Asked in a letter by a friend to touch upon what I think of "religion", this is what I came up with as a response:
Don't have too much time to write at the moment, but I guess I'll touch upon religion.
I don't consider myself a Christian. I hate to say I "tried" it...let's just say that I did proclaim it and tried to...well, you know...but I felt like a phony, like I was just wanting to be accepted, like, ahem, I was having to TRY to get it right. And I realized that what I was doing was actually contrary to what I thought Jesus had actually teached and what the rest of the bible preached. So I reached a point where I said, well, God, if you're real and the stuff in this book is true then I don't feel like you're forbidding me to find Who I Am in any way that I can, in any way that you bring my way. It seems like so many people I went to school with have "found Jesus" and I feel like I'm very alienated from that. From my own experience I suspect that Christianity is a security blanket for a lot of them. And I suppose that's not a bad thing. This is a hard world, uncertain and unsure. It's hardly possible to live it on your own. Of course, that's IF we are EVER alone, which I don't think we are...but most Christians seem to have come from a viewpoint of being "lost" and now "found", and I just can't go that way. Nothing against them as long as they don't look down at me as if I haven't got something I need and which they think they can give me.
I don't like to try and spell out definitively WHAT I believe. I'm open to new revelation. But a constant has been very influenced by Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism. I believe in reincarnation, but not necessarily the "law of Karma"...obviously I don't exalt cows or not eat meat, so there's another two strikes against me being a full-time Hindu. I don't particularly like to chant, either. :)
If you've ever read a book called "Conversations With God" by Neale Donald Walsch then you have a pretty good idea of what I believe "God" is. A lot of what Walsch wrote in that book really influenced what I understand about these topics. The basis of what is known as "New Thought" informs a lot of my religious contemplation, even new age teachings (though I draw the line a lot sooner with new age than with New Thought).
God dwells in me, as in you as in everything, seeing as how "creation" is "what God DOES" and therefore the fact that you and I ARE, then we are the creation...the creation is as much a part of the creator as is the creation process itself, meaning that it is all ONE, there is no duality in "eternity", which, contrary to Christian doctrine which defines it as "never ending", actually means NO TIME. Eternity lies outside of time and space, so there is no way that the human mind can or will ever be able to experience it in the space of a lifetime. Life has an ending and a beginning, so it is caught in the web of time and space, from whence it came and to where it will, in time, lead back to. We fear death because of this inability to know the before and after. We cannot conceive of it as being a "good place" or a "bad place"...because "place' implies "space" and there is none "behind the veil" (if I may use trite terminology).
But if we cannot conceive of it then how can we "experience" it? You know, like being rewarded for good works (or for "accepting Jesus" or whatever)...being punished for evil deeds (and/or lack of "repentance")? But consider this...perhaps only the Self can "experience" infinity, as Self, who IS all, has CREATED all (and, furthermore, IS infinity). Perhaps it is AS US that the Self experiences LIFE. There are probably an infinite number of OTHER things in all universes (besides LIFE) that Self wishes to experience, and no doubt does, but as far as WE are concerned, in this moment, Self has chosen to experience this paradigm, this plane of existence, this world, in the form (and guise) of US, as individual human beings. In order to do this the Self has to "forget" what Self is, so as to be "born again" into the physical dimension. This is why very young children are innocent, like clean slates, ready for time and space to write yet another tale of love, pain, peace, anger, joy, hate... Ready for that first taste of chocolate, first sensations of cold & warmth, laughter, kisses, sex, wonder and awe but also to throw that first punch, to savor the way it feels to curse a man, to sympathize with and live vicariously as murderers on television and movies, to consider every evil deed there is to commit and to place them on their own scales where the decision is weighed as to which to choose or reject. It all comes with the package. It's not something that demands punishment "in the afterlife". Any judging takes place in this realm, in one form or another, and punishment is not always meted out by peers, but can come from within as well.
So, anyway...with eternity being "outside of time" it can only be surmised that we could remain in that state for eons and have no memory of it whatsoever if/when we are manifested in this paradigm again. So for all intents and purposes we incarnate immediately into time and space when the decision is made (by whom? I don't know) to go on the journey again (and not neccesarily into a "future" time, but into ANY place or time in which the MOMENT exists (all places, all times)...
Okay..okay...obviously I have put down this letter when "religion" was just a touching point...I've taken it up this morning to elaborate, very probably more so than you expected or needed, on a subject I could talk for hours about. I know a lot of that is very unorthodox, especially in the culture that we, as Americans, have come to accept. Some would even go so far as to say that such thinking is "crazy". These people, however, have not "thought it out", or have not delved deeply enough into the ideas to glimpse it's potentiality of being "truth". So, not knowing how you feel about it, I will wait for another day...
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