God Evolves Through Us

other, is erased, and there is no impetus to do anything whatsoever. Only consciousness itself remains, pristine and untouched. Nothing else exists, but you are still there as pure Being - changeless, spa- cious, infinite, and utterly transparent. There is only One Single Re- ality – and you are That. This is compellingly attractive because you are immersed in the actual part of yourself that has never been born and never entered the stream of time, and you sense its immortality. You experience perfect everlasting peace, a sense of absolute release into infinite Being, and it radically sets you free. That is what God feels like before the universe was born… This absolute Ground of All-Being is not only a peaceful place within your own interior, it is also the deepest dimension of Reality Itself - the timeless, formless void out of which the universe was born. It is your own Original Face, the one you had before the big bang. This unqualified voidness, in which nothing ever happened and the universe wasn’t even a thought in the mind of God, is called Nirguna Brahman, or “God without qualities,” the radically form- less Self. But the wisdom traditions also point to another aspect of Ultimate Reality, called Saguna Brahman, or “God with qualities”. This is the Self as it begins to meet the world of space and time, and its earliest characteristics begin to emerge. You can actually locate this aspect of the Self in the depths of your own awareness as well... At times you will experience the deep meditative state of emp- tiness as endlessly captivating. Even though it is changeless, it is never boring, old, or predictable. The nature of our unborn Self is always fresh and ever-new. If you hone into that mysterious quali- ty, you will notice that what makes emptiness enthralling is that it contains a sense of infinite potential. You can feel its very subtle, yet endlessly compelling creative vibration, dancing right on the very edge where formlessness and form meet. Nothing has yet occurred, yet everything is possible. This feeling is the living pulse of the first cause. The moment this creative impulse crosses the threshold be- tween the unmanifest and the manifest, it bursts forth into the world of form as an act of creation. That which was once perfect peace in the depths of formless Being now dramatically changes its quality. It morphs into the exhilarating creative vibration of evolutionary Becoming. It shows up as what I call the evolutionary impulse - the energy and intelligence that initiated the creative process and con- tinues to drive it. The feeling quality of the evolutionary impulse is ecstasy and urgency, pure positivity, a big resounding “Yes!” to life. The wonder of the relationship between Being and Becoming, with their radically different qualities, is that they are in reality one indivisible continuum, an unbroken whole. There is a seamless continuation between both. Being and Becoming are One and not- two. There is always only One without a Second – and as medita- tion reveals: you are that One! You are the One who was present as timeless, formless Being before the big bang; the One who initiat- ed the creative process fourteen billion years ago; and the One who continues to drive its perpetual evolutionary emergence. And thus you wake up to the startling recognition that this is all your respon- sibility. Who else’s could it be…? There is no other. Suddenly it all becomes clear: the universe is actually try- ing to become more conscious through you! This is your project. Your body-mind is a vehicle for the evolution of the interior of the cosmos. It was never really about your personal story. The majestic process that gave rise to your presence here on Earth is waiting for you to become available for it. It needs your energy and willing- ness to take its own next step. Its future is wide-open. None of the emerging levels of evolution are already fixed. We are creating their content and structure as we progress. And thus, how the next advance into novelty will manifest literally depends on our choic- es. The energy and intelligence that created the universe needs us to do its bidding, to be its hands and feet, its mind and heart. The future of this dramatic creative experiment God has ventured into depends upon us - upon the choices we make and the actions we take. This evolutionary view profoundly challenges the traditional notion that once we have attained the great liberation, we never have to reincarnate into the cycle of birth and death again. Con- sidering what it has taken for this process to get to the point where it has produced conscious beings with the capacity to understand their own role in this glorious evolutionary scheme, it doesn’t make sense to conclude that the ultimate purpose of our presence here is final release from this world and freedom from incarnate existence. If the interior of the universe is going to continue to become more conscious through us, then you and I have to want to stay on the ride. If we opt out, the miracle of greater awareness, complexity and embrace is not going to occur. Evolution requires our presence here, right in the midst of the universe process. God’s next move depends on us! As soon as we truly get this, it sets us on fire with a powerful sense of meaning, purpose and directionality. We become serious about being here, passionate to make the right choices here on God’s earth, and devoted to liberating our energy, attention, and