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The day I met God
Did I tell you about the day I met God? The day I could answer what He looks like, if there is single God, what religion He is, what skin color He has or even if He is man or woman? Did I tell you why I met Him and what got me to Him? That my encounter did not convert me into a priest, imam or whatever messenger but in understanding better what it means to be human, consciously aware of life and the marvelous complexity of ever changing harmony?
Well this is how my encounter with Him was initiated. One day it occurred to me to ask the invisible God “is this it?”
Until that instant my life had evolved over roses. My self esteem was big and I had the idea that whatever I touched turned into gold. My relationship with God was one of a far acquaintance, a curiosity, one known from churches, Christian family beliefs, art and abstract prayers for wellness and welfare.
When I asked this question it was like crying out into a vacuum not expecting to hear anything back. My question referred to the emptiness of endless success. Where is the challenge? It was a question for myself and about what life was about?
Instantly my fortune changed.
Everything that I now touched seemed to turn into cold stone. The straight road of success had converted into a small mountain track full of pitfalls, challenges and struggles. I was surprised with this sudden change that I had called over myself. Reflecting back I could see two different lives, one before and after the famous question.
The second part of my life was distinctively more interesting than the first. In the first part I enjoyed recognition of the powers of human hierarchies but felt empty of purpose and meaning of my own. I was dealing with the artificial practice of management, financial growth and some modern expression of keeping human beings through economic processes. The second part got me to discover my own self through self awareness, reflection and dealing with challenges that developed my sense of values, ethics and responsibilities.
The first part of my life was rich in material sense and joyful with the ability to do a lot of pleasurable things with my financial means. But it made me blunt and unaware of everything else. Nothing ever seemed good enough while “more” was always on the wishlist. The second part was rich in spiritual sense through the processing of inner emotions, taking joy in valuing minor achievements and connecting to universal energies that I became aware of in my direct surroundings.
Still I had not met God, nor was I looking around to meet Him. There had been a curious query “is this it?” with a before and after. It even made me wonder why I had posed the question at all? The simple blind comfort of that financially rich life was a contrast with the complexity of a life full of emotional suffering and awareness building. Sometimes one wonders what use it has to become so consciously aware? It just gives rise to more questions and aversion against certain human ways. To be blind to all that has its advantages too.
When I thought that just about every possible endurance had crossed my path disaster struck once more. This time I had to protect myself and my children against severe aggression. For the first time I panicked. My worries had to do with control, not for myself but for the safety of my off-spring. My anguish took me to a small spiritual place in the woods to meditate. Without saying a word I stood there with my worries. At once a feeling of peace came over me. My soul calmed down and a sense of trust invaded me. “Everything is taken care of” was the message I received. And it was.
Ever since this trust stayed with me. No fear invades me anymore. No obstacles seem important. It was as if my life had changed dimension. I could “see” now, not just with my eyes but with all my senses, even my soul. Still there was no sign of God nor was I looking. The experience though had made me a believer that something extremely powerful had touched me. What that was remained within the scope of religious education. Despite the experience it still remained within my understanding of psychological tricks of my own.
The situation with my children was indeed dealt with and their safety and security was assured. I had taken responsibility. By doing this I had encountered the opposition of the entire structured society. It made me aware of the uncivilized money and obligation driven society, deprived of any sense of key universal responsibilities. I had stepped out of this “reality” to face the human world with new eyes and could now “see” with more senses than ever. What I saw did not please me, reassuring me in my decision to wish something else for my children.
With this revelation I started to live my life as an outcast of our current structured organisations around financial interests as these have grown to use human beings rather than serving them. I felt the inner drive to bring real universal values back into our human society. “But how?” I asked. No answer came.
I tried to do it the rational way, addressing the reigning complexity business and government structures, producing even reports to show them how negatively they operate in my paradigm. I offered them a way out through consultancy but was laughed at. No one seemed to want a way out, happy as people were with their position in hierarchies and their well paid professional activities. No one questioned the situation or themselves but in turn questioned me and my suggestions. I got no where. I just learned a lot, especially that it is not up to me to get people or institutions changed if they do not want to change themselves.
No God was giving me answers to my questions other than that I was complicating my own life in search for the answers myself. Meanwhile I had been trying to change the world by telling others what to do. It didn’t work.
Then I decided to change attitude and approach.
Rather than telling people what to do I decided to take responsibility myself using the revelations that had changed my views of the world and society. I became the change myself and started to invite people and institutions to come to me and help me co-create “my world”. When people do they either already think like me or get inspired by my reasoning. When they experiment with the new reality they may change through their own insights and corresponding motivation. My world becomes their and our world.
My own life had become part of the universe, its harmonic relationships and positively charged energies. I did not just reflect anymore about theories of life’s essentials and the way societies evolve, create values and destroy themselves through greed and lack of awareness. I became life itself through intense inner sense of significance and meaning with my own sensitivity to a broader spectrum of life as a whole. It had made me curious and able to learn about life, its origins and the nature of the universe of which I had become self consciously aware and self aware participant.
It was here that I met God, without searching or asking for Him. He was suddenly there in my awakening. I became aware that He had always been there. I had simply not seen Him, too occupied I had been with myself. Only when I set myself aside to connect to the Whole, the Whole revealed itself to me.
Now people ask me “what does He look like?”. And I respond that we all look at Him right now, all the time, but only see Him when He breaks through into our consciousness, blocked by self interest and fears. He breaks through when we learn to see with our soul, looking at the way we live life and feel the universe in an open manner. God is here all the time representing life itself. Just trust He is, drop fear and experiment with life until you are able to see Him for yourself.
Only the day I met with God I got the answer to my question “Is that all?”. The answer is “No, it is not! You have to live your life to the full to get the answer.” What that means is part of the revelation. Everything is predestined yet you are your own master of the revelation through living your own life in an active way. Just ask yourself “is this it?”. When you see God you will know.
5 levels of consciousness – level 5
Harmony
We are always in search for harmony. The unconscious challenge we face when we live our life is that our world is constantly on the move. Change is the big constant we need to deal with. In order to get what we need to live we need to be on the move too. We tend to feel a constant drive as if we are in permanent disharmony. The 5th level is an awakening into the understanding the mechanisms of harmony, beginning with our own selves.
The underlying 4 levels are mere experience building exercises of our consciousness. When we are acting within the fields of growth, competition, change or organisation we feel occupied, challenged, maybe even powerful. We tend to feel that winning, more and more, are our purpose in life. We act short term, fearful to what we can loose, worried and influenced by all kinds of external powers. We only seem to be happy when we have things, preferably a bit more than others, and we do anything to achieve it. Balance and harmony are just temporary moments of rest before a new burst of energy sets us out to combat our surroundings for more. A new job, a bigger house, a new car, better wages, a holiday further away, etc.
The day we realise that all this is just part of a permanent natural search for harmony our life changes. We start consciously thriving for harmony instead of growth or competition. The 5th level has nothing to with intelligence or education. It has to do with deep inner understanding, a sense of harmony that starts within one self. This strange fearless feeling of trust and confidence comes at the strangest moments, normally when one has to let go of everything (possessions, feelings, beliefs, etc) and becomes aware that grows and competition brings instability while harmony brings piecw of mind and true progress.
One comes to terms with the idea that it is not what one has that matters but how one uses the abilities and resources to achieve progress through harmony.
Societies and communities behave like human beings with the same characteristics of consciousness. A business or country that is managed for growth behaves different than one focused on sustainable development through harmony.
With climate change, pollution and global warming we see that the overall tendency is towards this 5th level of awareness. We need not just consider harmony with our own selves but also with our environment.
It is all about harmony. At molecular level we recognise our physical living complexity through harmony. At biological level we see ourselves in harmony with all kinds of minute species that help us live by dedicating their life’s to ours in reciprocity. I refer to the bacteria and virusses that live on and inside our body supporting our own life system.Over 3 billion shape this living universe called “me”. Non of these species probably even consciously knows that I exit. For them I am their planet or universe.
Level 5 is inside all of us and we show the ability to deal with it on a daily basis. We just need to arrive at a point of conscious awareness about it. Harmony made our molecules unite into a unique new creature that needs to learn to arrive at a point of harmony with itself and surroundings. This harmony is not a final position of a fixed nature. Not at all. It is a new beginning. We stop fighting and start connecting in purpose driven processes that just have to do with life’s essentials:
* food (including water)
* health
* safety
* applied consciousness
* applied freedom
We place growth, competition and adaptability in evolutionary context and apply change to adjust to harmony using our awareness and consciousness to guide us.
Arriving collectively in the world at this point of consciousness is a breakthrough of understanding life and the universe providing sustainable human progress for all. A lot needs to happen still but the signs are all over not because we have become so smart, just because we become aware.
Lifelong education, sustainable human progress, conciousness and applied sustainable leadership
One of my ambitions is to create a world wide knowledge sharing and consciousness building network for measurable sustainable human progress and the development of individual sustainable leadership.
Now I am ready to set it up.
It is called STIR. Officially it is still the Foundation called Sustainocracy, Transformation, Indexation, Research. In practice it is a learning cooperative between people who want to experiment with their own life, authority and daily responsibility for sustainable development of themselves, their families and their local community.
Top intellectuals
I already have a large personal network of excellent lecturers and intellectuals connected to me via a large diversity of specialisms. My own sustainocratic work gives us plenty of things to do together and a motivation to stick together. This shows me that again that knowledge is only of mutual interest when it can be used in real life. That is where new knowledge develops too to enhance progress even further.
I work with the professors directly not with their institutions. Professors are human with human motivations. Universities are not.
That does not mean that we do not work with the institutions. On the contrary. But we use them for what they represent from a specialised research perspective and detailed specialised education on scientific topics. In STIR we translate this deep knowledge in true sustainable human progress which is a different learning process all together. That is why professors like to work with STIR because it brings their specialism into contact with the tremendous diversity of real life. It is hence a reciprocal process in which the educators learn as well.
STIR invites top lecturers, professors, visionary people, scientific researchers and exemplary pioneers to select or create their own best minors (a short block of lectures and practical exercises that last about 6 month) to be shared with us on and offline. A minor remains in STIR as long as there is sufficient (Global) demand for it.
I expect to be able to offer 100’s of minors for you to choose from. But following a training is not enough. That is not the purpose of STIR. The real purpose is to apply knowledge for local sustainable human progress and make change happen through your commitment. In STIR we also work with Sustainocratic cooperations for the extremely complex issues. When they develop in your area we can budget the STIR education and make it available free of charge.
The only stable factor in life is change.
STIR grows through fractal patterns. We started in Eindhoven and invite anyone to become member free of charge. With enough members in a region we set up a local off line community, otherwise we provide tutorials online.
STIR mission: to contribute to sustainable human progress globally (Global issues, local solutions, global application ).
STIR focus: develop the consciousness and sustainable leadership.
STIR method: lifelong learning by purpose driven experimentation, open reflection and knowledge sharing.
STIR levels: the 5 levels of consciousness, individually and as a community.
STIR infrastructure: Online (Global) and Offline (Local).
We do not tell you how you should live your life, we just help you understand.
Membership fee: free of charge but not free of commitment (you commit to sustainable human progress)
Lifelong learning fee: 1% of published average local yearly wages, per person per year. Or free of charge when within local sustainocratic cooperation.
Education: You choose your own education out of all available minors. The more members the more educators.
The first year (2014) will be free of charge also for the learning fee as we build up the network.
Sign up through the website. I will soon publish the first set of online minors (short intensive training of several weeks).
Also sign up if you have a minor to offer. It is a cooperation so feel free to contribute with ideas and initiative. STIR is not just me but all that sign up for the higher good of sustainable development of humankind.