Is there really such a thing as an inanimate object? Since God’s spirit lives in everything, wouldn’t that make things like a desk or a car or a favorite quilt alive on some level? If so, then is everything in the Universe equally divine?
Namaste!
Kinya
Dreamchaser:
Everything that you are asking in this question is based on individual belief systems. Some people believe that God lives inside their hearts, but that a chair is just a chair. Some people believe that every single thing has God-ness in it.
It all depends on what you personally believe, and because of that, I can’t speak for what is correct or incorrect here – I can only offer my own views.
It is my personal opinion that every living thing has life-force energy, and that energy will travel to and from other living things. So if you are talking about a metal desk, I don’t believe that desk is a living thing. However, if you are talking about a wooden desk made of real wood and not pressboard or something, well that wood was at one time a tree. (I personally feel more affinity towards natural products than towards man-made articles.)
In fact, I can feel life in most wooden or natural products that I touch. If you take me into a museum, it will be very hard for me to follow those DO NOT TOUCH
rules. I want to touch everything to feel its life force energy. I think that comes from a primal need to stay in contact with other living things.
You mentioned a car. I think a car is a completely different thing. Some of us name our cars; some of us baby our cars; some of us talk to our cars like they can hear us and will respond when we rub the dash and say something like, Please start. Come on baby, please start.
Though I don’t believe that our cars are alive on any level, it’s natural for us to personify some inanimate objects, especially if we interact with them all the time. Just this past weekend, I was driving through the cemetery by my house and one of the gates blew in the wind, slammed into the side of my vehicle, and tore up the door pretty good. I was just sick about this for about three hours until I realized there was nothing to get so upset about, since my car is not a living thing.
Some people give money a whole lot of power, and money is not only inanimate – it’s merely symbolic! Despite this, it’s given as much power as anything else in the Universe.
Everything has the propensity to be divine, so everything has the potential to be equal to anything else in the universe. That is my personal opinion. The Pope is no greater than the big pecan tree I have out in the back yard. The bottom line is the importance we put on something. Catholics obviously think the pope is more divine than my pecan tree.
It all depends on one’s perspective, doesn’t it? I think the best answer here is a question: what do YOU believe?
I wish you an even more inquisitive mind!
*****
Astrea:
While all objects can carry the energy of the person who made them, not all possess a Divine spirit. Everything God-made begins with the God-force. God-made Objects are created by the Divine, and are animate in that they have living cells.
Things made by man are inanimate – the cells don’t grow or reproduce. As long as something is LIVING or ALIVE, it possesses its Divine spirit.
Once it’s been mined, cut down, created or eaten by man, the spirit moves into the person who consumed or used the inanimate object, whether it’s a plate of sliced tomatoes or a pair of leather shoes. The people who create man-made objects also infuse them with their energy, but that doesn’t mean they have a spirit.
Does the Sun combine with water and chlorophyll to create a tomato? Yes, and the tomato has Divine energy. Sliced and eaten, the chain continues to the person who eats it. Does the desk where we sit possess Divine spirit? No, because people created the desk.
The spirit of the tree or the tomato lives within the consumer, and thus is kept divine in that way. People use energy to create objects, and their ENERGY is Divine. While their energy may live on in a painting or a dance, it is just energy – not spirit.
Are the coins thrown in the I Ching Divine? Are the sticks? They certainly represent a Divine spirit, but the objects aren’t divine in and of themselves.
Is the cross Jesus was murdered on Divine? It was when it was a tree. Does it POSSESS part of Him in it? There are churches all over the world in death battles for splinters of the True Cross, and in the 12th to 14th century, Europe was ruined by a war over the cup Jesus drank from at The Last Supper.
Surely those things are Divine, right? Well, the cup can conduct heat and carry water, but it only becomes animated in the hands of someone else. On its own, the cup is just metal (and jewels, to hear some tell!) that a person made into something useful. They are like the statues of Baal in Egypt and other statues and representations of the God Force.
While these things can be used in worship, whether they have Divine energy or not is largely determined by cultural beliefs. Objects can be infused with divine energy and meaning by religious worshipers, but then they are conductors of Divine energy as opposed to a source of Divine energy.
I feel it’s up to each person to decide what is Divine for them, and what carries a Divine spirit. Whether they carry Divine spirit or not, I would love to see a table Jesus made or sit in a chair He built. I am sure they are really something!