Thursday, October 3, 2024
9:30 a.m. Let’s talk a little bit more on religion and whatever it is we’re heading toward. (As so often, I feel that this is a prompted question, but that’s okay with me.)
You have been hammering on this point sometimes, whispering other times, and wondering if anybody at all is listening.
Not quite. I know some have heard. But naturally I am more concerned about those who haven’t heard, and even more concerned about those who won’t let themselves hear. And before you say it, I realize, it’s their choice, on many levels.
Yes it is. They may consciously reject the idea. Or they may reject it automatically, not realizing that an unknown filter is preventing them from considering the proposition fairly. And, within the duality of causation, they may do so either because the way they are put together, they can’t fairly consider it without breaking or even shattering, or because they are functioning perfectly well, but considering this would make their life-purpose difficult.
You’re saying, it may be a matter of conscious choice or unconscious filtering and this may be because they cannot or should not change whatever course they are on.
Isn’t that what I just said? And –
And, I know, we never have the data to judge someone else’s path.
However, there is something to be said for your side, too. You might as well say it.
If I feel impelled to underline this or that course of action, there isn’t any reason why I shouldn’t do it. And, there may be important reasons why I should do it.
Yes. For you, for anyone, the even-handed rule applies: No one has the right to silence you; you never have the right to cram something down someone’s throat.
Not that either process could succeed anyway.
Oh, sometimes it could, but either way it is an act of violence, though at first it might not seem so, and violence is usually a sign of trying to overrule life.
Now, that statement invites expatiating on, but let’s say whatever you have to say on religion and out future or futures.
Bullets, then, because it will be easier to pull together afterwards:
- All religions have to deal with various kinds of people, various in their level of awareness, various in their capacity for growth, various in their understanding of life and of themselves.
- The world – terra firma – contains uncounted types of people, even countable types of cultures.
- Life never proceeds smoothly and evenly. (Nor would it be an advantage if it did, but that is another topic for another time.) So there are always people and peoples at different levels of personal and cultural development.
- Hence, one-world civilizations, one-world religions, even one-world language, in practice is and must be a pipe-dream. One size never fits all.
- Every person, every point of view, every culture or way of conceptualizing the universe, is and must be partial, not universal. Even a point of view that sets out to be universal is, in the fact that it is a particular intent, partial. Not everybody is going to agree.
- One man’s utopia is another man’s hell. Regardless of the specifics involved, the overarching fact is that every point of view is legitimate to the universe in that it is a part of the whole. This doesn’t mean that everything is morally equivalent; it isn’t. but, you realize, it is or isn’t morally equivalent from one point of view. From another, it may look very different.
- “Peace on Earth” in the sense of a universal sharing of values (and hence viewpoints) is not possible. It would have to be the peace of the graveyard.
- But to say that, is not to say that humanity is condemned to eternal warfare. It is to say you are condemned – and blessed – to eternal contention of ways of being.
- Each way of being, each way of experiencing life and reality, has its exposition somewhere. It may be a set of superstitions, or a mythology, or a primitive religion, or a higher religion, or a philosophy or a hybrid of many types of expression, but in one way or another, it will be expressed, or it could not be shared, hence to all extents and purposes could not be said to exist.
- No one ever comes to the truth, just as no one comes to the future, although to any one person, the future it experiences at any given time seems obviously to be the only “future” there is. All you can hope to do is to embrace as much of the truth as your particular avatar-self is able to encompass. That’s what you are in 3D to do, after all, to conceptualize and embody a point of view.
Now, this background gives you what you need.
I think it does. It says, there’s a reason why we’ll never come to unanimity of opinion, and as usual that isn’t a design flaw in the universe. And at the same time, there’s a reason why some people feel impelled to grow, and some feel impelled to communicate a given version.
And nothing wrong with any of it, yes.
Now, the specific application: the consideration of religion in one’s re-examining the world. Religions are not side-trails, not superstitions, not obstacles to progress or brotherhood, not remnants of inferior ways of seeing things and of structuring lives. They are different because people and cultures are different. They are similar because they look at reality through certain similar filters. They are arbitrary or bigoted or false or even predatory when the levers of power are misused by those in a position to use them, but this is because they are human institutions. Everything human is partial, corruptible, fallible – and also semi-divine if you look at it rightly.
We say this pretty flatly: If you want to grow, you need to identify your prejudices as prejudices, not as the reasoned balanced judgments they will at first naturally seem to be. No one can do this for you, and no one can force you to do it. But we say to you, your non-3D component will tell you, if you do not block it out.
Once you remove the filter, or turn it down, or even suspend it for the length of time it takes you to look at it, your world will open up. Nothing closes you down faster and more effectively than declaring something Wrong.
It isn’t a matter of spending a lifetime learning about different religions or ways of thinking. If you wish to, that’s fine, but that isn’t the important point. The important point is learning to not shrink away instinctively when certain things come up for consideration.
If you can’t bear to look for the kernel of truth within a belief-system, that’s a tell-tale sign.
If you can’t do it without clinging to the “knowledge” that you are right and this is an example of error you are going to look at, that too is a tell-tale sign.
What you shrink from taking seriously, something of you is afraid of. Don’t take my word for it, go look for yourself, not shutting off your non-3D commentary.
And this applies to more than just religion, I see. It applies when examining anything.
It does. This particular example, though, is chosen because it tends to be a huge obstacle to just your kind of explorers.
I see that. Been there myself, as a matter of fact, but a hell of a long time ago.
What is 50 years? Or 60?
Point taken. Okay, so today’s theme was –?
“Religions and your future,” perhaps.
Our thanks as always.