Adam Scott Miller

by Michael Maciel

…continued from World Priest

In order to be a world priest, you have to know what is essential to spirituality. You have to be willing to strip away the jargon of your own beliefs and the beliefs of your religious tradition. You have to take an honest look at what you mean when you say the word “God.” What does “faith” mean? And, is there more to prayer than begging God for a different outcome? How much do we understand the words we use?

Usually, when we try to broaden our understanding of God, we look to other religions. More and more, we also look to science. But, how much do we look at our everyday lives? Could it be that we are interacting with God all the time and not know it?

Science tells us that there is much more to reality than what we see, more even than we can see. Our senses seem to be part and parcel of this world, not the next. Any knowledge of anything besides where we are now seems to be, by default, beyond our reach.

But…

We can see the effects of unseen causes in our lives. And, logically we can deduce from our observations certain facts about them. For instance, we know that our attitude plays a huge part in the quality of our experience. It’s what we think about what happened that has the most power, not what happened. By our thinking, we determine what is good and what is evil, and then we tailor our reactions accordingly.

Wouldn’t this be a workable definition of faith? Observing the effects of unseen causes, knowing that those causes must exist by reason of the effects they bring about—this is “believing without seeing,” is it not? If a fervent feeling of gratitude made habitual through careful, intentional control over one’s thoughts can bring about a dramatic change in the quality of one’s life, isn’t that proof of an unseen cause?

Take synchronicity, for example. If, as a lot of people think, synchronicity is a function of the subconscious mind, that we are guided by subliminal thoughts and observations into chance encounters, then wouldn’t it be possible that what we call our “subconscious mind” is really the world itself? If intelligence is the very fabric of matter, the stuff out of which matter is composed, then where is the boundary between what the world knows and what we know? Could they not be one and the same?

Remember, we are making a distinction between mind and consciousness. Consciousness is the result of mind reflecting back upon itself, “moving over the face of the deep.” Mind is the computer inside every atom and molecule, the patterns of intelligence that give matter its characteristics and govern its interactions with the rest of the universe.

We would have to believe that each of us, each and every person who has ever lived or will live, is a completely autonomous individual, entirely separate from his or her environment—an island amongst other islands. If we were separate from the universe, we would be the only physical entity that is. But we know that that’s not the case. Even the atoms of our body interpenetrate and react with the atoms of our immediate surroundings, and, some think, with other atoms at great distances from us, instantaneously and without crossing the intermediate space.

Is it any wonder that our gut sometimes knows more than our head?

If matter is essentially waves of vibration entrained in specific patterns and varying densities, and the boundaries between our physical apparatus (our bodies) and their environment are less than distinct, then perhaps we are tuned in more than we realize. Maybe we are affected by light and sound at the very deepest levels of our being. Maybe the distance between us and the objects we hold at arm’s length is really zero. What if there is no such thing as “intermediate space”?

When we get a good look at just how much we confine our experience to our brain and the surface of our skin, to the exclusion of all the other data that is pouring in, we can finally see why we never quite feel at home—anywhere!

Mind is the key, and imagination is the door. With our imagination, we can see into the deepest recesses of matter. We can see the inner workings of atoms and molecules. We can picture vast areas of the universe, the infinite expanses of space and time, the geologic processes of the Earth, and the evolution of its lifeforms. There is nothing that our imagination cannot see.

The only limiting factor is the belief that what we see with our imagination is imaginary.

Let’s try on a new definition of “imagination”: imagination is a tool of communication.

What if it was impossible to imagine anything that did not already exist, if only in potential? What if our imagination was really our sense of vision spread out across the entire spectrum of reality, not just the part we call the “physical world”? What if what we see in our imagination is every bit as real as what we see with our eyes, only in a broader, as yet unrealized reality? If you are at all familiar with quantum physics, this will ring a bell.

In order to function as a “World Priest,” you must, as Fritz Perl said, “Lose your mind and come to your senses.” But, remember: your senses are the feeling part of your imagination. They are unlimited by space and time. Stop looking at the surface of things. Look at them instead with your mind’s eye. See all that you can see!

There is no such thing as extra-sensory perception, because there are no “extra” senses. There are only senses that are more fully developed.