Archive for the ‘Religion’ Category

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Who Am I?, Part 3

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

You are not your religion. You are not your thoughts or your beliefs. That is not who you are. You are consciousness. That is all. Pure, unfiltered consciousness. That is all everything truly is. It is the same as awareness. Any belief on top of that is simply a tool. A tool that can be used to enhance or degrade our experiences. There are many beliefs, philosophies, and religions out there that can be useful at times to make sense of what we are experiencing. We have the option to use all of them at any time to create a more accurate picture of reality. The problem is that most people choose just one and call it “the only truth.” But there is no real truth, except what is. And what is is the only phenomenon that can be filtered through religions, belief systems, or philosophies. There are billions of ways to view one situation. Many of them are similar, but some of them are vastly different. They are all valid in the eye of the beholder. If you upload a certain belief system, it will be valid for you, simply because you believe it to be so. That doesn’t make it true, but for you, it is.

All of these thought patterns have good points and bad points, disempowering and empowering beliefs. There are strengths and weaknesses in all of them. So why not just buy the whole lot and keep the good, while dismissing the bad? You can take the parts of each belief system or thought pattern that works for you and dump the parts that don’t. You can have them in your arsenal for use when needed. You don’t have to identify with them, but you do understand them. They are tools useful in certain situations. You can approach situations from multiple perspectives and make a more conscious decision based on the more rich spiritual and philisophical input. It seems a bit more intelligent to me than limiting your experience of reality to just one filter. It is much more encompassing than just Christianity or just atheism. You use the advantages of many belief systems to make more sound decisions and allow yourself a much wider range of experiences due to your wider range of beliefs.

I’m thinking of this as a much more empowering way to live and a much more sound way as well. It may not answer all your questions, but it will attempt to answer them. And you still have yourself. Your consciousness makes the final decision about anything. Sure, you may view a situation from multiple perspectives, but it is you that makes the final decision. And it is also you who must bear the results of that decision. But allowing multiple perspectives into your consciousness creates the opportunity for a more precise decision in any situation. Sure, you may not think you will not fit in with your Christian friends or Buddhist friends, but you’ll find you will understand them better and from every perspective that is them and is not them. You’ll be able to see flaws from within a belief system and from the outside looking in. It is a rare advantage to have. And it seems to be very empowering.

I am not simply speculating here. And there is nothing to lose in being open to different schools of thought. I have done this before and it has made me feel more empowered and able to do more. It gives me a better feeling of certainty. It allows me to broaden my horizons in new and exciting ways. It makes me feel better after making a decision. I have not, however, experimented with this way of living quite long enough to see its long-term effects. But just starting out it seems like it has already rendered wonderful results. For example, it has motivated me to write three blog posts in two days (spread out to three for more page views). That is pretty amazing if you ask me. This blog had become a breeding ground for negative rants on nature and this new way of living has allowed me to see beyond that position and move forward to new ways to think about the whole nature or reality.

I guess it has given me more of a sense of purpose, more of a feeling of wanting to share with the world. And I have evolved in some ways to get to this point. I’ve asked questions and wondered what the answers might be. I’ve become inspired about new ways of looking at the world and beyond. So I’ve become a more inegrated whole in just a short time of trying out this new “religion.” It is really a religionless religion, but at the same time encompasses every religion and belief system that I know of and can harness.

This is not an original idea. Steve Pavlina came up with this idea years ago in an article called Spiritual Depth Perception. It was an opening for me back then and I’ve just recently gotten back into experiencing what I experienced back then. I can’t really describe the feelings you get from having all these perspectives, but it is close to the feeling of joy if not joy itself. It is a more empowering and deep way to live and I can already see the benefits once again. It is one thing to write about this sort of thing, and it is quite another to actually live it. I’m going to keep writing and keep posting about this new way of life for awhile and see where it takes me. I welcome you to come along for the ride. You can even try this yourself and compare the results to your past self. This is just the beginning of something big for me and hopefully for all the readers out there, if you’ve got the guts to try it.

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Posted in Nature, Religion, Theories | No Comments »

Who am I?, Part 2

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

Last night I asked a lot of questions in this post, and I did not really provide any answers.  It’s because I wasn’t there.  And neither were you.  But how can we use this uncertainty to live a better life?  Is it possible to believe in anything when we simply do not know what the real truth is about our origins?  Well, I would say yes, but only in a way that allows us to flourish as human beings, not one which provides true understanding.  Sure, living a good life is fine and dandy, but what is the deeper meaning of it?  Sure, you have rich experiences and have tons of joy in your life, but what does that all mean in the greater context of all that is?  I guess it will be easier to live out your “sentence” on this planet and will make living that much more fun.  And a life well-lived is something that can have a very deep meaning to you, to me.  Even if it doesn’t answer all of those nagging questions.

People who live lives based in spirituality or other belief systems could have it all wrong.  But many of them do not suffer for it.  Especially if it is a consciously-chosen belief system, not a socially-conditioned one.  A socially-conditioned belief system is nothing more than dumb luck, the family you were born into, the culture you live in indoctrinate that belief system into you.  You mostly associate with those who believe the same as you and rarely ever go beyond the box of your little belief-created world.  Many people never even change one belief about their spiritual practices in an entire lifetime.  Even if they do have questions, social pressure holds them back from getting answers.  They just go with the flow of their little world.  Outsiders are different, so they are deemed dangerous, much like the condemning of the Muslim faith in American media.  When’s the last time you saw a lead story about a peaceful Muslim movement?

Of course, those that choose their spiritual lives consciously have most likely tried at least a few belief systems and found one that worked best for them.  There are even those who have multiple religions or perspectives when it comes to spirituality (see Steve Pavlina).  These are conscious choices and are more certain beliefs in my book, because there was at least a period of spiritual exploration that took place.  There were questions asked.  Answers given.  And there was growth beyond the socially-conditioned path of spirituality.  It makes more sense to try out different beliefs about reality and see which resonate with you than to just pick one and stick with it, no matter how close-minded it may be.  Even atheism doesn’t explicitly claim, “There is no God,” just that there is no proof of God.  At least they are man enough to say, “I don’t know.”  Or maybe I’m thinking of agnostic.  Even Buddhism does not say whether or not there is a God and does not say what happens after death.  Why?  Because these people are not dead.  At least they are not making false promises, or creating delusions that most people would regard as insanity from the outside looking in.

Experience is the only tool we have to create our belief systems.  Everything else is what I would call “a leap of faith.”  Unless we have directly experienced it, then we do not know whether or not it is true.  For example, suppose you read in the paper that some building got bombed in another country, killing hundreds of people.  Then the next day, an article comes out saying the first article was false, a mistake, a hoax even.  But it was real yesterday, you say.  But the only thing that was truly real to you about that whole experience is you reading the article claiming that a bomb went off, killing hundreds.  You weren’t there to witness it or the after-effects.  So you don’t know whether or not it is real.  I’m sure it would be out of your way to go all the way over there and verify, but you don’t have to do that.  Because it didn’t even happen, as you will soon find out.  But how do you know the retraction is true?

This is why I find it hard to put my trust in ideas or philosophies I haven’t tried for myself and enjoyed the results.  Sure, taking a leap of faith can help sometimes, like if it makes your life that much better, go ahead and do it.  But I feel like taking too far a leap into the wrong faith can corrupt.  The only thing you can ever be sure of is the present moment and what is around you.  Everything else is a leap of faith.  Your reality is what it is at every moment, and nothing else.  That is the only thing you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Your experiences are only real because you were there.  Otherwise, they are pure fantasy.  So wouldn’t a belief system focused on the present moment make a lot of sense?  Or at least a belief system based on the culmination of all your present moments up today (i.e. your experiences)?  To do anything more would be taking a bit of a risk, but you can always come back to first principle.  You can keep an open mind about all belief systems, but know in your heart that all you know for certain is that you are here right now, existing, doing whatever it is you are doing.  And it is then that you have no need for answers because all the answers you seek are right in front of you.

So, I am advocating a belief system based on experiences and the present moment.  It is logical, but at the same time spiritual.  You can have spiritual experiences and they are valid because you yourself experienced them. You can keep an open mind and experiment with any beliefs you want, but they are not your identity.  You don’t need to rely on someone or something telling you how it is because you know how it is based on your experience.  It does not claim there is a God, or that there is no God.  It does not claim anything, other than what you actually, tangibly experience.  It is certainly grounded in reality.  It is certainly fool-proof.  It cannot be wished away or simply changed.  It is what it is and that is all.  Simple, yet very profound.  It needs no labels or converts.  It simply just is, for now at least.

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Raise Your Consciousness Today

Saturday, February 14th, 2009

The best way to raise your consciousness is to do things that stimulate and open your mind. We live most of our lives in a box, hardly ever going out of it. It’s the box that our belief system fits in. We’ll easily discount anything that lies outside the box and blindly accept anything that’s inside this box. If I were to ask you how you can prove that something exists independent of your awareness, maybe you’d say yes and maybe you’d say no. It has nothing to do with proof because saying yes is an unprovable assumption. Saying no is also an unprovable assumption. How do you know this world doesn’t work like a dream? Where only what you experience is real? I challenge you to prove that something exists independent of your awareness. When you are away from your family members, can you prove they don’t exist if you’re not currently aware of them?

Our reality is up for question all the time. Most people deny things that don’t fit. If they see a psychic on television, it has to be scripted. If they hear about a haunted house, those people have schizophrenia. It doesn’t matter the perspective. Most people will spend their entire lives in a box filled with unprovable assumptions. Why? I guess because it’s too much work to question what is around you and think for yourself. It’s easier to just accept what other people tell you. Let them do the thinking for you. That way you can relax and watch an episode of your favorite TV show, where all the characters share the same perspective as you.

If you think about most major religions, much of their teachings were good, but the reality they lived in was so very different than the one we live in today. I’m not going to condemn them for thinking the Earth was the center of the universe and that it was flat. And if you did dare question that “fact,” you were thrown in jail. Imagine what “facts” we’ll know tomorrow. The fact of the matter is that the only thing you can be completely sure of existing is your own awareness. You know you have a consciousness. You don’t know anything for sure except what your consciousness feeds to you. Everything else is a big question mark.

Just open your mind to this perspective and see where it takes you. That you’re basically living in a dream world where the only thing that exists is what you are consciously perceiving at this moment. See where it takes you. I guess you could call it the most basic belief system and the most sound. Everything in it is provable. Your experience of it proves it. If there is anything out there other than your awareness, you can’t say it is there or not because you are not currently experiencing it. You can choose to believe what you want about the rest, but know that you could be wrong. But you really don’t know that because in order to prove something exists, you must become aware of it. I’ll say that I challenge you to prove that I exist independent of your awareness. You can’t do it. Even if you came down to Myrtle Beach and saw me, you would then be aware of me and therefore could prove I exist.

It’s hard to break out of your box. It’s hard to say to yourself that many of your beliefs unrprovable. When you start opening this box, it makes things very complicated. You’ll be more unsure than you’ve ever been in your entire life. But then you’ll start to notice things that actually happen through first-hand experience that will add to your belief system. I say don’t believe something unless you’ve experienced it yourself. Otherwise, you could be buying a lie. Firsthand knowledge of your reality will make you confident in your belief system. Unless you’ve experienced talking to dead relatives or other spirits, how can you possibly believe in life after death? Because some authority figure told you so? But you are free to choose your own beliefs.

I’m just saying it is stupid to take someone else’s word on the nature of reality. Think about it. Those people could be completely full of shit. You’re the only one who knows what you’ve experienced. So choose based on your experiences. You can use the morals from other belief systems if you feel intuitively that they’re right, but never take any religious text literally. How do you know Jesus walked on water? How do you know he didn’t? You don’t.

I think our beliefs do shape our reality, so it makes sense to keep beliefs that empower you. It does not make sense to keep beliefs that make you powerless. If you choose to believe something, make sure it is congruent with the reality you currently experience. Otherwise, it will be nothing but delusion. If you believe you’re a multi-millionaire, but have $200 in the bank, wouldn’t people consider you to be crazy? They would bring you back to reality by saying, “You’re broke!” You can intend for your money to increase, but saying you are a millionaire is just deluding yourself. You have to look at your beliefs and see if they accurately match the reality you experience. Otherwise, why do you believe what you believe? Because of some old book?

If you found this post helpful or whatever, please feel free to donate to my website. Perhaps you could start tithing to the Church I’m building…The Church of Consciousness.

Posted in Dreams, Humor, Inspiration, Intentions, Religion, Theories | No Comments »

Astonomy and Spirituality

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007

Astronomy (n): The study of stars which makes humans realize how insignifcant they really are.

The universe is gigantic. Gigantic beyond comprehension even. Billions and trillions of stars, millions of galaxies, an infinite amount of energy, somewhere out there, in the universe. It sure makes you feel small. It makes everything on Earth seem so insignificant with respect to the infinity of the universe. But why is it so big? What does it mean for us that we are so much less important than we initially thought? Most people resist taking on a cosmic perspective, at least in my life, and I think I know why. Because it is overwhelming and kind of depressing at first. Even taking on a global perspective is kind of demotivating, if looking at your life with respect to everyone who has ever lived on this planet. It just makes you realize your time is limited here.

But if we are living on a spinning ball, making revolutions around the sun, in a heirarchy ofmillions and billions of other systems like this, some dying, some being born, then what are we ? Why are we here? That is the one question that everyone wants to know the answer to. Some so badly they will buy just about any story someone can come up with. If someone says that we are here to learn a lesson or that there is an invisible man in the sky judging you, that you should strive to do good and not evil, people listen with great intent. And it is not a bad thing to give meaning to your life, but in a way, isn’t it a form of denial? I mean, I do believe there is life after death, a spiritual life, but I still question what that will mean, or if it will all be revealed to me once I cross over (but not with Jon Edwards). And when discussing the meaning of life with the close-minded evangelical-like believers, they will never change their perspective or even consider yours. Which is a recipe for disaster if you ask me.

Sure, there may be, and probably is, a spiritual side of life, and it is more empowering to believe that after you die, you will still exist. The other perspective is worthless, is demotivating, and will bring you a very depressing life because if there is no meaning, what is the point? But if you believe that there is something beyond this crazy planet and the whole universe, then you will most likely have less fear because no matter what happens to your physical body, you still exist in some form, therefore nothing can really destroy you, the essence of your being.

But if we are spiritual in nature, why are we living on some gigantic sphere, spinning around in circles around another even bigger sphere, along with other spheres, and other stars, for billions and billions of years, forever and ever and ever? I don’t know. I still have not figured out what this means. There has to be some reason why all of this is here. It’s not just for us to look at. Before us, these things were still here, so there has to be some purpose to it. Animals don’t question these things, they just live their lives. They instinctively must know something we do not. They must already know something about the infinity of time and space and are just allowed to live. The human, with his inquisitive and rational nature, is always wanting answers to questions that, from his/her perspective, are unanswerable.

Life goes on. Like some roller coaster ride that never ends, the universe does what it does best. And we stay here, trapped on some blue marble in the perspective of the whole universe, our lives nothing but a cosmic wink in the grand scheme, and for some reason we still find a way to get out of bed in the morning. Even though we either consider life meaningless or timeless (in the spiritual sense). I guess the way to look at it is, you could either believe life is meaningless and be apathetic, lethargic, and careless about your actions, which don’t really matter, or you can believe in a spiritual life beyond the grave, and make an effort to enrich your life here before moving on to whatever lies ahead. It would seem to me that option number two, the latter, would make a better choice to live a fulfilling life. And even if I am wrong, at least I lived a good life.

I would like to close this post with abstract thinking I would like to share with you. Imagine getting a snapshot of the universe. Of the whole thing. And pretend you were looking from far above at this thing, and what would be outside of it? How would this provide a bigger context for living? Would this solve anything at all or would it only create more confusion? We are imbedded in this system, so we have no way to see the whole thing simultaneously. Maybe doing so would give us some sort of answer. Maybe not. Have a cosmic day.

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Posted in Rants, Religion, Theories | 1 Comment »

Fasting

Saturday, April 28th, 2007

I’ve been considering fasting for some time, I just can’t do it. Can’t make a commitment. Not eating for days on end, not something I can make a conscious effort to do. I am aware of the potential benefits, especially of a juice fast, where all I would consume are fresh juices, but then I’ll have to clean the juicer three or four times a day, not something I want to do. I realize that fasting is a detox mechanism which allows for repair and gives my digestive system a rest. If I did a water fast, I am sure I would get sick of water after a certain amount of time and move on to heavier things, like broth, then juice, then eventually something tastier–soda. I’m just curious as to how a fast is constituted and how I can get a doctor to write me a note for three to five days off work so I can try this whole fasting thing and see how I like it. I think this whole fasting dream I have is all a scheme for me to get off work a few more days each week.

“I can’t come into work today. I have toxins in my body and if I let them stay there too long, I could die. I need to detox for at least five days, maybe six.” I would have to do it in the raspy voice I usually use to call in sick, a voice that sounds like I just got out of bed and haven’t said a word all day. I bet I could pull that off, if I had some sort of research on it. I would most likely try and break the fast at breakfast. That way I coud be doing one of those double entondre (?) things where I can say I’m breaking my fast at breakfast. I may have to hire a maid to make me juices and to go shopping for me and maybe I can pull it off. I can feel all the accumulated gunk from years and years of pizzas and doughnuts, not to mention that Mountain Dew addiction I had for the first nineteen years of my life. My arteries are probably lined with High Fructose Corn Syrup, which makes for a nice lubricant I hear.

As I’ve always said, it is easier to not do something than it is to do it unless it is an addiction, like a sugar addiction or a food addiction. No matter how lethargic I am, no matter how late it is, I can always muster the energy to go over to the cupboard and get myself a high-sugar, low-fiber poison snack and shove it in my mouth for an emotional lift and sugar high. I think maybe the Fit for Life diet gave me this sugar addiction with their whole, “nothing but fruit in the morning” approach. What did they think was going to happen? They say, “Have as much fruit as you want, but do not overeat.” What? Does that make sense? No. It’s a living paradox. Here I am, eating pints of blueberries, followed by six bananas, and then sixteen Medjool dates, and I’m still hungry, but not hungry in the stomach sense, hungry in my mouth, the salivary glands are going wild, and I know what my problem is, a sugar addiction.

I still eat fruit, but I need some time away from food. I need to find a practical time to do this fast, I may even request some days off from work to accomplish it. My family will inevitably think I’m crazy, but I think that is for the best anyway. If everyone thinks you’re crazy, you’re either right, or crazy. Sometimes the only reason I eat is because I think I have to. I’m not hungry, I just feel if I don’t, people will start saying, “You didn’t eat lunch? Why?” Because I didn’t feel like it. But that’s not a good enough answer. Going against conventional wisdom takes more courage than you think.

If I really want to scare the people I know, I should start quoting the Bible while I fast, every day and every night. Start saying how fasting is the only way to salvation and that if I do not do this, I will never get closer to the Lord. And He is the one wa all long to get close to. And it’s all here in this pamphlet. I should start going door to door, like a Jehvovah’s Witness. You know, maybe their theme song should be, “Knock, knock, knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” Going off topic has become more and more familiar to me in the past six to eight months. But I accept it because I accept myself unconditionally. And I never edit because if I think something, I think it for a reason and there is no reason to cut out part of the process, like I see on those reality shows. They’ll cut to someone screaming at another person and don’t show how that all started. It gives me no basis for judgment.

Anyway, fasting is something I think I should try and I will post results when I start to fast. I’ll have some time to post because I will not be eating. When everyone is around the dinner table, eating their roast duck, I will be slaving away at my master, my computer, documenting how it feels not to do something everyone regards as necessary. I don’t want to make a big thing out of it, though. It’s not like I’m going on a hunger strike to fight world hunger or poverty. I’m doing it because I can. I can make a choice to not do something. It is strikingly similar to my voting fast. I’ve never registered to vote in 21 1/2 years because where I currently live, my vote would be drowned out by a bunch of conservative Republican voters. And voting for yourself makes you look narcissistic anyway. Probably wouldn’t be the best idea. That is all I have for today. Come back soon for more insanity.

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Posted in Food/Health Related, Humor, Intentions, Religion, censorship | 1 Comment »

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