Free Book Excerpts

Inspiration Divine reveals a simple understanding of how discovering one’s purpose will bring about the enlightenment of both yourself and all of humanity.

Excerpt

PREFACE
The book you are about to read is God revealed and will change your life forever. Inspiration Divine foretells a journey you and mankind will take together. Unlike other books that seek to enlighten you with a new perspective, Inspiration Divine seeks to guide you down the path of your own enlightenment so that you may unlock the keys to your full human potential. In short, this book will reveal your purpose and through this purpose, you will find enlightenment.
A lot of people talk about enlightenment as if it were a state of mind that only a privileged few are capable of attaining. Similarly other people play down enlightenment as if it were nothing more than a heightened state of awareness. Neither statement is true, nor would anyone who is truly enlightened describe enlightenment in these ways. For enlightenment is a connection to God that reveals not only a complete understanding of everything you desire to know, but also provides a path to understanding everything you don’t desire to know. That’s a whole lot of information to know and thus enlightenment isn’t as much about knowing as it is about knowing how to understand. And this ability to understand is available to each and every one of us including you.
Similarly, enlightenment doesn’t have anything to do with religion. This isn’t to say that the understanding one can attain through enlightenment will be in conflict with one’s religion, but so too, it doesn’t mean that it won’t be in conflict either. In spirit and intent, enlightenment is above religion as it embodies a direct and communal relationship with God directly rather than through what others have written about God (no matter how divinely inspired their message was or not).
Simply put, enlightenment is a connection to truth. No matter what we believe about the Universe, God or Humanity, the truth is the truth. Our opinions about what is true or what is not true is irrelevant and we have a better than average chance that our current set of beliefs aren’t entirely true. One thing is for certain: enlightenment will be a humbling experience.
When we embrace the grace of the divine and the truth as being beyond reproach, we open up our hearts and minds beyond our current mode of operating in the world. And this is great news, for both the faithful and the atheist desire the truth. They may have contradictory points of view on what they believe the truth to be, but they both truly seek the truth. And in enlightenment they will both find the truth (one of them is going to be greatly disappointed).
Even staunch atheists like Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great, are calling for a new revelation of the truth:
Above all, we are in need of a renewed Enlightenment, which will base itself on the proposition that the proper study of mankind is man, and woman. This Enlightenment will not need to depend, like its predecessors, on the heroic breakthroughs of a few gifted and exceptionally courageous people. It is within the compass of the average person. (Hitchens 2007)
What Hitchens is alluding to is the capability of enlightenment to be possible in every human being rather than a handful of prophets. And while it would be an odd world where God selectively picked who should be enlightened, our religious history certainly depicts Divine communication being highly selective. And with enlightenment not being a regularly occurring experience in our lives and the ancient texts demonstrating it only being blessed upon a select few, we’ve wrongly assumed that enlightenment isn’t possible for us. And so we don’t even consider it something worth pursuing.
Consider for a moment, if enlightenment was possible for you and the rest of mankind. What if we’ve been missing the messages from God that are all around us? What if our enlightenment was not only possible, but also part of our human evolution?  Consider the possibility that the keys to enlightenment are in our hands and we only need to learn how to insert the key and turn the lock.
Spiritual Evolution
The message documented in Inspiration Divine is not a self-help prescription nor does it contain mystical secrets that have eluded mankind. The lessons that you will learn by reading these pages are drawn from the messages that have been broadcast to mankind since the dawn of time. Only now are we awakening to these lessons and tuning in to listen like never before. These messages have existed since the beginning and are actually interwoven into our cultures, religions and fundamental assumptions. Beyond the wisdom conveyed by those that have previously discovered these lessons, you too will find that you have heard these messages deep within the essence of your soul. However, there is much more available to you.
Inherent in life are the keys to understanding everything. However, through the ages we have lost the ability to listen and thus we seek that which is actually already within our possession. From the very beginning, mankind has wrestled with elementary questions that we still desire to be answered:
Why am I here?
What is my purpose?
Who is God?
From there, our questions branch into many directions, but the underlying answers continue to elude mankind. Trying to make sense of it all seems to be impossible and thus most of Humanity leaves this task to those that study philosophy, psychology and theology. But even though we tell ourselves that the answers are beyond our grasp, we still desire to understand the Universe, God and Humanity.
The path to this understanding is inherently part of living and surprisingly simple. In fact, the path is so elemental that your Mind may reject it for not being complex enough. Our Minds are advanced thinking machines that crave complexity despite our attempt to simplify our lives. So too, we have established a partial understanding of life through our cultures, religions and personal experiences. In combination, our Minds tell us that the truth must be complex and in line with what we already believe to be true. And so we continue through life with the answers to these questions all around us, without an awareness of how close we are to the truth.
The world in which we live is advancing to an inflection point of enlightenment as is evident by the exponential change that is occurring around the world. Each and every day we create more information, knowledge and wisdom than we did the previous day. In Karl Fisch’s Did You Know presentation (Fisch 2007), he chronicled many of the amazing statistics that describe the exponential times we’re living in:
* The first commercial text message was sent in December 2002; the number of text messages sent today exceeds the population of the planet.
* There are more than 8 billion searches performed on Internet Search Engines every month (4.1 billion on Google alone).
* There are more than 540,000 words in the English language; about 5 times as many as during Shakespeare’s time.
* The amount of technical information being produced is doubling every two years and is estimated to soon double every day.
As we expand this collective knowledge, we gain insight, perspective and a bit more of the truth. Whereas previous generations could passively pursue the truth, our generation is called to an active participation in living the truth. In short, we are being called to understand.
Inspiration Divine foretells the evolution of mankind from a physical existence to a Spiritual existence. When most of us think of evolution, we envision Charles Darwin shocking the world with his evolutionary description of our lineage to our primate cousins. And while Darwin’s focus was largely biological, even he was aware of the future that awaits Humanity:
As man advances in civilization and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. If indeed such men are separated from him by great differences in appearance or habits, experience unfortunately shows us how long it is before we look at them as our fellow creatures. (Darwin 1871)
As Darwin warned, the solidarity of mankind is a future state that we have yet to reach. The physical lives we live today fail to provide us with a path to solidarity or any glimpse that this path is in our near future. Clearly our physical evolution has brought us quite far, but the rest of the journey will require us moving to the next phase in our evolution: a Spiritual existence.
As you have gone through life, you have no doubt experienced amazing coincidences, ironic threads between two or more people in your life and chance encounters that could not be logically explained. We have all had “ah-ha” moments in which an idea leaps into our head or the answer to a seemingly unsolvable problem suddenly reveals itself to us. Moreover, even if these moments are rare, they provide us with a glimpse into the potential of a Spiritual existence. Inspiration Divine reveals how these connections operate in the Universe and how we can tap into God’s wisdom in order to achieve our hopes and dreams.
Understanding Inspiration Divine
Inspiration generally refers to an unconscious burst of creativity, but in the context of divine inspiration we’re invoking its original Roman relation to the term afflatus:
Cicero, in the oration for Archias, speaks of the poet as one who was breathed upon or into by some divine spirit, – poetam quasi divino spiritu inflari. Plato held the same view with regard to poetry. He believed that the poet was often so inspired that he said things that he did not himself fully understand.
“Himself From God he could not free;
He builded better than he know.”
Josephus, who was a cotemporary of Paul, in his first book against Apion, speaks of the twenty-two sacred books of the Jews as having been written by an inspiration which came from God, or according to a breathing upon them of God. (Evans 2004)
Similarly the term Divine, which has many meanings, refers to the concept that human beings are “God revealed” — living representations of God on Earth as they live in accordance with God’s intent. In combination, Inspiration Divine is about expanding our consciousness to tap into personal prophecy (the disclosing of information that is not known to the prophet by any ordinary means). (Davison 2005) Rabbinic scholar Maimonides, suggested that “prophecy is, in truth and reality, an emanation sent forth by the Divine Being through the medium of the Active Intellect, in the first instance to man’s rational faculty, and then to his imaginative faculty.” (Sunwall 1996)
Thus the title Inspiration Divine describes Humanity’s path to enlightenment as conveyed by the Divine Being (God). Most readers will immediately become skeptical of any proclamation of Divine communication, as our society has given up on direct communication with God. In our modern understanding of life, we’ve come up with lots of reasons why God doesn’t talk to us anymore, but for some reason, most of these theories leave out the simple fact that we’re not listening.
We assume that because God can communicate with us via any method of His1 choosing, that He will appear to us in a form that we will understand. We picture ourselves as Charlton Heston climbing to the summit of Mount Sinai in pursuit of the burning bush and hearing the voice of God. With a deep, raspy voice God will call our name and command us to listen.
And if God called out to us in this way, why wouldn’t we listen? This isn’t to say that God wouldn’t call to us in this manner. However, this sensational version of Divine communication is more appropriate for a single conversation rather than one with all of Humanity. Possibly God reserves the attention grabbing, burning bush communication styles for one on one conversations.
Inspiration Divine documents God’s message of love, acceptance and understanding for all of mankind. The message that is being broadcast is intended for everyone, rather than a chosen few. We are all called to listen and Inspiration Divine contains lessons on how to listen, how to communicate with God and, most importantly, how to evolve into a Spiritual existence that embodies the beauty of sustained enlightenment.
Whereas other books extol the benefits of enlightenment, Inspiration Divine brings enlightenment into your daily life with practical and accessible methods for achieving harmony with the Universe, connecting with your Spirit and maintaining balance in your life. However, beyond what Inspiration Divine can do for you, the lessons contained in this book are for Humanity as a whole and your role in bringing about the Spiritual enlightenment of Humanity is embedded in the message itself. In short, you have an unshakable responsibility to personally bring forth the next phase in the evolution of mankind.
In attempting to understand Inspiration Divine, you have already begun to experience the logical battle that will take place within your Mind. As human beings, we interpret and understand the world around us through our sensations, emotions and thoughts. When things make sense we accept them and when they don’t make sense we tend to refute them. There is no other way for human beings, for everything must ultimately be interpreted, analyzed and accepted by our Minds. However, in putting the essence of understanding entirely within the domain of the Mind, we also ignore both the Body and the Spirit.
In modern metaphysical circles there is quite a bit of discussion about the Body, Spirit and Mind. Our society readily accepts these three ways of describing being human but we rarely stop to understand the deep, meaningful consciousness that is present in these simple distinctions. They are so elemental a part of being human that we tend to accept them without fully considering the insightful role they play in our lives. But as soon as we start to encounter concepts that don’t make sense, we instantly become aware of just how entirely caught up in our Minds we really are.
By ignoring the Spirit and the Body in figuring out what is true, we ignore God and make our way through life embracing most situations based entirely on logical thinking. The problem with this approach is that with a mental existence we risk missing out on any relationship with God that doesn’t fall into the logical patterns that our Minds demand. Surely the burning bush and booming voice from the Heavens didn’t make sense to Moses either, but in trusting his Spiritual side, he was able to accept, understand and believe in the voice of God.
In bringing you Inspiration Divine, I’m not asking you to accept these words as the voice of God. I believe Inspiration Divine to be a message from God, for all of Humanity, which is intended to teach mankind how to attain enlightenment, how to serve God and how to be in communication with God. To your Mind, these words will represent a paradigm shift that will cause you to rethink your current understanding of the Universe, God and Humanity.
What I would ask you to do is consider the message contained in Inspiration Divine with more than the logical analysis of your Mind. As you read each chapter, your Mind may refute concepts that are presented and I encourage you to not fight or judge your Mind for being so quick to separate truths from un-truths. Instead let your Mind’s thoughts be nothing more than thoughts and instead let your Spirit engage in the conversation. In collaboration, the Body, Spirit and Mind will guide you down the path of determining what is right for you. By engaging all three in the conversation, you will find more wisdom and insight than could ever be provided to you by another.
Your Path
It is no accident that you are reading this book at this time in your life. No matter if you are reading this in a library or someone gifted this book to you, the motion of the Universe is unmistakable and there is a reason you were brought to these words. No two people have the same role to play, despite us all sharing a common purpose in life. And with this comes your awakening to a purpose that can only be revealed by a connection to your own Spirit. The words contained in this book will not dictate your purpose, for that message can only come from your Spirit. However, this book will show you how to connect to your Spirit and keep that relationship strong for eternity. In this, your path to enlightenment will be revealed through your discovery of purpose.
The final note I will add to this introduction speaks to the energy contained in this book. Your bookshelf is full of books that you find amusing, insightful, and inspiring. I truly hope that you find this book to be worthy of your bookshelf but ask that you do not park it there. Instead, learn what you can from this book and gift it to another. Take the teachings of this book and then give this book to someone else. If you cannot think of whom to give it to then pick someone at random, but make sure that it gets into the hands of someone that can benefit from its message of love, harmony and universal possibilities.
If you are one of the people that was handed this book, count yourself as both deserving and the most valuable person in the world. You have provided someone else the opportunity to practice sharing, to try giving and to experience what it feels like to take a chance on someone else. By receiving this book, you know that there is beauty in the Universe and that you are part of the evolution of Humanity towards a new, Spiritual existence. For you, the path is similarly simple: learn the lessons contained herein and gift this book to another. One by one, the human race will move forward to truly understand a new relationship with the Universe, God, and Humanity.
As we investigate the countless models seeking to explain the Universe, God and Humanity we should be inherently skeptical of complexity. A simple and rich river runs through us despite our propensity to focus on the wider ocean. When we find an understanding of the ocean that also explains the river, we will have found the truth.   In short, any explanation of life that is complex may be interesting, but it certainly isn’t enlightening.
Without a grasp of the path to enlightenment, our Minds are helplessly drawn to complexity. Followers of that path will certainly obtain knowledge, but they will be no closer to a union with the Divine than before they began.
In walking the path we seek the truth. Be the truth beautiful or be it ugly, we seek the truth in its purest form. We care not for what is appealing to our senses nor what calms the masses, but instead desire to know what we are, why we’re here and what is our purpose.
Already God is near, the Truth is close,
Walkers of the Path
Inspiration Divine is a handbook for Humanity designed to bring about enlightenment one person at a time. You are but one person in this chain, but the chain reaction cannot continue without you. For this reason, the journey you are about to take is both a personal one and an enabling key to another’s journey. Upon reading these pages, you will understand the beauty, peace and love contained in the message. Sharing this message with others will not only bring about the Spiritual evolution of mankind, but will also propel you on this path. Record your name below before beginning this journey. In time, you will know who should appear next on this list. Your time is now and by inking your name below you begin your journey:
1. ______________________________
2. ______________________________
3. ______________________________
4. ______________________________
5. ______________________________
6. ______________________________
7. ______________________________
8. ______________________________
9. ______________________________
10. ______________________________
11. ______________________________

The ordinary life is that of the average human consciousness separated from its own true self and from the Divine and led by the common habits of the mind, life and body which are the laws of the Ignorance…
The spiritual life, on the contrary, proceeds directly by a change of consciousness, a change from the ordinary consciousness, ignorant and separated from its true self and from God, to a greater consciousness in which one finds one’s true being and comes first into direct and living contact and then into union with the Divine.
For the spiritual seeker this change of consciousness is the one thing he seeks and nothing else matters.(Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga 1970)

Copyright 2009 Darwin Stephenson. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.