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I have a sticky note on my desk that reads, "A lot of spiritual work is dealing with the idea that we are separate from God."

In my experience, it is this idea of separation that causes feelings of loneliness, stress, overwhelm, burden, anger, isolation, distrust, doubt, guilt and any myriad other host of negative feelings.

I have never believed in a God separate from me, but I never voiced that, because of a perception that most people believe in the separate "God in the sky" version of Spirit.  Even many so called alternative religions believe in a Force separate from us humans.  Every day I hear folks say things like, "The Universe will provide."  It's still a separate God, even if they are calling it something different.   I could never make sense of a separate God.  And when I returned to my childhood roots at a Center for Spiritual Living and began to take classes, I soon learned why:  One of the first things we are taught in our classes is that God and I, we are One!

In fact, that concept is the first of ten of what we call the Core Concepts of Science of Mind. It is also the first statement in a list of "We Believe" statements that have been adopted as a way of explaining to newcomers who we are and what we believe.

Ironically, around these parts we don't tell anyone what to believe.  But we do have ten statements telling everyone exactly what we do believe. Here is the first of those ten:

"We Believe in God, the Living Spirit Almighty; one, indestructible, absolute and self-existent Cause.  This One manifests Itself in and through all creation, but is not absorbed by Its creation.  The manifest universe is the body of God; it is the logical and necessary outcome of the infinite self-knowingness of God."

The part that says we are each free to believe what we wish is the part where I interpret that rather wordy sentence in my own way.  I choose to interpret it thusly:  I believe in God, it manifested itself in and through me by knowing me.  Yet God is much more than that, it isn't just me.

The ramifications of such a belief, or lack of one, are far reaching, and the subject of another blog post, but for now, I will leave you with this:

God and I, we are one!

How do you feel about the concept of being one with God?