Wayne
New Member
Religion can only point you the way. At the end of your life it is between you and God. Look within yourself and there you will find god. "For where your heart is there will your treasures be" said Jesus.
Many people are put off by the word 'religion'. It conjures up many negative thoughts about slavishly following written text and being told what to do. Over the centuries the message of what religion is has been lost. The spiritual path is all about oneness with the universe and finding our part in it. You can start your own personal 'religion' if you want, with methods amalgamated from many different sources, and it will be just as valid as any other. The organized religions are there to offer guidance and information about how to tread the spiritual path. The stigma of religion is that many get caught up in the words and not the message those words are trying to deliver.
God is the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death. God is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence. This means that it is accessible to you now as your own deepest self, your true nature. But don't seek to grasp to with your mind. Don't try to understand it. You can know it only when the mind is still. When you are present, when your attention is fully and intensely in the Now, God can be felt, but it can never be understood mentally. To regain awareness of Being and abide in the state of "feeling-realization" is enlightenment. I love the Buddha's simple definition of enlightenment as "the end of suffering."
The word God has become empty of meaning through thousands of years of misuse. By misuse I mean the people who never even glimpsed the realm of the sacred, the infinite vastness behind that word, use it with great conviction, as if they knew what they are talking about. Or even argue against it, as if they knew what it is that they are denying. This misuse gives rise to absurd beliefs, assertions and even egoic delusions such as "My or our God is the only true God, and your God is false,".
The word God has become a closed concept. The moment the word is uttered, a mental image is created, no longer, perhaps, of an old man with a white beard, but still the mental representation of someone or something outside you.
Neither God nor Being nor any other word can define or explain the ineffable reality behind the word, the only important question is whether the word is a help or a hindrance in enabling you to experience that toward which it points. Does it point beyond itself to that transcendental reality, or does it lend itself too easily to becoming no more than an idea in your head that you believe in, a mental idol?
Nobody can claim exclusive possession of God. It is your very essence, and it is immediately accessible to you as the feeling of your own presence, the realization I am that is prior to I am this or I am that. So it is only a small step from the word God to the experience of God.
With blessings,
Wayne Fonseca
www.dreamlife.biz
"Do what you can, With what you have, Where you are"
Many people are put off by the word 'religion'. It conjures up many negative thoughts about slavishly following written text and being told what to do. Over the centuries the message of what religion is has been lost. The spiritual path is all about oneness with the universe and finding our part in it. You can start your own personal 'religion' if you want, with methods amalgamated from many different sources, and it will be just as valid as any other. The organized religions are there to offer guidance and information about how to tread the spiritual path. The stigma of religion is that many get caught up in the words and not the message those words are trying to deliver.
God is the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death. God is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence. This means that it is accessible to you now as your own deepest self, your true nature. But don't seek to grasp to with your mind. Don't try to understand it. You can know it only when the mind is still. When you are present, when your attention is fully and intensely in the Now, God can be felt, but it can never be understood mentally. To regain awareness of Being and abide in the state of "feeling-realization" is enlightenment. I love the Buddha's simple definition of enlightenment as "the end of suffering."
The word God has become empty of meaning through thousands of years of misuse. By misuse I mean the people who never even glimpsed the realm of the sacred, the infinite vastness behind that word, use it with great conviction, as if they knew what they are talking about. Or even argue against it, as if they knew what it is that they are denying. This misuse gives rise to absurd beliefs, assertions and even egoic delusions such as "My or our God is the only true God, and your God is false,".
The word God has become a closed concept. The moment the word is uttered, a mental image is created, no longer, perhaps, of an old man with a white beard, but still the mental representation of someone or something outside you.
Neither God nor Being nor any other word can define or explain the ineffable reality behind the word, the only important question is whether the word is a help or a hindrance in enabling you to experience that toward which it points. Does it point beyond itself to that transcendental reality, or does it lend itself too easily to becoming no more than an idea in your head that you believe in, a mental idol?
Nobody can claim exclusive possession of God. It is your very essence, and it is immediately accessible to you as the feeling of your own presence, the realization I am that is prior to I am this or I am that. So it is only a small step from the word God to the experience of God.
With blessings,
Wayne Fonseca
www.dreamlife.biz
"Do what you can, With what you have, Where you are"