RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL INSIGHTS 1 – 13. INSIGHTS TO THE MEANING AND PURPOSE OF OUR SPIRITUAL BEING; INSIGHTS TO THE SACREDNESS OF OURSELVES, AND INDEED THE SACRED ITSELF. INSIGHTS INTO THE UNDERLYING TRUTH THAT PERMEATES AND PROVIDES THE FOUNDATION FOR ALL OUR RELIGIONS. INSIGHTS INTO THE MYSTICAL AWAKENING THAT AWAITS US ALL. AWAITS US ALL, FOR ALL OF US ARE ONE, AND ALL OF US ARE IN THAT MYSTICAL UNION OF ONENESS WITH THE ALL.
1
The creation of our universe was not one single moment. It is a continuing and ongoing moment, an eternal unfolding that encompasses ourselves.
2
This new age, this threshold age, marks our coming of age. Now, we sons and daughters of God withdraw from being petitioners of God. At last we become partners with God.
3
The true artist and the mystic have much in common. For both delve deep into their inner being, and the deeper they delve – the more focussed they become within their own being – the more they touch and embrace and connect with the deep and never-ending vastness of the ALL.
4
Is it possible to achieve salvation with a deathbed conversion after a life given to what might be called sin? If the conversion is genuine, then yes, it is – in a sense. The state of our soul at death will determine the state of our existence beyond our withdrawal from our body. So, if we have finally broken through passion and anger and greed and other such ‘sins’, then we shall indeed achieve a serene level beyond the grave. However, we must still ultimately face the consequences of our formerly ‘sinful’ deeds, through karma in later incarnations.
5
Our past, and our people’s past, must always be with us. But to remember the past with resentment, anger and hatred, is to be forever bound to that past, and is to forever bind the future. That is true for us as individuals, and is true for us as communities and nations.
6
True free will only exists in how we react and feel about those events external to ourselves. Reality lies within, both in mystic terms, and in terms of true and intimate knowing. What goes on external to ourselves, we can to some extent affect, and to a very great extent can question. It is our inner life that is our Truth, and it is our inner life that determines how we try to affect that which is outside of ourselves.
7
One reason the Church grew in its early days, but is not growing now, is not because people then relied on the scriptures, but do not now. It is because the spirit of God and the needs of those earlier times required it to expand. Now, however, we are entering a ‘new time’, and this ‘new time’ is not the Church’s time. But it is always God’s time. As always we are being awakened in order to experience to the full the next phase in humanity’s progression to the stars.
8
Undisciplined thoughts affect everything. Undisciplined bodies affect little. Even beyond the realms of this physical earth, our thoughts are not lost; indeed our thoughts endure. Thus, are we accountable beyond imagining. Thus must we forever be mindful of our minds. It is only our minds that make sense of, and give meaning to, the entire universe of matter. We can taint the world we inhabit with our darker thoughts. Likewise, though we do not realise it, we can taint the higher realms, the very realms of God with our darker selves. We must always take care. We owe nothing less to ourselves, and to all of creation itself.
9
Scriptures must be reinterpreted, because humanities consciousness evolves. As we evolve and learn, so do we enter into new heights of understanding. With new heights of understanding, our scriptures must be known anew. How else, otherwise, can we be true to ourselves, and true to the infinite call of the heavens?
10
There are many paths to God, so there is just one path to God. Pentecostalism and emotional healing are not dissimilar to shamanism; whilst the various mainstream Christian churches, that can range from puritanical simplicity to high ceremony, reflect and even reproduce the varieties of worship to be found in all the religions of the world. Throughout the world, there are the quiet paths, the reflective paths, the rhythmic paths of ritual, the unadorned paths of the ascetics, the ecstatic paths, and yes, the wild paths of the shamans. When imbued with good heart, and only when imbued with good heart, they are all valid paths leading ultimately to God. There are many paths to God, so there is just one path to God.
11
This is a key question. Supposing it could be shown without a shadow of a doubt that the Bible told us to hate people and commit murder. Would we, as the people we are today, obey? If not, then clearly we must accept that there is an inner sense of what is right that transcends the Bible and indeed, that transcends all scriptures. This is not to suggest that any of the world’s religious scriptures do so require us to hate and murder – though they can come pretty close – instead, it is to show that when all is said and done, our own sense of what is right and proper trumps the world’s scriptures: every time.
12
Eating food is not a moral issue. How our eating affects others, who need to eat, is. That is inescapable, and not only in terms of how our eating might rob others of the chance to eat; but also, as we are so aware these days, in terms of how our food production can damage the environmental integrity of our planet. Likewise, sex is not a moral issue. How we handle our relationships, is. We are linked with everything and everyone. There is no escaping that. And there is no escaping the fact that there will invariably be people to whom we are beholden. So long as we have any sort of moral compass, and so long as we see ourselves as connected to others, then sex is rarely uncomplicated.
13
A key question for every Christian since the beginning of the Christian Era, is whether he or she would recognise Christ at the Second Coming. Well, here is something that we need to accept, uncomfortable though it might be. The Second Coming is upon us NOW. Christ is here, working through all those souls who see religion as an inner path or journey that embraces inclusivity with all such paths, regardless of detail, dogma, and doctrine. The remarkable growth of new spiritual thinking, of religious and spiritual pilgrims at last beginning to recognise the validity of other ways, is the clear manifestation of Christ being once again in our presence. This is a Second Coming Christ who is not One, but who is Everyone.
