Oh My God!
There’s always a question that people ask that quickly forms judgment on other people. “Do you believe in God?” As they ask this question, you aren’t really sure what kind of God they’re talking about, or if it can be anything. Some people see God as this father figure, much like the governing force of nature, whille others simply see God as a presence in our world, an energy force. So if anyone ever asks you a question like this, you should have them define what they’re talking about by “God.” It’s almost like we’re handed this world and asked to make best judgments on what holds true for us. For example, if you grew up Catholic and now you’re out in the world and you see all these other religions, of which yours damns them all the hell. How can all these belief systems exist and all be the “one true religion?”
This is where it gets a little hazy. With all the belief systems, most of which are fear-based or too structured to be realistic, are a trap if you really look at them. Most of them have good messages, but they somewhat limit your scope of reality. You can’t have certain experiences in certain belief systems, mostly because you don’t believe they’re possible. But most people stay inside one religion or set of beliefs in their entire lifetime, never experiencing anything else, so even though they may believe that all the other religions are wrong, they have never experienced them from the inside and seen if they resonate with them at all.
Of course, most people never stray from the system in which they were born. And it’s sad, really, because they never do any thinking about reality for themselves. They allow others to do the thinking for them. If you let someone else tell you what to do with your life, it wouldn’t really be your life anymore. It would be the life of the person who’s telling you what to do. So unless you make a decision that reflects yourself, you’re pretty much giving up control of your life. I believe the whole test is to question your beliefs and wonder if there are any beliefs outside your own belief system that could work for you. And it takes time to try each of them out, but it may be worth it in the end. You never know.
But there are all these pressures in certain religions. People will notice if you start to get away. Like if you go to church every Sunday and have been doing so for the past ten years, then if you all of the sudden stop, there could be some backlash and people muttering, “That guy’s lost his mind.” And the thought of dealing with this is one thing that holds us back. Not only that, but the fact that you’ll probably be spiritually unstable for awhile because you have to adapt to any new belief in your world. But that is only temporary.
I remember the time I tried to adopt a belief that time is only an illusion and is a creation of the mind. At first, I couldn’t really grasp that, but eventually I came to figure out that everything is a creation of the mind. Nothing just happens, there must be some sort of willing it to happen, be it a person, an animal, or a plant. You see, the fact that time exists it mostly something we use to measure results, lifespan, and other seemlingly trivial things from the universe’s perspective. If we place so much importance on the impermanent, then we start to place too much importance on the aspect of time.
The most mind-blowing realization I’ve ever come to is the fact that we really don’t matter that much. The fact is, while looking at the universe and its expansive size, we are not exactly the best thing since sliced bread. We are just as important as an insect or a planet. We are a cell in the organism we call the universe. We are here to perpetuate the existence of our planet, which for some reason exists. People often ask why we’re here, and I say, you could look for the rest of your life and you may be able to figure out how we are here, the science of why we are here, but it doesn’t bring us anywhere close to the purpose for being here.
This is one thing I’ve been struggling with. If we are as insignificant as it seems and our planet is nothing more than a small rock in the most gigantic formation of rocks anyone could ever imagine, then why is getting your taxes done so damn important? How come people get stressed out over trivialities when there really is no need, from a cosmic perspective. Even if you were to die, or even if the planet were to be destroyed, so what? It’s not that big a deal.
And I think religion is the way to cope with all of this. People place some sort of value on answers to these questions, and they’ll buy almost anything. I’m not saying people who are religious are stupid, they’re not, if they’ve chosen their beliefs from examining many others. If you ask this question to the universe, “Why are we here?” you most likely won’t get a response. I think it’s because the universe is asking the same question to you: “Why are YOU here?”
And answering that question is very difficult to do. Many people never answer it in their entire lifetimes. I mean, if you have realized what I have, you know that from a cosmic perspective, choosing a purpose for your life can be very difficult. Now that you realize the magnitude of the situation. If you want to be a lawyer, but you know that doing so will force you to lie a lot, then you have to make a choice of whether or not you want to pay that price. I’m not sure how the universe works, but from what I’ve seen, people usually get what they deserve, but it’s almost meaningless if you keep shifting perspectives, even to the other side of the globe.
So I think the best deal is to choose a belief system that gives you the most power. Choose one that will allow you to feel the most in control of your life. You can give up control, but you can never give up responsibility. If you have control, you do have responsibility, but if you don’t have control, you still have the rsponsibility to regain control. So gain control of your beliefs and don’t follow something just because the rest of your family does or the church you go to does. Don’t expect them to be understanding of your change in beliefs, as they most likely will dismiss you as insane.
I guess it’s all about you, but not you in the selfish way. It’s you as a collective whole, you as a planet, you as a universe to make it a better place without restrictions. You shouln’t have to ask a pie-in-the-sky authority figure if you can do certain things. Do what feels right and do what will give you the most power, but not power in an evil way, but power for the highest possible good you can imagine.
Then the most empowering for me is called subjective reality where a) there is only one consciousness, b) you are that consciousness, and c) everything is created by thoughts in that consciousness. It gives you an insane amount of power, but also an insane amount of responsibility. So therefore, it places the world, the universe, in your hands. It definitely takes time to get used to this, as your realize that other people are actually a projection of yourself. Even strangers that pass by and plants, animals, books, tables, chairs, they’re all part of you and you have the power to change it. It’s a very harmonious way of living, but you have to work at the thought part because every negative thought you have will be created, just as the psitive ones will. So there are a lot of goods and bads like any other religion, but it is the only belief system that empowers you to this extent. I hope I’ve been helpful in my musings and have a nice day, at least the one I created for you.