My account last month of the young woman who died from cancer because she focused on avoiding it every day and night, might give the impression that God is aloof and coldly objective, and that "he" will allow us to stumble along until we painfully discover for ourselves how things actually function. This is how much of the world thinks God relates to such suffering.

Replacing the picture of God as an old man with a beard in the clouds with a picture of a formal, abstract and impartial judge, is simply replacing one Hamburger-Universe-style image of God with another. God as a cold and impartial judge who allows us to bungle along is just one more version of God as a human being enlarged.

From what we know of the universe and its workings (even while acknowledging the very limited abilities of our minds to envisage what the creator of this universe might be like), seeing God as a personal and conscious energy that pulsates through everything that exists is much closer to the mark. When we come to fully realize that this energy pulsates in each and every one of us then we can understand the truth which all the great teachers first propounded: "You are Gods." (And if that's too scary we can phrase it as "You are divine.") But the small degree to which we have managed to implement this in our lives makes us shamefaced to act on that truth.

God is not disinterested or aloof, and neither is God proactive in our lives in the sense of some friend or neighbor who is interested in our welfare. To speak of God as either interested or disinterested in our lives is simply pouring onto God categories and descriptions that do not belong there. There is a deep and profound care of God for us, but it does not come from "outside," such as the care of one human being for another might. To say that God cares, or God does not care are both statements wide of the mark. 'Care' comes from within, not from outside via a being separate from us.

The divine energy that permeates all existence, pulses with life and energy and is urging us forward to channel that energy where we will in co-creative activity. If we ever become adept at this then we may reach its supreme manifestation - which is what the notion of ascension consists of. That is, a condition where the obstacles to the full realization of the divine power within us are removed and there is no further blockage to the divine life and power pouring through the human framework of the mind and body.

The insights science has given us into the workings of the universe and into the nature of the Creator behind it have given us a better understanding and a more expansive vision from which to picture God anew. The divine energy which now stands at the top of a long and distinguished history of images has nothing in common with the human style God of old whom we like to think of as personally involved in our everyday affairs. God is not at all involved in our lives in this way. God is much more impersonal and yet much more personal all at the same time. For the truth is we are responsible for how this divine energy is channeled.

Where we place our focus and acceptance is where that divine energy will manifest the results for us and that is the form that care involves. Knowing that in the quantum world the effect has to always precede the cause is one of the greatest insights we can have into the workings of the cosmos and utilizing it for our own evolution.

When groups set up in opposition to each other about the great issues of our day, about the legitimacy of war, or the rights of women, or whether we are for or against capital punishment, it needs to be realized that the primary manifestation of such opposition can only be more of the raw material which caused those groups to arise in the first place. It will take a great shift in the present state of consciousness to be able to understand instinctively that when we fight against something we only empower what it is we oppose.

From an enlightened perspective, campaigning for or against capital punishment, for example, can only generate the fuel from which those opposing groups originally drew their strength, which in the case of capital punishment will be the horrible and gruesome murders which first gave rise to the conflict of those opposing or favoring the death penalty. In the case of war, the injustices that generated war in the first place will be empowered and strengthened. In the case of rights for women the savage abuses that enslaved one half of the human race for most of its history will be re-magnetized into society.

Like attracts like, and when we fight in this way we only empower what it is we oppose, inevitably. We need a much better understanding of how reality functions and how the human relates to the divine, for any responsible and effective strategy for global change.

Miceal Ledwith, L.Ph., L.D., D.D., LL.D. (h.c.) has been a Professor of Theology and University President of Maynooth College in Ireland, a member of the Vatican’s International Theological Commission, and has lectured extensively throughout Europe and North America. He has been a long-time member of the Ramtha School of Ancient Wisdom, and was featured in the movie What the BLEEP Do We Know!? He has released two DVDs. For an extended version of this article, please visit Miceal's website: www.hamburgeruniverse.com