The Spiritual Law
of Oneness

“Love the Lord God with all your mind and all your heart,  for you are of God and from God.”

The Spiritual law of Oneness states that anything that comes from God is of God. Anything that comes from the whole is of the whole. Just as God cannot be divided, no expression of God can be divided. Each is whole and complete. There is nothing lacking in any expression of God and all expressions of God are Good. This is the Law that gave birth to the creation of Adam, the first human. That is what it means in Genesis when it says that God made man “in his own image.”

Adam is number 1. He is the first. Yet he is also the archetype for the creation of all human beings. Just like Adam, every human being has a son or daughter relationship to God. Every human being is of God and from God.

We call this relationship to our Source “Singularity.” In the Kabala this is called the divine spark or essence. It lives in every one of God’s creations. It inheres in every heart. It is the divine essence.

When Adam was created, something of God was expressed. That is why we call Adam a Son of God. Jesus claimed the same relationship with God.

But he was not claiming a special relationship. He was claiming the archetypal relationship that all sons and daughters have with their Creator. There is nothing special about being a son or a daughter of God.

Be Ye as Little Children: The Experience of God

God, the Creative Essence of All That Is, cannot be adequately described.

Yet even though we cannot adequately describe God using words and concepts, we can experience God. That experience is essentially MYSTICAL. That is the experience the prophets had. They experienced their oneness with God.

They came to God with awe and respect, but not with fear. After all, they weren’t really approaching “an other,” but their source, their creator.

In the same way you come to God as a son or a daughter comes to a Father or Mother. You come with an open heart and mind seeking counsel, wisdom, guidance, understanding and support.

There is an intimacy here in the child—parent connection. It is a relationship of love, trust, and respect. This comes naturally to the child, because the child accepts the essential good will of the parent. As a result, the parent is an authority figure for the child. But that authority is conveyed spontaneously and joyfully. There is nothing here of “coercion” or “duty.” The child follows wherever the parent leads because the parent knows things the child does not know and the child is in the process of learning these things.

When Jesus told us that we needed to “be as little children” in our relationship with God this is what he was talking about. We need to trust God and follow His direction.

The Kingdom of God is Within

Jesus told us that the kingdom of Heaven lies within. Yet many of us have undertaken a futile search to find God outside of ourselves. That search frequently takes us into the arms of human authority figures who pretend to know something that we don’t. When we realize they are just fallible humans like we are, we are pretty disappointed.

After enough religious authority figures and their dogmas disappoint us, we finally get the message that no one else has the answer for us. So we begin to look within for spiritual truth and guidance.

We learn to come to God empty handed, to come to the altar with humility and respect. We learn to speak directly with God from our hearts and to ask Him for guidance or help. That is what real prayer is all about. It is essentially heartfelt and sincere.

We can pray to understand, to accept, and to align ourselves with truth. Our prayers may not be answered right away, but at least we know that we are in the only place where an answer, if there is one, could be.

When you come to God in this way, you enter the inner tabernacle. You open yourself to the possibility of God’s love, caring and direction. You open yourself to the possibility that, no matter how much you have struggled or suffered in this life, you can connect with love and truth and bring your life back into harmony and alignment with spiritual law.

There are many outer churches and temples, and you may or may not find them helpful to you. But in a sense, it doesn’t matter where you stand on this issue. Whether you have religion or have rejected it is not important here. What is important is that you turn to God within your own heart and mind. If you do that, you can open to God’s love for you and accept the authority of His spiritual laws in your life.

To do that is to claim your direct relationship with God as Jesus and all the prophets did. It is to say “I and the Father are One” or I am “from God and of God.” It is to accept the fact that you are as much a son or a daughter of God as Adam was.

The Inner Temple

The spiritual law of oneness says that the essence of you lives in God. It is “the way, the truth, and the life” you must align with and follow.

No one else can give you the answers or bring you to that truth. You must come to it voluntarily. You must claim your connection with the creative essence within. The place where you make this claim is the real temple. It is not an outer place. It is not a place in the world. It is a place in your heart and your mind. It is a holy place, because it is where you meet with God.

No other place in the world is as holy as this one, for in this place alone can you find sanctuary.

Inner Authority

When you find God within your own heart and mind, you will not give your power away to others nor will you seek to become an authority for anyone else. You will reject external authority and discover the authority within.

The authority of all religious institutions and all of the managers and administrators who carry out their policies is essentially artificial and false. The only true authority is the one that Jesus accepted. And that is the authority of God, which can be known only in each person’s heart.

Organizations exist in the world and operate according to worldly laws. In that sense, even religious organizations are secular. Therefore they cannot claim any higher or spiritual authority.

There is only one true spiritual authority and it is not an authority that any human being can have over another. Authority that is imposed on one human being by another is essentially a secular authority and is spiritually false.

The only spiritual authority is that of the Creator when it is voluntarily accepted by the son or the daughter. Jesus knew this. That is why he did not want to become an authority for us. Those who made Jesus into an authority figure did not understand this essential truth about Judaism as it was taught by its greatest teacher.

When Jesus said “I and the Father are One” he didn’t mean that he was the only one who was one with the Father.  He was describing the spiritual connection we all have with our Creator.

Jesus never claimed to be the only son of God. That was the invention of others who didn’t have the slightest idea what Jesus was talking about.

Which Authority Do We Accept?

There are two types of authority: Inner Authority and Outer Authority

The first is Spiritual in Nature. It is the divine authority that lives in our hearts and to which we surrender or submit in order to give birth to our spiritual potential.

The second is Worldly in Nature. It is the authority of the secular laws of the world that we live in. We submit to these laws in order to live in an orderly and peaceful way with other human beings.

Both are important. And Jesus told us “Give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and Unto God what belongs to God.”

The important thing here is that “Spiritual or Inner Authority” never comes from other men and women, not even from Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Buddha, or Krishna.

Not a single one of us is asked to accept what any other human being says is true (no matter what authority he or she claims). Rather, we are each asked to find our own truth directly through our relationship with God. This relationship is holy and must be respected.

Just as I have a right to a hallowed relationship to the divine and to act in concert with my inner authority, so does every other human being. I must support that right in others if I want to keep it for myself.

Nurturing the Spark

Since God is whole and complete and we are from God and of God, we are whole and complete also. The essence of God is in you and in me, for we are seedlings from the same tree.

The divine spark lives in your heart and mine. We may forget that it is there. We may get lost in the drama of the world and our busy lives. But the spark remains in the core of our being and we can locate it and nurture it.

Indeed, this is what spiritual practice entails. It is our communion with God in the silence of our hearts. It nurtures the divine spark within and helps it to grow into a steady flame that sheds its light on all the dark places of our soul. It illumines error and burns away untruth. It centers us and keeps us connected to our Source so that we can be in the world with compassion for ourselves and others.

This is how we give birth to our divinity while in a human form.

Unity Consciousness

Unity Consciousness is the state of consciousness that we enter into when we feel the presence of God within our hearts and minds. In this state of consciousness, the Spirit of God dwells within us. We may experience this as warmth or energy in our heart center and as peace and tranquility in our minds. We live in the full depth of the present moment without any desire to think about the past or the future. In this moment, we know that we are completely acceptable as we are and so is everyone else. We do not see any problems. There is nothing that we need to change or fix. There is no lack or insufficiency. Everything is perfect as it is. Just as God looked at his creation at the end of the sixth day and said “it is Good,” so we look at our lives and know that everything is “good” and acceptable just the way it is. 

The reason the Sabbath is important is that it sets aside a regular time each week when we can forget about the struggles of living in the world and remember our connection with God. The Sabbath is an invitation to enter Unity Consciousness and to commune with God. If we do not do this at least once per week, we tend to forget that God is but a hair and a breath away from us. We lose our sense of connection with our Creator. His presence—His light and His love—seem to leave our minds and our hearts.

The earnest spiritual student will begin by making the Sabbath the holy day it was meant to be. But he or she will not be satisfied with that. Weekly remembrance of God is the bare minimum spiritual commitment. The student who wishes to realize his connection with God will make the observance of the Sabbath a daily ritual. He or she will find a time each day for God-communion.

What is our time in communion with God like? It is an experience of bliss for we feel gratitude for all of life and we are blessing and loving all of it.

In unity consciousness, we do not feel separate from God or from any of our brothers and sisters. This is what it means when we say there is “heaven” on earth, for God is present in our hearts and minds.

Jesus lived in a state of Unity Consciousness most of the time. Anyone who experiences her oneness with God moment to moment every day can be said to have attained Christ Consciousness. For Christ means “a human being who is joined with God.” The light of God shines in her eyes and the love of God emanates from her heart. Everybody who comes into her presence can see it and feel it.

The Message of Jesus

All the prophets experienced Unity Consciousness. They all communed with God and received guidance from Him in the silence of their hearts.

Their followers, however, had a hard time even showing up on the Sabbath and keeping the ten commandments. To the extent that they obeyed the law, they did so more out of fear than out of love.

By the time Jesus came on the scene, Judaism was as corrupt as it was in Moses’ time. Jesus came to overthrow the God of retribution and restore the relationship of love and trust between the people and their God. Of course, that meant he had to practically dismantle the Judaism of his time.

Jesus came to demonstrate unity consciousness and to show people that they could experience God directly. Only the direct and intimate experience of God could motivate people to keep the rest of the commandments.

Jesus knew that ten commandments were a bit much for us.

So he told us to focus on two. The first one was  “Love the Lord God with all your heart and mind.” That is the spiritual practice associated with the Spiritual Law of Oneness.

The second commandments was “Love your neighbor as yourself.” That is the practice associated with The Spiritual Law of Equality.