurrection. We learn about the life force that moves in and through all things. We understand that what we see is but a mirror of the beauty of our inner being. This activity honors the teachings of the lowly seed.
Contemplate an acorn (or any seed). Hold one in the palm of your hand. Feel its smoothness. Feel the life within, waiting patiently. See this a reflection of your own body. Imagine the great and mighty oak tree that you hold in your hand. Watch it grow in your mind and see its branches spreading into a great crown and touching the sky. See its roots, like a mirror under the Earth, and connecting and intertwining with all things. Imagine that you are this tree, your core as solid as the trunk and your mind spreading and opening to the cosmos. Feel the movement of the heavens within your being. Now consider your roots, solid and strong, intertwined and connected to all things.
Use the chant, “The leaves on the tree” and follow with silent meditation.
The leaves on the tree reach up to the sky
And the roots reach down to the deep dark Earth.
You may also choose to hold many acorns at once and imagine the mighty forest in the palm of your hand.
Rudolf Steiner writes, in How to Know the Higher Worlds, about a method of initiation and development of “spiritual eyes,” that is, seeing beyond the physical using seeds and plants as our guides. First he describes the seed meditation:
We place before us a small seed from a plant. Starting with this insignificant thing, the point will be to think the right thoughts intensively, and by means of these thoughts to develop certain feelings. First we must establish what we are really seeing with our eyes. We describe to ourselves the form, color, and other properties of the seed. Then we ponder the thoughts: “This seed, if planted in the ground, will grow into a complex plant.” We visualize the plant, we make it present to and in us. We build it up in imagination. Then we think: “What I now visualize in my imagination, forces of earth and light will later in reality draw forth from this small seed… If we can clearly form this thought and bring it to life within us, then we will be able to form the next thought easily and with the right feeling: “Within the seed already lies concealed what -as the force of the whole plant- later grows out of it. An artificial copy of the seed has no such force. Yet, to my eyes, both seeds look the same. Therefore the real seed contains something invisible that is absent in the copy.” Thoughts and feelings should now focus on the invisible reality. We must imagine that this invisible force or reality will in the course of time change into the visible plant, whose color and form we will be able to see before us. We should hold the thought: “The invisible will become visible. If I were unable to think, then what later becomes visible could not announce itself to me now.” It is important to emphasize that whatever we think we must also feel with intensity. Meditative thoughts need to be experienced calmly and peacefully. Not other thoughts should distract us. Time should be allowed for both the thought, and the feeling united with it, to penetrated the soul. If this is done in the right way, then after a time- perhaps only after many unsuccessful attempts- we become conscious of a new force within us. This creates a new perception. The seed seems to be enclosed in a small cloud of light. In a sensory-spiritual way, we sense it as a kind of flame. What we could not see before now becomes apparent to us, created by the force of the thoughts and feelings that we have awakened within us. The plant- which is still physically invisible and will not become visible until later- is revealed to us in a spiritually visible manner.
Rudolf Steiner, How to Know the Higher Worlds, pp. 56-57
Steiner describes the plant meditation as a method, like the seed meditation, to further the ability of spiritual seeing:
We place before us a mature plant. First, we immerse ourselves in the thought: “A time will come when this plant will wither and decay. Everything I see now will then no longer exists. But the plant will have produced seeds, and these will become new plants. Thus once again I become aware that something I cannot see lies hidden in what I can see.” We saturate ourselves with the thought: “The plant form with all its colors will soon no longer be there. But the knowledge that the plant produces seeds teaches me that it will not disappear into nothingness. I cannot see what preserves the plant from disappearance anymore than I could see the future plant in the seed. Therefore it follows that there is something in the plant, too, that I cannot see with my eyes. But if I let this thought live within me, and the appropriate feeling unites with it, then after a time new force will grow in my soul and become a new perception. “A kind of spiritual flame form will then grow out of the plant. Again it must be strongly emphasized that we do not see… in the same way we see with our physical eyes. Rather, through spiritual perception we experience something similar to the impression made by physical colors.
Rudolf Steiner, How to know the Higher Worlds, p. 59
Activity 5: Rhythm master game
In a playful practice of communication, have the group of children sit or stand in a circle. First have one child volunteer to be the detective. That child leaves the circle and closes their eyes. Next, secretly choose one person to be the rhythm master without letting anyone else know. This can be done by having the children put their hands behind their backs, then walking around the outside of the circle, tapping each pair of hands. In the hands of the person who will be it, place a small stone. Otherwise, have the children close their eyes and the teacher taps one child on the head. They rhythm master starts the rhythm and everyone else follows. Now invite back the detective to sit in the circle. The rhythm master initiates new sequences of rhythms, changing the slapping, clapping, snapping hand movements each time. The detective gets 3 tries to guess the identity of the rhythms master.
Activity 6: Practice paying attention/listening to God
This can be done alone or in a group with or without journals. For younger children spend 10 minutes or less, for adults, the practice can continue for longer periods of 30 minutes or more depending on how long you can maintain a focus on the present moment. This is a very interesting activity to do in a group because even though everyone is in the same setting, they are all receiving different information with differences in their conscious awareness.
This activity can be done in nature or in a place busy and bustling with people, like a coffee shop or subway station. Within the time allotted, pay attention to and record what you notice. Think of this as holy, sacred communication from God. If you notice something- a sight, smell or sound, you are welcome to but not required to ask yourself why you noticed it and what it reminds you of (are any memories bubbling up from the subconscious in response to this perception?) Keep yourself focused and present in the moment. If your mind wanders and you start to think about things outside of the moment, make a note of that in your journal, then gently bring your attention back to presence.
After the exercise is finished, discuss your observations with the group, or reflect on them on your own. Here are some questions to ask yourself after the exercise:
- What messages did you receive from Divine Awareness?
- What new understanding or insights come forward?
- What memories were jogged loose?
- What did your awareness ignore that others noticed?
Your experience is uniquely your own and sacred. When we practice paying attention, we are in direct communion with Divinity.
Activity 7: Where I stand is holy
For this chant, kids take turns to add what they are doing (stand, sit, dance, eat, sleep, etc.) adding fun and individuality to each line. We do this song standing and at the last line we circle around and around. I do this at a pretty fast tempo, as an active chant dance. The recording below has the right melody but is a slower tempo with many more variations than I use.
Where I stand is holy
holy is the ground
Forest, mountain, river
listen to the sound
Great Spirit circling around me.
Activity 8: Treatment for communion with God
There is only One.
This One is God and this One is being all things in all moments.
This One is also being Me.
God is all of me and in everything I see.
I am always in direct communication with God.
I hear, feel, know and speak the word of God.
My voice is the voice of God and I am always heard and understood.
I know my guides surround me in all forms. and they are always communicating to me.
I am never alone.
So with great joy and release, I am free of all worries or concerns. I have no doubts or fears.
I take a deep breath and sing!
I love my life!
Thank you God.
And so it is!
Related posts
Image credits
Dandelion klimkin
Albrecht Dürer, Adam and Eve, 1504, Engraving https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer,_Adam_and_Eve,_1504,_Engraving.jpg
White Buffalo Les Bohlen
Acorns in hands TanteTati
Child leaning against tree Jose Antonio Alba
Sponsor
Thank you to my sponsor, Center for Spiritual Awakening, for supporting this week’s lesson.
Please contact me if you’d like to sponsor a post for Science of Mind child info *at* SOM-child.com. Find a the list of upcoming topics at Center for Spiritual Awakening children’s program.
