Why God?

 

Why God?

 

Why do we need to believe in God?  Why is it so horrible if our eyes stray from the old white-bearded man in the blinding white light?

What do we perceive, when our eyes do stray?  There are demons out there!  Menacing beings who mean us harm.  Their goal is to rob our soul from God.  Life at the core is a great competition among the heavens, to see who gains the most souls.

Light and darkness cannot exist in the same space.

If my eyes are on God, how can I see evil?  As we know, God is good.  God is loving, kind , forgiving.

To see clearly, we must recognize duality for what it is.

This God belief has at its core a naïve concept.  When our bodies were being formed in our mother’s womb, this new creation is pristine, perfect, holy.  It is only through contact with Man that it becomes contaminated.  If this is true, why is baptism a requirement?  The Catholic Church requires it at birth.  But how can that be?  Why does an infant need to renounce Satan?

An alternate view is that the soul that enters that body in the womb is not innocent.  Rather, it has been cycling through life for many turns, centuries, perhaps millennia.  It carries with it seeds of good and bad, virtue and vice.

These two opposing views cause conflict.  Conflict in the soul, and then conflict between men.  My sister would be shocked to think that anyone really, really believed this was possible, that souls recycle.  What brings about such a rigid concept of life?

The answer to that is deep, and has been debated, refuted, discussed and pondered over just as many millennia.  If fact, there is a growing understanding that dualistic thinking wasn’t always dominant.  There was a time when the absurdity of this type of rigid thinking was clearly perceived.

We can’t go back in time.  We have to take their word for it, those spirits that have been around since the dawn of time. 

So, do Heaven and Hell exist?  The all-powerful mind has created these things, and so they do exist on some level.  But are we required to choose between these two realities?  Not as drawn.

If we see Hell as a suffering existence, it is not uncommon to hear the phrase, Hell on Earth. The idea floats around, that says Heaven and Hell are only what exists on this physical plane, in our joy and suffering.

That may get us a little closer to the Truth.

The Tibetan Buddhists (and perhaps other schools of Buddhism) teach that there are four basic truths at the core of our existence. If we can come to grips with them, we can begin to shuck off the burdens that we were born with.  All the detritus we carry with us, over lifetime across lifetime, colors our thinking, our perceptions of reality.  We also carry within us an innate Knowing of our own goodness; we know it intuitively, but we don’t believe it.  Intellectually we might want to be smothered in the White Light, but we carry within us the seeds of our undoing. 

We have hope.  Our happiness is dim now, but if we can only get the right job, to earn enough money, to attract and hold the right mate, we will be happy.  Lie No. 1, because experience teaches us, over time, that we can never achieve those goals.

We focus on our bodies, eating right, exercising, believing our bodies are the Temple of God; God will sustain them, if we do the work.  Lie No. 2.  At any time, we can be struck down by illness, or physically, by accident.  Our strong healthy bodies are not a result of our own work alone.

We strive to learn.  If only I can get another degree, or complete an apprenticeship, I will finally have the skill and means to solve life’s problems.  Life No. 3.  We can never know everything; that is obviously not possible.  This is a futile pursuit.  And what of the illnesses that can strike down our mental capacity?  We have no control over that.

I need only love God enough.  Say enough prayers, make the right offerings, be devoted.  This plants us firmly into the realm of duality.  Be good, get rewards; do bad, get suffering.  Lie No. 4, perhaps the cruelest of all. 

In reality, we are not pawns of a higher power.  Only when we recognize ourselves as beings of Light, as equal partners to the universe that really exists, can we discover our true selves, that part we play in existence, and the awesome reality of creation.

Traditionally, the Buddhist would say here that we are sick, we need the hospital, the Dharma teachings/ the Bible/ the Koran is our medicine.  The priest is our doctor.

We all of a sudden, in this generation, find ourselves in dispensary times.  The Earth is going through upheaval; there is no longer time for studying, meditating on, and being transformed by tons of scripture.  “Heaven” is closer than ever.  We can wake up with a hand clap.  The veil that hides us from Knowing is thinner than ever.  People all over the planet are waking up, as from a dream. Our make-believe planet is being outed for what it is..an illusion.  Reality is sweet, it is innocent, it is Love.  All the rest falls away.  We can choose:  let it go.