Do not believe in anything merely because it is said:
nor in traditions because they have been handed down from antiquity:
nor in rumors as such:
nor in writings by sages because sages wrote them:
nor in fancies that we may suspect to have been inspired in us by a deva:
nor in what seems to be an analogical necessity:
nor in the mere authority of our teachers and masters.
Believe when the writing . . .
doctrine . . .
or saying is
corroborated by reason
and
consciousness.
--Guatama Buddha
I used to believe, because it was what I was told by people who said they knew, that God was an all-powerful, all-knowing being with a long, white beard, who wore long white robes and sat upon a throne up in Heaven, which was somewhere up in the clouds, making judgments about peoples' behavior, and hurling lightning blots when they displeased him. And that I had to be "good" or God would strike me dead and punish me by throwing me into the fires of Hell, which was at the center of the Earth, where I would burn forever. Forever? Not a very pretty picture, I thought by age ten.
Try as I would, I couldn't seem to be "good." To be sure, I didn't know what "good" meant, but I figured I wasn't because I, according to my parents, was always up to no good. But then when I was ten, my 8-year old sister, whom I thought was the good one because they were always asking me why I couldn't be good like her, was killed, and nothing made sense anymore. I felt I should have been struck dead, not her.
Shortly after her death, we moved and I started going to different churches looking for answers to questions I didn't even know how to ask. Over the next four or five years, I went to Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian and Episcopal churches. I listened to their sermons, I took their Bible classes, and I thought about it all, but none of them cleared up anything for me. I've read the Bible through several times in my life and I still don't get the same thing the preachers I've heard get out of it. Most of all I questioned which church I should believe because they were all saying the same thing a little differently. One thing they did all have in common was, they all told me to stop asking questions and just believe what they said. They said belief will bring understanding. You must have faith, they said, not questions.
When I was in the 8th grade, I began studying ancient civilizations. I was fascinated with the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, Orientals. But it was the study of mythology that opened my mind. On my own, I began reading about Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Mohammed and Jehovah, and life began to make more sense. I no longer saw God as this large, powerful, human-looking being who sits on a throne in judgment of insignificant human beings, but as the Source from which all life originated and was part of. And there is no pronoun for God-- no he, she or it to refer to. Each lifetime is another opportunity to achieve some sort of state of perfection, which would allow one to earn a place in some vague Heaven after death, but there are certain rules one has to follow to get there. If you didn't make it in this lifetime, you had another chance because, after death, you would come back in another form to try again. I had trouble with the sacred cows and the caste system of the Buddhists, and couldn't get into giving up living to meditate on a mountain top to achieve Enlightenment, and the Tao was much too deep for me then. I thought Confucius was as good as Ben Franklin at coming up with clever little sayings that applied to life and human behavior, but it was hard to get into total selflessness when I lived in such a materialistic world. And, God, Jehovah and Allah always seemed to be at war with each other, so I didn't admire any of their worlds much. However, all that speculation eased my mind somewhat. I felt better believing my sister would be back some day, but I still had a lot of unanswered questions.
During my senior year of high school, I started going to a Catholic church because the boy I was going steady with was Catholic. That's where I first found peace of mind. Sitting there surrounded by all those magnificent statues and gold chalices and stained glass windows was inspirational; and listening to men attired in elaborate robes with their backs turned to me babbling stuff in an incomprehensible language gave me the opportunity to go inside myself for the first time. I didn't get into the veneration of saints, confession of sins that I didn't think were very sinful, and all those holy days. I did convert to Catholicism, for myself, not the boy, and continued to attend church every Sunday for about ten yeas. I kept hoping I'd come across the answers I was searching for. I married in the church, not the same boy, and had my children baptized; but after my third child was born and I told a priest in confession that my doctor told me I shouldn't get pregnant again because my fibroid tumors were so bad, and I would have to use birth control until I could have a hysterectomy because I probably wouldn't be able to carry a child to term or I might not survive the pregnancy, and the priest told me the Church couldn't condone birth control for any reason so I should make up my own mind about what's right for me, I thought, then why do I need to come here? Since then I've been making up my own mind and staying away from churches and organized religions.
I wavered back and forth between thinking of myself as an agnostic or an atheist for the next 15 years. When I got into studying the scientific point of view, I thought of myself more as a secular humanist. It's terrible when you don't know what category you belong to. The universe was created by the Big Bang and everything that is, is the result of that. As soon as they figure out the Grand Unified Theory, we'll know how it happened and what keeps it going. But after reading dozens of books about physics, cosmology and subatomic particle theory, which took me down to a millisecond before the Big Bang, I found I was still left with-- yeah, but what was before the Bang? what caused the Bang?
Then I read something that had a profound impact on my thinking and that was that people tend to perceive God according to their understanding of how the world works. No wonder those people told me to stop asking so many questions. Now I understood why the churches were so upset with Socrates and Copernicus and Galileo when they expanded human knowledge of the physical universe. It shook peoples' belief systems to hear that neither the Earth nor the Sun is the center of the universe. It took the Catholic Church almost 400 years to forgive Galileo (what an exemplifier of forgiveness). Imagine their dismay when some upstart leaked the information that even our Milky Way Galaxy is rather ordinary. What a blow to those who believed mere humans needed to be tamed with threats of vengeance from an all-powerful being who sits on a throne in heaven. Could it be that those in power are afraid for people to know that if the universe is limitless, then so are human beings?
When one looks at life through the Powers of Ten (see "As it is Above, so it is Below"), from the micro to the macro with us in the middle, one gets a glimpse of the many dimensions in which we exist and, suddenly, we become more than insignificant dust particles. If we are limitless, since our bodies only last us a short time, there must be more to us than our human form. Enter our etheric form and countless lifetimes on various planes of existence. If there is a Grand Unified Theory, it is that we are held together by Love, or some mathematical equivalent. We are all God and God is all of us. The whole universe breathes as one. We are parts of a greater whole and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
With that understanding, one realizes getting caught up in petty personal problems and limiting belief systems is a waste of time, energy and resources. We have emotions, but we are more than our emotions. We have intellect, but we are more than our intellect. We have a body, but we are not our body. We limit ourselves when the universe offers us endless opportunities for growth. We are on the Earth, but we are not of it. What we have the potential to become is only limited by our imaginations.
Since I have been studying metaphysics and lessons from the Greater Mystery Schools the past few years, my consciousness has expanded far beyond the physical universe and I have developed some of my extrasensory potential. I now see the I Am That I Am as pure consciousness that flows throughout the universe. In our human forms, the challenge is to tap into that and become all that we can become as human beings. We can begin to open our minds to other dimensions through meditation, by going deep within to get past all our earthly garbage, and connect with our Higher Self, which connects to our God-Self, which connects us to GOD, ALL THAT IS. By raising the frequency at which our brains vibrate through yoga, meditation, chanting and sound, we open up channels of communication with higher beings and begin to perceive ourselves as we really are-- divine essences manifested on an earthly plane going through a purification process leading to Oneness with ALL THAT IS.
ALL THAT IS doesn't make judgments about our thinking and behavior, but does have infinite patience, knowing that eventually we will figure ALL out. We have free will to make choices about how we live our lives. Life is our classroom where we learn how to work our way through the muck and the mire, and connect with our divine essence. One may choose to rape, murder and pillage during a lifetime, but then one has to come back again and again, dragging along that awful karma, to compensate for those acts until one makes the connection between one's life on Earth and one's spiritual growth. Our evil deeds keep us earthbound. That's why it's the pits on Earth today. All the evildoers are here stuck in their muck, trying to pull the rest of us down with them. But if you're in control of the elevator, you can decide which floor to get off on. We don't have to give in to that pressure. We can choose to claim our Godhood. There are many teachers on Earth at this time to help us. They will appear to us when we are ready to learn.
This perception gives me a much healthier outlook on life. My understanding has led me to believe I'm free to be who I am, do what I want to do, achieve my potential, and be as prosperous as I care to. As long as I do it all with Love, under the guidance of my Higher Self, I'm rising to new heights and experiencing the joy of living in human form while learning to reconnect with my God-Self. That doesn't mean I don't still have questions. One thing I've learned is that the more I learn, the more questions I have. But now I know where to find the answers-- within my Self.
• • • • • • •
If you come across concepts in this book that evoke strong feelings because they go against your belief system, consider the theory of cognitive dissonance. Our minds have a tendency to want everything to be in order, consistent, rational and harmonious with our values, beliefs, feelings, behaviors and attitudes. When we think everyone should think and act like we do, and if they don't, there is something wrong with them, we are experiencing cognitive dissonance. You may either dismiss the new information as the ravings of a lunatic and return to your old safe ways or you can examine new information and use it to restructure your belief system.
A good example to explain cognitive dissonance is to imagine you're an American taking a vacation in England or vice versa and have rented an automobile. When you get in, the first thing you notice is that the steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car. Then you look up and notice everyone is driving on the wrong side of the road. You pull out into traffic feeling very uncomfortable, constantly checking where you are in relation to the other cars. Suddenly, you're faced with having to make a turn. You automatically turn into the right-hand lane and are faced with oncoming traffic. You lose all sense of direction, panic and nearly cause a collision trying to get into the correct lane. But, being strongly motivated to restore harmony, you persist and, eventually, driving on the left feels right— at least until you get back home and try to drive on the wrong side of the road. You have experienced discomfort, made adjustments in your thinking and your behavior, and experienced normalcy once again.
©1989,2001 Diane Goble