Gods, especially old gods, are presented as ego-heavy, iron-fisted, lofty beings who look down on mere mortals and demand worship.
Has this ever sat well with you? Do you see this bravado and posturing of ultimate self-serving and wonder how something so imbalanced and misaligned with universal principles could have risen to some lofty spiritual status of god-hood?
Yet we see gods all around the world still in full action, still held in the minds and hearts of the people of those regions and, often times, they’ve spread even further than their place of origin. Buddha and Jesus are two obvious examples. The milieu of modern awareness of various gods likely spreads these gods’ influence, as it were, further and faster than ever could have occurred, in ancient times.
What we lack in depth of singular awareness and sustained worship, in our current time, we make up for in vast spread and reach, in what we can offer a god.
I personally cannot worship a being. I cannot worship a lover and I cannot worship a god. My entire life, I’ve automatically rebelled at authority of every kind. You don’t get to tell me what to do or how to do it. You can either walk alongside me or we won’t walk together. Period. I don’t care if you’re incredibly accomplished in your role and full of wisdom, I don’t care if you’re a socially celebrated figure, I don’t care if you’ve convinced hoards of humans to give up their power to you.
I don’t even care if you’re an actual god: we walk side by side or we don’t walk together.
Bitch, if someone is going to worship here, you should worship ME.
I have no exceptions to this rule. I do not worship.
So why would gods and religions everywhere demand worship? What does it give them? What kind of being thrives in a state of exaltation above others? What kind of being revels in the self sacrifice, even to great harm and detriment, of their following? If this requirement would turn not just me, but so many freedom-loving and self-worth-valuing individuals completely off, why obsess over and demand blind commitment to a worshipful state of being?
Probably no beings ever have, actually. Or at least, not exalted ones.
Turns out, the whole worship fiasco has been a big fat lie.
Are you surprised?
I was for one second – then I remembered how most of the words we use are utterly incorrect. They’ve transformed, manipulated and twisted beyond recognition. Like when people describe chaos as “anarchy” or the agreement to live with another human and blend your finances while raising children “love”. Like how we call schools places of “education” and call the groups of people we don’t like or trust “cults”. Like how we swear we live in a “democracy” and not in a “fascist police state”. We misuse so many words and we fail to understand how the misuse warps our minds, eventually our hearts, and finally our souls.
Words hold power, the thoughts and images we hold alongside them when we speak them creates reality, and the energy we imbue them with shapes and limits our abilities. We best understand and speak intentionally, with all this power.
So, what was stolen from us when “worship” underwent reformation to become something so much more debased than it originally meant? To find out, understand the true meaning of worship:
“To worship” has long been associated with spiritual or divine beings and powers and, even when we see it applied to other humans – as in, “Your Worship, I do believe you’re riding high on that horse,” – we apply it only to elites and those we’ve placed precariously high above the peasantry.
Interestingly, then, we look at the history of the word. Was it always associated with divinity, committed reverence, and throwing oneself upon the dirt to grovel at the feet of greatness? Were the component parts of the word and their respective meanings applicable to such behaviors and attitudes?
“Weorth” – of the word “worth” – and “scipe” – of the word “ship.
Worthy ship.
We can imagine, at the time of ships and the Old English that brought this phrase into our common parlance, that possessing a worthy ship was worth more than a few lives. The expense of it, the tragedy if things go wrong at sea, the trust and safety of something you can rely on and bring in wealth for your family or town, this would definitely elevate the status of ships, in our minds, hearts, and cultures.
So, is your ship worthy?
Mine is. And that’s exactly WHY I don’t grovel and beg for anything from anyone. I don’t bow down and put myself in the dirt for anything. Every aspect of the universe that is deserving of my praise and companionship, my support and collaboration, is on a level with me. There are people, places, objects, and powers that possess far more than I do in every possible metric. And there are those that possess less of the same. We are all on the same plane. We are all walking the same path. The acquisition and retention, or lack thereof, of any given, definable aspect of the universe does not make one better or worse. It simply shows they are at different points along the walk… and we all have been, and we all continue to be on that path, ad infinitum, forever and ever, amen.
I worship nothing and no one… but I find worth in many people, places, objects, and powers. I am happy to share energy with those things I place worth in. I can admit, a worthy ship is worthy of my intention and energy. More than that, if many people over many years add their appreciation of a worthy portion of the universe into the same conceptual location, how much more worth gathers there?
Worth accumulation is the specialty of Rupert Sheldrake, whose concept of morphogenetic fields and resonance explain so much more of the universe than any other conception and theory, from ghosts to why humans all seem to discover something at the same time, all around the world, to trends and evolution. There’s nothing that once remained mysterious that is not now unveiled by the concept that our energy and intention, at every moment of every day, creates reality and, the more people who contribute to a given belief, location, person, power, or phenomenon of any sort, the more the collectively-generated field gains power and the longer it lasts.
Gods are no different. Whether you can prove Ganesh exists in some material sense or not, Ganesh exists and has existed in ways that have shaped reality for thousands of years. Whether you believe in Jesus or not, his adorers will build in your city, cater to your poor, and attempt to block your abortion clinics, nonetheless. And the more people believe and pour their love and tears and sweat into the being known as Buddha, the more power that morphogenetic field holds and the more power it can unleash through its believer’s beliefs to further affect reality…
Imagine, then, what happens when you access it.
Tap the field of human energy, potential, and raw creative force that has been stored in that morphogenetic field and watch superpowers unfold. Some may call them miracles. Miracles that can carry you into new jobs, new phases of life, new wonders, and new places….
They can carry you like a ship.
One incredibly worthy, indestructible ship.
Your god could be Odin or Anansi or Berta. It doesn’t matter. If you find it worthy, that is your god damn ship. Your gods could be all gods: all places, all times – so long as you sympathetically vibe with them. You get to determine where you place worth and what it is you’re willing to add to that collective worth through your energy and intention, your belief and practice, your dedication.
That is your worship: you have found the ship worthy and you have added air to its sails. Nothing more, nothing less.
I worship every moment I’m alive, and so do we all. The thing is, we often pour the winds of all this cosmic energy we constantly explode from our very being into the energy of false gods that only destroy, like the gods of progress, capital, and exploitation. Those gods that demand that we sacrifice ourselves, our friends, our families, our time on earth, our happiness, or our joy… these gods still exist all around us. They chair large, corporate boards and they hold public office. They talk from your TV about what you should and shouldn’t do. They fill the doom preacher’s pulpit with dread, even to this day.
Perhaps these gods can still salvage themselves from their paths of emptiness and hollow promises. In the meantime, you may want to ask yourself why you’re groveling at their heels, begging for their attention and scraps.
The old ships never left you. You can jump on board any day. Much of the worthiness they hold is that they worship you, as much as you worship them. If you give your attention and energy to them, after thousands of years of morphogenetic practice in responding to support you, they put worth right back where it came from. Some say they do it tenfold.
Worship those who worship you. Remind them that you put worth in things that are worthy and nowhere else. Live that truth in your every moment. Don’t let the old gods die under this lie that worship requires self immolation or degradation. Don’t let those powerful fields of human creativity seep away into nothing.
Throw your worship where it counts and feel the reciprocity when you say to those listening, heavenly ears: I’ll worship you if you worship me.
Learn to worship all of yourself, all of the universe, and receive that worship back from everything that exists through Thrive II!
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