“If you take the robe that a person is wearing to be the person’s true identity, then though endless aeons may pass, you will become proficient in robes only and will remain forever circling round in the threefold world, transmigrating in the realm of birth and death. There is only you, this person in front of my eyes now listening, who enters fire without being burned, enters water without drowning, enters the three realms of hell as though strolling in a garden, enters the realms of hungry ghosts and the animals but undergoes no punishment. How can one do all this?”
~Rinzai (Lin Chi)
Everyone is the totally unique version of their own religion, regardless of what tree we gather under, or to which nominal affiliation we might currently pledge some uninspected allegiance. Before religions were dreamed up by humans to account for ourselves in the midst of this mystery and wonder, however, there has only been one “Person”.
Regardless of who and what we take ourselves to be, everybody and everything is none other than an expression of this one “Person”. Everybody is one Person appearing as everybody and everything simultaneously. One unfathomable person lives all these seemingly disparate lives, thinks all these random and arbitrary thoughts, performs all this play, appears in every birth, vanishes in every death, and persists totally beyond any birth or death, which are only the various births and deaths that unfold in any dream — one Person’s dream.
Confounding beyond all human comprehension, this “Person” is not the parental deity figure which those stalled at an infantile level of emotional/spiritual development call on to save, redeem, or bless them in their efforts to acquire goods and smite their enemies. This Person can never be an object of perception, but rather is That which makes perception possible. This Person is actually no more of a person than we are persons. Employing the term “person” is just a conceptual designation without any inherent solidity, but for the purposes of communication, it is a reference to That which is also regarded as “Source” or “All That Is”.
In any case, here’s a good question: How can we hold onto a dream? Just so, we cannot know this person dreaming. We are what this person is dreaming. Can the dream know the dreamer? Can the perceived, perceive? We are infinite reflections – all reflecting one person, and yet no image is actually that person. We are all the religions of that person, fantasies of that person, dream characters dancing in the mind of that one of which there is no second.
Whatever appears is a projection of mind. Even if some person or Person were to seem to appear, the appearance itself must be in consciousness, and hence would initiate a fantasy of interpretation on perception based on the conditioned filters of the perceiver. In other words, whatever else any visionary phenomena might imply, it is first and foremost a hallucination – a hallucination which nevertheless might serve as the foundation for further deluded human institutions that claim to have the final truth, the keys to the kingdom, the one and only path, scheme, strategy, method, or prescription for redemption, salvation, ascension, illumination, or permanent happiness in a heaven of one’s fondest hopes and desires. Humans are funny that way.
However, when interpretation ends, religion also ends. This is because religion is never anything other than a conceptual designation itself, a mental fabrication, a limited and non-binding play of consciousness. When all such day-dreaming is rendered obsolete by resort to our primordial awake awareness, then what remains is just this vast and potent emptiness, birthing out dreamy universes as if there was nothing to it, but not identified with any of them, any more than the sky is identified with clouds.
Just so, there is nothing that we can do, except that all is being done already as and through us, and whatever that may be has no quality or attribute of desirable or undesirable, negative or positive, right or wrong, true or false, except as we imagine in our forgetfulness, and even this forgetfulness is not truly ours, since there is only one impersonal, beginningless Person remembering, forgetting, waking, sleeping, dreaming, breathing, and seemingly ceasing to breathe.
The great Indian Sage Ramana Maharshi referred to this Person when he said: “The Self alone exists; and the Self alone is real. Verily the Self alone is the world, the “I” and God. All that exists is but a manifestation of the Supreme Being.”
In Tibet, the Dzogchen Master Nubchen Sangye Yeshe wrote: “In fact, the Great Self (Dagnyid Chenpo) is the union and the source of all Victorious Ones. The Great Self is matchless . . . it has been affirmed that the Great Self is the source of everything. How is this so? All the appearances [mentally] conceived are adventitious appearances of good and bad thoughts. Since the Great Self has not been [mentally] conceived by anyone, it does not have a phenomenal existence. It is present because it has arisen before anything else; therefore, although all is born from it, it has no beginning.”
In the Kulayarāja Tantra (Tibetan: Kunjed Gyalpo), Samantabhadra Buddha discloses this ultimate Truth: “All that exists is My own being. The entirety of the animated and inanimated world is My own being. Outside of My own being, nothing is, therefore the root of all things consists in Me. Not one thing exists that does not consist in Me.”
In the Christian mystical tradition, Juliana of Norwich echoed a similar recognition when she wrote in her “Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love”, “And I saw no difference between God and our Substance: but as it were all God; and yet mine understanding took that our Substance is in God: that is to say, that God is God, and our Substance is a creature in God… We are enclosed in the Father, and we are enclosed in the Son, and we are enclosed in the Holy Ghost. And the Father is enclosed in us, and the Son is enclosed in us, and the Holy Ghost is enclosed in us. . .”
In Reality, there is nothing and no one in need of redemption or salvation, and yet we still tend to cling to limiting beliefs of being bound by life and in need of some religion to liberate us. Such religion typically will appear in a conceptual form as a belief structure particular to the temporary host vehicle’s conditioned filtering apparatus. What then follows are names and forms in colors that will invariably clash, leading to hot debates, crusades, jihads, and behaviors that, in retrospect, we’d just as soon not want to be reminded of, once the dust has cleared.
In that regard, Nisargadatta Maharaj makes a good point: “Recorded religions are mere heaps of verbiage. Religions show their true face in action, in silent action. To know what man believes, watch how he acts. For most of the people service of their bodies and their minds is their religion. They may have religious ideas, but they do not act on them. They play with them, they are often very fond of them, but they will not act on them.”
So, what is this Person really up to? What are we always up to? What is the game about? Experience. Source has an apparently endless appetite for experience, and we are the vehicles for all this infinitely modifying game of experience, just so that this Person can revel in the multitude of dreamy aspects of Itself, and all for the joy and fun of discovery, playing a game of Hide & Seek in an infinite hall of mirrors.
Through the play of experience, which is a play of consciousness, this Person explores Itself, celebrates Itself, forgets and then remembers Itself. Really, all is just a magnificent Song of Love that this Person sings to Itself, though to any of Its temporary individualized thought expressions in the lyrical dream of Itself, it may seem like anything but their ideal of what Love is supposed to be and do.
Well then, what is the problem? In a nutshell, it is a chronic activity of the self-contraction, an internal state of conflict in which life and experience are artificially divided into the desirable and the fearful. It manifests as a perpetually alternating vicious cycle of grasping and avoidance, the disease of the mind of any particular person we might take ourselves to be.
As the Zen Patriarch Seng T’san noted in his famous verses on the Mind of Absolute Trust (Hsin Hsin Ming), “The Great Way is not difficult, just don’t pick and choose. If you cut off all likes or dislikes everything is clear like space. Make the slightest distinction and heaven and earth are set apart. If you wish to see the truth, don’t think for or against.”
Certainly one must be able to discern the skillful from the clumsy, the wholesome from the less than wholesome, and make such relative distinctions in the conventional objective world. Indeed, one of the purported functions of religion is to assist in arriving at such determinations. However, when our conditional preferences cross over into fixation, consciousness becomes stuck in one-sided views and dogmatic positions. In that event, the natural flow of life stagnates, which is why Dogen Zenji cautioned, “If the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion.”
Trying to hold on to what we like about consciousness and its contents, and avoiding what we dislike, is an exercise in futility, and a sure recipe for suffering. Moreover, on the macro level, it is invariably through clinging to polarized positions and views that religious wars are birthed and perpetuated. History is replete with such episodes, and yet we apparently still have not learned the lesson, judging by current world events.
The Vietnamese Buddhist Master, Thich Nhat Hanh, addresses this chronic obstruction: “When one becomes dogmatic, that person believes his or her doctrine is the only truth and that all other doctrines are heresy. Disputes and conflicts all arise from narrow views. They can extend endlessly, wasting precious time and sometimes even leading to war. Attachment to views is the greatest impediment to the spiritual path. Bound to narrow views, one becomes so entangled that it is no longer possible to let the door of truth open.”
Clinging to preferences or fixed positions in this sense mainly serves to confirm the solidity and inherent existence of the separate ego-mind. However, with some earnest inquiry and investigation, any fantasy of such an independently enduring person can sooner or later be recognized as a fictional character projected from the mind of the Dreamer. Just imagine, then, if that pretend person could be clearly recognized as an error of interpretation, a case of mistaken identity, and then surrendered, let go. Imagine being finally released from the confines of any provisional fabricated identity derived from grasping or aversion. Imagine letting go of our tight grasp on limited and limiting views of any kind – religious or secular. What then would pertain?
“Imagine — no religion too!” ~John Lennon
See also: https://theconsciousprocess.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/religion-part-2/
The Conscious Process 
Beautiful and true, and as always such an expression of reality shared with a poignant and precise pen. Indicative of the state of the mind behind that pen. 🙂 Bless, Bob, hope all is well with you and yours, bredren, you’ve been missed!
Ah Brother, great to hear from you, and really enjoying your fine offerings at Sacred Space! Many Blessings to you and yours, Always!
I have learned
So much from God
That I can no longer
Call myself
A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,
a Buddhist, a Jew.
The Truth has shared so much of Itself
With me
That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel,
Or even a pure Soul.
Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely,
It has turned to ash
And freed me
Of every concept and image
my mind has ever known.
Hafiz
Researchers at Auburn University, who are searching for the evolutionary source of religion in human societies, say biological factors may play a key role in shaping our religious beliefs.
http://blog.al.com/wire/2014/01/religious_brains_function_diff.html
“Religion is, in reality, living. Our religion is not what we profess, or what we say, or what we proclaim; our religion is what we do, what we desire, what we seek, what we dream about, what we fantasize, what we think – all these things – twenty-four hours a day. One’s religion, then, is ones life, not merely the ideal life but the life as it is actually lived.
Religion is not prayer, it is not a church, it is not theistic, it is not atheistic, it has little to do with what white people call “religion.” It is our every act. If we tromp on a bug, that is our religion; if we experiment on living animals, that is our religion; if we cheat at cards, that is our religion; if we dream of being famous, that is our religion; if we gossip maliciously, that is our religion; if we are rude and aggressive, that is our religion. All that we do, and are, is our religion.”
― Jack D. Forbes, Columbus and Other Cannibals
Religion Doesn’t Make People More Moral, Study Finds
http://www.livescience.com/47799-morality-religion-political-beliefs.html
“What is religion? A cloud in the sky. I live in the sky, not in the clouds, which are so many words held together. Remove the verbiage and what remains? Recorded religions are mere heaps of verbiage. Religions show their true face in action, in silent action. To know what man believes, watch how he acts. For most of the people service of their bodies and their minds is their religion. They may have religious ideas, but they do not act on them. They play with them, they are often very fond of them, but they will not act on them.
Christianity is one way of putting words together and Hinduism is another. The real is, behind and beyond words, incommunicable, directly experienced, explosive in its effect on the mind. It is easily had when nothing else is wanted.”
~Nisargadatta Maharaj
“I endorse the free will of all to invest in whatever belief they so choose, for whatever reasons and within whatever values they deem important to them as a being. If the alignment to some religious order or discipline allows an individual to reach self-realization of their grandest and greatest vision of themselves, then let it be so.
From the perspective of the spirit world on matters as this, it tends to be observed that religion, as an attunement of consciousness, thought processes and state of expectation once passing has much to answer for. Though it could be said for many religions of the Earth that much good can come about through the tools of faith, kinship and united loving intention, equally it must be observed the presence of misinterpretation, misinformation and manipulation. This is to say, what tends to occur is that one individual within a historical period interprets fragmented incomplete truths from one source or another, usually from another human being in history, to his or her own ideals, and thusly develops their own values and indoctrinations out of that. What we then observe is that other individuals and growing groups, usually those yearning for greater truth, adopt this one source of indoctrination and view point and declare it the highest truth. Yet we see to commit to this highest truth they are then expected to disassociate themselves from all other paths of wisdom, experience and personal spiritual validation.
In this we see that the investment of living within a fragmented misinterpreted set of teachings can do tremendous damage to such things as family bonding, self-perception and cause deep inflicting suffering after such beliefs are shattered by life’s unforeseen events. We similarly see that upon their passing, many religious groups and individuals, particularly those who are promised one thing or another within their indoctrinations are met with a totally different state of events, of reality and of truth than what was taught to them by their self-professed spiritual guru. This often then beckons groups and guides of care in the spirit world to assist illuminate and realign these souls to a higher vibration of information and understanding within the halls of learning and their Akashic book.
Religion does not exist in the spirit world. The reason for this is because the halls of learning, otherwise known as the halls of information, contain every answer and illumination to every question ever conceived. Many billions of souls, having spent extensive periods of time in study within the halls of learning are presented with the very core essence of truth and recorded state of events of all beings and all subjects, which systematically rewrites all belief systems carried over from physical life. For this reason, and with this infinite resource available, religion becomes impractical and insufficient because your soul’s thought processes gravitate to a much higher resonation of understanding.
Conclusively, in my opinion, religion was a useful vehicle to gravitate awareness to a new resonation of values in Earth’s history. It was useful, in their former original forms and values, to begin to invite spiritual thought and self-reflection. It is my view and understanding that religions, in their current form, no longer sustain or gravitate humanity in the same way they once did. This is simply because such religions cannot meet the demand for higher forms of information, of science and of validation which so many human beings now seek. In a sense, human beings have evolved beyond the appeal and promises of religion and seek answers, experiences and validations which religion cannot provide. The original values of unconditional love, brotherhood and harmony with the Earth must be reintegrated into the modern world, within modern living and modern thinking.”
~Sparrow
“Verbal and physical sparring, tracking down heretics, putting whole communities to the sword, the very public (and insanely cruel) burning of supposed heretics — all these activities grew slowly, intermittently and regionally over the course of the medieval centuries, Europe’s avowedly Christian centuries. But in the 16th century, the inter-Christian violence grew exponentially. Open-air burnings became more common and more elaborate liturgically: comfortable, curtained boxes would be provided for local lords and higher clergy; colorfully vested bishops and priests (or severely vested reformed ministers), often assisted by acolytes or other lesser ecclesial servants, would process about as if engaged in a service in a church sanctuary; a preacher would mount a specially constructed pulpit to sermonize the condemned and terrify the spectators, for whom temporary stadium seats had been constructed; the condemned prisoners would be paraded in their dunce’s hats; the ghoulish conclusion, anticipated by all, would be public torture by fire, ending in horrifying death. Why burning, rather than, say, hanging or decapitation? Because the great Christian promise, the hope of all believers, was physical resurrection at the end of time — and you couldn’t be resurrected if you had no body, could you? The promise of the waking of the dead and their rising from their graves must not be permitted to heretics”.
http://billmoyers.com/content/book-excerpt-heretics-and-heroes/
I look forward to the day when religion has become a historical footnote from the Dark Ages, because humans have learned how to access Universal Knowledge, and no longer depend on primitive belief, superstition, or the fantasies of so-called “prophets” to account for reality.
Really, by now, religion (EVERY religion) should be seen from a perspective of history only… Sure, there are living followers, but they follow and celebrate historical events and figures. Hmm…, in a way I can well understand that, even appreciate it, just like I appreciate classical music or admire medieval paintings.
Unfortunately though, religion followers forget (or have been made to forget) that what they celebrate has PASSED, that it IS history, that it WAS… (Ha! If it even was at all.)
They don’t realize that all they are experiencing, attending and participating in are theatrical history performances – all of them dress up games in historical costumes on well designed theater sets, and that they, while playing, even speak older versions of their current day-to-day languages…
They don’t see that they are actors – play actors, theater actors that is. They believe (or have been made to believe) that the roles they play are “real-life”, but they are not aware enough to recognize that their “real-life performances” are any more real than any “reality show” performance.
~Wim Borsboom
Religion: The Motherlode of Bad Ideas
http://www.alternet.org/belief/12-worst-ideas-religion-has-unleashed-world
Islamic State releases video of artifact-smashing in Mosul Museum
http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/islamic-state-releases-video-of-artifact-smashing-in-mosul-museum-1.2254431?fb_action_ids=799349566821566&fb_action_types=og.recommends
“We despise all reverences and all the objects of reverence which are outside the pale of our own list of sacred things. And yet, with strange inconsistency, we are shocked when other people despise and defile the things which are holy to us.”
~Mark Twain
Only the religion of one’s true nature (an awareness of one’s inner awareness) will last to the end.
True religion is the religion of the Self (existence, consciousness). It lies in searching for one’s true nature and stabilizing oneself there.
Religious traditions are based on concepts. There is silence (existence, consciousness) when these concepts are given up.
The ultimate religion is a state of Self-realization – it is an unbroken and fearless state of Being.
~Nisargadatta Maharaj
“I look forward to a day when children, as a result of integrating the principles of nonviolence and peaceful conflict resolution at school, will be more aware of their feelings and emotions and feel a greater sense of responsibility both toward themselves and toward the wider world. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
To bring about this better world, therefore, let us all, old and young – not a members of this nation or that nation, not as members of this faith or that faith, but simply as individual members of this great human family of seven billion – strive together with vision, with courage, and with optimism. This is my humble plea.
Within the scale of the life of the cosmos, a human life is no more than a tiny blip. Each one of us is a visitor to this planet, a guest, who has only a finite time to stay. What greater folly could there be than to spend this short time lonely, unhappy, and in conflict with our fellow visitors? Far better, surely, to use our short time in pursuing a meaningful life., enriched by a sense of connection with and service toward others.
… I call for each of us to come to our own understanding of the importance of inner values. For it is these inner values which are the source of both an ethically harmonious world and the individual peace of mind, confidence, and happiness we all seek. Of course, all the world’s major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness, can and do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I believe the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World
The Origins of Religion: How Supernatural Beliefs Evolved
http://www.livescience.com/52364-origins-supernatural-relgious-beliefs.html?cmpid=514627_20151016_53702646&adbid=10153049774041761&adbpl=fb&adbpr=30478646760
“This is a vital point. We all say, ‘I believe in God.’ But when you talk to various people, you find totally different capacities for belief, for conceptions of God. Although different people use the same word for God, it’s not the same God. This is one of the ironies of monotheism. It isn’t monotheism at all because everybody believes in God in a different way. If you’re a Christian, for example, some Muslims may have beliefs that are more like yours than your neighboring Christian.”
~Joseph Campbell
I was aware of being combined with all the other “thoughts” or shapeless and infinite “souls” of every person or creature who has ever lived or dies or been or is, those waiting to be born and those who have already lived and died. I was aware of suddenly having infinite knowledge, I knew all languages, ALL languages at once, all religious thought, all everything. I was one with the Creator and with Creation itself. I was the Creator. We all were; those who haven’t come back still are. It’s impossible to describe. I was aware that my earthly body, my container or vessel of my soul had been shed, and I was so much more.
I knew all things. I was God along with everyone else, and yet God was still there in superior existence too. A universal power that was gentle and kind, humble and pure. God lives in me, the soul of God was breathed into my dead body when I chose to live. Individual thought awareness yet of one being, one whole, without definition or separation away from each other. We were in and through and with each other. It was incredible. Humbling, beautiful beyond beauty, and powerful in the most gentle and kind of ways, and loving and peaceful that “transcends all understanding.”
I have an entirely different understanding of God after the experiences. I believe that all are related, and trying to pin it all down into one religion or another is missing the point. We cannot define God, whatever we wish to call it. God isn’t a person or an entity; God is undefined, fluid, existence, essence of life. Everything is a soul and spirit, even the rocks and the hills. If it is in nature, it is spirit and life.
I realized especially the significance of the nature of being a soul with a body, rather than the other way around, which is the way that western religions teach it. When I came back from the experience, the words “they have it all wrong” resonated within me when thinking about major western religions. I knew that I had been with, in, and most importantly, OF the Creation and Creator; that is the life that was breathed back into my dead body, and lives in me now. I had experienced that One, I was and am the One that lives in me.
I had understood in “tongues,” meaning I understood all languages and could communicate simultaneously with all. We were all one, so communication wasn’t as much linear, with one word after another like it is in the world. Thoughts and ideas flowed, but not the same way. I knew all things, strange as that sounds. It was beautiful and humbling. The God that man has made into his image is very different than the God of Life Itself. The simplest lesson that Jesus taught: We are God. Jesus got it. He understood the deepest and most significant aspect of who we are and who God is. Since my experience, my religious understanding doesn’t really align with the standard Christian or Catholic understanding I was raised with or have been a part of. The world doesn’t seem to readily embrace this concept.
I had been skeptical about stories of near-death experiences, seeing the light, seeing one’s body, etc. That changed. Also I had learned all my life that God is separate from us and doesn’t want us to have his knowledge or immortality as described in the book of Genesis. I had different beliefs about what heaven was, about Jesus and about how believers are supposed to behave and what they’re supposed to believe. My idea of God and Jesus and Holy Spirit changed radically. I learned that we are not separate from our creator except as we choose to be separate. Consistent with my former beliefs are that the universe is created and we are part of that creation. Inconsistent with my former beliefs is that we also perpetuate the creation, that we are God.
It still is difficult and a little bit scary for me to say that, because I was raised to believe that it was blasphemy for anyone to say something like that, and anyone who believes it is off their rocker, and possibly dangerous! Jesus was considered a blasphemer by his peers, too. I had always learned that God is separate, “holy,” omnipotent, demanding praise and sacrifices, and that humans are infidels, undeserving, unworthy, sinful by design. Now I know that I am God, however, an equal not a lesser. God breathed life into me and lives in me now. It’s a humbling knowledge, though. It’s also pure love.
I believed in death, purgatory, and heaven/hell as a “place” you go “up there” to “live” out eternity, but I learned that isn’t the way it is. We choose life to start with, and we can choose reincarnation into this world or another world, this universe or dimension or another, and this form or a different one. We can also choose to remain in the whole Oneness, and it is all flexible, not permanent, just as this life on earth isn’t permanent, either.
I have continued to receive revelations regarding religious beliefs as they have been handed down through the centuries, but here I’m relaying only what happened during the experience itself. I learned that it doesn’t matter whether Jesus was married or not, or whether or not Mary was a virgin impregnated by a spirit, or not. Those are man-made necessities for faith, somehow! Knowing God inside me, I’m not sure why it’s so important, except perhaps as an excuse to be imperfect, less than we are created to be, by saying only Jesus was perfect and sinless and born of a virgin. NO. Jesus said we are all alike; he never put himself above anyone else, and often the opposite, and taught others to do likewise. Wash each others’ feet. Serve. Humble yourself in love. Be courageous in the face of adversity. Do the right thing even if it means personal sacrifice or humiliation.
I value life, do not fear death but rejoice in it, knowing that death is not an end but a beautiful togetherness, flexible, unending, another exciting journey. I still believe in God, but I see more clearly the exploitation of biblical knowledge for power and self-gratification by large organizations, and often by individuals. I see how insignificant our lives are as one self in comparison with the whole journey; our egos are bigger than they need to be. Humans tend to be self-important, but we really aren’t the hotshots we like to think ourselves. Our scientific knowledge has come a long way, but is still in baby steps. It’s much bigger than us.
Mostly Christian idea of “heaven,” “God’s Kingdom,” etc is all wrong. When we as people love enough and harness our love, really internalizing love’s power, and believe in our godliness and holiness and magnificence in the same way, when we internalize and allow ourselves to be the creator, then we will know heaven. It’s ok to argue with God. The God of man, or man made God is not the same as the true One presence.
God or a supreme being exists; the irony of that is that we are all a part of that one supreme being, which is our home where the heart of us originates and lives, but separated from it by our earthly physical vessels (bodies). God is supreme, but we are God, so we are also supreme, but don’t know it. Somehow fear separates us from embracing our true origin and existence. Where I went there was no fear. No worry. I felt more a sense of curiosity, a kind of “so this is what it’s like!” Just being in the moment. Here I am. Part of the universal knowledge was understanding earthly sorrow left behind. But there It was all beauty, not in a physical or visual sense of beauty because where I was there was no color or shape, yet in the sense of emotion and knowledge wrapped into one that I can’t possibly put into words. Pure joy, pure peace, pure love, purity itself that was love.
The infinity, oneness, flexibility, omniscience of all beings; that it is our physical bodies that separate us from the One that we are, as water poured from a pitcher into individual glasses, where we stay until we die and return to the whole. Another knowledge was all languages, spoken and unspoken. The purpose I received was to circulate this knowledge, and the love, to get it to as many ears and reach as many souls as humanly possible, and then some. Knowledge that love is the purpose, or that the purpose of love, is life. Love doesn’t come from life, but the other way around: life comes from love. Love is first, and generates life. love is the breath. Love expands the universe and love is the connection, but it isn’t “love” as in specific one-on-one relationship love, but rather a universal philanthropy that covers all, embraces and digests all so that all oneness is love.
I encountered information that human interpretation of biblical or religious nature is often wrong, made by man and described or explained for man in human terms, but mostly wrong. That our human minds are young and frail and underdeveloped, almost primitive; that our lives are merely a moment in universal time, and we are like specks of dust, or merely cells all making up the one universal Creator. The only redemption we have on earth is love. Love is what makes us: we ARE love, it’s what we are made of, not something we do.
I encountered information that we are literally Jesus’ brothers and sisters like he tried to tell his followers in his time. I learned his message was very much simpler than mankind has since made it. We are God. We come to this earth in human form and then begin to mold ourselves in to human likeness, taint ourselves with human habits. Jesus was no less human than we are; he chose to stay connected with God above everything else, and teach what he knew, even at the risk of death, but what he knew and tried to teach was not as difficult as we since have made it out to be.
The Christian cycle of life is really not much different than Israel’s cycle of defeat and faith in the Old Testament. Christians have the same, almost identical fallacies, just by a different name. Jesus warned his followers at the time, to not fall under the same human tragedy that his forefathers and peers had done, exploiting God and religion. His message was so simple, but it’s been twisted and turned and exploited in the same way. And the earth will cycle as it’s always done.
http://www.nderf.org/NDERF/NDE_Experiences/jennifer_j_ndes.htm
I am not sure of what religion really provides for spiritual beings. I believe they are a guide to help others but at least those of the western world, are better seen as manipulations of human beings to make them just the way they want to control them. I believe that the inner nourishment is the responsibility of each one of us, not of the church, as the church can have errors. I believe more in discovering methods to find inner peace and well-being in myself.
I realised that where I was, there was no religion and on no occasion were there people isolated or preaching one way as better, or worse than the rest. I believe that the mind of everyone is heaven or hell, they are not places. It is a state of consciousness that makes you be in one or the other place. They never made me feel that just one religion had the truth. Absolutely. There is only one truth and that is within you, in you heart, and it is called love. Love doesn’t confuse you, doesn’t have limits or rules or errors. Whereas religions do.
I don’t know if it is God, or a superior force. Better to say I believe it is the the total of each of us. They say that God is love, and I am love, every being is love, therefore we are all God. The supreme being is love in it’s maximum expression. We have named this as God as if it is a being or someone but I believe that it is better to say that it is another, and this other is unconditional love. When we die we are able to experience it.
http://www.nderf.org/NDERF/NDE_Experiences/ana_cecilia_g_nde.htm
“My religion is not deceiving myself.”
~Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE
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