how worshipping the Divine within us
 

I think nowadays most of people believe that the Divine is within us and within living beings. I heard many serious Christians believing in that even though there is really little track of that in the bible.
First question it comes in my mind, secondary to this post, is why do divinization to statues and towards sky while the Divine is (also) within us.

Supposing the Divine is within us, what are the practices to worship him?

If I think people as expression of the Divine, eating well, sleeping well, caring about health, about exercises, and in general self-love would be a form as divinization.

I am curious to know what you think

If I eliminate the word Divine, it all just becomes a celebration of life and existence. Beautiful! Simple! I celebrate my life with joy and gratitude, and the life of other souls, and of our collective. I celebrate the Earth, Moon, Sun, Cosmos and all the beings of Creation.

Get rid of the Divine concept -- all the religious terms and tenets and thought-concepts -- and it's easy. It just becomes "celebration!" period.

Religious and spiritual arguments re "Divine" are mostly about people wanting to believe they're worshiping/praying to the "correct" Divinity slash theoretical concept, in order to be recognized by that Divinity as doing it correctly, hehe. It's a child's response, wanting to please Mom and Dad, ego (unconsciousness), nothing to do with Divine, at all.

Love is ALL! No Divine! Just Love! And it's free, and one doesn't have to have a "belief", everyone can participate and you don't even have to believe in Divine anything! See how easy? :)

The Living Stream -- Creation -- is Us. And We are The Living Stream. No separation, everything in existence is of the exact same star stuff. If you want me to talk Divine, that's as close I as ever get to using that word slash theoretical concept. :)

Andy 75

The Sufi mystics put the belief this way:

"Seekest thou Layla, when She in Thee is manifest?"
(Moroccan Sufi poet Mhd. al-Itarraq)

"Thou countest Her other, Yet other than Thee She is not".
(Bughyat al Mushtaq, p.170 Bulaq 1881)

The Catholic mystical branch envisages how the recognition of the presence of Divinity within a person begins to change the character of the host:
In The Secret of Mary (St Louis de Marie de Montfort, Montfort Press, Liverpool) the author expressed it as "the mystical union with Mary":
"Whoever then is of the chosen and predestinate will have the Blessed Virgin living within him, and he will let her plant in his very soul the roots of every virtue, but especially deep humility and ardent charity."

And to put it another way, as in Pure Land Buddhism; "The purpose of the Pure Land practice is not to know Kuan Shih Yin, but to become Her."

When the words divine or sacred or holy or bliss or Nirvana or satchitananda and other words are thought of as concepts I see that
coming from a person that has never had their socks blown off by said "Divine"....or bliss, etc.
Nothing wrong with that ...but until experienced directly God is a concept. Right?

The Divine One is indeed inside ...Oh my gosh - is He ever.
I adore Him as I would my first love...thinking of Him, talking to Him, smiling inwardly at Him ...
mostly doing what He has somehow slipped in scriptures accurately - Delight in Him, Acknowledge Him in all your ways...
trust Him, never worry , rely on Him ...give your focus to Him as you would your baby, your puppy, your lover, your mom.
Talk about how glorious He is when you have a ready ear.
Just give your love to Him.

The point needs to be made about the "sex" of the Divinity to avoid confusion.

For example, orthodox Islam has God, "Allah", regarded as male, whereas in the esoteric branch of that religion, Sufism, the Divine Reality is spoken of in terms of female beauty.

The Sufi Hero therefore goes in quest of the Divine Feminine, which is a masculine act, in contrast to Christian mysticism in which God is actively masculine and the devotee is passively feminine.

The passionate writing from the preceding contributor could easily have been taken from Ibn al-Arabi's collection of love poems, but particularly from his book Fusus al-hikam. The renown Sufi poet relates, writing as a man, that the supreme witnessing of Allah is in the form of the woman during the conjugal act. Such a thing could never be discussed, or even imagined, ("God forbid!") in Christianity.

Great stuff.. love how you recognize all those things. I agree.. spirituality as a practice of celebration.

There was this wonderful phrase Joseph Campbell would use, he said that for a symbol to be effective, it must be transparent to the transcendent. It's not that God is only in a statue or sitting in the sky somewhere (although, an omnipresent God would be in all places), these are symbols that stand in for something that is beyond explanation. They can be thought of as signposts that direct the mind beyond the mundane world. Religious art does this through imagery that reminds us of the divine qualities which hold special meaning for us.

I am someone who believes the ultimate divinity is within you and all of us, but there is no denying that we also have a lot of messy stuff in our minds. As we learn and grow, we work through and discard things that need to be let go of. In my religion, an advanced teaching would say that all this is divine too, but not especially worthy of worship.

I think that there would need to at least seem like there was more than one being for there to be any need for worship, so if I recognised myself as God alone, I imagine I wouldn't worship myself, I think I would just be. And trying to witness divinity within myself seems to be more about establishing awareness than worshipping.

However, my religion does emphasise the importance of seeing God in others, and worshipping by doing things like feeding those who are hungry, and having a strong understanding of what is right and what is wrong, so that you are more inclined toward moral, genuinely virtuous conduct. The sort of actions that uphold higher ideals and should ultimately make life easier for everyone.

It is important to take care of your body. A relevant question, answered differently by different people, might be, are you your body or are you something that lives beyond the life of the body?

Love your questions, btw :smile: