Table of Contents (this page)
- The Observer. (1A)
- Naming. (1B)
- Teachings. (1C)
- Introduction. (1.17)
- What is religion? (1.18)
- Why are religions so important? (1.19)
- What are these religions? (1.20)
- Sin and suffering. (1.23)
- Religions can be classified in two ways. (1.25)
- Concepts religions have difficulty with. (1.28)
- To recapitulate on the last few sections. (1.34)
- What would be useful for us to know? (1.35)
- How and why is this UUS useful? (1.36)
- Conclusion to section 1C. (1.41)
- God and Her parts (1D)
Part I, FOUNDATIONS.
This section comprises 4 chapters.
- About God.
- About Humans.
- What We Come Into.
- But We are Not Impressed.
Part I, Chapter 1. ABOUT GOD. (1)
“Know Thyself”. Delphic maxim.
Chapter one has 4 sections,
THE OBSERVER. (1A)
NAMING. (1B)
TEACHINGS. (1C)
GOD & HER PARTS. (1D)
“Know Thyself”. Delphic maxim.
The Observer. (1A)
Introduction.
In which we explore what God might be considering when designing a system for life eternal, where we human beings can explore and observe as much as we please, and so, these considerations will affect us. It’s all about God dreaming up a way for Her to have fun forever, which is a very long time.
There is Energy, and it has an Observer. (1.1)
We live in a world of Energy that is vast, infinite beyond our comprehension and encompasses all. Everything is energy. We are made of it and we live in it. It has properties, which we like to discover and use for our own purposes. In fact, we are exploring it, all the time. There’s enough to explore forever, and still there will be more to find out.
This Energy has an Observer. This Observer is also made of this Energy. But this Observer can observe this Energy as well as observing itself as it observes this energy. This is what ‘higher awareness’ does. If you can observe yourself doing this observing, then the question arises of ‘who or what is doing this observing?’, and that is what the Observer is able to ask of itself. This is the thing that animals cannot do, and machines most definitely not, because there’s no ‘who’ for either animals or machines. But humans have a ‘who’, and may actually want to know; well, – sometimes. And the only answer is to explore and observe on and find out, because the ‘who’ question cannot be answered until you’ve explored some more, and then more, because there is always more to find. So, then the next question for the Observer is, ‘is it possible to use this Energy for Its own purposes?’ and if so, how and what will It use it for? And yes, it is possible, and the Observer has worked out how, and tries all sorts of things to see what happens, and learns from this to go on and try out more. And always, this business of exploring Energy is extremely interesting and absorbing, and look what can be done with it! Fascinating!
Eventually the Observer works out how to make things that are alive, which are then able to give life from themselves, so that’s pretty interesting and look what can be done with this! This Observer has now managed to Create things that live, that can give life to things that live, and so on…., given the right conditions.
And then, this Observer/Creator has worked out how to make living things which have the Observer’s own ability to ask, ‘who is here?’. This is quite something.
And then the Observer/Creator wants to set up a system to support these living things that It has made, so that they can do their own exploring and observing for themselves. So, the Observer/Creator will have to think about the requirements of these living things to support themselves, while they do their own exploring, ie, the Observer/Creator will have to design a way for them to live and continue on.
So, why would the Observer/Creator bother to do all this Creating? Well, in the same manner as for humans, these creations from the Observer/Creator are part of it, and hence it is very attached to them, and wants them to thrive and grow in their own right. It also wants to communicate with them. In this way it can share this extraordinary business of exploring and observing Energy, as well as having partners to Create more life together, and share the fun and rewards of using Energy this way. So, what would keep them entertained, absorbed and occupied forever?
Design Considerations. (1.2)
So, here are some of the things that this Observer/Creator would have had to take into consideration for designing the right conditions for humans to explore and observe for themselves and continue on.
‘Now this is complex and there are some things to think about here’. [God’s thinking? Well, I think it’s pretty complex.]
- They will need methods to See themselves because it is very difficult to work out who they are in the absence of anything else around them. They will also need contrasts so that they can experience All of it and learn to work out what they do and don’t want, and the consequences of that.
- Any part of Me will contain and have access to infinity, as I have, so they will need large worlds and lots of little ones with plenty of scope for plenty of experiences in all ways.
- Some things will need to last forever, and some things won’t, and these little bits of Me will need time to understand what they’ve learnt, and if they’re beginners they’ll want a chance to do things over again if they don’t like it, or they may want it differently, or better, or not at all, because they’ll want free choice, as I have. Yet forever is a really long time, so they may want time out, as well as feedback…..
- Also, the best fun is when they work it out for themselves, so they’ll need a system that can maintain them, and give them hints all the time so that they will know where to look.
So, I’ll set up a closed system that will look after them, and then they can explore.
It has to be…
- Absolutely absorbing and involving.
- Utterly fascinating forever.
- Always learning, developing, creating, experiencing.
- Encompassing growth.
- Feeding Seek, ie, exploration and the curiosity to search, observe, investigate and make sense of what they find. Seek is defined by Panksepp as an urge that is intrinsic to all life. (See also 2.24).
- Able to make mistakes and begin again.
- Free choice to do whatever they want, so that they can find out what happens, and learn to understand the consequences of their choices.
- Ultimately highly rewarding as they learn to express themselves, as in, they Flower and find ‘real carrots’ for themselves as I have.
- Emotional measuring system to tell them how they’re going.
- Built-in feedback mechanism including pain, to let them know when they need to talk to Me or someone else.
- Others to act as mirrors, so that they can See if they wish.
- An assessment and debriefing system so they can recap and refine.
- Time out for a breather and can come back to Me…
Excellent!!
With the point being that there has to be and is quite a deal of thinking that has gone into this ‘designing’ business of and for us human beings to live. No machine can design anything ‘novel’ in a fit. There has to be a designer and It has to be rather like us humans, in knowing what is important to us, because that is important to It.
A Part of this Observer/Creator? (1.3)
This discussion is about our personal relationship as a human being with a single source that some of us call God, and who we are in that. I have used the words Observer/Creator because this is what this entity that is our source, does, and as we are a part of that source, so we automatically want to do the same thing. The only question then is, what do we humans really observe, and what exactly do we create, personally and generally?
Humans are a part of the Creator, and that’s a lot of parts. Since they are part of It, they are going to find experiencing and finding out about Life, the Universe and Everything extremely interesting as well, and they will want to share what they have found. This part is a very small part; almost like a spark, and it’s as if this Creator has made squillions of sparks of Itself, if we include the natural world, and that’s an awful lot of them. But we are still part of the Creator, however small.
The spark. (1.4)
The spark is part of the Creator, as the sperm is part of the father, or the drop of the ocean is part of the ocean, the cell is part of the body, or a flute is part of an orchestra.
The qualities here are that the spark is an individual that is separate, but is also part of a whole. Here is the first duality. Characteristics are shared between source and spark, yet the spark is not the source. The part is the microcosm, the source is the macrocosm. The primary point here is that we are made in the same way, but are not the same thing. Hence, we will want the same things overall, but in our own way.
Thus, as a spark of the Creator, you have all the time in the world and out of it. You go on forever. A life eternal. What are you going to do with that? Play harps forever?? Forever is a long time. What about Seek/Explore? What about Express? As you are part of the Creator, so you will want both Seek and Express, and you will go on desiring that – it is built into animals as well. Life is an experience. We truly understand nothing unless we experience it. The rest is simply theory. But what are we exploring, and how do we share our observations? And to start with, we need to work out how to refer to this Observer/Creator in a less cumbersome manner, and a more familiar language. We have to name It.
Naming. (1B)
In which we explore how to refer to God, as well as concepts that ‘belong’ to God, such as Creation, Manifestation and Expression.
Who or what is God? (1.5)
This discussion is about our personal relationship as a human being with a single source that some of us call God, and who we are in that.
It is currently fashionable to consider that God does not exist at all and it’s all just a pack of physical laws for the wheels turning around and so on, but if we are to access our own creativity, we simply have to assign some part of life to an ultimate creative being. Hence to me, as God exists so do human beings, and vice versa; as we exist so does God. And we human beings do indeed wish to access our own creativity.
The language problem. (1.6)
First, we have the problem of naming and referring to this Unity; God, Unity, Universe, Life, Spirit, Creation, Nature, the One, the Source, Allah, and so on. Beck (2001) uses ‘Whatever’ which is as good a name as any.
I could ‘cook up’ a single word to try to cover these concepts, or Unity could be a useful choice, but for this writing I’m going to use the word ‘God’ because that is the word that means the most to me.
(NB. The word ‘Spirit’ is used by many ‘New Age’ people to refer to God, but throughout this discussion I will not be using this word in this manner. I use the word ‘spirit’ to refer to the individual part of each of us that is spirit. See below in Chapter 2.)
The English language has the pronouns ‘he’ ‘she’ and ‘it’ for males, females, and things. ‘He’ has traditionally and supposedly been taken to include ‘she’, but many women are quite tired of this, as in fact they do not feel included much if at all. However, we do not have a pronoun to encompass a concept of Unity or a single source. If we use ‘It’ for God, we still get into trouble because it depersonalizes Her and feels essentially incorrect.
I am going to use Her and She when referring to God. Most of my readers will be women and of course (!) men should automatically feel included when I use ‘she’ in this discussion. [After all, ‘he’ is included in ‘she’.] I have kept the capitals to remember the largeness of God.
The irony in this modern business of ‘he and she’ is that we all get called ‘guys’ nowadays which of course includes women as equals! Well, try ‘gals’ instead (for all) and see how far you get with that.
God and Her names. How to refer to this bigness? (1.7)
God has a lot of names which basically boil down to…
- the ONE; Unity, Source, Allah, Spirit, etc. ie, the Creator
- and the EVERYTHING; Universe, Nature, All, Life etc. ie, the Created.
Thus, to repeat; God as a Unity or a Wholeness as a single source is the Creator of Life, as well as Everything that She has Created.
‘God as Unity’ implies that the Creation of Life comes from this particular Unity, a word that intrinsically implies that a) something is unified or whole or complete, as well as b) it is possible for there to be a dis-unity or dis-union of something, ie, there can be more than one part and these can be separated or split. These concepts are key elements in this discussion.
The crux of this is then, that this Unity is required for the Creation of Life. What then, is this Unity of something that has been Split? I tackle this question later, because it is a very big one. And really, this whole book is about this business of unifying two things; ‘Making the 2, one.’
God is Exploring Energy and Expressing what She finds out about it. The Expression is key. She does this by Creating Life.
God creates life.
What then, is creation? (1.8)
‘Creation’ or ‘something created’ is an idea that has been manifested; it has been made in the physical world. It may have originated as an idea or inspiration, but now it can be seen in the physical; it has been ‘realized’, as in, made real. It is an expression of God’s concepts made apparent to God; God’s expression of Her Self for Herself. God’s expression is her owning of Herself to Her Self (and us). God knows Herself by owning Herself. It is the ‘expression‘ that is the key here. ‘In the beginning was the word.’
This Creation has Life. (1.9)
The definition of Life is that it can itself give life to another form, whether like or unlike itself, in whatever manner, which can include service or support for the growth of that other life. Maybe we could say it has and gives energy for growth to another.
Thus, these creations have a life of their own apart from their creator. They can stand apart, by themselves.
That manifested thing, by definition, is part of the energy of the creator, and in the process of manifesting this creation the creator has learnt and now knows more about Her own Self and her possibilities.
God creates Life for Her own sake and Her own expression, as an Exploration of the limits of Her own energy for Herself. This exploration teaches Her about energy and who She is in that. She loves doing this and loves what She finds out about Herself as She does it.
Since this God-created ‘thing’ has Life, it will want to find out about its own energy because that Life is part of God. And as it does so for itself, God finds out even more about Herself. [Consider for a moment what you have learnt about yourself from your children.]
And, since God is exploring energy, Exploration will be a primary drive for living things. This fits in with Panksepp’s SEEK emotion in animals. Grandin (2009).
It is something so intrinsic to all life that we can fail to notice its importance to us to be able to do so.
And so are we exploring.
How we explore. (1.10)
How then, do we as human beings, and thus part of God and Life, explore the energy of ourselves to find out who is here and express what we have found?
We do this by…
- Being manifested/created ourselves; ie we are alive on earth, and
- Checking out (exploring) what else God has created, and
- Checking out (exploring) what we ourselves are able to create/manifest/express in our own lives.
- Checking out what others have done and found in their explorations; ie, their expression.
This exploration and what we make of it comes through our experiences of being human beings and there are an awful lot of experiences to be had on earth alone, not to mention anywhere else.
Thus, we need experience of life, as in, lots of ways of being, to explore fully the limits of our own energy. This experience brings us (eventually) an understanding/realization of what is intrinsically our own essence; our ‘who is in here’ and this learning what is our own takes time. Our understanding of Life is what we ‘make of’ our experiences of life.
To sum up this far. (1.11)
- God is a Unified Largeness which is exploring the limits of all energy.
- This ‘Largeness’ can create Life which can create and/or support other life, as in, that life can give energy to another, and so on. (This is ‘life eternal’)
- Creation is the manifestation of a concept. But the Creation of Life is something else. Creating is an exploration of self, as is the creation. (That which is created contributes to the Creator’s exploration of self as well as the Created’s exploration of self.) Exploring is built-in to Life.
- In fact, Life is for exploring. Exploring leads to understanding.
- We explore through the experience of what is manifested in our lives.
- And thus, we need Life on Earth for these experiences.
All human beings are part of Life and Nature and the Created, and must therefore also be part of God. All Life is God. The challenge for human beings is not only to Create but to figure out how they can consciously Create Life from within their own self, which is what God is doing.
Notice here that the terms God, Life, Nature, the Universe, and your own self/person (as a created entity and part of Life/Nature) can be used interchangeably. What?! Really!! Well, that’s the logic of it.
A drop of the ocean is still part of the ocean and holds its properties within itself. What then? Does this make a difference to you and how you might treat yourself or others?
The next concept is that exploring energy is delightful.
Exploring energy is a delight. (1.12)
God loves exploring and what She finds out about Herself, and She loves her creations and what they find out about themselves. This ‘finding out’ brings us Insight.
Insight = to see inwardly/internally/inside; to gain an understanding about our internal or intrinsic truth or beingness or the energy of our own self.
[I will be using See with a capital ‘S’ to denote insight.]Seeing is an Internal Insight into the Truth of Self. It is a making sense of a plethora of information of any kind from our own and others’ experiences. It is an internal certainty that arises as we remember and understand who we are bit by bit. We have learnt something about ourselves and it is as if we have given ourselves a gift. The body sensation is of a ‘ding’ or an ‘aha’ or ‘the light turned on’ or we feel ‘lighter’. It is delightful and it de-lights us; there is a bit of joy here. We also tend to feel more relaxed and can breathe more easily. We ‘encompass’ more and become a bit ‘bigger’, ie, we grow. We learn more about ourselves and that discovery feels good.
Notice that having Seen it feels good although the process of getting there may not.
God delights in her Insights and so can we.
There are some other things to notice here about insight.
- Insight takes time; a lot of time and a lot of experiencing. Yet, once we have it, we don’t really care any more about how long it took to get it, and that can be a long time.
- Once we have it, we cannot lose it, ever. “Insight is the wealth of the Soul.”
- It does not come through theory; it comes through experience and the understanding we gain through that experience.
- It makes us feel bigger in terms of allowing Life to be as it is. We have encompassed more of our own energy; we know ourselves more and have thus ‘grown’. We can allow and accept Life and what it has shown us. ‘Live and let live.’ This process can ultimately lead to trust.
Thus, the logic of Creation, Manifestation, Exploring, Expression and Seeing implies that we must be alive on earth for us to be able to See ourselves. We can only gain Insight into ourselves through experiencing what we ourselves are manifesting in life. How do we know who we really are if we have no experience of/from/within ourselves?
In this discussion the use of the words ‘understanding/realization’ and ‘insight’ are being used as, ‘there is no real understanding without experience’. The trouble with using words such as these is that it is possible to think you know or have knowledge of, or understand, or have insight into something if you have studied it enough and so on. In all this discussion I limit the use of the word ‘understand’ to what you end up realizing out of your own experience. We may sympathize with others, but in fact rarely really ‘understand’ another’s experience unless we have pretty well experienced similar circumstances. (Although then we have the question of what we consider ‘similar’.)
So, then, what might God be wanting for Herself?
God wants for Herself? (1.13)
Well, how do we think that we might know? If we are a part of God, then God can’t be that much different from us. Thus, we can ask what gives human beings the most pleasure and satisfaction, and we should be able to extrapolate back up? In this I am using human psychology to ‘guess at’ God’s.
- We know that creativity and self-expression are important.
- We know that relationships are important.
- We know that family and children are important.
- We know that feeling good about ourselves is important.
- We know that exploring is important.
- We know that experience is important.
- We know that we need experiences to truly find out about ourselves (Insights).
Consider this extrapolation. (1.14)
The crux here is that God wants to explore and experience everything because She knows that truly Understanding Who She Is and what She can encompass comes only from experience and that these Insights or Understandings are fun. She has worked out that all feedback is useful. She learns more about herself as She experiences it all. She loves finding out about Herself and expressing that.
She also loves her creativity in terms of both loving the act of creating and feeling good about what She has done, as well as loving the things that She creates. She wants to share this creative ability and this great delight in it all.
This is why God breaks Herself up into squillions of bits so that each can have fun as well. She is now nothing but her creations and yet She is in everything. (Nowhere, ‘now-here’, and everywhere at the same time. A fine example of God’s many puzzles, but they come about because of the properties of Energy.)
Since they are part of Her these creations get to experience and understand life for themselves and so does She. As we learn to know ourselves, God learns more about Herself. It’s as if God has made/built Her own team. In this manner everyone wins. And we want what God wants because we are each a bit of God. To See, to Know our Selves and to Create New Life as we Express that Self.
Your experiences and understandings help you define you.
The experience is absorbing and the understanding is enthralling. We’ve ‘Seen’ something.
We are creative beings; it is automatic, but the real question is ‘what have we created?’ and thus ‘how do we feel inside about what we have created out there, i.e. the result’? We too are looking for that feeling of satisfaction with what we have created or expressed from within ourselves, ie, to feel good about what we have done.
We are parts of God. (1.15)
Each of us is created by God and are a part of God and are thus also God, because Everything is God. Well, logically that’s what the names we use for God are implying.
But, as parts of God, we need/want to be able to explore our own energy and to experience what we manifest in Life. But if we want to See ourselves (and thus God) we have to be apart from God to be able to do this.
We are a part of God having to be apart to see God. (1.16)
God has worked out that the only way we can See ourselves and See God is to be apart from Her.
When we are a part of God, we are simply God. As a foetus growing in a womb is part of the woman and not quite an entity in its own right, so are we when we are part of God, and it feels ‘heavenly’ to be merged in this way. As the child separates from the mother as it is born to begin its journey of differentiation, so we need to be apart from God to enable us to See Her plus define/know Our own Self as separate or differentiated from others.
Humans do seem to have this basic feeling memory of ‘heaven’ internally and do want to find it again. But my argument here is that this ‘heaven’ feeling comes from being part of God which we actually are always, but in Life on Earth we are learning to see God and ‘know’ ourselves by being apart from God.
But we don’t like feeling apart. It hurts and we feel frightened and lost and cold and alone.
Teachings. (1C)
So, what are we taught about God and Life and why we are here etc? What are religions actually for; why do we have them? Do we really need them?
In this section we will look at some of the patterns and consequences of these teachings.
Introduction. (1.17)
We get to be apart from God and here we are in a life on Earth, and what are we taught about this?
Well, what we are taught is most mainstream religions. These religions don’t really know why we’re here other than that it must be some sort of punishment, and God knows why and He’s not telling, although He ‘loves’ us. This seems a bit strange really; is this Love?
We don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing, but we have ‘free will’ and we’re supposed to be ‘good’ or will end up in ‘hell’.
Our circumstances have been dished up to us and we get to lump what we have. Any free will, choice, fate; really?
Some religions teach we have only One Go at Life and that’s it – “that’s all folks, there isn’t any more“. Some religions teach Reincarnation which gives us what?
All religions I have heard about teach that the main idea is to be good and do the right things as defined by that religion and you’ll be safe and will get back to Heaven, bliss, nirvana and so on. So, the only real rewards for life are actually in heaven and thus, off earth. But what about rewards on Earth; aren’t there any, and if so, why not? Animal trainers know that it’s a lot better to reward an animal for what you want them to do rather than punish them for what you don’t want from them. What are the rewards for life on earth and do we know what they are and how to find them?
We talk about ‘love’ a lot, but there seems to be an awful lot of unhappy people around.
What happens to Choice, Free Will, Purpose, or Meaning? What’s the point and Why, Why, Why?
Is there a religion with real rewards on Earth? Anyone know of one? What would that be like?
What is religion? (1.18)
Religions generally have two parts; the doctrine and the rituals.
They teach a set of beliefs or a doctrine or a system or structure that attempts to understand why we are here alive on Earth, allied with methods of building this system into daily life. Another word for religion is ‘law’; we are trying to find the ‘laws’ that govern our existence.
It is the belief system part that attempts to make sense or point or meaning of and for our life and existence; the answers to the ‘why’.
This discussion deals with the doctrine/belief system part.
It is the rituals and symbols parts that build and keep this system in the awareness of daily life and practice; ‘do this in remembrance of me’.
All religions have teachers who learn and ‘hold’ this doctrine/religion/belief system and pass it on to the next generation. It is much more difficult to continue said religion if its ‘holders’ or ‘keepers’ are eliminated along with their texts. (Others have worked this out too.)
Why are religions so important? (1.19)
They help us support ourselves in the difficult business of living, by giving meaning to life and guidelines for our behaviour to each other. Our social structures depend on them. This ‘point’ or ‘meaning’ affects our feelings and emotions, and consequently our behaviour at a very deep and pervasive level, whether we are conscious of it or not. We look to religions for comfort and support in the face of the unknown and hence, they (religions) affect our psyche. Our emotions and behaviour affect our social structures and why and how we have them. Failure to find any real meaning for life leads to psychological problems, and consequently failure to function properly or even to be able to find any ‘place’ or purpose for ourselves within our social structures. The whole point of ‘social structure’ is that any and every person is a part of a social structure that affects and is affected by that person. If ‘selfishness equals the only meaning’ is now our main prerogative for all, which is the general tone broadcast by the media, what happens to other people in that social structure, especially those with less power to be selfish? (It is now more common to see on TV some of these breakdowns in social structures. Watch how difficult it is to use the policing system alone to control the behaviour of people for whom society and its values have no meaning.)
One of the things that we find the most difficult about life on Earth is that we don’t and cannot know the future, and hence we are always kind of ‘flying blind’. Yet we know that the choices we make now affect our future later. Therefore, the question is what sort of actions of ours help us have better outcomes? We like to think we have things under control here, but we don’t. Does that make us powerless? We use religions as guidance or navigation systems for the choices we make in daily life with maybe an eye to the consequences, and these daily choices are legion; large or small, there are an awful lot of them.
Useful human religions are the foundations for building peaceful, loving and fulfilling societies with a place for all. How do we do that? Well, first of all, it’s useful to look at the religions we already have.
What are these religions? (1.20)
What are these religions and their beliefs and what do they have in common and how are they different? Well, here are a few things that are common to all religions.
Life eternal. (1.21)
Just about all religions that I am aware of have a ‘life eternal’ concept. The disagreement is in how it is spent; in Heaven or Hell, both of which are Off Earth, or Reincarnation on Earth until you ‘get it’ and are then rewarded for that by being able to get off Earth and back to heaven for good, and so on.
Single or multiple source. (1.22)
Religions can be based on a single source, one god of all there is, which we refer to as God, or a multiple source. I’m not going to go into multiple source religions in this discussion because it is not relevant to the concepts discussed in this book. While a single source as unity is difficult to comprehend within our dualistic earth experience, the unity concept is essential for actually understanding our own needs; see below.
Sin and suffering. (1.23)
All religions that I’m aware of have concepts such as ‘you’ve done something wrong if you’re here’ as the explanation for being alive. Suffering is basically ‘built-in’ and is punishment for your ‘sins’. Hence there is intrinsic blame on you. Some basic part of us considers that life is so bad we must have been bad; this is very closely allied with any ‘rewards’ in the system.
There seems to be no concept that there could be a good reason for this discomfort, if there is something better at the end of the process, which the logic of this discussion is saying there is.
Rewards are ‘Off-Earth’, not On. (1.24)
The rewards for our behaviour are either Heaven or Hell (with nothing in between?), neither of which are on earth, as in, they are Off-Earth. We find life on earth difficult and try to get away from it if we can. There are no concepts of real rewards on earth; much less what they might be. The reward for doing the right thing is generally thought of as ‘Heaven’ or ‘Nirvana’ or bliss and probably feels pretty heavenly. This is the state we wish to be in, and currently, ‘good behaviour’ and meditation are the way to get there, if you work very hard for a long time. (On the other hand, nowadays ‘everybody’ gets to heaven, because ‘God is very loving and forgiving’, so can we now do as we please?) Historically, in the West, there have been lots of methods of ‘salvation’, but almost all of them have been at the cost of the body in some manner, eg, flogging, burning, deprivation in some form or other, and so on, basically as punishment for ‘sin’.
Religions can be classified in two ways. (1.25)
One method of contrasting the differences between religions is that they can be classified into 2 different groups that I will label as ‘One-Go’ religions, versus the ‘Many-goes’, which we refer to as Reincarnation. Within these 2 groups, it is interesting to look at their reward systems. Are they On- or Off- earth?
One-Go religions. (1.26)
Most Christianity based religions are single life teachings, as in, One Go at life. (Q. Are there any current Christian Reincarnation religions?) One-Go religions use authority and require belief in what we are told and lots of rules, and employs fear if we do not believe, ie, ‘if you believe this and do the right thing you will be ‘safe’’, (of course!). Another way of saying this theme is, ‘you must believe this or you will go to hell forever’. They are thus fear-based religions – it’s the ‘or else’ that’s the motivator.
This means that many people are being cowed into behaving ‘properly’ and of course ‘believing’; and then what happens when life bangs you around as it is prone to do? Have you been insufficiently careful? Religions talk about ‘love’ in the face of what feels to us like an entirely unloving and arbitrary treatment of us personally in our lives.
We must lump this single ‘One-Go at it’ life (and hopefully no more) as best we can because we are all sinners; even if we have no idea how we’ve done that. Within this structure concepts such as ‘you are always at choice’ make no sense at all, especially when we appear to have none ourselves. The basic teaching is that we can’t find out or know for ourselves or we can’t sort it out or understand it for ourselves in human terms. If we think we have, we’re in the wrong religion. We need others to intercede for us with God; a strategy which is a prominent feature of being a peon in any authority structure. (Do I need to spell out that peons get ‘peed on’?)
One-Go religions basically make no sense to me. One life of itself is such a totally arbitrary thing. We therefore need to be told what to believe to support ourselves in this ‘lottery’ of life. It is actually the fear of whatever is threatened that is driving the need to believe. These beliefs based on fears are unavailable to the logic that they make no sense. Being told what to do and just believe leaves us as children and unable to work it out ourselves, or even begin to do so. These are the key elements in any power and control authority structure, and why do we need one of those between us and God if we are all children of God?
One life only simply does not allow for the sheer amount of time that it takes to grow and develop our abilities and our relationships. In fact, they hardly allow for growth at all, yet we do grow and we want to.
It also seems to me that One-life-only religions do not give nearly enough importance to the strong ties we develop with those others whom we love. I refuse to believe that we will not meet again, and relate again as humans for each other; skin to skin, and touch to touch. To believe otherwise makes no sense to me, and never will.
In fact, all our mainstream religions essentially denigrate humans as being so very inferior to God, and sinners, etc. etc. so they tend to have no answers to some of the powers that it is quite clear that humans can have or develop within some ‘pagan’ or ‘natural’ religions. There are books about Native American Indians as well as the Toltecs that give us some idea of these kinds of ‘subtle’ powers (they may be ‘subtle’, but are still powerful.)
There is also a great deal in Christian religions about the fighting over you between God and the devil, or good and evil. This concept is primarily used to avoid responsibility – it wasn’t my fault; the devil got me. But it also moves us straight out of the unity of God and into the duality of the human world on Earth. As soon as we do that, we go into judging whether or how something is good or bad, and can never come to any concept of unity such as ‘it’s all good’ which tends to come from more Eastern religions. However, I’m not so sure that simply parroting these words is much use. [I also wonder how much a One-Go teaching leads to a sort of ‘camping’ attitude to Life on Earth. “Sauve qui peu” (save yourself – if you can)]
The problem with these teachings is that nowadays we have various psychological methods for actually finding out why we’re here and what we’re supposed to be doing, as well as finding information from past lives or genetic influences. Such enquiries are not even particularly difficult to carry out. None of these concepts ‘fit’ into these belief systems any more. These old ‘wine-skins’ are having a lot of trouble with the ‘new wines’.
Reincarnation. (1.27)
Reincarnation religions teach that we have many lives. The divide between One-Go and Many generally corresponds to the basic division between East and West. Half the world believes in one and the other half in the other, so take your pick. ‘Many lives’ makes more sense in terms of meaning and point, but some reincarnation religions ascribe blame and judgement to someone’s current life circumstances as being an outcome of their previous life. You have been born in great circumstances; you must have earned it – congratulate yourself. You have been born in rotten circumstances or low caste, etc, and therefore you must deserve it and are left in it. The concept of ‘karma’ still has judgement and blame attached to it, as in, we think we can know clearly whether the person’s life circumstances are ‘good’ or ‘bad’. We consider that no-one in their right mind would choose to suffer as many people do in really rotten circumstances. In fact, however, it is not possible to tell, and we may not know the ultimate reason for someone’s circumstances; not to mention, neither do they.
Neither does the West necessarily envy the social structures, civic utilities or legal systems of cultures based on these religions. Feudalism and corruption appear to be rife in these systems. Feudalism is probably fine for those on top; it’s a pity about anybody underneath. As for societies riddled with systemic corruption; democracy and justice fly out the window, never to return. Feudalism, corruption and injustice all go hand in hand.
There is also other ‘stuff’ about Reincarnation and being an animal in past or future lives, but as human beings ‘made in the image’, our concerns are with understanding ourselves as part of God, and there’s enough in that to keep us fully occupied.
It also seems to me that the Eastern religions’ attention given to the ‘spirit’ comes at the expense of the body, which appears to be regarded as something that simply carts you around throughout this (‘illusory’) life.
Concepts religions have difficulty with. (1.28)
Most religions I am aware of have quite a lot of trouble with some major aspects of our lives.
Religions and women. (1.29)
No current mainstream religion that I know of is able to treat women as equals or fully mobilize their abilities within their hierarchies. (Does Buddhism fully address this in both Eastern and Western societies?) This basically leaves out half the population.
For many religions, women are passive recipients if allowed in at all. These religions are based on male perceptions of the world only. All of them leave women with no knowledge or realisation or description of just exactly what women’s real attributes and strengths are. The failure to fully incorporate women into any religion’s structure shows us that that religion is covertly or overtly discounting women, and such a religion is, by definition, simply incomplete and way past its use-by date, according to me. How can any religion be taken seriously when it effectively discounts half of humanity? Future generations will wonder how on earth women put up with this nonsense for so long. (Our belief systems could also be called ‘brain-washing’.)
Religions and Nature. (1.30)
Where are the religions that give Nature her voice in our lives? We can get whiffs of the possibilities with Wicca or Shamanism or North American Indian or Toltec teachings, but these are hardly mainstream. Nature is God too and we are part of Nature. If we can’t respect Nature and the natural world around us, we can’t respect anything.
Where are ‘Till and Keep’ in our lives? This is a prime directive given to Adam and Eve by God, which sounds to me as though God thinks that humans should actually have to do something. I don’t see much of this in our religions. How much of the natural world has been anything but ‘kept’?
It is long past time for an understanding system that automatically includes respect for women and all Nature and Life.
Sin and suffering. (1.31)
We need to be apart from God to See Her properly and experience and find ourselves, but we generally hate it and want to get back to the ‘heavenly’ feeling of being a part. Most religions that I can think of imply that we must have done something wrong or offended God in some manner to be ‘thrown out’ or evicted from Heaven, so to speak.
This understanding system that I am proposing says yes, it’s uncomfortable, but there is a good reason for this discomfort, because there is something better at the end of the process, and in fact, there is no other way of obtaining the insights into life that we need and can learn for our own benefit.
Apart from that, what happens to Explore, which is a primary drive for Life?
Big structures. (1.32)
Some religions have large authority structures and some have almost none.
Large authority structures are built on having a ‘top dog’ in the know and of course able to talk to God and receive His commandments, and lots of subservient people who ‘don’t know’ and have to do as they are told. Such an authority structure may not necessarily behave in the way that they teach. All authority structures I know of lose the plot eventually and start to exist only for themselves and their own power structures. If people knew for themselves how to find point and meaning for their own lives without a ‘top dog’ or an authority structure to do it for them, there is no need for the structure at all. (And what would the structure do then, poor thing?)
Our religious founders. (1.33)
Our version of God is also related to our religions’ role-models here.
The main founders of Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism have interesting themes in common. The basic stories as they are told, are of single males who do not relate to women at all, and who single-handedly find ‘heavenly’ states and thus become ‘the one who has the Answers’ and so can tell everyone else what to do from ‘on high’. Telling others what to do from ‘on high’ belongs to ‘power and control’ authority systems. (See Ch.5)
These ‘founder’ stories are also very static. None of them appear to be involved in work or effort to ‘till or keep’ anything. If ‘till and keep’ is a prime directive from God, why do these great role-models have nothing to do with such ordinary mortal things?
Women and Life on-Earth don’t get much of a ‘look-in’ here either.
Both Jesus and Buddha had major truths to say/tell/express. The religions that sprang up around these truths are not necessarily as useful. The dominant Christian religions of today generally teach within authority systems controlling you by making you feel afraid, (See Part II, Chapter 5). Add Spirit’s off-earth concepts (see below) and we have not much idea left of what Jesus was trying to say.
This is not to say that some of these doctrines and rules for living are not ultimately useful to us, but I am saying that these understandings are incomplete, and not that useful as maps for finding fulfillment on earth.
So, how come we have these ‘incomplete’ belief systems in the first place? My answer to this is developed further on in this book because it (the answer) requires further definitions of terms. If we understand how these systems arose, it is much easier to understand what is missing and rectify that.
I have discussed the things that I consider God might be wanting and have then looked at those things that we are taught that God is telling us to do, so that it is easier to see the difference between them. To recapitulate on the themes discussed so far….
To recapitulate on the last few sections. (1.34)
- We are here on Earth in a beautiful and amazing environment (hopefully not too mucked up) of staggering creativity.
- We are not here just to look for ways to get back to Heaven, which is something we already know
- We are here to explore and learn who we are; to know ourselves and to create and learn to be like God, and become a partner to God and ‘do God’ i.e. do the same as God in our own unique way.
- We have to be separate from God to be able to See God; we have to learn to be apart as the child must grow up to be an adult who can then appreciate and partner the adult from whom she came. Growing up is not necessarily comfortable or easy but it has its compensations.
- We have lives of great diversity with multiple themes to help us define ourselves to ourselves. As with all our many dramas and plays that we watch on the stage, they may not all be wonderful or nice, but they are pretty enthralling and absorbing nevertheless and we learn as we go along. These lives are for us to use to explore our limits and to find out who we are.
- We get to find out for ourselves who we are, as in, no-one else can do it for us; it is actually impossible to be ‘told’ unless you already know, otherwise you will not hear what is being said.
- We are not here because we’ve done the wrong thing or God is cross with us; far from it. It takes time – all the time in the world and out of it – to explore yourself and who and what is here.
- Playing harps for eternity in heaven or cooking or freezing in hell does not satisfy the drive/emotion of ‘Explore’ and thus makes no sense for God or us. What else do you propose?
It is these points that need to be addressed by any viable doctrine/belief system. We need much better maps and guidance than ‘just do as you’re told’ because somebody said so, or any need to frighten us into ‘good’ behaviour.
Thus, what would be useful to us to know about what God wants?
What would be useful for us to know? (1.35)
- An understanding that we choose the lives we lead in line with our highest good, as in, benefit for all. What for and why, giving us point and meaning to our endeavours that are logical within their own rules. This would support us, Physically, Emotionally, Mentally, and ‘Spiritually’ (P.E.M.S.).
- Rewards on earth while we are alive, and tools for how to get there and what it looks like on the way. ie, a map.
- A full, equal and important place for women and nature.
- Requiring no hierarchy or authority structure; to learn how to talk to God/Life yourself – none of this threatening as a means to make us behave properly.
- Based on human psychology, so that it is natural and makes sense and we can see it in everyday life, and thus remind ourselves, if we wish. No ‘believing’ required.
Such a teaching could be called a Useful Understanding System (UUS) or a Useful Guidance System for Life on Earth.
The UUS proposed and developed here and following is a psychological map. It does not tell you about yourself personally; it is basically a structure and map and tools for using your life to find your own Self for yourself. The tools work best and make most sense within this structure, but can be used without this understanding system; so, there is no need to believe in anything, including one life or many. However, using these tools helps you to understand this structure and live it and grow.
It is a,
- Why and How to Use your Life (your external world/circumstances) to find/identify/understand/Know and Own your own Self and develop your own Relationship/Partnership with God, and thus Life.
Why and How to take responsibility for your own reactions to your life, which leads to conscious personal choice and empowerment for yourself and a proper engagement with Life; a ‘talking with God’, so to speak, and thus will give us meaning for our lives and our choices, whether conscious or unconscious.
Essentially it works within a framework which incorporates …
- Universal laws, viz, Mirror Laws as well as personality filters such as MBTI, all of which need to be applied to See ourselves properly and,
- Understanding our past lives and how our actions then, with the decisions we made about them then, have influenced this current life, as in, how we have got to where we are.
Well, that’s all very nice, but how would it be useful?
How and why is this UUS useful? (1.36)
The primary problem with our current mainstream teachings/religions/societal expectations about what Life is for, is that all the ‘reasons’ are actually negative in that Life is seen as a ‘punishment’ or ‘test’ that we basically don’t like and want to get out of as fast as we possibly can, or at best put up with it, or damn it all and just have fun, but hopefully, no more.
We don’t have any positive reasons, especially ones that we might like having now while we’re here.
Our mainstream teachings about why Life on Earth are absorbed by us (like a sponge) when we are very young, as well as being also taught not to question them, generally because that would be likely to get us into even more trouble; this is how it is, and that’s that. So, we don’t ask any questions (but this book does). We forget about this stuff, and we think that it is not important, but in fact, it’s there all the time, affecting us in ways we do not understand.
These teachings have direct consequences on us, which are…
- Affecting our attitude to life including
- The way we use our energy and
- Affecting the kinds of questions we are able to ask.
These points are intertwined, but I detail them separately to help clarify them.
Confusion. (1.37)
Our teachings include the concepts that ‘God loves us, and punishes us ‘for our own good’, and don’t ask questions because you could be punished even more’. Hence, in our minds, the word ‘God’ includes love and punishment and authority/power, all mixed up together, and everybody gets confused. No wonder we have so many issues with this.
But the only way out of this confusion is to sort out how this has happened and why. Is this conflation really correct and if not, why? Where has it come from? What is correct and why would it be; how would we know?
This is indeed about asking questions, and finding our own authority and power for ourselves.
Remember, this stuff is unconscious and yet we see this confusion in action day in and day out in our lives, especially in our relationships with our fathers, and in our workplaces, not to mention government, or those we ‘worship’, and we don’t query it, although I consider it high time we did.
Our attitude to life. (1.38)
Being punished for we know not what leaves us cross, fearful and resentful, (and there’s no love flying around here either), and we cannot actually welcome life. We pay lip service to the ‘enjoy life’ bit and try to show others just how much, but there’s a fair dose of ‘victim’ going on as well, which doesn’t gel. If you asked, most people would not actually like another life. Our ‘victim’ feeling, which is our resentment at such ‘punishment’ becomes a primary attitude to life, and we tend to pass it on to anyone or anything we can dominate, while anything or anyone that can be dominated has a fairly unpleasant time of it.
If we are able to understand that positive reasons that you will like, exist for your own benefit and can be found for yourself in the near future, and here’s how, it changes our whole attitude to Life, and that in turn affects our lives and our bodies. It is a complete turnaround. Hence, the value of having positive reasons for Life on Earth.
How we use our energy. (1.39)
Although many people disregard religions, their precepts still show up in our social expectations of ‘right and wrong’, and so some of our energy is spent repressing the bits of ourselves that are ‘wrong’ within these expectations, and we also use up our energy when we are checking out what other people are doing that is ‘right or wrong’ and then judging and blaming. So, in fact, that’s a fair amount of energy that is not available to us for our own purposes, especially the energy we have to use in shoving our ‘wrong/shitty’ things down into our ‘forgettery’, and to keep them there in our unconscious. Even if we don’t know they are there, they don’t go away, and they are ultimately of value to us.
Again, if we have positive reasons for life, it not only affects our attitude to life out there, it changes our attitude to our own ‘wrong’ bits, which makes it a great deal easier to accept ourselves and integrate these ‘forgotten’/repressed bits of us, and that integration can free up a lot of energy for our own use for what we actually want.
The kind of questions we ask. (1.40)
Our beliefs about life also affect the kinds of questions we ask, and these tend to be of the ‘God, when will it all end?’ or ‘what do I have to do to get out of this?’ type. But this is in exactly the same vein as asking a man ‘when did you stop beating your wife?’ when he wasn’t beating her in the first place. The question cannot be answered because the assumption (‘the beating’) is in the way. To spell out, our assumption that we are being punished for we know not what gets in the way, so it generates the wrong questions. And as we can never ask the correct questions, so we can never get proper or useful answers.
The whole point about this UUS, with its positive reasons for Life on Earth, which is developed more fully throughout this book, is that the more we understand it, the more we are able to ask questions that bring answers that are useful for ourselves and others. These answers also start to look like some very classic teachings. Thus, this UUS is also explaining what these teachings (especially of Jesus) are actually saying or telling us in modern times.
But, any teachings, however ‘classic’ or ‘true’ stay just teachings unless and until they resonate with your own experience for yourself, and you begin to question them for yourself for your own purposes.
Overall, I prefer a belief/understanding system that makes sense to me, and helps me be clear about what such things as ‘love’ are actually about. I also like having a positive reason for Life, and asking questions that give me useful answers.
However, there are aspects of this UUS that many will not like one bit, and will dismiss and negate as much as possible, but that does not mean this UUS is wrong /incorrect. And of course, the thing that people won’t like is that if we really want love and fulfillment, the ego (in lay terms) needs to go and jump in the lake, and the ego can’t swim; well, darn. But, this aspect of ‘classic’ teachings is nothing new, and our egos are pretty strong and will fight on….
More detail to follow throughout this book.
Conclusion to section 1C. (1.41)
Our current mainstream religious teachings with their emphasis on getting away from earth and life as fast as possible are not particularly useful to a great many people. If we do not understand the reason for our separation and apartness from God, we do not know what to do or what is required or why. Society now knows a great deal more about human psychology (hopefully) and is in a position to look for belief systems that make a great deal more sense than the ones we already have.
Now we need to look at our actual connection/relationship with God.
God and Her parts (1D)
Introduction. (1.42)
This section looks at the actual relationship between God and Her parts. There are two points to consider within this section.
- Part to Partnership with God – more about the part having to be apart.
- Our connection with God – what might that be?
Part to partnership with God. (1.43)
From being a part to being apart to being in partnership with God.
From being part of God to being apart from God.
When we are a part of something it is quite difficult to See or Know what that something is. We identify with that something rather than with ourselves, and then cannot know how we are the same or different.
When we are apart from something, it is much easier to See that particular something in its own right, and to use the distance apart to find out more about the differences between us; the distance can lead to greater comprehension.
The ‘coat-hanger’ and the absolute opposites (AOs). (1.44)
The basic structure/model for this relationship between God and Her parts is this ‘coat-hanger’ (upside-down?) of the Absolute Opposites on which we can and will hang a great many concepts.
(Diagram 1D1)
AO1 | A PART | APART | Contrast | |
AO2 | PARTNER | Resolution |
What is this diagram showing?
The first line, labelled AO1, shows a contrast between two opposites which in this example are, being a part of something and being apart from something (what a difference a space makes). I refer to this pair as the first Absolute Opposites; the AO1s. They are the 2 ends of a continuum which stretches from being a part to a little bit apart to a long way apart. This is a duality, which is a contrast between two opposites.
We use contrasts to See and differentiate between opposites, and the further apart/away we are, the more we can See, as in, ‘Consciousness loves Contrast’. Life is composed of an infinite number of dualities, and is referred to as the relative world.
The second line is the opposite of both these ‘ends’; it is the opposite of the opposites. I refer to this concept as the second Absolute Opposite; the AO2. It is neither one end of the AO1 continuum nor the other. It has also gone from the two separate ‘ends’ or opposites, to the single concept of ‘partner’ that has unified or resolved the separation; the duality has ‘resolved’ into a ‘unity’.
The AO2 always has the effect of being ‘above’ the AO1s, in that it includes both of them, while at the same time it makes the contrast between them particularly clear. Thus, we can ‘See’ them more clearly. Another way of saying this is that the AO2 clarifies or ‘locks in’ or ‘holds’ the contrast of the AO1s.
This AO2 may be Jung’s ‘transcendent function’ and a very important function it is, but it is a property of Energy, although we don’t notice it. See also Energy section.
“In holding the tension between opposites, a 3rd thing will appear that transcends the opposites and resolves the conflict.” LOPKER p.167 (quote)
In this particular example of apart and a part; the part can learn to be a partner as well as play its own part, once it knows how to be apart. This is a very important and useful concept. I will be using contrasts, continua and opposites further down the track.
It is through this logic that I suspect that God is wanting partners, and really, this whole UUS is built on this hypothesis, because it makes sense to me. Notice that it is the words themselves which are telling you this. These words are informing you about a property of Energy which is really very interesting although we rarely notice it if at all.
Another pair of opposites could be….
(I’ve put the AO2 on top in these; ie, the ‘coat-hanger’ is the right way up.)
WITH | ||
WITHIN | WITHOUT |
but I find the part, apart, partner more useful.
While one of the nicest of them is…
RAINBOW | ||
SUN | RAIN |
… and I suspect God likes this one too.
So many of our religions imply that getting back to being a part of God is where we ‘ought to’ be aiming or heading or ‘it’s the reward for life on earth’. But what if we are meant to embrace being apart as the way we get to explore our own energy and define and refine our own understanding/knowing of ourselves?
Thus, as we learn to be fully apart, we become more able to be a partner with God, as well as playing our own part in life. Then how do we relate to God within this concept?
What is our actual relationship with God? (1.45)
How do we grasp this relationship with God in human terms? One way to ‘get at’ this is to go back to what Jesus was trying to say. Jesus describes the relationship between us humans and God as father to son, or parent to child. (Women as ever, did not rate highly in the Jewish religion, ie, Jesus was hardly going to use mother/daughter as part of his explanations.)
So, what happens physically and psychologically between parents and their children?
Physically. (1.46)
The primary connection between parent and child is of physical blood, ie, of our DNA. This connection exists regardless of whether or not there is any later personal relationship between the parent and its child; ie, this connection cannot be broken by anything. Part of the parent’s DNA is in the child and there it stays as an integral part of the child.
Thus, I think Jesus is saying that no matter what we care to think about this connection, part of God is within us whether we know it consciously or not, and it cannot and does not go away.
Psychologically. (1.47)
If God wants the part to be apart so that it (ie, us human beings) can become a partner, how might this work? What are our religions trying to say? What would be a human equivalent if there is one? How could we describe that?
In Jesus’ time it was normal for the son(s) to join the father working in the fields or a trade. I think this relationship is what Jesus was trying to describe. He was always trying to use human concepts to describe how God and Heaven ‘felt’ to humans. We have lost some of these meanings because we have lost some of the social organization of Jesus’ world.
We are entirely used to referring to God as ‘the Father’, but ‘son’ seems to have shifted to ‘only Jesus’ because normal human beings don’t rate, when in fact I think we need to be really clear that we are all children or parts of the Unity we call God and are taught to think of as Father. We are a part of God as the child is a part of a parent. The child starts off as a part of the parent and ends up apart (as in, different) from the parent.
Thus, our relationship with God is as a partnership with a loving parent, wherein we grow from child to adult.
The child learns with the father while it works with him in the family as he grows up, and continues to work in partnership as an adult, and ideally each delight in the other; (daughter with mother also). They are learning about themselves as they notice their differences and their similarities. Also, children generally yearn to be like their parents, as in, they worship them (if all is well).
Notice that this is within a loving family where the parents love the child and want it. They care about it and for it and protect it, and are interested in it and enjoy having it around with them; in short, they serve the child’s needs and like being with the child. (I may be banging on here a bit, but this is simply not always the case. A good proportion of children would experience their family as anything but.)
This is a loving relationship that grows and continues to grow as a sharing relationship, and a delight in each other and both ‘grow’ in terms of learning about themselves from each other and from Life; each becomes more conscious within their own selves, which is the reason for life.
In effect, this is an absolute win-win situation. God loves it. The child (us) loves it. And what is created through that partnership not only has a life of its own and can live on to give life and growth to another, but it gives great satisfaction to both within that partnership in having created that new life.
Thus, the adult parents the child who grows up to be a partner to the parent, and has its own children etc, etc. Hence, this is our own human family model which is in front of our noses all the time as the model for our relationship with God. And so life continues, eternally.
We could set up a diagram thus. Here’s another set of ‘coat-hangers’.
(Diagram 1D2)
The left and right columns are the AO1s and the central column is the AO2.
PART | PARTNERSHIP | APART |
within | with | without |
parent | together | child |
and create new life
Bringing in the Holy Ghost |
This partnership can create new life. (1.48)
When new life is created through a ‘partnership with God’, as happens in a loving relationship between 2 people of like mind and intent working together, something mysterious happens as this new life ‘comes in’. This created thing has a life of its own, and yet these 2 people weren’t really bothering to or trying to do anything except enjoy having a lovely time together. (Sound familiar? That’s what metaphors are for.) Where did this life come from? We don’t know; it’s a mystery, and stays that way. Jesus refers to this as the ‘Holy Ghost’, as a name for a ‘factor’ that we don’t understand but is always involved. This is the trio of ‘Father, Son and Holy Ghost’. (It’s actually parent, child and Holy Ghost, with the Holy Ghost coming out or their partnership or Merge.) This is a denotation of the 3rd life that arises from the proper relationship between two equal entities. Notice also that the father is not in the ‘superior’ role here telling the child what to do.
This act of Creation of New Life brings great satisfaction to both of them. It is very satisfying, in fact fulfilling.
My premise is that many of us are looking for this state of satisfaction and fulfillment, both of which give a ‘fed’ feeling emotionally. This state of having fulfilled one’s Self also brings peace and rest.
God wants partnership with us and so do we with God. (1.49)
In this manner, we can use an earthly human experience of fulfillment and satisfaction to extrapolate back up (you might say) to what God might be wanting for Herself as well as for us.
Thus and so, if we as children of God are able to grow up and define ourselves and know ourselves so that we become increasingly apart/different while still being part of society, we will be able to come into a partnership with God that feels wonderful and creative for both of us.
Then, as the child becomes an adult, this partnership continues on an equal basis, because partnership and collaboration require the ability to communicate with each other (talking to each other) as equals. (Which religions include such a concept?)
This communicating with each other as equals implies that …
- We both (God and ourself) want to communicate, which is what I think Jesus is trying to tell us.
- We have direct access to God in a natural manner,
- We have worked out how God communicates with us, according to our own natural abilities and tendencies, (our own apartness or individuality)
God wants to communicate. (1.50)
The logic of this UUS argues that She does indeed wish to communicate with us, and we with Her.
Direct access in a natural manner. (1.51)
This is rarely spoken of, but one place in the bible that I am aware of where man talks to God in a natural human way is in the Garden of Eden. (See Adam and Eve addendum.) It is here that ‘God comes walking in the Garden’. Notice that we don’t seem to ‘talk to God’ when we are in heaven; there are no references to this happening anywhere. If we are a part of God when we are in Heaven then of course there is no need to talk to God. But the Garden of Eden is one place where it is taken for granted that this is part of the natural course of events and we don’t query it.
Those people who have learnt how to talk to God seem to find that living on Earth is a pretty good place to be. So, maybe as we come into partnership with God and learn how God talks to us, we begin to enter the Garden of Eden.
And maybe, a ‘coat-hanger’ diagram of the AOs looks like this.
(Diagram 1D3.)
HEAVEN
EARTH | ||
GARDEN OF EDEN |
How God communicates with Her parts.
This is a large topic which will be developed in the Goal-Setting section, but it is up to each individual to identify for themselves how God/Life connects with them and what this actually means to that person.
Conclusion to section 1D. (1.52)
Thus and so…
- This UUS includes the logic that partnership with God happens in the Garden of Eden; viz. when we are able to ‘walk and talk with God’, we have found the Garden.
- We are on earth to work out how to do that and what it sounds like, looks like and feels like to us personally.
- Partnership with God; talking with God/Life and finding the Garden of Eden all happen while On They don’t happen when we are Off Earth.
- These things are the earthly ‘rewards’ we are actually looking for.
- Notice also that these ‘rewards’ are not the end-point of the process of life on Earth. What they do is bring us more Life and we can grow in that to include even more Life with greater rewards as we grow.
- It is this structure of understanding as well as the processes of how we get into this Partnership and find the Garden, that are outlined over the following pages.
- It is an On-Earth Useful Understanding System (UUS) of what God wants for Herself and Her parts.
So, now that we have looked at what we think God is wanting and what we are taught about that, we need to look at how human beings are ‘built’ psychologically, as in, who we humans are to think about things the way we do.