6/26/02
The Spiritual Chicks^SM Speak Out!
Who needs spiritual connection when I have the Internet?

From the light bulb to nuclear weapons, and the cotton gin to genetically modified foods, technology has always been a double-edged sword.  The prevailing attitude is that technology makes us better, stronger, and more comfortable as long as it doesn’t kill us, or morally bankrupt us, in the process.  While scientific advancement seems to fall into the "can’t live with it, can’t live without it" category, the reason for this paradox may be more spiritual than we think.  On the up side, technology exemplifies some of our highest ideals.  If we are part of the One Life which is all present, all powerful and all knowing, then it’s not that hard to figure out where we got the idea that we can breed our own plants, grow new body parts, and have access to any and all information, any time of day, in multiple languages.  We are "playing God," so to speak, but as part of the One Life, isn’t that our role to play?  And yes, if things get out of hand, we may blow ourselves up in the process.  But as strange as it may sound, that might not be the worst of it.  After all, it’s our bodies and minds that meet their demise; the infinite cosmic reality isn’t going anywhere.  The real danger comes when we scare ourselves into thinking that we are not complete without our technology---that we are not eternal without plastic surgery or organ transplants, or that we cannot connect to each other without the Internet.  Fear locks us into a sort of parallel universe in which technology mimics our "God-given" powers, but blinds us to the truth that the source of our creative power has been and always will be within us.

Excerpted from "THE SPIRITUAL CHICKS QUESTION EVERYTHING: Learn to Risk, Release and Soar," in bookstores October 2002, Red Wheel/Weiser, Publishers.