From outside the box

A few postings back I did a little light hearted ragging on the catholic church. I feel that as an ex catholic I have that right, although I never want to offend anybodies religious beliefs. Well.... actually, that's not always true, but I do try to present my beliefs as beliefs and not facts....for the most part. And isn't everybody entitled to believe anything they want to? All that being said, I would like to make my case as to why I think the church, and Christianity in general, has missed the boat when it comes to true spirituality.

As a child, I was taught that we have a soul and when we die our soul will go to Heaven or hell, or as the catholic's believe, possibly purgatory or Limbo. Here's the problem with saying that we have a soul and it's going to go somewhere when we die. When we make this statement that we have something, we are separating our self from being that thing. It's not us, it's just something that we have. If soul is the seat of consciousness, we don't have a soul, we ARE soul. When we say that we have a soul, we instantly set up a division in our mind. The message is drilled into the subconscious that soul and self are two different entities.We are not body or mind, they will eventually die, at least the body will. We are a conscious spiritual being that HAS a body and a mind. This belief negates the statement that says, "I think, therefore I am." A truer statement would be to say, "I am, therefore I think."

A friend of mine once made the remark, "I would like to get hypnotized to see what my higher self had to say to me." He was making the same separation the church makes, and this feeds into the illusion that we are seated in the mind or the body. My thought was, if you practice BEING your higher self, then you will know what you have to say.

Are you your thoughts or are you the seer that witnesses your thoughts? Are you seated in the brain, the "meat computer" as Alan Watts once called it, or are you something more than that? If we are truly spiritual beings then the body and mind are only tools we use to function in a physical world. When we mistake our identity with the mind, or ego, we are at the mercy of our emotions because we no longer see them as being a feeling we are experiencing, but rather we become those emotions and feelings. Instead of feeling angry, we are angry. Instead of feeling depressed, we are depressed. We loose our identity and become helpless victims to the forces and circumstances around us.

Consciousness, not thought, is the basis of spirituality. Connect that to God in anyway you choose, whatever your concept of God may be. But when you separate yourself from consciousness, as the church does in declaring that we "have" a soul, you are no longer dealing with spirituality but rather with confusion.

Hell is another area where religions have got it all wrong. The concept of free will and the concept of eternal damnation cannot coexist. If we have free will and the threat of using it in a bad way will lead to an outcome that is unacceptable on every level, then it is not free will. When the outcome is eternal damnation and suffering, there is no free will, there is no choice, there is only one logical conclusion.... to do whatever it is that does not put us in hell. To do otherwise would be insane and insane people are not responsible for their actions. So why would a Christian who believes in hell, and who is not insane, commit a sin that they believe may put them in hell? The answer is that in their heart of hearts, in their deepest part of self, or soul, they know, we all know, what truth is. And hell is not a part of that truth. But we choose to play along anyway, that is, until we choose not to.

For any religion to let go of fear based teachings, they would also have to let go of their power. Fear creates dependency. Power feeds on dependency and power inhibits freedom. There is nothing spiritual about power and fear. As spiritual beings we are motivated by love and freedom. Power and fear serves only to stifle our spiritual nature. When our spiritual nature is stifled, we either become apathetic to life or we turn to emotions and drama which, if you don't know any better, can be mistaken for spiritual experience. Religions thrive on emotion.

Churches can teach enlightenment, become true spiritual institutions, and still survive. There are many new age churches that do just that. However, it seems that old established institutions teaching old established ideas are very resistant to change. Once an institution is established in it's power it has no reason to change. Then they are no longer leaders, they are slave masters to how we think and believe, holding onto their power any way that they can. This is true of governments as well. They will not change until the people who give them the power demand change.

In western society it seems that true leadership, those that offer enlightenment and new ideas, rarely comes from politicians and priests, but rather from artists, scientist, inventors, and teachers. I would say that people like Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, The Beatles, Steven Spielberg, Will Rogers, George Lucas, Steven Hawkings, Mother Teresa, and Mark Twain (to name a few) have bought about more positive changes and created more inspiration than all of the politicians and church leaders combined in the history of our country.

But still, there is that part of me that says it's all good because we are right where we want to be doing exactly what we need to do. We change when were ready, or we don't. To me, life is an opportunity to reach as far as we can reach, to not only be true to our highest ideals but to stretch those ideals into the unknown.....To journey outside the box!