These questions came in one single email from a friend. I broke them into pieces and answered them a section at a time. So although it may appear that I ask a question and my friend answers, that is not the case.
ONE*derful
I view God as a very loving being/entity/energy that sees me as who I am…a part of God. But here’s where I start getting scared and confused….
Sometimes I wonder if God really exists.
I believe what really worries you is if there really is something else after death or not. Do you continue to exist after you die?
Let’s look at it this way…existence is to something, as nonexistence is to nothing. Nothing is not possible, because once you have something, nothing ceases to be. Nonexistence is not possible, because once you have existence, nonexistence ceases to be. If there was ever a state where nothing was, where would something come from? If there was ever a state of nonexistence, where would existence come from? If existence were to end, where would it go, where could it go, how could nonexistence be possible? If you ceased to exist we would all cease to exist. If you truly contemplate these things you will see that the state of nonexistence is impossible.
God is a name for the creator of all things. God is all things, all things are contained within God. Does God really exist? Do you exist? Certainly you exist, thus there must be a God that created you and everything else that exists.
I mean, EVERYbody has their own interpretations of God and the afterlife. They can’t all be right. Most religions claim that they have the whole truth (mormonism seems to have a corner on that market!!). All people can back their claims with ‘miracles’, visitations, religious experiences, you name it.
So this is my first confusion: Why does everybody get their own proof?? That includes not only religions, but also new agers, spiritualists, wiccans, reincarnationists, etc.
Backing their claims up with miracles, visitations and religious experiences does not mean they understand it all. It IS proof to that person that there is more to this world than meets the five senses, but their version of it, their understanding of it, may not be, and for most people who claim such things, is not complete.
Religions were created by unaware and unenlightened humans who were inspired by an aware and enlightened master’s life and deeds. Masters do not start religions…ordinary people do! Some religions, such as Mormonism were started by a person who experienced some sort of divine inspiration and connection with God, but that does NOT make him a “Fully Enlightened Master.” The individual own proof that you asked about is this divine inspiration that a person experienced while connecting with God.
But here is what happens…People take a REALLY HUGE experience and try to stuff it into a very tiny physical reality construct and try to explain it in even more limited words to people who haven’t even had their own divine experience with God so they are even further unable to relate to what is being said which leads to a lot of confusion, and beliefs, and debates.
(Here is a clue…a person who KNOWS, not believes, but KNOWS will not debate. They may teach, they may correct a misstatement by another person, but when it turns into a debate they let go because they KNOW and the other person obviously does not. There is no point or value in debating. A person who debates does not know, they believe, which is NOT knowing. A person who does not know should be asking questions, not debating as if they know.)
A newbie takes their miracles, visitations and religious experiences and somehow tries to fit them into the context they can understand and describe based upon their training and programming. This is natural; there really is nothing else they can do with it. So a person who is heavily steeped in Christian beliefs and has a near death experience may experience Jesus waiting to welcome him on the other side, or if they were terribly evil, did not confess their final sins, or something else may even find the devil waiting to take him away. Or a person who believes in Mohammad would find Mohammad waiting for her to guide her to heaven. Or if a person did not believe anything at all, except it was the end of life, and they were not so nice to some people, they might just experience how their actions felt to the other person. The point is each person experiences something that is compatible with their beliefs and level of awareness.
The ultimate truth of things is that each of us is an incarnation of God, and as such we carry all of the attributes of God…in His image we were created. As such what we think about creates! When we are on the other side, our beliefs influence what we experience there. When we take our non-physical divine experience and try to translate it into the limitation of physical expression we also create a reality that we then begin to experience on a daily basis. Then that person, especially if they are a newbie, can get lost in their own creation and their creation can over time become more real to them than their original experience.
For most people their proof was a single or rare occurrence that they do not have control of. The limitation of their experience does not give them enough time to explore every aspect of the inner workings of creation so they fill in the gaps with whatever it was they believed at the time. Thus a person such as this has the limitation of their own experience when they attempt to present a vision of the spiritual side of life. I too have some of these limitations. I can go very deep into meditation, I get a lot of divine inspiration, I have an inner teacher guiding me, but I cannot yet go into the state of Samadhi at will.
However I have created many big changes in myself which has resulted in many miracles and many amazing coincidences and I continue to change and have such experiences on a regular basis…this is why I speak of the practical nature of spirituality. This gives me the confidence that I do indeed have some level of understanding of spirituality and the nature of life. This level of proficiency I have comes from an understanding that matches what all of the great enlightened masters teach. The more you understand the true nature of life, the more able you are to put it to use and the more practical it becomes. Results…when you understand the true nature of life, you get results by simply changing your mind and the thoughts you think.
Imagine if you were a fly trying to describe an elephant you saw. You came upon him from the front, flew over the top side, landed on his back for a short rest, and then continued flying on right past his rear. You spent nearly five minutes with this elephant before flying off. Another fly, a friend of yours was at his back side but got distracted by the poo he dropped and began feeding immediately. Another fly friend was flying low and flew right under the elephant and just kept on going.
Later you and your two friends meet up and begin to describe this beast you came upon. Your friends swear the elephant was completely grey. But you saw pink patches around his ears and his upper body. One of your friends saw his tail which you saw too, but the other did not. One of your fly friends saw four legs, which you did not really get a good look at, but the other friend saw only two legs. You also saw the trunk and tusks and actually felt his skin and the little bits of hair scattered about. All three of you had a different experience of this elephant and have a different memory. Since you were flies with short lives, that was your one and only experience of an elephant. There were a few other fly friends who had never seen such a beast. Some of them believed in this grey giant who was reportedly the source of unlimited food since they had heard stories like yours before. But most of your other friends thought you were full of crap and imagined the whole thing or were making up stories.
Well that story is a lot like people’s experience with God and the spiritual side of our lives. Many people really are describing the same thing, but from a different perspective. Yes there are plenty of people who have no personal experience, have only read books or listened to the tales of others. Certainly there are many who are simply full of crap. But there are also many fully enlightened masters who have experienced our divine nature in great depth and detail and from many various perspectives too. Some of these masters have left their wisdom and stories of their experience for us to read and gather clues from in order for us all to have our own experiences.
One of the things I have going for me is that I have studied the teaching of many masters who have been able to enter this state of Samadhi at will as well as the teachings of many channelers who have a very clear communication with God and I have had enough of my own Samadhi experiences and guidance too. All of these different teachings I have studied have given me a three dimensional perspective on this really huge concept we call God and spirituality. It is like I have flown all around this elephant and seen it from many, but not all, of the sides it is possible to see it from. Also I have been getting positive feedback from the Universe in the form of RESULTS. Ultimately you must take all of this information, from many different sources, apply what makes the most sense to you, and gain your own experience and results. Belief is of no value except to spur you on to taking action. Knowledge and experience is where the real value is.
My second confusion: If reincarnation is a true reality, then I feel like all of life is hell. I’ll tell you why: Because I love my identity. I have people tell me that this is just my ego talking and that when I realize who I really am (a soul, not Kristy) I will be thrilled to know and losing my identity as Kristy won’t hurt at all.
Your ego-body identity is like a car that you get into or a piece of clothing that you put on. Only some of the real you is inside of this ego-body you identify with. One day this ego-body will get old and worn out and you will be ready to shed it so that the real you, which is inside, can experience the freedom from the limitations this ego-body places upon you.
Your friends are right, when you do lose your identity as Kristy it will not hurt at all, you will be thrilled. You will also realize that the real you, the you that you know, that very same voice you hear inside of your head that you think is Kristy, is still the same…and immortal too! (This realization at death does depend upon how much you wake up now…see my blog The Evolution of a Soul for more details in that regard. But I would expect that someone who is open minded enough to even explore this topic would also be aware of the transition that occurs at death and be able to make the best of it.)
However, you will not really lose your identity as Kristy. Kristy has always existed and always will exist. You can go back and re-experience the life of Kristy anytime you wish. You can experience it the same way you are experiencing it this time, or you can make different choices and live it a different way and have a different experience.
In reality time does not exist, it is all happening now, you are right now being born and you are also right now dying, right now you are also living in the afterlife and all of your past and future lives are also occurring right now too. It is your perspective and your focus in this place of time and space that causes you to experience only this particular isolated experience. Neale Donald Walsh’s book At Home with God in a Life that Never Ends does a great job of describing this in more detail.
Are you sad that you are no longer driving the first car you ever had? If you could have it back, right now, in its brand new condition, would you want it back? How about your old clothes? Are you sad that you do not have them to wear right now? What if you could have the brand new version of the clothes you wore twenty years ago, would you want to wear them today?
If I truly HAVE lived other lives, then I most surely loved my identity in many of them, and also loved other people (spouses, lovers, children, etc.). And yet I don’t remember a single one of the past people of my other selves (except I sometimes have glimpses of memory that are very intense and real and could be little memories of past lives…??). This makes me sad that all those loves and lives are forgotten. And it brings me little comfort thinking that my ’soul’ retains the memories and the lessons from those lives.
Here’s the deal, though: I am SO happy in this existence right now. My husband is a walking god and he treats me like a queen. He never judges me. He loves me unconditionally. He makes me feel valued, loved, adored, cherished, and even makes me feel HOLY. He is so compassionate and generous and nearly perfect to me. And then there’s my children. I have four of them, ages 27, 15, 6 and 3 (QUITE THE AGE SPAN, EH???) I ADORE my children. One of them (the six year old) is special needs…she has Sotos Syndrome.
You could not have this experience you are SO happy to be having if you remembered your past lives and everything else about yourself. If you remembered how you murdered someone, or lied, cheated and stole your guilt would get in your way and you would feel too inferior to do the great things you shall do now. If you remembered how wealthy you once were you would be sad to live in this limitation. If you remembered how passionately you were in romantic love with your child in a past life, you might be frustrated or confused now, you might commit acts that were illegal or jeopardize your relationship with your husband. If you remembered how badly your husband abused you in a past life, you might not trust him in this life. (This is a generalized response for all people and not intended to state an absolute truth about the past lives of Kristy. However, from the best of my awareness we all have some dramatically negative experiences in our pasts.) And if you truly remembered who you really are, the complete story, the full picture of Life itself, you would not be able to experience anything negative because you would know this manifest world is not real, you would not be able to experience anything positive because without negative there is no positive.
There is a reason you forget it all…forgetting is what makes this experience possible. Without forgetting, you could not have any of this. You wanted to feel sad, angry, and frightened that is why you created it this way. You would not feel that if you knew you were God, if you knew you were totally fine no matter what happened. The realizations that I have of how life works prevents me from being able to experience certain things that I used to love and other people still do love experiencing. I no longer enjoy playing games, but I do enjoy watching others enjoy. I no longer enjoy hanging out with other people for idle chit chat and discussing the news, the shows, the weather, the gossip, whatever, but I do enjoy experiencing their joy with this part of life. I simply enjoy being and I enjoy creating, I enjoy helping others and I enjoy experiencing my creations. Remembering who you are and what you are takes away a lot of possibilities.
Are you SO happy that you want to relive this day over and over, never moving forward to the next day? If tomorrow comes things will change. Did you see the movie Groundhog’s Day ? It is a very accurate description of how life really is. We can and do actually re-experience our lives and make different choices. Although the memory of the details of what happens does not remain in your conscious mind, your desires and what you don’t desire, which grew from each choice made and each experience gained, causes you to make the choices you make now.
Thus when it comes time for your life to end, that too is a choice, it is a point of completion that you naturally come to with this life experience you call Kristy. It is simply moving on to the next form you want life to take. In your other incarnations your husband and kids will certainly be there too, but playing different roles. Perhaps not in every moment of them, but they are not involved with every moment of your life even now. And one day they will all be grown up and move away from home; perhaps to another part of the world…life is always changing. Are you saying you just want a Groundhog’s Day sort of life where this day never changes and keeps repeating?
Here is a huge fear of mine: I fear that if reincarnation is a true principle, then I’ll lose “Kristy” forever once I “die”, and then I will also lose KARL forever. It makes me cling to every moment in this life, but instead of doing it joyfully, I do it in immense fear. I feel like God gave me the most beautiful soul imaginable to share my life with (and my kids, too), and then he’ll take it all away when I die. It almost feels like a big huge cosmic joke. I had a friend write and tell me that “God doesn’t kill to save” but I would like her to elaborate more on that.
So are you happy or are you miserable? You said earlier that you were SO happy in this existence and now you are saying you cling to your life with immense fear. It is when you are grateful for what you do have and when you are present in your now experience that you are SO happy. It is when you worry about these things you don’t understand and cling as if you will lose something that you are in fear and misery. So stop the clinging and the worry…let the feeling of fear be an alarm bell going off that tells you that you are using your mind incorrectly. You are creating fear with your thoughts. You could be creating happiness by being grateful for the moment instead. The choice is yours. It depends upon what you do with your mind.
You will not lose anything. You ARE everything. Life as we experience it here and now, an experience that you are SO happy to be experiencing, is an experience of limitation and of separation. When you really do experience that you are everything and have everything it will be an experience of bliss beyond description…which also gets old so we choose limitation for “a period of time” so we can experience something other than pure bliss. Obviously we get bored easily that is why we constantly change. But that is to be expected since this all goes on forever and has already been going on forever.
I cannot bear the thought of not having my dear Karl forever. It is HELL to me. That would be hell to not have Karl. And it would be hell for me to lose my identity and his.
So don’t think those thoughts if you cannot bear to have them. It is you who are putting yourself into hell. And those thoughts are simply not true. Karl will always exist, just as you always exist.
I sometimes feel (in weaker moments) that if God exists, he is an asshole because he makes it so hard for his children to know who he REALLY is. WHY is there so much confusion? I don’t read scriptures anymore, but when I did, I remember God saying that “he isn’t a god of confusion”. I beg to differ!
Of course God exists, because you are God and you exist. I already explained why we forget…since you do not remember who you are it can be confusing. But if you were not confused, many of these experiences that you are SO happy to have would not be possible.
I have several friends who are really into “ACIM” (A Course in Miracles). This makes no sense to me thus far, because according to ACIM, God created a “son” (Christ Jesus) who was perfect. God cannot create anything that isn’t perfect. According to ACIM, God’s perfect son had an imperfect thought (a “tiny mad moment”) about separation, and as a result, fell asleep. Christ then had a dream of separation, and the result is “us”. The dream is US and also many reincarnated lives having many different experiences…and they teach that this entire life and any other life or planet or universe is all an illusion. NOTHING exists but God.
It has been at least fourteen years since I read ACIM but I don’t believe it refers to God’s son as Christ Jesus, but as Christ. We are all that son…Jesus was aware of being Christ, we are all Christ but most of us still don’t know it. The rest of what you said is pretty much true. This is an illusion. But it sure seems pretty real doesn’t it! Thank God for separation and forgetting and illusions, otherwise this experience we are all having would not be possible. If you really remembered this would all disappear…but do not worry, because you remember this illusion as well, it would all come back to you anytime you decided to be in separation again.
The fallacy in this, for me, is that if God creates nothing but perfection, then he can’t have a perfect son that can have an imperfect thought, let alone an imperfect dream about separation. That would make God imperfect and that just can’t be.
God is a dichotomy. Multiple, conflicting things are all true at the same time. At the basis of it all however is perfection. We simply are. We exist. We are Life itself. We cannot be destroyed and there is nothing outside of us. We are All That Is. There is nothing lacking, we have everything we need and will ever need. All the while this is true, we are also living in a body and take on a perspective that we are small and tiny amongst a vast creation. Pain and suffering seems to happen and we call this imperfect. In a perfect world we would not suffer. So the impossible has been made possible, yet the impossible and the imperfection can all disappear the moment we remember and expand beyond this tiny perspective we have chosen.
I love Neale Donald Walsch’s stuff, except for I literally sobbed (wailed) when I read the part that we FOREVER reincarnate. That is hell to me. I also REALLY struggle over Neale’s teaching that God is forever changing and expanding. I thought God was the same today, now and forever? ?????? Why would God need to experience things if he already knows everything? I realize that knowledge and experience are two different things. I can know ABOUT jumping out of a plane with a parachute, but I can’t truly have a full knowledge without the experience. But still…
Why not reincarnate forever? Do you have a better idea of what to do with forever? You can be God, you can be whole and complete anytime you choose. But right now you are not choosing that. Right now you are choosing to be deeply entrenched in this illusion we all have created, for the fun of it, for the experience of it, in order to utilize our creative powers. What is boredom? Boredom comes from not using your power. Even though being whole and complete is bliss it also becomes boring when it lasts forever. Thus you use your power to create, forever!
What God really and truly is never does change. But the creations of God never cease, why should they? What if God just stopped creating and experiencing? FOREVER! Wouldn’t that be boring?
I am rambling and pouring out my deepest feelings, and I have yet so many more to touch on. But I don’t want to keep you here all day. I hope you can help me and bring some light to these subjects. I am so tired of losing things and I don’t want to lose my darling Karl or my children, let alone my identity or theirs. It makes life seem meaningless.
Life IS meaningless! Life has NO meaning. Life simply is. That means there are NO musts, and NO shoulds, and NO things you have to do. We do it all by choice. We are free.
Do not focus on what you have lost. That is a mind game that will only bring you pain and suffering. Focus on what is, focus on what you do have, and be in gratitude for it. What if you had ten thousand friends, lovers, parents and children all in your home with you right now? If you added up all the loved ones from all of your incarnations it would come out to a large number such as this, perhaps much larger. How would you talk to them all? How could you have an experience with them all? How could you do that?
When you have two hands full, you must let go of one thing in order to pick up something else. The fact that you want to keep it all, hold it all, play with it all, is why life keeps changing and you move from one form to another, one lifetime to another, one relationship to another, so that you can interact with it all, so that you don’t lose any of it, so that you experience all of it. You have all of eternity to experience Karl and your children and the rest of your family which we call humanity. Be happy about that.
All is in Divine Perfection.
Love and Blessings,
Michael Skowronski
Author of Unforgettable: A Love and Spiritual Growth Story
image credits to bitzcelt
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