My Personal Views

My inspiration for this excerpt has come from Neale Donald Walsch and his wonderful series of books “Conversations with God”. I would like to suggest that everyone read anything written by this author, as it can change your life by highlighting the truth. www.conversationswithgod.org

When reading these passages, please trust in your own intuition for what you believe to be your truth; always follow your own path.

Questioning some points of our Religious Beliefs

Religions are not bad or at fault, only some of their concepts.

As a starting point, let me say I believe in my version of God and Jesus, and my version of who we are as spiritual beings. The messages outlined here are my personal views only. My objective for publishing this passage is that I believe are all have a right to an alternative understanding of what we are told and what we truly believe in our hearts.

All religions have been a wonderful guide and inspiration for many, leading countless to some amazing achievements. The principle of any religion should be to unite all people in harmony and love. Unfortunately some religions have openly preached that only their religion is with the blessing of God and only through them can you go to heaven. Some major religions insist that you can only go to heaven if you follow every word of their doctrine and regard all other faiths as blasphemous. In this model of religion it seems to denounce all other faiths and encourage division.

God or any other higher beings did not hand down teaching of this type to church elders. These concepts were generally devised by a council of men who were acting for what they considered to be their own best interest in that time. These religions have also made it heresy to ever question their teachings even though we may think that some points are not quite right; we dare not question it as some may say we are in league with the devil. These teachings have only served to divided humanity and keep us in ignorance.

Our objective is to bring humanity back to the unity of Oneness with no one person higher than another. The religious education and learned behaviour patterns of our past have only served to divide us. We must now look for new ways of propelling mankind into a new, loving civilization. We must now see beyond the fear that has been embedded into our culture for far too long. We must live without fear and enjoy life and strive to be happy, as a wonderful gift from God. We must trust in our own intuition and decide for ourselves our own truths and go our own way. By actively promoting a loving “Collective Consciousness” through belief in ourselves as pure beings and equal to all others, we can change the world.

A little history

From the first General Council of Christendom in A.D. 325 to the last in A.D. 869, Christian principles, rules and teachings were subject to many deletions and changes. Beliefs in past lives and other forms of spiritual practices were outlawed.

The Emperor Justinian I, condemned the belief in reincarnation at a local synod in AD 543. He outlawed it along with other teaching, ten years later at the second council of Constantinople. Since that time, all who possessed knowledge or were teachers of the “Ancient Wisdoms” were persecuted. Many stories have since been concocted to enforce this theory and control and limit any form of alternative thinking. Over the centuries it has become ingrained in our culture that spiritual practices were evil or witchcraft. A great division between faiths had taken place that has separated humanity and created war and mistrust ever since.

What is God?

We are all one and make up the “Collective Consciousness” that some may call God. In my understanding, God is a collection of the combined thoughts and experiences of every possible thing in the universe. Our individual experiences contribute to the “Collective Consciousness” (The Akashic Records) that is "all knowing" of every single aspect of life in our cosmos.

As a way of describing God we could use the model of the “Milky Way” as an illustration. The Milky Way galaxy comprises billions of stars. Each star is representing every possible life form that exists in our world, seen or unseen. The knowledge from each star (living thing) is collected together so that the whole system knows everything about everything. Each star holds the data of an individual’s memory, past, present and future life, just like a database of a computer. It also holds information about every possible experience and outcome. Each possible and potential experience is happening now - and all at the same time.

Everything around us is Life from humans to bacteria and cells to atomic particles. Every atom has an energy centre that I consider to be a life form. We may not understand it but, without a doubt, science has proved that this tiny dot of a subatomic particle has enormous power and is constantly moving. Everything in the universe that has an atom is life and provides data that contributes to the “Collective Consciousness”.

Spirit, in all its many forms, also contributes to the “Collective Consciousness”. Spirits are higher beings that have many levels and structures, far beyond our understanding or concepts. This gathered together, all this information, from every aspect of life, formulates the “Collective Consciousness”, that some may call God.

Jesus

We are all Sons and Daughters of God. Jesus was a wonderful man and should be a saint. Saint Jesus was a legend of his day and was here to unite people. The first written account of Jesus’ work was composed around eighty years after his death. None of the disciples’ accounts were used in the bible, as we know it today. We have all been led to believe that the scriptures were made up from documented evidence of those who knew him at the time.

The pinnacle of our western religion is centred on this man who performed healing in public, and his mother who believed in Angels. So how did it become such a sin so vile, that all who understood or worked with this wonderful energy were persecuted as witches?

It was decided at the General Council of Christendom during the 6th century that Jesus was God and not a man. If Jesus was God then no one could practise healing or teach spirituality. This decision was made through negotiation and election and was not given as a communication to the Council by God or by one of his messengers. So, in spite of Jesus’ message to us that we should emulate him, all who had the ability to heal or had spiritual understanding were persecuted as witches or devil worshippers.

Adam and Eve

The anecdote of Adam and Eve is a wonderful myth dreamed up to explain to children “where we come from”. This beautiful story was, over the years, distorted to literally put the “fear of God” in people, by creating original sin. Through this we are all said to be sinners and innately flawed and thus our life’s task is to seek redemption via the Christian Church only, in order to go to heaven. Many stories have since been concocted to enforce this theory and to control and limit any form of resistance to this doctrine.

As human beings we all make mistakes, learn from our experiences and grow wiser. This judgemental God as depicted by the Christian Church is said to be angry with any of our mistakes so we must seek redemption for our sins or go to hell.

My God is understanding, non-judgemental and demonstrates unconditional love, no matter what we do.

It is not surprising that we are confused between what we have been told and what we truly know in our hearts. Also, the misinterpretation of this fable has been used to condone prejudice against women and has limited their involvement in our society since that time.

Past lives

Up until the mid 6th century it was common practice for all of us to believe in reincarnation and other spiritual practices. The Christian Church, as founded in Rome, guarded many priceless manuscripts, which accepted reincarnation and karma and regarded a person as being innately pure; everywhere in the world the self-same Ancient Wisdom can be traced. The burial grounds of past civilisations testify to the fact that ancient religions have always embraced reincarnation.

Heaven

Heaven for me is our true home and a place of rest and reflection on our previous lives. This place is beyond my concept and understanding for me to explain what it is.

Hell

Sometimes in life we may find ourselves in a period of deep despair or tragedy; this is our own personal hell. God loves each one of us, no matter what we do, as we are all here to live out our experiences, good or bad. No one is bad from his or her own perspective, as we all believe we are justified in whatever we do. Each one of us will go to heaven and will be given a chance to make recompense for our past misconduct, in a future reincarnation, to those we mistreated. There is always divine justice to be found and everything will be settled eventually.

We have been led to believe that we only have one life and that we are all sinners. The threat of going to hell has been a major weapon to force people to follow a certain doctrine based on fear and retribution. If a person had only one life and was without a chance to repair their mistakes, the fear of going to hell would be a controlling factor in persuading a person to follow a certain doctrine.

With the approval of the Christian church it was also possible for individuals, for impure reasons, to pay a sum of money to the church for their indulgences, to avoid going to hell. This unfair practice has made a mockery of the sanctity of the church, indicating that God favours the rich no matter where or how their wealth was gained. There have been many unfair and unjust practices drawn up by the church; please look carefully at what you maybe blindly following.

The Devil

I have read and heard people say that the devil is just as powerful as God; this devil is said to be the fallen angel who commands legions of ghoulish hordes fighting the Angels of God for supremacy of the world.

The vibration of the world may not be in a great state, but if these stories were true we could not have evolved as far we have. War, destruction, depravity and hatred would be a great deal more prevalent than they are today. We must ask ourselves, were the stories about the devil given to the world by a higher being to help humans’ progress - or were they contrived by our church leaders to control us and limit freedom of thought? These stories have only served to frighten the populace into not questioning the doctrine laid down by Church authorities. Use your own instinct and wisdom to decide on your own truth.

Why are we here?

Every one of us must encounter every possible experience from our own individual and personal perspective. We are all living out our many experiences so we may come to know every aspect of life in all its very different circumstances and situations. In this way, no incident is experienced in the same way as any other. During our many reincarnations, we will all encounter and experience every aspect of life in a negative form as well as every aspect of life in a positive form.

Each possible and potential experience is running concurrently all at the same time (quantum physics). Each individual’s memory holds information of every possible experience and outcome: past, present and future lives. This concept may be compared to something like an electronic computer game. Every move and counter move has already been written and programmed into the software. Therefore, if every experience that can happen is happening simultaneously now, with our free will choices it is possible to modify our outcomes. We can decide to raise our situation by focusing our thoughts on helpful outcomes and not expecting complications and problems. We can do this by training our minds to focus on positive outcomes and potentials. In this way we do not have to encounter the levels of pain that so many of us choose to encounter. The trick is overcoming our fears, conditioning and education, to find our true higher self. Remember, every possibility that can happen is happening now so we must decide to enjoy every moment. In this way we can realize who we truly are and aspire to become loving and happy beings.

Our Mission

Our mission is to overcome our limiting beliefs, learn to be happy and spread love and happiness to all those we meet. A tall order, especially as we must encounter every possible experience (see "Why are we Here?") but if we understand the life process it is not as daunting as it may seem. When we understand as in quantum theory that every possibility that can happen is happening now, it opens a new hypothesis for consideration. In my understanding if every possibility that can happen is happening now then it has already happened and we are just tapping into different experiences. Depending on our present state of mind we can tune into good or bad experiences by focusing our minds on positive or negative outcomes. For example we all know people who always seem to focus on the difficulties in their life. These people seem to be constantly facing bad luck and confusion. Don’t you just wish that they would stop concentrating on complications and be less pessimistic about life? It is not the problems they encounter that make them sad; it’s the sadness that produces the problematic encounters. These people are not just unlucky, they are creating their own stress by keeping their minds on doom and gloom. We are all subject to thinking negatively in some way as our mindset had been fine-tuned by our experiences and our learned behaviour patterns since our conception. We can alter this mindset by training our minds to focus only on the positive outcome of our next forthcoming encounter or engagement.

Be like a musician learning to play a new instrument, they know the principle and techniques of music but they still need to practice to perfect a flowing harmonious tune. Practise, practise and practise on projecting the best possible outcome. This is the best way to find Love, Happiness and Success in all its many aspects. Please don’t give up on yourself, as it may not always seem practical to incorporate this system into your everyday life. Every road starts with a first step and a belief that we are going in the right direction. This is the basic principle of how we can achieve our mission by overcoming our limiting beliefs, learning to be happy and spreading love and happiness to all those we meet.

Guidelines

Reference “The New Revelations” Neale Donald Walsch www.conversationswithgod.org

Choose to acknowledge that some of our old beliefs about God and about life are no longer working.
Choose to acknowledge that there is something you do not understand about God and about life, the understanding of which can change everything.
Choose to acknowledge to be willing for a new understanding of God and life to now be brought forth, an understanding that can produce a new way of life on our planet.
Choose to be courageous enough to explore and examine this new understanding and, if it aligns with your own inner knowing, to enlarge your belief system to include it.
Choose to live your lives as demonstrations of your highest and grandest beliefs rather than as denials of them.

From the book “Awareness” by Anthony De Mello, S.J.
www.demello.org

Let me end with a lovely story. There was a man who invented the art of making fire. He took his tools and went to a tribe in the north, where it was cold, bitterly cold. He taught the people there to make fire. The people were very interested. He showed them the uses to which they could put fire - they could cook, keep themselves warm, etc. They were so grateful that they had learned the art of making fire. But before they could express their gratitude to the man, he disappeared. He wasn’t concerned with getting their recognition or gratitude; he was concerned about their well-being. He went to another tribe, where he began to show them the value of his invention. People were interested there, too, a bit to interested for the peace of mind of their priests, who began to notice that this man was drawing in crowds and they were losing their popularity. So they decided to do away with him. They poisoned him, crucified him, put it any way you like. But they were afraid now that the people might turn against them, so they were very wise, even wily. Do you know what they did? They had a portrait of the man made and mounted it on the main alter of the temple. The instruments for making fire were placed in the front of the portrait, and the people were taught to revere the portrait and to pay reverence to the instruments of fire, which they dutifully did for centuries. The veneration and the worship went on, but there was no fire.

Where’s the fire? Where’s the love? Where’s the drug uprooted from your system? Where’s the freedom? This is what spirituality is all about. Tragically, we tend to lose sight of this, don’t we? This is what Jesus Christ is all about. But we overemphasized the “lord, Lord,” didn’t we? Where’s the fire? And if the worship isn’t leading to the fire, if the adoration isn’t leading to love, if the liturgy isn't leading to a clearer perception of reality, if God isn’t leading to life, then what good is religion except to create more division, more fanaticism, more antagonism? It is not from lack of religion in the ordinary sense that the world is suffering, it is from lack of love, lack of awareness.