The Six Levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

In a wonderful presentation by Dr. Hsin Hsin Huang at the Ignatian Magis Program on Saturday, she discussed Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.  Maslow's theory taught in psychology is that humans have five levels of needs starting with physiological needs.
1. Physiological needs
2. Safety needs
3. Social belonging
4. Self-esteem
5. Self-actualization

In later years, Maslow added a sixth level - transcendence which is the need for surrender to God.  "Transcendence refers to the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos" (Farther Reaches of Human Nature, New York 1971, p. 269).

I believe we are both human and spirit possessing not only our human gifts from God, but a soul which resides within us in this temporal space and time, but is eternal.  To be eternal is to be neither in past or future, but always with God in the present.   When we reach the sixth level, we recognize we are spirits first and humans second.  We transcend our humanity to become one with each other and God in spirit.

Ignatian Prayer

"Prayer is simply a two-way conversation between you and God."  Billy Graham

I participate in a small group called Raise the Bar that meets twice a month to discuss topics related to spirituality and community.  It was started by a group of parishioners at Trinity UCC in Belleville.  At each meeting, a group member leads us through a discussion of prepared questions.   Last night's topic was prayer.   The questions posed included what is prayer, how to pray, and what to pray.   As the discussion evolved, the group defined prayer as any conversation with God and that if we consider God, who is love, in our actions, our actions become a prayer.   The group also felt that even if we are not praying, God is listening to our hearts.

In my prayer journal I no longer ask for specific outcomes.  Instead I ask for strength, wisdom, love, and peace for myself and others.  The Ignatian prayer life has taught me that each one of us has been granted unique gifts (talents) by God and that within us is placed a dream.  When we work hard to strengthen our skills consistent with our gifts, make choices out of love for God and others, be open to other paths, work towards our dream, and then release the outcome to God, we can reveal the Kingdom of God on Earth. In this way we find peace knowing God is at work in this life and the life to come.   This is what Jesus meant when he said the Kingdom of Earth is near.  

A Symbol Changes Meaning (Revelation) - A Pathway to Spiritual Singularity

1. A symbol changes meaning based on the creator, the viewer, and a point in time.
2. Symbols allow us to process multiple pathways (meanings) simultaneously.
3. Symbols have ancient meanings.  The symbol itself does not hold the energy, but rather the pathways created while focusing on the symbol.  Therefore, some ancient symbols such as the circle and the cross create powerful energy pathways.
4. Changing symbols can disrupt the energy pathways positively or negatively.
5. Everything is both energy and matter.
6. When matter changes, energy changes. When energy changes, matter changes.
7. God is in matter but is not matter.  Matter is in God but is not God.
8. God is the loving movement which remains unseen except by faith.
9. When a human is physically, emotionally or mentally violated (assaulted), their field of energy is diminished.
10. When a human is loved physically and emotionally their field of energy expands.
11. A field of energy is not isolated to our physical body.  Our energy is integrated with our surroundings.
12. Energy is made known through consciousness.
13. As in physics, our consciousness is aware of changes in the energy field caused by another’s consciousness, even if there is no direct cause (way) of knowing.
14. Attacks or acts of love can manifest physically (creation of symbols and synchronicity) even if there is no visible connection.
15. Our shared consciousness is what Einstein believed is the collective reality we focus on.
16. Using symbols, multiple realities can be created (storylines or themes) that we are connected while staying rooted to a sensory based reality based on reason (scientific method) to align our consciousness to our environment consciously and unconsciously.
17. The “Unus Mundus” is the deeper order of things that resides in the unconscious that we become conscious of by the hand of God.
18. Spiritual warfare is the battle for a shared reality – one based on love of God and others and the other based on fear and power over others.
19. By aligning our thoughts, symbols and actions based on love we take our movement from God.
20. Ignatius of Loyola taught the Spiritual Exercises, so we would know how to take direction from God while detecting false direction from the enemy.
21. What we focus our energy or our consciousness towards becomes our reality.
22. As we move toward higher consciousness, we will be able to consciously share each other’s energy and thoughts.  Many empaths already have the ability although the scientific community does not recognize it because it is experiential not observable.   We know how an atom behaves, but we don’t know what an atom can experience.
23. Pierre Teilhard De Chardin theorized that a growing consciousness of human energy consisting of our conscious thoughts and emotions called the Noosphere is enveloping Earth.  As humans reach a higher consciousness based on love, spiritual singularity will be reached.
24. When spiritual singularity is reached (transcendence of the mind), all that is not of God (love) or is sin will be wiped from consciousness shared by the body of Christ.
25. This will result in the ability to transform matter into energy and back again escaping the reality of our mortal existence in this temporal plain.

The Divine Milieu and The Noosphere

"The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold"  Psalm 18:12

"The prospect of the righteous is joy, but the hopes of the wicked come to nothing."  Proverbs 10:28

"God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day."  Genesis 31

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote both of the Divine Milieu and the Noosphere.  The Divine Milieu is an energy field that encompasses all intangible (thoughts and emotions) and tangible (matter) in the Cosmos.  The Noosphere is a growing field of consciousness that is enveloping the Earth that Louis Savary refers to the "collective mind and spirit" of Earth.   The Noosphere contains all information, thought and emotions generated by humans. The noosphere is also the supernatural body of Christ as our hands are physical body of Christ.  Teilhard envisioned this consciousness as evolving to a loving energy shared by all humans.

What Louis Savary does not write about in the New Spiritual Exercises is that the consciousness known as the Noosphere we are forming has both negative energy and positive energy generated from our thoughts, information, and emotions.  Love and fear not only manifest in physical acts, but contribute to the Noosphere.  Both the positive and negative energy in the Noosphere can affect an individual consciousness as well as the collective.  As in the energy focused in prayer can heal others, negative energy can also be consciously directed at others.  Positive energy generated through love and joy expands the Noosphere.  Hate and fear contract the Noosphere and target those who generate love.

However, what the enemy that generates hate and fear does not want you to know, is that the love of God and each other cannot be overcome and there is nothing to fear because Jesus' love is your joy and protection.  As Teilhard wrote we are on an upward path that sometimes cycles downward before resuming upward. The truth is that the Divine Milieu, consists mostly of the unconscious which is God filled with love and positive energy.  The enemy seeks to dominate our conscious thoughts in an attempt to convince us creation is not good and that we will fail.  But this is not reflective of the true nature of creation.  Jesus with his death on the cross unleashed a powerful force of love into the Noosphere symbolized by the tearing of the curtain in the temple   Jesus is the way (love), the truth (knowing), and the life (eternal).

The Seventeen Basic Teilhardian Principles

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
1 John (KJV)

(Excerpt from the New Spiritual Exercises by Louis M. Savary

"Principle 1:  The discoveries of modern science must form an important foundation to any contemporary spirituality if it is to be true, relevant, and inspiring.
Principle 2:  Evolution is happening continually on every level of being and has a direction.
Principle 3:  The Law of Attraction-Connection-Complexity-Consciousness is the law that is giving evolution its direction.
Principle 4:  Evolution is based primarily on spirit, not on matter.
Principle 5:  We all live and move and have our being in the divine milieu.
Principle 6:  Everything has a "within" as well as a "without."
Principle 7: The principle of self convergence is now operating.
Principle 8:  At present, evolution is focused in the "noosphere."
Principle 9:  The success of God's plan for creation depends on your conscious and creative activity to keep the divine plan evolving and developing in the direction God wants for creation.
Principle 10:  Any true spirituality today must be a collective spirituality.
Principle 11:  Today even an individual spirituality, is a private exclusive redemptive relationship between God and me, must include all other human beings and the rest of creation.
Principle 12:  To know, love, and serve the universe with a passion.
Principle 13:  To love the "invisible."
Principle 14:  To love the "not yet."
Principle 15:  An evolutionary spirituality is focused primarily on grace, not on sin.
Principle 16:  To recognize that union differentiates.
Principle 17: To synthesize all things in the Universal Christ."

What is in a Name - Mont Road

"The mountain is thought to contain divine inspiration, and it is the focus of pilgrimages of transcendence and spiritual elevation. It is a universal symbol of the nearness of God, as it surpasses ordinary humanity and extends toward the SKY and the heavens. It symbolizes constancy, permanence, motionlessness, and its peak spiritually signifies the state of absolute consciousness. In dreams, a mountain signifies danger, but climbing a mountain depicts inner elevation."

I have a spiritual partner in the garden who lives on Mont Road.  Mont, translated from French, means mountain.   I've always thought of his home and landscape as a spiritual garden full of God's love yet to be revealed.

Why does it seem that a spiritual journey is like climbing a mountain?  Because when we reach the end of our climb which can be difficult and treacherous, the view is amazing!   I now live in Summit Springs which is a source of water and renewal for the mountain.  Although I dreamed of a life on top of the mountain, I now am beginning to long for a small home where I can plant gardens and can retreat into myself.

My name is Elizabeth Ann which translated into Greek and Latin means "oath to God and blessed with grace" and my surname Wakefield translated into Old English means "to awaken or to hold vigil in a field often for religious purposes."  My adopted surname Winchester is Old English for fortress.  My soulmate's first name in Old English means handsome at birth and last name in German means the buckle maker, which forms the symbol for eternity.

Finding God in Everything

“God freely created us so that we might know, love, and serve him in this life and be happy with him forever. God's purpose in creating us is to draw forth from us a response of love and service here on earth, so that we may attain our goal of everlasting happiness with him in heaven.
All the things in this world are gifts of God, created for us, to be the means by which we can come to know him better, love him more surely, and serve him more faithfully. 

As a result, we ought to appreciate and use these gifts of God insofar as they help us toward our goal of loving service and union with God. But insofar as any created things hinder our progress toward our goal, we ought to let them go.”
― St. Ignatius of Loyola

For the past few years I have been worshiping at a Methodist Church pastored by an Evangelical minister.  I have found remarkable, loving, spiritual members in my small group.  However, I have decided to separate from that church and find a centering prayer group and to stay connected with my Ignatian Spirituality group.   I think I need a small group who sees God as love who is in all things and practices traditions and rituals because those rituals bring us closer to God, not set us apart from others.  There is too much of "the other" in todays society and churches often participate in that division.

I believe Jesus saved, through grace, all of humankind and that our role is to spread his love through example.  I don't agree with the Evangelical pastor that you must declare Jesus Lord and Savior to be saved.  I think Jesus decides who is saved and we are not to judge others, but to lead by loving others and wishing our neighbors well.  The Bible is the living word inspired by God.  It is not meant to be interpreted literally to predict the end times, but to speak spiritual truths to strengthen our relationship with God to be as one.   I believe that Jesus has given us everything we need to succeed if we  believe in him who is love.