How “Religion” can save the world

The current destruction of the world as we know it IS actually due to our turning our backs on Religion and/or God.

OK, I will be the first to admit THAT is something I never expected to write, but in some ways it is very true; though not in the way most people think of it.

How many times have I heard some "Hellfire and Brimstone" preacher go on about how the decline of America is due to our lack of reverence to God and our evils in allowing such things as abortion and homosexuality (kinda sounds a lot like Rev Phelps and his cast of [self-censored]). Sadly, he and his like in Christianity are not alone as we have all heard it from certain angry Muslim teachers as well.

“Just look at your life, everything is backwards, they call darkness light and light darkness. Abomination is overflowing just as it was in Sodom and Gomorrah.”

an unknown Street Preacher
Similar statements are heard from many of the world's religious fundamentalists and though not as they meant it, surprisingly true and accurate. Things are backwards, we spend our lives ignoring the Truth within ourselves and instead chase after money and things that cannot and will not make us happy in the long run.

Malcolm X really summed up a lot of this reversal in his quotes:

“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

I find it funny that from a Jewish Mishnah (traditional scriptural interpretation) perspective, the Sodom and Gomorrah portion is right on target, but not because of "the Gay Agenda", but do to the hardness of men's hearts and the crime of Sodom and Gomorrah according to the Mishnah was the violation of the Hospitality Code, caring and compassion for others.

Whenever the times get tough and it becomes more difficult to get by, we try to figure out why, it is human nature to search for answers. There is always someone out there that has no issues with creating a "wicker man" for you to throw your hatreds at, to pile all your frustrations into and set ablaze to take them away.

The ego of man is one that will happily look outward for another responsible party instead of looking within and taking on the truth of what it has created.

So just how is it that turning our backs on religion and/or God/Source may the cause of the destruction of the world around us?

Those with a smaller world view, are inclined to say that the difficulties of the day are a collection of punishments from this judgmental deity that seems to take great pleasure in collecting the evidence to condemn its creation to an eternity of separation and damnation. Now this is just my not so humble opinion, but what a harsh place to live, no wonder they tend to be so angry.

A basic central tenet of all "Religions" is that there is a higher ideal that mankind can and should strive for and through one way or another can achieve. Though by turning our backs upon this idea, we become selfish and myopic onto our own lives and concerns and often do not care about how our actions affect the rest and this tends to make us extremely short-sighted in the long run.

This is the seed by which our destruction will be brought forth if we do not awake soon. The destruction of the world will not be the punishment of God on his creation, but the aftermath of OUR lack of forethought and attention.

As an example, we have a world economy that is based on something completely unsustainable, petroleum; a finite resource that we cannot create in a lab that poisons our environment and may eventually make this planet unable to support our life form.

Without even going into the whole "Global Warming" argument, we are knowingly poisoning ourselves, if you don't believe me, let me ask you this: "Would you sit in a running car in your garage with the garage door closed? Of course not, you know it would kill you." So you know you are putting poison out into your ecosystem that you NEED to survive.

This is only one of an insane number of ways we are setting ourselves up for our own self-destruction, and we do it for such silly reasons, like money, convenience and just not beng willing to be bothered.

We live in a collection of cultures that have always felt reasonably safe due to physical distance from the "other". With the birth of modern information and communication technologies, those barriers of safety are quickly disappearing and many are panicking. If our interactions were just limited to "Cultural Contamination" it would be one thing, but we have entered a world where the actions in one place can have direct consequences on the opposite side of the planet.

Has Religion and/or God/Source given us a way out?

When you sit down and look into the teachings of the greatest teachers in history, Krishna, Moses,  Zoroaster, Lao Tzu, Buddha, Confucius, Thoth/Hermes, Jesus, Muhammad, Guru Nanak Dev and Bahá'u'lláh, they all share something in common, the expression of a higher state, called ethos, morality, spirituality and/or God.

Religions are the codification of the teachings that are left by the founder in an attempt to keep them alive, but sadly, those who come later rarely understand the original source and the teaching goes from a living expression of Truth and into traditions, theologies and dogmas.

When ego becomes the driving force of religion, Truth is put aside for numbers, power and glorification.

Religions relate to God/Source in the same way that facets relate to a diamond, every facet shows you the glory of the whole, but the whole will always be more than any one, or collection of some facets. Yet we are willing to judge, condemn and kill in the name of our particular facet.

Underneath these schools of thought is a general idea of interconnectedness of all of us to each other, to all life on this planet, the cosmos and eventually to Source, Deity or God. This is where our self-imposed separation has begun to manifest our destruction.

Semantics in Salvation

In my world, where I spend a lot of time studying and discussing different Religions, I am so often amazed with just how much semantics play into the discussions.

If I talk about "The Secret" or the Law of Attraction to my Christian friends, I am speaking the words of Satan and guiding people into Hell since I am discussing how to manifest in one's own life.  Now not every Christian believes in it, but many teach what has become known as the "Prosperity Gospel" which is actually nothing more than the Law of Attraction expressed in Christian terminology.

I find it so funny when I have a religious conversation with a Christian and the central theme against another religion is that the practitioners do something, that "works" play a role in their attainment of salvation in whatever form they believe in.

In Buddhism you meditate to find Nirvana within, in many religions one performs rituals to the idea of deity to show devotion and to focus on the ideal. These actions take one to a point where they are completely focused on the goal, preferable growing in their relationship with God, but as in all human activities, they tend to be more mundane like paying the mortgage or getting the kids into college.

Christianity believes that salvation is a gift from God, nothing you can possibly do has any affect since we are all such terrible sinners. The place where I cannot help but giggle is that the individual must make a choice, they must choose to follow Jesus, they must choose to follow through with that decision and grow within that relationship they have chosen to establish. Lastly, most would say it is in your best interest to study the Word and become stronger in one's walk with the Lord, yet another action that likely should be taken.

Sounds like an awful lot of action is involved and my "works" through all the day-by-day and often moment-by-moment choices to pursue and follow my chosen walk with God seem instrumental to my salvation.

The grace of Salvation is not some ring you grab off a hook on a carousel, but something waiting for you to accept willingly. In "A Course in Miracles" they say that there is actually only one sin, to believe that we are separated from God and all these other "sins" are nothing but the manifestation of that one incorrect thought.

Sin means to miss the point or target, forgetting our relationship to Source is what we have forgotten, all the teachers have told us this, it is OK to believe in it and yourself.  It is not possible to grow in your relationship with the Creator if you deny you are part of the creation.

Sin, Guilt and Innocence

As a student of Spirit, little less as a teacher, I am often asked about the concept of sin. The more I think about it, the more I find the preoccupation with sin to be sadder and sadder.

One of my favorite films, "Brother Sun, Sister Moon", has an amazing line in it where young Francesco has just explained to Pope Innocent III what he wants, to find the joy and peace he sees in the animals around him. Pope Innocent III replies that "In our obsession of original sin, we too often forget original innocence."

I often wonder if our apparent obsession with others sins is more an attempt to elevate ourselves, especially those in positions of celebrity and fame (this would explain all the tabloid journalism at the grocery checkout).

In "A Course in Miracles" there is the statement that there is only one sin, forgetting our true nature and relationship to God, Source (or Bob). All these other "sins" that we worry about are not even seen by Source since they do not actually exist, they are nothing more than the manifestations of that one sin, a mistaken idea that we have brought into manifestation.

The real problem with the world is not sin but guilt in that it is our guilt over past "sins" that we torment ourselves as well as energize the thoughts that the Law of Attraction cannot help but bring into manifestation.

So lighten up on yourself, the worst you have done is make an error, that will be forgiven by Spirit, reclaim your identity to Source and find yourself outside the realm of "original sin" and return to your natural state of "original innocence."

A tough answer to Why?

When I talk to many people that either do not believe in God, in any form, or are doubting their faith, I often get the questions of why the world is the $#@*-hole that it appears to be and why would a loving God allow it to happen?

The part of these questions that always strikes me as a touch funny is that they presume a responsibility of God and a complete lack of our own. God gives us freedom of choice and where we take it is our responsibility and our problem.

If you look through the history of the Spiritgeek blog, you will find an entry called "Judeo/Christian Paradigms: Karma vs Salvation" where I explain the idea that "original sin" is the forgetting of our spiritual nature and the illusion that we are our bodies. Reminiscent of the quote, "We are not physical beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a physical experience."

Things in this world happen by OUR will and action.

If original sin is actually forgetting our true identity and relation to the Source, then that Source would not be concerned with the actions that occur within the delusion as it has no REAL reality from the ultimate perception.

So the name we call that which lives in this space is often God. From that perspective it is a given that all things will eventually return from where it originated and the in-between is just the show, a Saturday Matinee.

Now I know this sounds a bit harsh, but if we are going to blame a deity for a lack of action, maybe we need to switch our perspective and in the process start to regain the awareness that the world can become a #@*-hole only if we let it. It truly is up to us and God will just wait at the other end of the process.

Unless you wish to give up freedom of choice and self-determination, but I would not suggest holding your breath... But, it is your choice!

Perception & Happiness

I have been looking over my recent tweets and I noticed that I have been inspired to several about perception and happiness being a choice.

One of the basic tenets that I believe in is the idea that Man is indivisibly part and parcel of the Creator and that God is just as linked to us.

I remember a scene from a film I was watching recently, "Bless the Child", where a young child will grow up to bring many to God, according to the story.

The scene that I was thinking about is when Cody, our "special" child, is taken out to an alley by Eric Stark, the founder of a "Demonic" Youth Cult, to see what appears to be a schizophrenic homeless man who is sitting on the ground muttering to himself.

ERIC

Look at this man. He should be in an institution, but God abandoned him, didn't he, left him here to suffer. Death, would be a kinder fate, even a cruel death.

Through the power of the one I serve I can give him the strength to end his pain.

ERIC places a small gas can and a box of matches on the ground near the HOMELESS MAN. Eric then begins to perform a ritual. The man starts to show signs of understanding and begins to reach for the gas can and pour the contents over himself as CODY watches in horror.

ERIC (CONT'D.)

Watch. If God loves his children so much, maybe he'll stop this. Redeem him, somehow. Or maybe the release I've offered him is his only true salvation.

CODY starts to walk up to the HOMELESS MAN while he pulls out a match and strikes it, Cody blows out match and hands him something.

CODY
(hugs homeless man and whispers into his ear)

He hasn't forgotten you.

One of the simple truths in this is that we are all the manifestation of a thought of the Creator who cannot forget us and if he ever did, we would blink out of existence, it is the thought that gives us form/creation.

This is the basic premise upon which the Law of Attraction functions.

Creation is not something we do, but something we are. We ARE creators, just like our parent, the difficulty comes in remembering that and creating by deliberate intention and not by accidental default.

Our moods and thoughts are the gauge by which we can determine what it is we are creating and if it is something that will bring joy as a result. Most of us create in anger and jealousy and the fruits just magnify that initial seed that we planted.

Start by becoming aware of your "states of mind" and then watch for the results. When you get to where you are immediately aware, change the program intentionally and see what new fruits you create.

Happy creating!

WTF and Y?

I get asked many things by people, I seem to attract the questions. That's cool, I actually like it, usually.

One of the questions I get asked a lot, particularly by people that actually read what I write here and in other places, is just what kind of f'n trip am I on?

I have previously mentioned how one of my early teachers, Joyce Meyer, made mention to the fact that people in the public eye tend to show just the "good" side of their personalities. It is this "show" of their goodness and the repression of everything else that makes them look like hypocrites when the "dark side" is exposed. Like the Apostle John says;

And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

John 3:19-20 (KJV)
There have been many thing that have occurred in my life and actions that I have taken that I am not necessarily proud of, but I am not ashamed of any of them. Lessons come in all sizes and packages and the only thing I would be ashamed of would be to have learned nothing from them.

That's the past and simply put, there's not a whole hell of a lot that I can really do about it. I could try to hide things, but unless they are unknown to any and all living beings, there's always the chance that they may come out eventually, so why not beat them and just be straightforward about them all?

As far as some of the day-to-day stuff that I write about and some of the more outlandish things, they are all part of who and what I am. I am a human, I have wants and some things I tend to think of as needs, I feel love and pain, joy and sorrow and, God forbid, I am a healthy male who makes use of those "evil" parts down south.

I get such a kick out of those self-proclaimed purists who think to be spiritual that you have to give up all the joys and pleasures of the physical world. It's like I tell my spiritually vegetarian friends, "God gave me k9s to rip into meat and I like to on occasion." The same thing with sex, God gave me a dick and what sometimes feels like an overabundance of testosterone and I'm going to make use of it when appropriate (OK, and sometimes when it may not be...).

...where Life and Spirit become One!™

The tag-line on my page really is the essence of what I teach and how I live. Integrating Spirit into one's daily life isn't about depriving yourself, but in learning about the Truth of who and what you are.

Some people need to become ascetic in their path, at least for a while, so they can develop an understanding that they have been mistaken about things, but it's like the (slightly updated) adage about meditation; "Anyone can meditate in the quiet of a temple, but when you can do it during the half-time at the Super Bowl, then you know you can meditate."

Some of the less than traditional things I write and talk about are to express this idea, and to be honest, sometimes it's just to elicit a response, I like to yank people's chains to get their attention sometimes. It can be amazing to see what people do when you come at them from a 90° angle.

Like I have written so many times, Life was meant to be an entertainment for the Soul, not a trap or prison. As one finds Spirit and begins to integrate the two back into a single whole, that which is illusion and unnecessary will fall away on it's own.

For an example of what I am referring to check out an earlier blog entry called "The 2 Best and Worst Things for Your Sex Life" which gives an excellent example of what I'm talking/writing about.

Someone once wrote that when one finds their relationship to God and the whole of creation, things like the 10 Commandments become self evident. Why would one want to steal from another when they realize that they are really stealing from themselves, the whole collection goes from "Thou Shalts and Shalt Nots" to "no duhs" that seem obvious.

Miscellaneous Thoughts for Today...

I recently took a "normal" job, whatever that may actually be, I think of it as a place that pays me on a regular basis for some function that they have need of. I am still in training on the job and am feeling pretty good about it, but the one part of it that is going to take a while to get used to is getting up so early.

As an independent contractor, I could get up whenever I wanted, usually around 7 and take my time getting myself together. With the hours that I am doing during training and likely to continue doing on a regular basis, I could sleep as late as 6, but that leaves me little time for the more important aspects of my morning, meditation.

That's actually what this entry is going to be about I think.


I really enjoy the time I get to meditate and have really enjoyed sharing that time with my roomie, but that is a touch difficult since the roomie doesn't have to get up and I would never ask her to.

Lately, my meditations have been very interesting, not so much for what has been happening, but for what has not.

I tend to start my meditations with a creation of some sacred space and then do a breath channeling through my chakras. It helps me to relax and to place myself into an alternate state of mind.

One of the things that I have noticed about myself is that I get to a certain point and because of previous experiences, I try to "force" myself into a certain state. I'm not real sure how to describe it, but I get to a point where I feel as if I am leaving the body through the crown chakra and from there I can go anywhere.

I guess the part that has been interesting to me has been the recent experiences where I get to the threshold of "stepping out" and basically get stuck. I have found that meditation is a lot like my life in that it works best when I just let it happen and don't attempt to force things.

When I just relax and let my meditation happen, I get deeper than when I do otherwise. I know this is a pretty "duh" statement for many people and to be honest, it is for me as well. But we all sometimes get so far from where we started that it is sometimes helpful to remember those early lessons and see what other interesting and new insights we can glean from them.

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The image above is one that I use to remind me of the images and colors of the chakras. The base or root chakra is associated with the color red and so forth through the colors and chakras till you reach the third eye which is purple. The crown merges all the colors together for a brilliant white.

Beyond those basics of chakra work, the image also incorporates the traditional lotus designs as well as the Sanskrit characters for more advanced students. I am trying to find an old graphic editing program I had that will allow me to slow the rate of the animation changes.

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I recently had a discussion with someone and the ideas of meditation vs prayer came up. Those who know me know that I don't use the term "prayer" very often. The reason is that when I was young, prayer always seemed like a negotiation with God for what we felt was some blessing that we deserved.

Now days I usually phrase it more along the lines of "prayer is when I talk to God or my Higher Power, meditation is when I shut up and listen for the response."

After years of study of teachers and saints from religions spanning time and this planet, I can tell you that the teachers all tell us that the answers are not outside of ourselves, but within. This is because we are all small sparks of the Creator and can not be separated from that Source.

As the "Course in Miracles" puts so eloquently, God does not judge the minutia of our day-to-day lives but only that which is deserving of judgment, the mistake that we fell into of believing that we were separate from Him and could fall. Everything else is just that delusion playing itself out.

The law of Karma and Newton's Second Law of Motion state, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. All these "sins" we worry so much about are nothing because they only exist in a state of illusion, they are not real. Only that which is real matters and you would be amazed at how much is not real. Like that book titled, "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff: it's all small stuff," when we put things into perspective we can let go of that load we carry around in the name of guilt.

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OK, I will quit rattling about and go get some sleep. I have a busy day at work and I have more than enough here for you to think about.

Goodnight.

Why Religions Hate?

The other day, I received a response from Rev. Don Spitz who was not happy about my previous entry where I mentioned the "Army of God." I put down a bit of a flippant comment of my own to his, but I did go check out his blog and see what he has to say.

There is currently just one entry where he has a single entry where he expresses his disgust for PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals ). They seem to have a couple of campaigns where they use a bit of tongue in cheek humor to put forth the idea that we should not eat meat which he feels is worshipping the created over the creator by quoting:

Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

Romans 1:25(KJV)

Cute choice since the verse is talking about the people who worship animal forms as gods as in idols and such forms. He seems to think that to respect life is to disrespect God. Sad...

After reading the entry and the article it points to, on the Army of God website, I sent him the following comment:

I am sure you found my blog by searching for the, oh so Christian, "Army of God" reference in my latest entry. Other than throwing accusations that I am refusing Jesus, based on what? I have no clue... I may not agree with your theologies, interpretations and dogmas, but I have no denial of Jesus, just the deified idol that people like yourself have turned him into.

As far as the Army of God is concerned, do you really think killing abortionists is any morally higher than being a "baby killer" yourself? Personally, I think it just makes you sound like a complete hypocrite, one reason to kill is immoral, but your reasoning is an acceptable reason... NOT!!!

In the context of the entry that you commented on: I do believe that Radical Christianity, such as groups like yours, are far more dangerous to this country than Radical Islam, which was the question (“Do you believe that Radical Islam is any threat to the world or us?”).

Your PETA complaints regarding their ads show that you are definitely in need of cultivating a sense of humor. I bet Jesus would have found them quite cute and humorous. Strange that his wrath in the Gospels was always aimed at people like yourself, Pharisees and Sadducees, who are so full of themselves and their holiness, that they had forgotten the spirit of the law for the letter (which brings death, if I remember correctly).

I am sure you mean well, but I will pray that some love for your fellow man might work its way into your heart sometime. If Jesus is nothing but a validation to justify your sense of superiority and judgment, I feel sorry for you.

Sadly, to many people the Reverend, and those like him, are what they believe Christianity is about. The word Christian means to be Christlike. Unfortunately, to most who use this title, it has become a badge of their superiority over their neighbors and others.

Why must we use God and religion to tear ourselves apart? The word religion originally meant "to bind fast" as in the "bond between humans and gods." Some have defined Religion as originally meaning "to re-link with God." I have always been tickled that the word "yoga" is Sanskrit for basically the same thing, "to join God."


I tend to be tough on Religions and Religionists since they have a tendency of turning religion into a justification for self-superiority and degradation of their fellow people, or worse; the local social club. Where this seems to have come in is via personal ego. When we follow one religious path or another, we tend to say "We have THE Truth" instead of saying, more properly, "We have an expression of the Truth." I have spent nearly two decades studying the scripture and teachings from as many religions as I can get my hands on, and after a while, you see direct correlations between them all. Religion is like a well cut diamond, each facet is another expression of the whole, no single facet entails the whole. When used properly, diamonds can be useful and beautiful, misused it can hurt, damage and in some cases even kill.

When we realize that we are all not separate, but part and parcel of God, that we are all encompassed by the totality of God, we loose the need to be in a seat of judgement over our neighbors. If you believe in the supremacy of and the omnipotence of God, the idea includes that God must be able to determine His/Her will and doesn't need us to go around killing our fellow humans, physically of spiritually.

The Primer pt 1

To understand some of the view and expressions made here, I guess it would be helpful to give an introduction to a variant world view and express some basic ideas that I don't really want to have to explain every time that I use them (I probably will to some degree, but here is the best place to find the bare-bones basics of the view expressed here).

This is a general summary only, details will be given in later pieces that I have to sit down and write. Most of the examples used here are Christian unless otherwise stated. Not that I have anything against Christianity, but I live in a nation that claims to be a Christian one. Since that is the majority of my audience, I'll address them in particular. My friends of other religions though, find me just as pointed at them when we discuss them. Remember, all the paths lead to the same destination, God and Truth.

Table of Contents

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Religious Foundation
God and Man
What is Sin?
Scripture References

Religious Foundation

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I seem to get accused of being a Secular Humanist by many religious adherents (particularly by more fundamentalist individuals) but as I understand the term, it is definitely not an accurate term for myself in that as a "Secularist" I would deny the existence of God or a Higher Power as well as anything supernatural, which is completely incorrect. I guess you could say that I might be a Religious Humanist in that I do believe in God and that which is beyond the physical (super/supra natural) but have become disillusioned by traditional "organized" religions.

There is truth in ALL scripture and religions and to exclude any one of them would be a mistake. The problem comes from the codifying of theologies and dogmas that exclude anything outside of their positions. For example, I was brought up a Southern Baptist (Christian) and those beliefs do not accept the Pentecostal (Christian) idea of "Speaking in Tongues" though the Pentecostals find it to be a "Gift of the Spirit". If found "Speaking in Tongues" in my house, I would have likely found myself in the office of either an exorcist (or the Southern Baptist equivalent) or a psychiatrist's office. Imagine what the response would be if I found Nirvana or found spiritual bliss through the Hari-Krishna Maha-Mantram...

When you get past the inserted egos of the followers and later teachers, strip out the cultural contexts and actually look at the subject of what teachers like Jesus, Buddha, Krishna and many others were teaching, you find they are all talking about the same things from different perspectives or angles. Jesus and Krishna are so similar in many of their teachings, that I wouldn't be surprised to find Jesus had read the Bhagavad-gita (Jesus did grow up near major trading routes coming to and from India). Buddha doesn't worry about teaching about afterlives and heavens or hells, he just concerns himself with finding our true natures and experiencing life from that place.

Now with the above stated, do I deny the "deity" of Jesus or Krishna (some of the followers of Vishnu believe Krishna to be the incarnation of God's highest self) or were they just good to great men and teachers? That question is a lot more difficult to answer because of how we use language. To Christians, Jesus is the human incarnation (they don't call it that) of one aspect of the triune of God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). In the way most Christians would mean the previous question, my answer would be "No" in that I don't see Jesus and his teachings as out of the grasp of the day to day person. Mainly because I see all people as part of God, just some are more aware of it than others, hence Jesus. So, from my perspective, the answers are Yes (because we all are aspects of deity) and Yes (since they spent their lives passing on knowledge).

I have several friends who have coined the term "Hindu-Buddhi-Christ" to describe my personal path as I see amazing harmony in their namesakes: Hinduism (Sanatana Dharma), Buddhism and Christianity. My personal view of my religious path could be called jnana-yoga after the idea of searching for knowledge.

God and Man

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We are told by our elders that God is omnipotent and omnipresent. If this is correct, then the idea of separation that prevails through the majority of our religions, that God is outside our experience and reach, cannot be accurate and the idea that many people hold that God cannot be in the presence of sin is either wrong or our view of sin must be.

God is that which permeates and activates God's creation of thought that appears as the world around us. Paramahansa Yogananda put it beautifully when he said that creation is like a movie in a theatre, the illusion of light and form are projected upon the "screen" which is God. The screen can exist without the projection, but the projection would cease to be coherent without the screen and it would not be a movie without both.

The idea that God cannot be in the presence of wrongness is not supported in scripture. After Adam and Eve "sin" by eating of the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil", God speaks to them as if He were unaware they had sinned. In Job, there are scenes with the Devil in Heaven, apparently at the Throne of God, talking with God about Job. God speaks to Cain (a murderer), Noah (a drunkard), Moses (a murderer) and a whole host of prophets; their sins never seems to get in the way.

Mankind is the child of an eternal entity that can be seen in everyday events, if we are willing, and heard from in every moment if we will just open our ears and hearts to listen. As the children of God, we are part of him, inseparable.

What is Sin?

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When asked, most Christians will tell you that Sin is either an old archery term that means to miss the point (accurate, but not for the reasons they think) or to go against the will of God (like that could be possible).

The first definition is correct but not because God said not to eat of the tree, but in what happens immediately afterwards. When you read Genesis, you find that the very first thing that happens after Adam and Eve eat, is that they become body conscious, they know they are naked. God even plays along and asks who told them about their nakedness. It is in this that true sin is shown. Not the eating of forbidden fruit (I suspect God set that up for other reasons) but in the forgetting of our true natures and our delusional fixation of the physical and corporeal. It is in forgetting our souls and living for our bodies that we are born into sin, not some pending judgment from on high.

The predominant world view that we are all under the watchful eye of a most high deity that watches and assesses the goodness or badness of every thought and deed comes from an idea that says we are separate from God. Because we believe that we are separate, we do God a disservice by bringing him down to our level of petty judgments, conditional love and general vindictiveness fit more for a bad Hollywood movie than an all powerful deity.

Scripture References

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How does one choose from the plethora of Sacred Writings out there? The nice thing is that unless you want to, you don't have to. The secret is in the understanding of how it's particular representation of the truth is expressed. The Bible's Old testament (Tanakh: Torah, Prophets and Writings) is written from the perspective and culture of early Semitic nomadic tribes and there descendents. The Qur'an, the specific culture of the 7th century world of Arabia. The Bhagavad-gita is placed in the region of India and Buddha around the 5th century BCE.

Where I look everywhere for knowledge, the scripture I use most often are the Bible (KJV), The Bhagavad-gita, Upanishads and Bhagavata-Purana (Srimad-Bhagavatam) and the discourses of the Buddha (mainly the Sutta-Pitaka, for it's antiquity, and the Vinaya
for it's age as well in the early pre-differentiated status of its creation).

If I were to be dropped on a deserted island, I would take the Gospels of Matthew and John, the Yoga Sutras & the Bhagavad-gita. With those, I could still find the truth.

God, Man, Messiahs & Perverts

You ever look at the world and the people in it and wonder just how everything got so screwed up? How did man (to use the Genesis version) go from making the mistake of eating the forbidden fruit to teetering on the edge of self-annihilation?

In recent times, we in the United States hear a lot of rhetoric, both political and religious, about Fundamentalist Islamic Suicide Bombers. How do you create someone who not only thinks killing themselves is such a great idea that they plan it, but convince them that they are doing God's will?

I have read the Quran and while I don't consider myself to be an expert by any fancy of imagination, I can't see where it justifies this teaching. Sure, it talks about martyrdom and the blessings and after death benefits of it, but I don't see what is being taught to the young in parts of the Middle East in it.

A couple of years ago I read a translation of a service, given by I believe Yassar Arafat's Imam, where he started with a story of a young 14 year old boy walking up to him and proudly proclaiming that in 4 years, when he was old enough, he was going to be a martyr via bombing (implied). If that wasn't tragic enough, the Imam was actually proud of his youthful zeal and enthusiasm. So, for these people who wish to blow themselves up in the name of God as they understand Him, I have a question:

• You made the choice to become a bomber
• You made the choice to strap the explosives to your body
• You made the choice of the location to do it in
• You made the choice of when to do it
• You made the choice of how to kill as many as you might
• Where is God in all this?

As far as I can tell, this is all you and no one else. That's not God's will, it's yours! The simple fact is that you have decided to become a murderer and suicide and just because you do it with God's name on your lips, doesn't change jack, the Quran is quite explicit about the penalties for both.

Yes, I have a serious issue with these Imams that teach the young, dissatisfied and vulnerable that suicide, even in the name of God, is a career choice. Martyrdom is something God puts before you and you choose to accept or not.

But, this isn't about being anti or pro anything, it's about how we messed it up.

When you look at the core messages of the Teachers who claim to have messages from God or a technique for finding God from within, people just can't help but twist it to their sick little definitions of God to the exclusion of all others.

I am not a particularly strong fan of organized traditional religion, though I do understand it's intent. You can have a body of teaching and many examples of it in action, but for it to pass from generation to generation, you need to give it a form that can be explained or experienced. The problem is that the form tends to become more important than the purpose. A friend told me a story that illustrates this.

The abbot at a Buddhist monastery, high in the mountains had recently received a large group of young men to start their education as monks. He noticed that while the young men were enthusiastic and devout in their subjects, they seemed to be lacking something. After thinking and meditating on it for a while, he realized that being young men, they needed companionship and friendship, so the abbot took it upon himself to acquire a small puppy, which he introduced to the young acolytes.

Life in the monastery became more satisfying for the young men and the puppy slowly grew in size and love for his new home. The only problem with the arrangement became obvious when the young dog started attempting to play with the students while they were in temple and practicing their meditations.

To solve the problem, a stake was planted in the courtyard near a tree and it became the practice to tie the pup during meditation times. Now at first the pup didn't really care for the idea, but in a short time it became habit and all was calm.

As time went on, monks left the monastery and new acolytes entered as well as teachers leaving and passing, including a few abbots. Eventually, the dog had become long of tooth and finally passed on. This threw the monastery into a near case of chaos, since it was apparent to all that a new dog must be acquired immediately, since everyone knows you can't meditate without a dog tied out front of the temple.

Now this simple little story isn't much unto itself, but it illustrates a trend in religion throughout history. What starts out as a suggestion or an idea, after a while becomes tradition and then potentially ritual and cannot be changed by us mere mortals.

We do the same things with our teachers as well, look at Jesus as an example. Jesus was a good Jewish boy brought up in a less than ideal side of town, but he was blessed with an insight into both people and God and he later spent the last 3 years of his life being hounded by those who wanted to ride his coattails and those who were threatened by the "new" teaching that he was giving, the miracles probably didn't help on either of these fronts.

So what happened to him? His followers turned him into a god and put him on a pedestal so high that most of his teachings became inaccessible to the common, mere mortal, people and to incur his displeasure was a sure ticket to everlasting punishment by his father. Strange that none of this is referenced anywhere in his teachings.

I had a discussion with someone a while back about the Gospel of John regarding this (OK, I've had this discussion on many occasions). I was saying that John is probably the most misquoted and misunderstood book since the need of the people to insert their own egos into the expressions of the teacher. For example, what I think of as the most misrepresented verse in the Bible, John 14:6 "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

Now a little context here... Jesus and his disciples are in a room and are preparing for the last supper. Judas has just been given his charge to go quickly about his task and Peter has sworn his allegiance and been told he will betray Jesus three times before the cock crows. He then goes on to calm the disciples and tell them not to worry, that he goes to prepare a place for them and they may join him. Thomas asks where this might be, since (once again) the disciples do not understand what Jesus is talking about. Jesus' response is this verse, followed by "If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him."

This verse, John 14:6, is usually taken to be an egocentric statement of deity, but if that was the case, the following verse wouldn't be necessary.

I've always found that John was the disciple who got it. John is writing about the teachings of Jesus and seems to assume we are aware of the context. If you insert the ego that most people do, then Jesus is in direct opposition to most of the rest of the Gospels where he shows himself to be the most humble. What is happening here, as happens in other scriptures as well, is that Jesus has so aligned himself with God in the form of father that he speaks his teachings in the first person for the father. Jesus does this throughout the Gospel of John. In John, we have a definitive split between Jesus, the man, born of Mary and raised as a carpenter's son and Jesus, the Christ, who is aligned with the will of God.

How can one man be both without being crazy? One is the man, as we all are and the other is the will and spirit of the man aligned, not with his own ego but the will of the creator. This is what Jesus is pointing to us throughout his message, the Christ is within each of us and we are able to bring it into manifestation.

Some say that this is Gnosis, it is! Gnosis is just the idea that there is a knowledge that we must find, the truth of our creation, and that it is our responsibility to follow where that leads us which is eventually back to our souls and their direct relationship to God the Creator.

Sin, to miss the point, is exactly this. It's not the eating of the fruit in the Garden of Eden against the stated will of God, but what happens immediately after the eating, Adam and Eve forget their divine nature and become completely deluded by their bodies and the nakedness of them. They miss the point of what creation is actually about and become lost in the illusion of it.

So, the question becomes; if that's the case, why would this not be the teaching of the Church? You can't control people when you tell them they hold all the cards in the game and God just wants you to play them.

There is a very good historical example of this, reincarnation. Very early in the history of the Church, the idea of reincarnation is brought into question, many attribute this to Origen though there isn't a lot of evidence to support this. If this were as much of a cut and dried question as many state, this would have been quickly answered and been done with. This was actually debated for around 300 years before the official church policy was decreed. Now depending on whom you talk to, you get different reasons as to why the final removal of the idea was placed.

1. The church father's, knowing the vulnerability of man, removed the doctrine of reincarnation so people would not be tempted to misuse it and figure that since they have many lives, they can enjoy this lifetime and work the next. Of course the chances are, they would be doing this for many.
2. If people knew that they had many lifetimes and that salvation wasn't decided in a short time, the church would be impotent. The ability to sell indulgences and claim to stand in the place of God on Earth would be laughably ridiculous and the ability to control would be naught.

We could go on and on in the search for examples of this in many (read most) religions and the problem is not in the scriptures and teachings, but in the egocentric natures of the people and organizations that propagate them.

God gives man the truth through teachers and messiahs and we pervert it.

I find it amazing how in our expressed ignorance of the subject, of soul and spirit, we still insist on claiming exclusive knowledge of the correct path and way that God had intended from the beginning. I find that if I come to scripture and interpret it from the universally agreed point in all religions, that we are eternal spiritual entities who only inhabit these bodies temporarily, that the scripture all point in the same direction and have a universal teaching.