 
### Does God Make Us Suffer?

### And 10 Other Soul-Searching Questions

### Anonymous
Does God Make Us Suffer?

And 10 Other Soul-Searching Questions

Anonymous

Copyright © 2020

A. Truth Publishing

Anonymous95221@gmail.com

All rights reserved.

Publishers Cataloging in Publication Data

Anonymous

Does God Make Us Suffer?

ISBN: 9780463301630

First Edition

1. Spirituality. 2. Philosophy

This Ebook is licensed only for the use of the person who downloaded it. This Ebook is given freely and may not be re-sold to others. If you would like to share this book with another person, please download an additional copy for each recipient. Furthermore, the copyright prohibits the copying any of the text contained in this book without referencing the name of this book.

## Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

Question 1: WHO AM I?

Question 2: WHY AM I HERE?

Question 3: WHAT IS OUR PURPOSE FOR EXISTING?

Question 4: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE FOR THIS WORLD?

Question 5: WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE?

Question 6: WHY DO WE DIE?

Question 7: WHY DO WE FEEL PAIN?

Question 8: DOES GOD MAKE US SUFFER?

Question 9: WHY DO CHILDREN SUFFER?

Question 10: IS GOD AN ANGRY GOD?

Question 11: HOW DO I ESCAPE THIS WORLD OF SUFFERING?

REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
Introduction

The question of suffering has helped create an epidemic of atheism in our society. And for some, agnosticism.

The question of suffering as proposed, goes something like this:

" _If God exists, why is there so much suffering?"_

This question comes in other various forms as well:

" _If God is good, why do children starve?"_

" _If God is fair, why are some born with congenital diseases?"_

" _If God is kind, why do people die?"_

This can also come in the form of a first-person question:

" _Why has God given me this disease?"_

" _Why would a kind God make me suffer like this?"_

A theist may bristle at these questions. Yet these are, in fact, intelligent questions. They are necessary questions.

These questions boil down to: Is God not fair? Is God not kind? Does God enjoy making us suffer?

These questions are not being adequately answered by today's many sectarian religious institutions and their teachers.

As a result, many people have either made the determination that there is no God (atheist). Or they have taken the position that they don't know whether God exists or not (agnosticism).

Some sectarian institutions and their teachers have even reverted to speculative philosophies that God is vengeful and mean. They communicate that God enjoys making us suffer. Or that God punishes people for not being devoted to Him.

Many of these have been derived from sectarian translations of the Old Testament, portraying God as being a vengeful and angry God.

This teaching has also led many to reject the acceptance of God, based upon the assumption that they do not want to have a relationship with a vengeful and angry person that they have to constantly fear.

This point of fear has worked in the past, however. And it still works today, for those institutions that want to scare us into coming to their churches, synagogues or temples. The idea that if we don't join their group we will suffer even worse than we suffer now is an attractive enticement for many.

Others simply take the atheistic or agnostic position to protect themselves from the fear. `

Supporting the agnostic or atheist conclusion are so many materialist scientists. Many of these will say there is no scientific evidence for the existence of God. They claim there is neither evidence, nor is there any rationalization for the existence of God.

We combat this position with irrefutable logic and evidence in our book, _"The Science of Faith."_

Nevertheless, in order to first come to a position of confidence in the existence of God, this question of suffering must be answered.

And to answer this question of suffering, we must also answer a number of other questions, regarding our identity, our purpose and the meaning of life itself.

That is what the purpose of this book is. To step through the various keys to understand the universe and why there is suffering in the physical world.

This book will also explain why suffering is a manifestation that is separate from our selves. It could be compared to the suffering that takes place within a dream.

Furthermore, this book will explain the ultimate purpose for the physical world and how suffering relates to our journey of learning. This book will also explain how we can extract ourselves from the consciousness of suffering, and regain our original pure state of bliss within the spiritual realm.

The format of this book is in question form. The central questions that revolve around the issue of suffering relate to who we are, why we are here and what our purpose is. After these, questions relate more specifically to why good and bad things happen, why there are consequences for things and so on.

Then as we get through answering these important questions, we can tackle the super-critical questions relating to what is suffering and why is there suffering in the physical world.

Then finally, these lead us to the role that the Supreme Being plays in the physical world, and ultimately, who is responsible for the suffering that takes place here.

As we delve into these topics, numerous other questions often come up. For this reason, this text has been oriented around asking and answering this myriad of important questions about our existence, and the existence of the Supreme Being.

Please know that this project was not undertaken lightly, nor without guidance. This book is not speculative commentary or guesswork. The information presented here has been derived from confidential teachings handed down through generations of spiritual teachers – from devoted Teacher to humble student, for thousands of years.

Please excuse if some of the precepts included in this book are repeated. The purpose is to lay out the situation from several viewpoints and contexts, in order to create a clearer understanding.

Thank you for taking the time to read this work. I pray you find it useful to your search and journey home.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions by email on the copyright page.

Question One: Who am I?

The first question that must be answered in order to adequately answer the central question of this text relates to identity. Since we are speaking of suffering, we must first ask WHO or WHAT is suffering?

If we assume that "I" suffer, then we must ask, who is that "I" is purported to suffer? WHO or WHAT is being subjected to suffering?

One may scoff at this question, but it is a necessary one.

Let's consider an example. Let's say a pregnant woman gets in an automobile accident, and she is in pain from her wounds. What about the fetus? Is the fetus also feeling pain? Both were seemingly involved in the auto accident. But perhaps the fetus didn't feel a thing – just some motion.

In the same way, as we speak of suffering, we must take a step back to determine just what or who is suffering.

What is suffering? Most of us will assume suffering is related strictly to the sensation of physical pain. But some will include mental anguish. We can assume the experience of suffering relates to the following:

Physical pain – pain of the physical body

Physical trauma – a chronic physical struggle.

Emotional/mental pain – suffering related to mental anguish or moods.

Suffering in all of its forms can be focused down to one or a combination of these three types of pain or trauma. In most circumstances, suffering will begin with physical pain. Or there will be generalized discomfort which may endure. Often, mental anguish will follow as that pain and traumatic experience is reflected upon or re-experienced in some form or another.

These sorts of traumatic experiences often create a long-term emotional fall-out. This sort of mental anguish is often described as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. A fancy name for the after-affects of experiencing physical pain and trauma.

Sometimes physical pain will be chronic. That is, the pain will be enduring for awhile. This sort of pain can create long-term trauma as one attempts to adjust and adapt to a chronic struggle.

The bottom line is that since the sources of suffering are either physical or mental pain and trauma – they are rooted in either the physical body or the mind.

Therefore, our question should now become, are we the physical body? Are we the mind? Since these are the subjects of pain and trauma, these are worthwhile questions.

So let's uncover the answer to the underlying question – who am I?

### Am I the physical body?

If we ask someone who they are, they will most likely describe their body's physical features. Or perhaps their body's country of origin. They might say "I am American" or "I am British." Or "I am black" or "I am white." Or "I am a woman" or "I am a man." Or "I am five feet tall and weigh 125 pounds" or "I am six feet and weigh 200 pounds."

This begs the logical question: Am I this physical body?

If so, what happens when my body changes? Do I become a different person?

What happens if I change my hair color or get a tattoo?

What happens when my body gets older?

What happens if my body gets crippled or I lose an arm or leg?

When my body changes, does my identity change?

This is answered simply by each of us as we refer to something we did in the past. We will say, "when I was younger, I ________." Even though it was five, ten even 20 years ago, we still feel that I am still the same person I was – indicated by the use of the word "I". If we didn't think that I was me 20 years ago, we wouldn't use "I" or "me."

This constant self-identification becomes more important when we realize that science has determined that practically every molecule and atom in our body is recycled and replaced within five years. This means the makeup of our body is constantly changing.

Most of us assume that our identity runs deeper than our physical body. A person with a black body wants equality with a person with a white body because that person considers that beneath the skin, we are all of the same substance. Similarly, a person with an obese body wants to be treated equally with someone with a more slender body. Why would we request equality unless we are assuming we have deeper identities?

### The debate of the self

As science has debated this topic, there have been two general views (Popper and Eccles 1983): The first assumes a machine-like information-processing generating system with various modules of activity, all competing for control. This "chaos-machine" theoretically builds upon a system of learning and evolution without any central person or actor.

The other, more prevalent view historically portrays the body as driven by an inner self or life force, central and governing to the body's existence. Proponents of this inner self model have included Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Jesus and many other teachers and philosophers throughout modern and ancient history. For example, Jesus taught:

" _Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul." (Matthew 10:28 NIV)_

While some have considered the soul as some sort of organ or component of the body, others refer to the soul as part of a trinity: "body, mind and spirit."

The word "soul" from Jesus' statement is translated from the Greek word, ψυχή (psychē), which means, according to Strong's lexicon, "the vital force which animates the body and shows itself in breathing" and "the seat of the feelings, desires, affections, aversions." The lexicon goes further to say, "the soul as an essence which differs from the body and is not dissolved by death (distinguished from other parts of the body)."

Thus, according to Jesus, we do not have a soul – each of us is a soul.

### Do I die when my body dies?

We know every body dies. We can easily observe that the body no longer functions. Regardless of which outward signs and symptoms we use, there is a dramatic change in the body at the time of death. The body ceases to function. The body ceases the display of life and the outward demonstration of personality.

Where did this personality go then? Did it disappear into thin air? Did it evaporate with the final breath? Did this personality die with the death of the body?

Before we can fully understand death, we must understand life. What is a live person, and what is the difference between life and death? What is the difference between a dead body and a living body, and how is the personality we know and hold dear connected with life?

This means we must delve into the source of the energy and life of the body. Where is the generator of the body? Who or what is running the body? This certainly relates to the concept of identity: Are we each simply a temporary physical body? Are we simply cellular machines that decompose after a few decades?

### What's a dead body?

Discerning the difference between a living body and a dead body was the topic of deep discussion among Greek philosophers. The existence of a living force separate from the body was concluded by Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Socrates, Hippocrates, Pythagoras, Origen and many others.

Hippocrates, for example, professed that the life within the body was due to a "vital spirit" within, which acted through four different humors.

When one of Socrates' students asked him how he wanted to be buried, Socrates gave them a clear reply: He told them they could do whatever they wanted with his body, because he would be long gone by then.

When we see a living body full of life, movement, energy, personality and purpose, we can understand these symptoms of life are residing within the body.

But observation made at the time of the body's death indicates this living force departs at the time of death.

When death arrives, suddenly the symptoms of life cease: There is no movement, no energy and no personality remaining within the dead body. The body becomes lifeless. There is no growth, no will, no personality and no purposeful activity in the body following the moment of death.

For centuries, doctors, scientists and philosophers have autopsied, dissected and otherwise examined millions of dead bodies. No one—not even modern researchers with highly technical instruments—has been able to find any chemical or physical element missing from a dead body that was previously present when the body was alive.

The dead body has every physical and material component the living body had. All of the cells are still there. The entire DNA is still there. All the nerves, the organs, the brain and central nervous system—every physical molecule and cell—are still resident in the cadaver.

The one and only claim of a difference, reported in 1907 by Massachusetts physician Dr. Duncan MacDougal, proposed a 21-gram weight difference between a dead and live body. He could not identify the substance of the difference, however. Dr. MacDougal's results were also inconsistent—and were never corroborated.

MacDougal's experiment consisted of monitoring six patients as they died upon a table rigged with a beam scale. Of the six, two were eliminated because of technical issues. Three subjects died of tuberculosis. Two of these were losing weight before and after death by "evaporation and respiratory moisture."

One subject died from "consumption" and seemingly lost ¾ of an ounce in weight as he was dying—later converted to 21.3 grams. Dr. MacDougall admitted that it was difficult in some cases to know at what point the patient had died (MacDougall 1907).

A fellow doctor in Massachusetts, Dr. A. Clarke, debated Dr. MacDougal's hypothesis and conclusion. Dr. Clarke argued that the typical sudden rise in body temperature before and subsequent cooling without circulation upon death could account for slight weight changes due to evaporation. Especially noting some of the patients had lethal tuberculosis.

While Dr. MacDougal assumed the moment of death occurred when the patient convulsed a bit and then lay still without breathing, modern research tells us that brain death must also occur—something Dr. MacDougal was not monitoring for.

Until his own death in 1920, Dr. MacDougall tried to repeat the results and could not confirm his findings. In one test, he cruelly killed fifteen dogs while weighing them and found no weight loss. No other study has substantiated such a theory of weight loss upon death. The 21-gram concept is now relegated to urban myth.

With the exception of this urban myth of a 21-gram difference, many centuries of cadaver research and autopsy have carefully examined organs, bones, nerves, brain, blood, neurochemistry and other vital body parts. None of these studies has found any structural or biochemical difference between a live and dead body. The dead body is simply missing an immeasurable element of life that once animated the body: An invisible force that gives the body personality, energy, motivation, and the will to survive.

The life force that drives the body has never been seen under a microscope or by any other physical instrument. Furthermore, since this living force separates from the body at death—leaving the physical body with no life—it is obvious that this life force is not physical in nature.

As the Greek philosophers promulgated, since the personality is also gone when this life is gone from the body, it would also be logical that our personality is part of this life force, and not part of the physical body. The physical body—including all the DNA and neurons—remains intact in a lifeless, dead body. Therefore, this life force must also be separate from these physiological parts—DNA, neurons, the brain, organs, cells and so on.

This might be compared to a car. The car drives around only when there is a driver within the car directing its movement. When the car driver gets out of the car, the car remains immobile – devoid of direction and purpose.

Since the driver can leave the car, we know the driver is separate from the car: The driver is not the car—just as we are not this physical body.

### Which body part am I then?

Following an amputation due to an infection or other injury, no one would claim the amputee is any less of a person. This is because the same personality is there despite a massive structural change in the body. This logic can be extended to even severe cases such as the loss of both arms and legs or other major parts of the anatomy.

An explosion or other traumatic accident might leave ones torso intact while amputating both the body's arms and legs. Regardless of losing these appendages, the person is still perceived as a whole person—the same person as before—even though their body cannot function the way it did before.

The person who operates the body still contains the same conscious being with the same personality. This is why paraplegic and quadriplegic rights are protected by law; and why Dr. Steven Hawking, a quadriplegic, is considered one of the today's foremost theoretical physicists despite his physical handicaps. He is regarded as no less of a person than the rest of us. Physically disabled people are given equal rights because society considers these persons equal in all respects, despite deficiencies in their physical bodies.

The physical organs illustrate the same logic. It is now commonplace in medicine to surgically remove and replace organs such as kidneys, livers, hearts, hips and other parts in order to preserve the healthy functioning of the body. Some parts—like hearts and hip sockets—are now replaced with artificial versions.

Modern medicine has illustrated through many years of organ transplants that a person's identity does not travel with the organ. Otherwise, we might have—as a few comedic theatrical performances have suggested—people whose personalities reflect their organ donors. Imagine what would happen if someone receiving a heart transplant assumed part of the personality of the dead donor. We'd truly have a mess on our hands.

This situation is analogous to an auto accident: A car is involved in an accident and brought to an auto mechanic. The mechanic determines that the car needs a new set of tires, a new set of bumpers put on, and the engine rebuilt before the car can be put back on the road. The driver waits for the repairs to be completed, and then gets back in the car and drives it away. The new car parts do not affect the driver. The driver is the same despite the car's mechanical changes.

In the same way that the driver is not the car or the car parts, we are not the body or the body's parts.

### Am I the body's cells?

Throughout its physical lifetime, our body is continually changing, yet we continue to maintain our core identity and consciousness. Research has shown all living cells in the body have a finite lifespan, ranging from minutes to days to years. A few cells—such as certain brain cells and central nervous system cells—may exist through the duration of the body.

These are the tiny minority of the estimated 200 trillion cells making up the body, however. By far the vast majority of cells in the body will participate in cell division. Following a certain number of divisions, the older cells will timeout. Dead cells are broken down by the immune system and discarded, leaving the newly divided cells in their place.

Using this process the body constantly sloughs off older cells from the body, replacing them with new ones. Different cells in different parts of the body have different lifespans. For example:

-Most intestinal wall cells are replaced about between two and four days

-Stomach lining cells are replaced between two and nine days

-Blood neutrophils and eosinophils are replaced between one and five days

-Lung alveoli cells are replaced within eight days

-Blood platelets are replaced within 10 days

-Skin epidermis cells are replaced within a month

-The entire liver is regenerated within 18 months

-All the cells of the bones are replaced within ten years

-Bone osteoplasts are replaced within 90 days

-Cells of the heart (cardiomyocytes) are replaced at a rate of up to 10% per year

-Fat cells are all replaced within eight years

-Stem cells are replaced within a few years – often 3-5 years

-The cells of our entire skeleton are replaced within 10 years

-Nerve cells and the cells of the lens can live longer—for decades, and some over the lifetime of the body. However, most of the composition of all cells, including many nerve and stem cells, also turnover.

### Don't atoms within cells also turnover?

Every cell in the body is made up of ionic and molecular combinations. The atoms that make up these molecular combinations are constantly being replaced. Each cell's cytoplasm, organelles and membrane are thus made up of recycled atoms.

These atoms are constantly being replaced with atoms from the matter we take in from breathing, eating and drinking. New atoms enter the body from the environment. Old atoms are expelled through waste and respiration. The processes of each cell – cell membrane diffusion, osmosis and ionic channel conveyance – allow a constant recycling of atomic elements.

Research in the 1950s led by Dr. Paul Aebersold – at the Oak Ridge Atomic Research Center – found that approximately 98 percent of all the atoms in the body are replaced annually.

Consider this carefully. This means that the vast majority of the body's composition is undergoing constant change.

### What are the longest living cells?

In 2005, researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Medical Noble Institute at Karolinska Institute utilized carbon-14 analysis to study the lifetimes of cells in the body.

Again they confirmed some of the turnover rates of cells as listed above. They also found that many of the brain's cells are generated (neurogeneration) when the body is young, and many brain and nervous system cells also turnover during our body's lifetime.

Yet they also found a few types of neuron cells are exceptions. These can live without dividing for decades – and can possibly live over the lifetime of the body. These include neuron cells of the occipital cortex.

However, these cells will also turnover molecules and atoms from their cell membranes, cytoplasm and organelles. The research found that only their genetic matter – the nucleotides of their DNA – appear not to turnover as quickly.

Thus we find that even these longest-living cells in the body still undergo vast change in atomic composition: With the exception of those tiny nucleotides within their genetic matter, which turnover more slowly.

In other words, the research confirms that the vast majority of our body's cells and atoms are undergoing constant recycling. Those neurons that last longer will still turnover the majority of their atomic composition.

### Doesn't our body change daily?

Understanding that our physical bodies change nearly every cell within days, weeks or years; and all our body's atoms and molecules are being replaced from the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe, we can accurately make the following statement:

The body we are wearing today is not the same body we were wearing ten years ago.

The vast majority of the cells, molecules and atoms that made up that body have been replaced by new cells, molecules and atoms. There may be a few atomic threads of genetic matter remaining – but our body today as a whole is now made of predominantly different composition than the body we had on ten years ago.

This might well be compared to a waterfall. The water within a waterfall is always changing. From moment to moment, the waterfall will be made up of different water. Therefore, the waterfall we see today is not the same waterfall we saw yesterday. Now some of the larger rocks under the waterfall might be the same rocks we saw yesterday, but the waterfall itself – the water making it up – is completely different water.

Since each of us is the same person from moment to moment and year to year within an ever-changing body, logically we must each have a composition that is separate from this temporary fluidic vehicle – the physical body.

Logically, we could not be this body, since most of the body is constantly being recycled while we are still the same person.

For example, should we look at our photograph taken ten years ago, we will be looking at a different body from the one we are wearing today. The face we see in that picture is gone. The face we are wearing now is completely different than the face in the picture. The entire skin of the body we have on now has been replaced. The entire skeleton will be different. The cells of the heart, lungs, liver, digestive tract, blood many other parts will all be new. The vast majority of the atoms that made up our body ten years ago are gone. They've been replaced by new atoms.

Our body has changed but we are still the same person. How can this be? It can only be if we are not the physical body.

### Does our body contain more bacteria than cells?

In addition to the point that the vast majority of our body's cells and atoms are being constantly replaced, we should understand that our body contains more bacteria than cells: A lot more.

Microbiologists have estimated that the typical human organism contains ten times more bacteria than cells. The typical body will contain about 200 trillion cells. But that same body will contain about 2,000 trillion bacteria units, of hundreds of different species.

Each of these bacteria are single-celled living creatures. Yes, like our cells, bacteria have cell walls and cytoplasm and organelles. They also typically have a short lifespan. Our body's bacteria will reproduce by division anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. So like most of our cells, the precise makeup of our bacteria is also constantly undergoing change.

But unlike our cells, bacteria are also living organisms in themselves.

Research has found that bacteria, in fact, have consciousness. They will communicate with each other using quorum sensing along with biochemical secretion. Indeed, bacteria also communicate with their host (our bodies) utilizing cytokines and other biochemicals. In this way, they can stimulate the body's immune system and also help regulate the body's moods and biorhythms.

In fact, our body cannot survive without these bacteria. They are an important part of the body.

Therefore, not only can we conclude that the human body is constantly undergoing cellular and molecular/atomic change: We can also state with scientific integrity that the human organism is a significant host for numerous other organisms. Thus it might be compared to a planet of sorts – just as the earth hosts and supports so many organisms.

This human organism – constantly undergoing cellular, molecular, atomic and microbiological change – is thus not the solid, stable structure we might imagine it to be.

Rather, it is a fluid structure. It is a complex recycling mechanism that supports life. Not only does it support trillions of microorganisms. This mechanism supports a living entity within – a living being separate from the body's ever-changing cells, molecules, atoms and bacteria.

This is each of us – the spirit-person within – a life force composed of an altogether different constitution.

### Am I the brain?

One might propose that since we have yet to transplant someone's brain maybe we are the brain. Or perhaps we are the neurons that make up the brain.

The famous neurosurgical experiments documented by Dr. Wilder Penfield gave many the first glimpse into the brain. With the patient awake and able to respond, Dr. Penfield was able to stimulate particular memories in the patient along with other sensory impressions by touching certain parts of the patient's brain during brain surgery.

These results and their many confirming experiments left doctors with an impression that life must reside in the brain since emotional memories were stimulated with the electrode testing.

However, this assumption is disputed by later brain research over the past fifty years on both humans and animals. The assumption that the emotional self is contained in the brain has been conflicted by the many cases of a patient's emotions and memory remaining after parts of their brain had been removed. Some patients that had a majority of the brain removed still exhibited emotions and memory.

Furthermore, there are a few documented cases where people have had little in the way of brains, yet they still had memories and cognition.

But wait, isn't the brain the location of the storage of all of these memories and impressions?

### Doesn't brain function and memory move around?

The research of Dr. Karl Lashley in the 1920s tried to find what he called the "engram" – or specific locations where different types of memories are stored. Surprisingly, he found that different people and animals store similar types of memories in different places instead of in the same place. He concluded that memories can be stored throughout the brain – not just in selected locations.

This was also the conclusion of Dr. Penfield, mentioned above. During his neural stimulation research, Dr. Penfield found once again that different memories could be triggered from different places in different people.

Neural stimulation triggers were often found among the temporal lobes – located on the each side of the brain. But within these two lobes, the precise location of each triggered memory was again found to often be in different places – depending upon the person.

The problem this research produced was the assumption that the brain was an organ with different parts performing specific functions could not be substantiated. It was inconceivable that functions could be moved to different parts of the brain if needed. So neurologists had to go back to the drawing board.

This anomaly was eventually called neuroplasticity. First it explained the ability of triggers for the recall of memories potentially being located in slightly different locations within the brain, depending upon the person.

Over the years, neuroplasticity was expanded to encompass the ability of many brain functions to be located in different parts of the brain: This is notable among cases where part of the brain has been damaged by stroke or trauma.

In these cases of stroke or brain trauma, often the patient will recover motion or other neurological function even though the part of the brain that previously controlled that is now dead. MRI research has found those neurological functions have been moved to other brain regions.

Neuroplasticity has also been seen in cases where children have been born with little or no brain – yet surprisingly have the ability to think and act as if they had a normal brain. What neurologists have found is that those functions commonly located in regions of normal brains have moved to other locations. These include the remaining brainstem and spinal cord.

### Can someone really survive with no brain?

Absolutely. This has been seen numerous times. Recently, for example, a child was born in 2013 completely without a brain – only a brainstem. Aaron – the child – just celebrated his second year of life and still is without a brain. He recently said his first word, "mummy." Yet here is what the mother was told when the child was born:

" _A brain scan carried out on Aaron had revealed only his brain stem had properly formed"_

This is technically called holoprosencephaly – and will occur once in about 5,000 births. Often the baby will die, but then there are those babies who defy the presumption that a typical brain is required for life – and continue to live – like Aaron.

But this understanding that the brain's functions can be relocated is not new. It has also been found among many cases of hemidecortication – when a major part of the brain – an entire cortex or even half the brain – has been surgically removed.

It was assumed in early hemidecortication surgeries – done after accidents or other extreme situations – that the brain would lose all the function of that cortex or region removed. But surprisingly, in many cases, the person eventually resumes normal activity. In these cases, it is found that the functions of the brain previously stored in the removed area has now been stored in the remaining portion of the brain tissues.

According to a substantial review done by Vargha-Khadem and Polkey (1992), numerous hemidecortication surgeries had to that point been conducted for a number of disorders. In a majority of these cases, cognition and brain function continued uninterrupted.

A few cases even documented an improvement in cognition. Additionally, in numerous cases of intractable seizures, where substantial parts of brain have been damaged, substantial cognitive recovery resulted in 80 to 90% of the cases.

### Who decides where brain functions get moved?

After many studies with MRI and other brain imaging, brain researchers have found that while memory location storage might be organized using the pallium, hippocampus or elsewhere, signaling from the frontal cortex appears to determine more precisely which memories will be kept and ultimately where they will be kept and how they will be sorted.

The frontal cortex has been called the brain's control mechanism. We might compare it to a control panel or a keyboard on a computer.

So who is the operator of that control panel or computer keyboard of the brain? Who is operating the frontal cortex? Since memories and brain functions can be moved, and are often stored differently by different people, and the memories we keep handy are being determined through the means of the frontal cortex, there must be an operator behind the frontal cortex:

This is the living being: The spirit-person within.

### Who remains when brain function moves?

This research described above illustrates that the inner self is not reduced by brain damage or removal. The same person remains after brain parts are removed. The same personality remains. Many retain all their memories. The majority of brain-damaged stroke patients go about living normal lives afterward as well.

Even in cases where memory, cognitive and/or motor skills are affected by cerebrovascular stroke, the person within is still present. Though handicapped, the person remains unaffected by the brain damage.

Over the past few decades, we have seen tremendous advances in science, as those who are unable to speak – are able to speak by having their brain connected to a computer with electrodes, allowing the person to use the computer as a virtual communication device. The computer is basically replacing part of the brain that used to operate the mouth and larynx.

One of the main functions of the brain is to operate the body. The impulses that drive and coordinate movement originates within the brain's motor cortex. Electrical signals are transmitted from the motor cortex through the central nervous system and the nerves, directly to skeletal muscles. These impulses in turn drive movement as the muscles are stimulated.

This is certainly a physiological system – a mechanical system. Can this mechanical system be duplicated?

At Duke University, scientists have in essence, duplicated this technology. While certainly not as sophisticated as the physical body, they have been able to create machinery to produce similar effects. Researchers have now been able to duplicate some of the brain and CNS motor operations to enable those who cannot walk or otherwise move to operate a sort of bionic body.

They utilize a computer and relay system is set up to relay information into what is called a "pneumatically powered exoskeleton." The person's body is placed within this exoskeleton – sort of like a robotic suit – to help those whose bodies have become paralyzed or otherwise not operational – so the exoskeleton does the walking and moving with their paralyzed bodies placed inside.

Using this device, part of the brain is connected with electrodes to a computer, and the computer sends signals to a sort of suit – the exoskeleton. As the person desires to move, the person sends signals to the computer and the computer sends signals to the suit machinery, to move this leg or move that arm. So the exoskeleton moves – just as the body is set up to move – through electrical signals sent through a relay system from a computer.

The contraption – the computer and relay system combined with the exoskeleton suit – is duplicating the operations of the motor cortex – which pushes electrical signals from the brain to the parts of the body the person wants to operate. Some are calling this the "bionic brain."

In other words, a machine has been designed to duplicate what the motor cortex of the brain does. What does this make the brain? A machine – a tool we use in order to operate the body and navigate the physical world. Just as the person using the exoskeleton can take this device off and remain alive, the person who is operating the brain is separate from the brain.

So who is operating the brain? Just as we see in the new exoskeleton and bionic brain that someone has to be there to send the signals into the computer to operate the exoskeleton, there must be someone within who is operating the brain, enabling it to send signals through our body, as well as compute things taken in by the senses.

### Who ultimately operates the brain?

Who is that person within who is operating the brain? It is the nonmaterial self. It is you.

Personality and the self-perception are not brain-dependent. Many organisms exert personality and perception without even having a brain. Bacteria, for example, do not have brains, yet they can identify and memorize a wide variety of skills and events, including what damaged or helped them (self-perception) in the past. Other organisms such as plants, nematodes and others maintain self-perception and even memory without having brains or even central nervous systems.

MRI and CT brain scans on patients following brain injuries or strokes have shown that particular functions will often move from one part of the brain to another after the functioning area was damaged.

We must therefore ask: Who or what is it that moves these physical functions from one part of the brain to another? Is the damaged brain area making this decision? That would not make sense. Some other guiding function must be orchestrating this move of the function. What or who is guiding this process?

The retention of memory, emotion, and the moving of brain function from one part of the brain to another is more evidence of a deeper mechanism; an operator or driver within the body who is utilizing the brain—rather than being the brain. The driver is the continuing element.

Physical structures – inclusive of memories and emotions – continually undergo change, while the driver remains, adapting to those changes.

The spirit-person – each of us – is of a substance different from the physical body. This spirit-person is operating the brain – just as a person might operate a computer.

### Am I the mind?

Like the body, the mind is a tool the self uses. It is a subtle recording device which catalogs all of the input from the senses.

Just consider all the images, impressions and considerations we have deep within our minds. These include all types of information derived from the senses: Sounds and words from our ears; images from our eyes; tactile information from our skin and so on. The mind records faces we have seen and the events of our lives. Anything the senses have taken in to the brain is recorded onto the mind.

The software of the brain is the mind. The mind utilizes the brain's capacity, but it is still more subtle than the brain. The relationship between the mind and the brain might be compared to software and hardware in a computer. Software utilizes the hardware of the computer to do its functions, but the software is still independent of the computer.

While many insist that the mind is the brain, one cannot find the mind in a brain. Many brains have been dissected but the mind has never been found. Yet we know the mind exists, because we use it every day. The mind is more subtle than the brain. It lies within a different range of matter – just as computer software lies within another range of matter than the hardware of the computer.

### Who watches the mind?

Each of us can observe our mind. We can look into our mind and see recently-viewed images, sounds, or what something felt like.

We can, for example, observe something recorded onto the mind minutes, days and even years after the senses brought in that sensual input. We can, for example, remember a face when we see that face again. We can remember when we saw that face before.

Or we can hear a song and remember years earlier when we used to hear that song a lot. Who is recalling that song?

Or we can listen to a song that we just heard simply by reflecting upon the recording in our mind. We can also see the images of a movie we have just watched, or a beautiful scene of nature we saw earlier in the day.

In this way, we can observe what is in the mind at any moment. We may not be able to consciously watch everything the mind has recorded at any particular time. But we can typically see what is at the top of our mind's stack.

Who is observing the images and sounds recorded into the mind? Who is watching these memories?

If we were the mind, we could not watch the mind.

For example, a person who watches a television must be separate from the TV in order to watch it. The observer must be separate from that which is observed.

Like the gross physical body, the mind is separate from the self. The example of the mind being separate from the self can be easily shown by two exercises that illustrate the point above:

1) Pick any unique image – a unique or colorful painting for example. Stare at it for a minute or two. Now close your eyes. You should now see the image painted on your mind.

2) Listen to some music. Now turn it off and sit in a quiet room. You should now hear the music imprinted onto your mind.

### Can't we change our minds?

Like a television or a radio, we can also turn the mind's station, and change the mind's images. This can be done easily by changing what is inputted into the mind. We can thus change our mind.

The mind is a changeable, physical mechanism the living being uses as a tool. We often will change our mind. We will take in new information, and decide that how we are looking at things is wrong. We can adjust and change the way we consider things. We can change our minds about something, or change our minds in general.

Who is it that decides to change our mind about something? Since we can change our mind, we cannot be the mind.

### Am I just a bunch of chemicals?

Over recent years, various researchers have proposed that our identities are chemical. They have proposed that emotions and personality are seated within the chemicals – including hormones and neurotransmitters – that flow through the bloodstream, basal cell network and the synapses of our nervous systems.

Could our identities simply be a mixture of complex chemicals? A logical review of the scientific evidence would indicate otherwise.

Emotional responses to environmental stimuli will initiate any number of biochemical cascade pathways to occur within the body. A cascade occurs when one chemical release stimulates the release of another biochemical, and that biochemical in turn stimulates the release of another. The biochemicals in the cascade might stimulate a particular cell, tissue or organ function. With each cascade, there are initiating stimuli and subsequent responses from various tissues and nerves.

Because neurologists and other researchers have seen these biochemicals involved with emotional response, some have proposed that these biochemicals contain the emotion. They propose that chemicals such as endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, epinephrine, or acetylcholine each contain the particular emotions they reflect, and are thus the sources of the emotion.

They propose that these signaling biochemicals connect with receptors positioned at the surface of the cell; and the response by the cell is the emotion being released from the chemical.

An example some have used is the famed opiate receptor, linked with the cell's reception of morphine or endorphins, and the sensation of euphoria. The idea is that the feeling of euphoria is produced when the ligands like endorphin connect with the receptor.

One problem with this speculation is that no two organisms respond identically to the same chemical. With opiates for example, some may hallucinate while others may only respond casually. On the other hand, some may have nightmarish experiences. If these structurally identical neurochemicals contained the emotion, why would each person respond differently to the same chemical and dose?

Another major problem with this thesis is the observer: Who is observing that the body is feeling euphoria? Who observes the hallucinations created by certain chemicals? Who observes the positive or negative sensations of the body? The fact is, without an observer, there is no way to be able to view feelings. A physical body that is experiencing a physical emotional response with no observer would not allow the consciousness to review the experience.

Yet, the very scientists that suggest we are chemicals utilize observation and review to propose their theories. By their own "evidence" they are proving there is an observer.

If there were no observer – no self within – there could be no discretion regarding an event created by chemicals. There could be no judgment available as to whether the experience was positive or negative. There could be no available decision on whether the experience should be repeated or curtailed. There could be no analysis or learning experience from our activities. These require an observer of the experience.

The perception of pain – which involves chemicals – may offer some clarity. In 2005, Dr. Ronald Melzack, co-author of the widely-accepted gate control theory of pain transmission, updated his theory of pain from a simple gateway effect to one that accepted an observer self within.

Melzack's updated theory—which he calls the body-self neuromatrix—explains that the consensus of clinical research on acute pain, behavior and chronic pain indicates an independent perceptual state of self; observing and exchanging feedback and response with the locations of injury.

Because doctors and researchers have found a good portion of the pain response is unrelated to specific injury but rather a modification of sensory experience, this neuromatrix indicates that pain requires an interaction between the nervous system and what Melzack calls the "self."

In other words, pain requires two components: 1) The sensory transmission of pain and 2) the observer or experiencer of that pain.

Once that pain is experienced, there may also be a feedback response from the experiencer. This feedback may either be: 1) take action to remove the cause of the pain; or 2) if there is no apparent cause then become extra-sensitive to the pain until the cause is determined (Baranauskas and Nistri 1998).

This increased sensory elevation leads to what is called nociceptive pain—pain not appearing to have a direct physical cause. Some might also refer to this type of pain as being psychosomatic, although psychosomatic pain is often considered not real. Nociceptive pain is considered real, but its cause is not obviously physically apparent.

Regardless of the name, this type of pain is very difficult to understand and manage. This is especially true for doctors and patients who deal with chronic pain that appears unrelated to trauma or inflammation. Because the self naturally seeks pleasure, we would propose that the current cause of that pain is always real, from either a gross physical level or a more subtle level.

Regardless of the level, the self experiencing the pain would certainly be considered separate from the pain, along with any biochemical messengers assisting in its transmission. After all, how could the self "escape" pain unless it was separate from the cause of the pain? Because they increase the separation of the self from the pain source, pain medications are a multi-billion dollar business.

Since the biochemical transmission effectors such as substance P among neurons are present during pain responses, it is logical that these chemicals have a role in the physical responses to emotions or memories. However, the proposal made by scientists such as Candace Pert, Ph.D. that emotions exist within the chemicals is not supported by logic or observation.

Researchers have observed an increase in biochemicals like dopamine, serotonin, and various endorphins in the bloodstream during feelings of love or compassion. The question being raised is whether the emotions stimulated the biochemicals or the biochemicals stimulated the emotions.

The implications of proposing the limited view that the emotion was created by the biochemicals are many. This would be equivalent to saying love comes from biochemicals. It would open the door to a murder suspect pleading that his body's chemical balance was responsible for his committing the fatal crime.

Dopamine, serotonin and endorphins are circulating at heightened levels following activities such as laughing eating, sex and post-traumatic stress. These biochemicals are also circulating at other times, during other emotions, albeit at different levels.

What comes first, the biochemical or the emotion? Does the emotion drive the biochemical levels or do the biochemicals drive the emotional response? To break this down properly, we must separate the physiological response to an optional response relating to behavior and decision-making.

Yes, a biochemical reaction or ligand-receptor response can stimulate a physiological response. But can it dictate behavior? Could a hormone or neurotransmitter ligand-receptor response force us to shoplift? In that case, we should be able to find that certain biochemicals were "shoplifting" chemicals. We'd be able to just reduce their levels and forget about putting shoplifters in jail.

We'd also have to look at blood donors' criminal records before accepting their blood.

The reason we put shoplifters in jail is to teach them that shoplifting is morally wrong. This is decision for an observer—an inner self—who can observe the body's activities. Each of us can observe our activities and steer them with decision-making.

We may not always be able to steer our physiological responses, which also produce certain moods within the brain and nerves. But we can observe those moods and decide whether we are going to let them control our activities. While more shoplifters are likely to have bad moods, we aren't forced to shoplift by a bad mood.

If biochemicals create emotion, they would be present only in and prior to particular emotions. Instead, they are present during a variety of emotions. Again physiological changes can be brought about by biochemicals. But emotions stem from life: There is no emotion left in a dead body.

Furthermore, if chemicals could contain emotions, these emotional characteristics should exist in the chemicals both inside and outside of the particular body of the person experiencing the emotion. Illustrating this, health workers regularly remove biochemicals (in the form of body fluids such as blood, plasma and marrow) from one subject and transfer them (or their components) to other subjects. In none of these cases are emotions transferred from one person to another.

Supposed "emotional biochemicals" do not retain or display the emotions of their donor once they are transferred to a new host. Certainly, if we found that blood transfusions resulted in changes in personality or emotions, blood transfusions would not be very popular.

Thus, the basis for a biochemical self fails thousands of times a day around the world in hospitals that transfuse blood.

This is not to mean that injected biochemicals cannot stimulate a physical response within a new host, which may or may not facilitate particular emotions to be expressed. The organism receiving epinephrine or another neurochemical may experience a physical response consistent with the vanilla biochemical response related to that particular molecular structure. Injected adrenaline may produce a physical reaction of increased heart rate, for example.

However, adrenaline drawn from one person during a fearful response will not induce a recall of the donor's fears. The recipient's physical response after the injection will neither reflect the appropriate response required for the donor's particular fears.

Once the inner self responds to a particular sensory input—often signaled through biochemical reception—the unique emotional response of the self stimulates particular biochemicals to translate and express the emotion. In other words, these biochemicals help translate the emotional self's response.

Just as current travels within an electrical wire, neurotransmitters help transmit sensory feedback messages to the inner self. They also help transmit emotional responses from the inner self. The self is the observer of sensory input, and stimulates feedback responses utilizing some of the same biochemical transmission pathways.

We must therefore conclude that there is someone inside who is either—directly or indirectly—receiving and responding to the body's neural transmissions. Any response that proceeds with direction and decision-making must come from a conscious source. Otherwise we would simply be machines.

Fuel may ignite a spark in the cylinder of an automobile engine causing combustion, which will push the rods into motion, exerting force on the axel cranks. Fuel is not the original stimulant, however. Nor does fuel contain the ability to guide and steer the car. Rather, there is a driver within the car who consciously turns the key, presses the gas pedal and drives the car to a particular destination using the steering wheel, accelerator, and brakes.

At the end of the day, the driver stimulates the flow of fuel through the injection system by pressing the gas pedal. The driver can also stop the flow of fuel and the electricity running through the engine by turning off the car.

When the driver of the body leaves at the time of death, there are no emotions exhibited in the dead body. Yet all the hormones, neurotransmitters, genes and cells—all the biochemical ligands and receptors—are still contained within the recently dead body. The body supports no memory or emotional response because there is no longer a conscious driver present. The conscious driver who drove the feedback and response neurochemistry has left.

Emotions elicited from a response to an observation or other sensual stimuli would logically come from someone separate from those stimuli. Because emotion is integral with interpreting stimuli, an observer would be necessary for that interpretation. Without an observer, there could be no decision-making: There would be no optional behavior.

This does not mean that all physiological responses require conscious interpretation and decision from the self. For example, should we touch the burner of a stove there is programming in place within the neural network to instantly react by pulling the hand away. This will often happen before the self has a chance to make a decision. However, this programming does not mean the self cannot engage in the decision to resist that reaction of pulling away.

A firewalker may intentionally walk on the coals despite his sympathetic system's programmed response to jump away onto the cool sand. These observations lead us to understand that the self can be involved in almost any sensory reception should there be determination and intention.

Most other stimuli requires the emotional self to respond. Otherwise, no action would occur. This is where intention comes in. Upon hearing the alarm in the morning, the self could choose to do nothing—lying in bed for the rest of the day. The self could also intend to accomplish something that day, and rise to begin the day's activities. Ultimately, the self creates the intention and impetus for those activities.

While biochemicals participate in the process of conscious response and feedback, they are actually conductors for electromagnetic wave transmissions. Once sensual stimuli are pulsed to the neural network after ligand reception, neurons produce specific information waves. As we will discuss later in more depth, at any particular point in time, there are billions of brainwaves of various frequencies moving through the brain. As the different waves collide—or interfere—they create different types of interference patterns.

The neurological research headed up by Dr. Robert Knight at the University of California at Berkeley and UC at San Francisco illustrated that the interaction of these interference patterns together formulate a type of informational transmission and mapping system.

This mapping system forms a type of observational screen from which the self can view incoming waveform information. Using this mapping system, the self can view the sensory information coming in from sense organs, and combine these with the feedback from the body, creating a total perception of ones environment and situation.

As the self views these waveform interference pattern images, we can respond with intention. Intention from the self is typically translated through the prefrontal cortex and medial cortex to create brainwave patterns that express the self's response. These response brainwave patterns are translated through the hypothalamus and pituitary gland to produce master hormones such as growth hormone, adrenocorticortropic hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone, oxytocin, luteinizing hormone, and others, stimulating the cascade of biochemicals that translate the response into action. The brainwave transmissions also stimulate a particular nervous system response which activate particular muscles, organs and other tissues.

The end result is a physical action combined with certain biochemicals that stimulate a physical response.

We can illustrate this process more practically. Let's say that we heard from a friend that a relative was hurt. The transmission brought through our body's ears will cause an emotional reaction from us as soon as we hear it. The emotion was experienced following the aural reception of the announcement. Upon interpreting the aural reception, our inner self—we—react emotionally. The particular response would depend upon our personal connection with the relative. It is not automatic. If they were a vicious, hurtful relative, we may react far differently than if they we had established a close personal relationship with them.

Assuming a close personal relationship, our inner self may then initiate a physical response, producing tears and a rush to the hospital to be with them. These physical activities were stimulated by the emotional response of our inner self.

The emotional response and subsequent activities of the body originate from a conscious individual. Because there must be an initiator for the production of the biochemicals that produce an emotional response, there is ultimately a source for the response that is invisible.

This is the same source that disappears at the time of death – the invisible difference between the life of the body and the death of the body is the individual spiritual self.

### Am I DNA?

A newer version of biochemical identity put forth by some doctors and scientists over the last few decades is the notion that the self is the genetic information—or the genome—of the body.

This is largely presumed because the genetic matter of some parts of the brain – those brain cells that live longer – may be retained throughout our lifetime. But even so, the vast majority of the atoms that make up our DNA throughout our body are replaced within a few years.

The larger assumption that we are DNA is buried within the theory that genes accidentally evolved from chemicals. The gene evolution theory supposes that genes, and life itself, spontaneously arose from a random pool of chemicals. This theory requires a process called spontaneous generation. Unlikely as it seems, the spontaneous generation of life theory was debated by scientists for hundreds of years, as they observed life seemingly growing from barren flasks.

Finally, Dr. Louis Pasteur refuted spontaneous generation by illustrating that this growth was due to the presence of tiny microorganisms invisible to the naked eye.

For many decades this assumption of spontaneous generation has continued nonetheless. And many researchers have attempted to create life from 'primordial' chemicals—all without success.

### Could life have randomly arisen from chemicals?

To analyze the likelihood of even one typical protein molecule to have been randomly developed, we can reference Nobel prize winner Dr. Francis Crick's statements in his book Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature. Here Dr. Crick calculates that the chance of even one conservative protein molecule of two hundred amino acids coming into existence is one chance in 10260 — the number one with two hundred and sixty zeros behind it.

Dr. Crick also states this would be analogous to a billion monkeys typing onto a billion typewriters and somehow typing one sonnet of Shakespeare.

The chance of a 1,000-nucleotide chain DNA molecule forming accidentally is more remote. Both Dr. Dawson and Dr. Crick agree with this. Lester Smith (1975) calculated the probability as about one in 10600.

The probability of genetic mutations accidentally leading to a new species is even more remote. Dr. Lee Spetner (1998) calculates that a new species (one positive mutation step) would have a probability of 2.7 x 10-2739 , (that is a probability of it not happening, of 2.7 with 2,739 zeros after it) using Stebbins' (1966) estimation that five hundred intermediate mutations would be required to establish one positive mutation step.

This fantastic assumption that chemicals spontaneously created genes and life also assumes that those chemicals combined then somehow developed the desire to survive. In other words, accidental chemical combinations somehow developed the intention to improve their chances of survival.

Have we ever observed chemicals desiring survival? Chemicals simply do not display this characteristic. No scientist has ever found the intent to survive outside of a living organism. No chemical desires survival unless part of a living organism—hence the name biochemicals (bio = life). Chemicals may react and form various substances, and certainly will change structure when heated or cooled.

### What about the desire to survive?

The desire to survive is connected to the desire to improve survival factors and eliminate threats to survival. The need to improve survival requires that someone values survival over death. Otherwise, we would be talking about a group of unconscious chemicals somehow beginning to value their existence.

Chemicals that value their own existence means that the chemicals could somehow recognize a difference between living chemicals and dead chemicals. This in turn requires that chemicals have awareness, because the desire to survive requires an awareness of self-existence. It also requires a fear of death: Could a chemical become afraid to die?

In order to desire survival, a living organism must be aware that it is alive. A living organism must be able to differentiate itself from a dead batch of chemicals. If there is no distinction between life and death, why avoid death? Why desire life without a distinction between living and nonliving chemicals? Certainly it would be easier for a batch of chemicals to remain dead than to have to struggle for survival in the midst of all the environmental challenges to staying alive.

A small unicellular organism can be killed by so many environmental challenges: Freezing, direct sun exposure and any number of natural enemies. If there were no distinction between living or dead chemicals, the path of least resistance would be to remain dead chemicals. Why try to survive without a benefit for living? If there were no awareness and desire for survival in the face of all this resistance, there would be no incentive for genes to develop and evolve towards greater complexity—the basic tenet of the evolutionary theory and the 'survival of the fittest.'

Put more simply, if a living entity could not distinguish itself from a nonliving entity, there would be no urge to survive. Without the urge to survive, there would be no motivating factor to encourage adaptation or mutation. There would be no impetus to evolve because survival is not valuable without an awareness of life.

### Doesn't selfishness require a self?

In his 1977 book _"The Selfish Gene,"_ Dr. Robert Dawkins proposed that genes themselves somehow became not only selfish in their orientation, but also somehow acted upon their selfishness.

Certainly, we can all agree that in order to become "selfish," there must be a "self." Without a self, how could something become selfish? How could there be an orientation towards oneself without there being a self?

We must also ask, logically, just who would be available to recognize life in a chemical-based existence? We are being asked to assume a batch of chemicals developed a state of consciousness, yet there is no individual (self) present within those chemicals to be conscious of being alive?

The incidental gene theory of life simply has no logical basis. Genes cannot desire survival. They cannot mutate, or make changes that promote survival without an underlying conscious self present within the organism – a self who values life and wants to survive.

This living being must be aware that it is alive, and must therefore value survival. Once the self values survival, it has a logical basis for making genetic and physiological adjustments to better adapt to the environment. Because the self is fundamentally alive when it is inserted into a temporary physical body, it naturally strives to survive within that organism.

Admittedly, the total mapping of the genome and further mapping of the individual allele locations within codons—their haplotypes and collectively, their hapmaps—reveals a complexity of design beyond our current understanding. But what could be driving that complexity?

Over the past three decades, tremendous research efforts have gone into creating statistical models to match the physical traits of humans and other organisms with particular gene sequences – called genomes. As a result, thousands of species genomes have been tabulated and connected with physical characteristics.

In addition, different diseases and traits have been connected to certain sequences. Although these efforts are laudable, science has unfortunately succumbed to a blurring of the relationship between these genetic traits and consciousness. The erroneous assumption is that gene sequences—the particular arrangement of alleles or nucleotides at different positions of the DNA molecule—are the cause of those physical or behavioral traits. That somehow, those sequences together make up the identity of the conscious individual.

### Is this a chicken-and-egg problem?

While some might call this a chicken-and-egg problem, the solution is certainly clearer than this. This assumption that the conscious self is a genetic hapmap would be equivalent to saying a telephone is the source of the voice we hear through the telephone speaker. It is elementary: The voice on the line is coming from a remotely located person: A conscious entity utilizing that phone.

We may not be able to see the person while we are speaking with them, but we know a conscious person is on the other side of the phone conversation because we exchange personal communication as we hear their live voice. In addition, the voice on the other side responds to our statements with a clarity that can only come from a conscious speaker.

There is no confusing the conscious speaker on the other side of the phone line with the phone itself. Thus there is no chicken-and-egg problem. There is a conscious living being within the body that is communicating its inclinations through the body's DNA.

### Can DNA have consciousness?

The sequencing of genetic haplotypes indicates its complex structure. This complex coding indicates programmed design. As with any programming, there must be an underlying consciousness designing this structure. It is not logical to assume that a complex, well-designed code with specific rules comes from a chaotic and accidental design process. Just as we can connect the lucid voice on the phone to a personal consciousness, we can tie the sequencing of genes to a living, conscious component, ultimately driving its design with intention.

If we were to extract a DNA molecule from our skin or body fluids, and place it onto the table or even in a test tube, we will find there is no display of life. Just as the body after death is lifeless, DNA or RNA molecules extracted from a living body become lifeless. It should also be clarified that RNA transcription and genetic mutation is impossible without consciousness driving the process.

We can certainly force a mutation upon an organism or its seed through the vehicle of a virus. Yet the mutation will only become duplicated through an organism if there is a conscious living force present in that organism. In other words, we cannot insert a mutated gene into a dead body and see that mutation replicated through the dead body.

### Doesn't personality come from consciousness?

The proposal that personality is determined by genetic code is refuted by children who have inherited genes from parents. Children are each born with distinct personalities, talents and character traits not necessarily portrayed in their parents or grandparents. While we are quick to notice similar physical traits among our children, each has their own character and personality.

We can easily observe children behaving significantly different from their parents in similar situations. We can also witness the many conflicts that arise between children and parents. We have also observed that the extraordinary talents of child music geniuses or savants are not passed down genetically. In most musical savant cases, the parents have relatively little or no musical gift whatsoever.

If personality and behavior were genetically driven then genetically identical twins would live parallel lives and have identical personalities. They would make the same decisions, leading to identical histories.

This is not supported by the research. Twins live dramatically unique and individual lives from each other. Depending upon how much time they spend together, they will make distinctly different choices in life as well. In general, they display significantly unique and often diverse behavior. Hur and Rushton (2007) studied 514 pairs of two to nine year old South Korean monozygotic and dizygotic twins.

Their results indicated that 55% of the children's pro-social behavior related to genetic factors and 45% was attributed to non-shared environmental behavior. It should also be noted that shared environmental factors could not be eliminated from the 55%, so this number could well be higher if shared environments were removed.

In another study from Quebec, Canada (Forget-Dubois et al. 2007), an analysis of 292 mothers demonstrated that maternal behavior only accounted for a 29% genetic influence at 18 months and 25% at 30 months. In a study of 200 African-American twins, including 97 identical pairs, genetics accounted for about 60% of the variance in smoking (Whitfield et al. 2007).

In a study done at the Virginia Commonwealth University's Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics (Maes et al. 2007), a large sampling revealed that individual behavior was only about 38-40% attributable to genetics, while shared environment was 18-23% attributable and unshared environmental influences were attributable in 39-42%. These studies are also confirmed by others, illustrating a large enough variance from 100% to indicate the presence of an individual personality within each twin.

Distinct identity despite genetic sameness is further evidenced by the fact that identical twins will have distinctly different fingerprints, irises and other physical traits, despite their identical genetics. Many twins also differ in handedness and specific talents. Researchers have found that twins will often have significantly different lifestyle choices later in life such as sexual preference, drug abuse, and alcoholism.

For example, say two people purchase the exact same make, model and year automobile at the same time. Comparing the two cars in the future will reveal the cars had vastly different engine lives and mileages. They each had different types of breakdowns, and different problems. This is because each car was driven differently. One was likely driven harder than the other was. One was likely better taken care of than the other was. They may have been the same make and model, but each had different owners with different driving habits.

Because twins have the same genetics—just as the cars shared the same make and model—the unique factors related to the eventual circumstances of their lives stem from the fact that each body contains a distinct driver.

Because geneticists are not aware of the inner self, they are now trying to resolve the inherent inconsistencies of the gene theory with the developing theories of epigenetics. In general, epigenetics is the acceptance of additional factors (called marks or phenotypes) that affect the switching on or switching off of genes.

This is also called gene expression. It was hypothesized—and confirmed by research—that while the DNA may or may not change within a species, there are many physiological and anatomical changes that will take place within a lifetime or within immediate generations that will reflect environmental changes.

These environmental changes are seen as turning on or off these phenotypes, enabling changes in the epigenome of the individual or family.

The concept of epigenetics was proposed by geneticist Conrad Waddington in the early 1940s to explain how environmental circumstances could effect genetic expression.

In the 1980s, Dr. Lars Olov Bygren studied Northern Sweden populations that descended from families who were isolated and subjected to periodic famines. He found that children of famines had different genetic traits than those who did not live through famine. Those who lived through periodic feast and famine years died sooner and had more cardiovascular disease.

As researchers have discovered more genetic anomalies—such as the twins research mentioned earlier—the concept of epigenetics has received increasing attention.

The biochemical relationships between gene expressions have focused upon the action of DNA methylation or histone regulation.

These biochemical messengers have been implicated in the process of switching alleles on or off. The assumption once again has been that the body's switching systems are purely mechanical and robotic. There is no intentional driver or observer present: Only a biochemical machine that somehow acts with desire and direction.

However, the very research by geneticists that theoretically supported epigenetics also exposed a major shortfall in the theory. In cruel mice experiments at McGill University's Douglas Hospital Research Center (Szyf et al. 2008), epigenetic phenotypes could be turned on and off within baby mice by the increased nurturing from the mother. In other words, baby mice receiving mama's nurturing would switch on genes differently than mice not receiving nurturing from mama mouse.

Quite simply, this indicates the presence of another influence upon the genetic switching of epigenetic phenotypes: That of an exchange between emotional personalities.

Nurturing is, in its very essence, the expression of love between one living being and another. When a mother communicates love through nurturing, the baby receives that expression of love through those nurturing activities. As the expression is received, there is a resonation or hand-shaking between the two living beings.

That resonation produces an effect upon genetic expression through the pathways of the brain, nervous system and the body's biochemicals, which bridge the self with the body and its genes.

The inner self is connected to the body's genes through conscious decision-making. The research has quite resoundingly connected environmental changes with epigenetic changes. Yet many environmental changes are the direct result of the decisions of the inner self.

Let's say we decided that we wanted to live in a warm climate. Furthermore, we decided that a warm climate was more important to us than having a good job. So we packed up our belongings and moved to Hawaii. We settled down in Hawaii and lived there for the next twenty years. Over that time, our body will undergo many adjustments as it accommodates the warm, humid weather of Hawaii. Eventually, these environmental conditions will affect the switching on and off of certain genes, ultimately changing our genetic outcome. One might be a longer life.

Epidemiological research has confirmed that Hawaii residents have the longest life expectancy among other states in the U.S.—at 80 years—while the average life expectancy of the rest of the country is 78.3 years. Without our conscious decision to give up our job and move to Hawaii, those physical (and epigenetic) results would never have occurred.

The bottom line is that epigenetics research illustrates that we are not the genes: We are the living being within these bodies, who can affect and change our genes with our conscious choices.

### Who is the observer?

Consider biofeedback. Sensors are attached to various parts of the body to monitor physical responses like heart rate, breathing, brainwaves, skin response, muscle activity, and so on.

These sensors are connected to a computer, which displays the various response levels onto a monitor for the subject to see. The heart rate amplitude and frequency readings will be displayed on the monitor in waves, bars, and/or numbers.

With a little practice, most people—once they see their heart rate with graphics clearly on the monitor—can consciously lower their heart rate with intention. Biofeedback has thus been used successfully to teach people to alter physical functions such as muscle tension, hunger, physical stress, and other autonomic functions.

Biofeedback training also gives the subject the ability to directly control a variety of physical conditions, including stomach cramps, muscle spasms, headaches, and others—many known to be part of a biochemical cascade.

But who is observing these functions and conditions?

The reason why the biofeedback subject can learn to control certain autonomic functions is that the self ultimately exists outside of these bodily functions.

The self is the key participant who influences physical functions. Once the person within intends to make a change, the mind will facilitate the stimulation of the biochemicals by the appropriate glands to produce a physiological response.

This can take time, discipline and practice. Even without biofeedback, a person can initiate various autonomic responses. Most of us have experienced how a physiological fear response may be initiated by simply imagining a dangerous event or situation.

This happens every day in the professional world, where executives stress over events that may never happen. Stress increases the heart rate and stimulates the release of cortisol and other stress-related biochemicals.

Most of us have experienced being worried about an event that may never happen. The resulting increase in our heart rate indicates our body's autonomic response to an over-anxious self. This is called stress or anxiety.

If the self can affect the body's biochemistry with anxiety, the self is separate from that biochemistry. Furthermore, if the self can affect the body's biochemistry intentionally, there is no question of the self's ability to direct the body through intention.

The range of control the self has over the body is limited by design. Still, there is no doubt that intention initiates the sequencing of instructional signaling through the body.

### What about neurotransmitters?

This neurochemical process would be analogous to a computer operator operating a computer. A computer will tabulate, calculate, and memorize data. It will display various graphics and perform various functions, based upon the input or direction of the operator. The software and hardware are designed in such a way to coordinate computer functions very quickly and automatically within particular limitations.

Regardless of the programming, the operator is required. The computer operator must decide to turn on the computer and must decide to input into the machine certain intentional commands to initiate the computer's programming functions.

In the same way, the physical body, with all of its functional chemistry and various physical responses, is ultimately being steered by the personality within: this is the self, the living being—the operator of the body.

It is difficult sometimes to separate the self inside the body from the various physical and biochemical operations of the body. This is because the feedback-response system bridges the self with the physical body.

Researchers have discovered that breastfeeding not only gives the child better nourishment and a stronger immune system, but also stimulates brain development due to some of the biochemistry of breast milk. This notion is consistent with the role various nutrients or drugs have in altering moods and behavior.

Chemicals influence behavior because they not only stimulate physical tissue response, but they also give feedback to the self about what is going on in the body. For example, the feeling of thirst is a neurochemical signal to the self that the body needs water. The combination of hormonal, osmotic, ionic and nerve signaling all integrate to stimulate osmoreceptors located among brain tissue (such as the anteroventral third ventricle wall).

Once stimulated, these receptors initiate signaling through the hypothalamus, which converts into the more subtle waveforms that connect with our mind. Through the reciprocation of the mind, the self observes this feedback, and responds by initiating action to find some water.

A computer will also feed back to its operator in the same way. The computer is not only designed to perform operations based upon the input of the operator, but also its programming is designed to feed back to the operator the results of those operations, signaling a need for new responses from the operator.

This process is called a feedback loop. The body's feedback system is designed to respond to environmental and physical changes around the anatomy. The system is designed to signal to the self on how the body is functioning.

This is one of the purposes for serotonin release in the body: To feed back the presence of balance within particular organs and tissue systems. A diet balanced in proteins, carbohydrates, and fats, along with physiological activities stimulate the conversion of tryptophan to serotonin.

This conversion is also stimulated by such activities as relaxation, laughter, and exercise. These are all positive activities for the body's metabolism. This combined state of balance and activity results in a normal flow of serotonin, which feeds back through the brain's translation systems to the self the presence of physiological balance among certain parts of the body.

Pain, on the other hand, indicates quite the opposite: Some imbalance exists somewhere. Pain feeds back to the operator the need for an adjustment among certain functions or activities. This necessary adjustment could be to the diet, fluid intake, sitting posture, lack of exercise, or perhaps an infection of some sort. Chronic pain indicates an unresolved lack of balance in the body, requiring an appropriate response to fix the issue.

### Isn't this like an instrument panel?

Just as an instrument panel on an automobile informs the driver of the running condition of car, we can monitor the condition of our body through these and other neurochemical feedback mechanisms. Just as the car driver slows down when the speedometer shows the car is over the speed limit, the self—directly through conscious control or indirectly through the autonomic system—can make the needed adjustment when the body's feedback systems indicate a problem.

Should we misidentify ourselves as the body, we might confuse positive feedback mechanisms as pleasure. This misconception leads us to attempt to manipulate our body's biofeedback mechanisms.

Eating, for example, will stimulate neurochemicals such as serotonin, dopamine and leptin when there is a balance of nutrition and energy. Another example is how our taste buds feed back positive neural signals when we eat something sweet or fatty. These are both positive responses to the body achieving its basic fuels.

In an effort to gain pleasure from these positive responses, many of us continue to eat long after the body has enough for its fuel. An ongoing attempt to become fulfilled through eating can result in obesity, frustration, and depression. In the same way, the car driver does not get full when he fills the car's fuel tank. Thus, the answer to obesity is the realization of this conflict between the body's fulfillment and the fulfillment of the self.

" _Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold; the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul." – Democritus ("The father of science," 4th century, B.C.)_

### What is clinical death?

Evidence concluding our identity as nonphysical has been presented by a number of respected researchers over the past four decades. With the advent of resuscitation and medical life-support technologies has come a proliferation of patients whose bodies have clinically died prior to resuscitation.

Author and researcher Dr. Raymond Moody pioneered this research in the 1960s, and thus introduced us to the Near Death Experience (or NDE). Dr. Moody presented hundreds of cases documenting common experiences among patients declared clinically dead in a clinical setting.

Dr. Moody's research reviewed a cross-section of thousands of cases of patients with a variety of religious and socio-economic backgrounds. Dr. Moody discovered a common experience:

After separating from the body, the self floats above it, viewing the various resuscitation efforts taking place on the body. This is often followed by the self remotely traveling to and viewing loved ones. Often traveling at the speed of thought to their homes or locations, the self often tried in vain to communicate with their loved one.

Afterward, many subjects detailed being drawn into a darkened tunnel with a bright light at the end. At the end of the tunnel, many either entered or saw a dazzling light or personality. Many reviewed their lives in an instant. Many went on to meet with this personality. In many cases, the personality indicated it was not "their time yet." Following this, many instantly returned to their body.

This usually coincided with the revival of the body. While specific experiences were often different, most NDE subjects experienced separation from their physical body and felt, at the very least, peaceful (Moody 1975). Naturally, this research had its skeptics. A few questioned Dr. Moody's protocols, which included patient selection and interview techniques.

This gap was quickly filled by Kenneth Ring, Ph.D. In a well-received peer-reviewed book published in 1985, Dr. Ring randomly selected 101 patients who had experienced an NDE. Dr. Moody's patients were collected as their data were presented to him. This offered some but not complete randomness.

By contrast, the 101 patients studied by Dr. Ring were chosen randomly to eliminate any bias, imagination, hallucination, inconsistency, and other elements possibly affecting the objectivity of their after-death experience. Of the 101 subjects, a third reported out-of-body experiences, and a quarter reported entering the darkness or tunnel with the light at the end. About 60% reported at least a positive, peaceful experience.

Those NDE subjects whose death was the result of a suicide attempt experienced no tunnel with light. The suicide NDEs in this study experienced a "murky darkness," after feeling separated from their body, but they did not proceed any further (Ring 1985).

Dr. Ring's findings—though not in the exact same percentages—were substantiated by professor of medicine and cardiologist Michael Sabom, M.D. in a 1982 work called Recollections of Death: A Medical Investigation. There have been other investigations confirming these experiences (Blackmore 1996).

Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross documents researching some twenty thousand cases of near-death in her 1991 book On Life After Death, confirming the same primary conclusions of the research done by Sabom, Moody and Ring. Upon review of the other various explanations, it appears unlikely any of the possible physical causes could suitably explain the NDE—except that the self is not the body.

The sheer cross-section of people with this same experience provides too much variance to provide any other rational explanation. The common NDE experiences regardless of the level of religious reverence, expectation levels, drug-administration, knowledge of NDE and brain or biochemical stimulation certainly provides few alternatives.

Additionally, when both Moody and Sabom tested the observations of NDE out-of-body observations with hospital staff, they almost without exception confirmed the observations the NDE subjects made from outside of a body clinically unconscious.

This research continues to this day, with many modern studies confirming the earlier findings of Moody, Ring, Sabom, Kubler-Ross and others. Physician Dr. Sam Parnia who is director of resuscitation research at Stony Brook University.

In one of these studies, Dr. Parnia and his colleagues interviewed 140 survivors of cardiac arrest whose bodies had clinically died, only to be revived later. Out of these, 55 described that they experienced awareness during the time their bodies were clinically dead. In addition, 13 felt themselves separate from their physical bodies. Seven saw a bright light; 22 people experienced peacefulness; nine felt joy; and some of the patients recalled negative experiences after their body physically died.

There are many experiences that illustrate evidence the person actually left their physical body. For example:

In an Austin, Texas hospital, Tricia Baker clinically died during surgery after a head-on collision. When interviewed after being revived, she recalled floating up to the ceiling, looking down upon her body. She watched the heart monitor go flatline.

Then she left the room and traveled down the hall. She saw her grieving stepfather purchase a particular candy bar from a vending machine – a whim from stress that he hadn't told anyone else about until he was questioned about following Tricia's interview (Henig 2016).

How could she have seen her stepfather purchase the candy bar while her body lay clinically dead in the surgery room?

There are many, many experiences just like this. While unconscious and with eyes closed these patients could hardly be expected to observe such events—unless they left their physical bodies.

Skeptical doctors have suggested some sort of paranormal or hallucinogenic experience. We must ask those skeptics: How logical is it to accept the notion of a paranormal experience but not accept an out-of-body observation? Especially when the out-of-body observation is substantiated with objective corroborated experiences?

The most logical and scientific approach – given not only the evidence here but the other evidence referred to – that there exists within the body a spiritual self: An entity separate from the body, who departs the body at the time of death.

### What is the soul?

Empirical and clinical evidence reveals the existence of a transcendental inner self operating the body. Why do we say "transcendental?" If the self were not transcendental to the physical plane we would be able to see it. We would be able to measure it with physical quantifications.

As it is, we can only see it in the animation of the body. We can only see it through the emotions that are expressed through the body. We can only see it in the decision-making and objectives that push the body to act one way or another. It is, in fact, the inner self's transcendental nature that has caused modern science to completely ignore the existence of the self.

The inner self is the source of personality and life, which the body expresses through physical activity over its lifetime. There is energy, personality and movement in a living body prior to death. This is followed by a lack of movement, personality and energy after the death of the body. This means that the source of the energy and personality must leave the body at death.

Furthermore, contrary to the proposals of many, since each personality is unique and different from everyone else, each inner self must also be an independent, individual being. We are not, despite the seductiveness of such a statement, "all one."

Consistent with the ancient teachings of all major religions, the ancient philosophers, and the vast majority of western scientists prior to the emergence of the accidental chemical life theory, we can now scientifically and empirically document the existence of a unique individual being, transcendental to the gross physical plane.

Plato, Socrates and most of the ancient Greek philosophers referred to this inner self as the soul. The translation is thought to originate with Aristotle, who described the self with the Latin _telos._

Rather than being a vague spirit-like organ, _telos_ translates to a personality with purpose, will, and character. In this context, we would emphasize that each of us does not possess a soul: each of us is a soul—accessing the physical plane through a temporary physical body.

We conclude with a comment made by the fifteenth-century physician, Paracelsus:

" _The power to see does not come from the eye, the power to hear does not come from the ear, nor the power to feel from the nerves; but it is the spirit of man that sees through the eye, hears with the ear, and feels by means of the nerves. Wisdom and reason and thought are not contained in the brain, but belong to the invisible spirit which feels through the heart and thinks by means of the brain."_

### Did Jesus teach about the soul?

Absolutely. Jesus repeatedly taught this lesson within his teachings and activities.

Here are but a few of the many statements Jesus made regarding our identity as spirit and not the physical body:

" _Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul." (Matt. 10:28 NIV)_

" _The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." (Matt. 26:41 and Mark 14:38 NIV)_

" _Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. (Matt. 6:25 and Luke 12:22 NIV)_

" _The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life." (John 6:63 NIV)_

" _Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit." (John 3:6 NIV)_

Jesus himself is also identified as spirit – and not his physical body:

Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last. (Luke 23:46 NIV)

Jesus' followers also understood that Jesus left his physical body at the time of death:

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. (Matt. 27:41 NIV)

When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:30 NIV)

Thus the scriptures clearly identify that Jesus' physical body died, as his spirit – himself – left the physical body. This is precisely what clinical death research has revealed, and what simple observation reveals – that the physical body becomes lifeless at the time of death because the spirit-person has left the body.

Jesus' disciples also taught this, as James stated:

As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. (James 2:26 NIV)

Jesus also taught that the Supreme Being – is spiritual:

" _God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth." (John 4:24)_

### Do I have a soul – or am I a soul?

Some refer to the self as the soul. If so, we would emphasize that each of us does not possess a soul: we each are a soul. That being said, some will also refer to the soul as one's level of morality or even one's mission. As we seek not to confuse, we refer to the self as the living being.

Jesus and other spiritual teachers have identified that we are not these physical bodies. Some have called the nonphysical self "spirit" – as Jesus did. Some have also called the nonphysical self "soul" – as Jesus also did.

We also may refer to the self as the transcendental living being to emphasize that the living being is not within the physical or material plane. Rather the living being is accessing the physical plane.

The word "spiritual" can also be misunderstood. Spirit can be confused with the subtle physical world of ghosts, which are living beings who are still embodied within the mind and subtle physical layers, yet without gross physical bodies.

For clarity, the word "transcendental" indicates the dimension transcending these gross and subtle physical layers of the physical world: That place where we are actually ourselves.

In the preceding sections we have illustrated the science and logic to conclude the existence of the transcendental living being. We are each such a living being, existing outside of the physical dimension, and distinguishable from the physical components of the body and mind.

The physical organism – a living physical body – is only alive when it has been injected with a transcendental living being. The physical organism is thus simply a physical body animated by this living being from within.

This living being cannot be seen by the physical eyes or other sense organs because it is made of a different substance: A substance of the spiritual dimension.

### Am I ultimately nothing or everything?

Many philosophers speculate that after death, the living being either fades into "nothingness," or expands into "everything." This philosophy proposes that the living being does not have an individual identity after death: Instead, the individual person or living being simply vanishes and evaporates into space.

Merging into "nothingness" — the void — and merging into "everything" — sometimes referred to as the white light — are basically the same proposition. In either case, there is no individuality. There is no separate existence of the living being in either of these scenarios.

To this we can offer the simple observation that individuals are born with unique and distinct personalities—some with even special talents such as being a musical or other gifted genius—pointing to an individual existence prior to birth. If a person existed as an individual before birth, does it make sense that a person would lose individuality after death?

The living being is the source of our personality, our feelings, emotions, desires, the ability to love, and the desire to be loved. Each of us is a separate, active living being.

Why would we exist now as separate beings, only to evaporate into everything/nothing? What would the purpose of this folly be?

Some propose that we not only merge into "everything" – but we are God. We are the Supreme Being and everything around us is our creation.

Such a notion can be disproved immediately. If you are God then why do I disagree with you? How can you state you are God yet you cannot even convince me that you are God? Furthermore, why can you not control time? Or your body's aging? Or death? Or others?

In fact, you cannot possibly be God. If you were, then things have gotten out of your control, and such a notion disproves the notion that you are God.

With regard to becoming nothing at the time of death, since you have maintained a steady active existence throughout many years of a changing physical body. The death of the body will not affect your will to survive and prosper— the desire to love and exchange love.

Each of us is characterized by activity and will. Actively willing and thus making choices is the key distinction between living and dead matter.

And we are each distinct from each other. We each have different wills. We each make different choices. Therefore, neither are we one in the sense of being either nothing or everything.

The destination of our journey is our choice. We have the freedom to choose. Our physical body is a tool to accomplish the destination of our choice.

Regardless of whether we are conscious of our choices, those of us living beings in the human form have conscious tools to work with at the moment. Our consciousness has advanced and evolved. We can now make spiritual choices. This means we are each spiritual individuals. We are each a child of God, temporarily occupying a physical body.

Question Two: Why am I here?

We were created by the Supreme Being to love and serve Him. This means that our natural position in the spiritual realm is God's loving servitor. By nature, we are satisfied by giving God enjoyment.

Yet because love requires freedom, we also have been given the freedom not to love Him. We also have the freedom to be self-centered, and seek a self-centered lifestyle without God.

Such a self-centered consciousness also necessitates that we see ourselves as the center. This effectively puts us in God's position of being the enjoyer.

Such a scenario is expressed in the Book of Genesis:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'" "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:1-5 NIV)

When the serpent says, "and you will be like God," he is appealing to the desire to be like God. The desire to be "God-like."

Since we are not God – and there is only one God – the desire to be "like God" means becoming envious of God.

Typically, the children of God within the spiritual realm focus their lives upon pleasing the Supreme Being. They do not experience self-centeredness or envy, because they are only focused upon God's enjoyment. As a result, they experience spiritual pleasure – this is the pleasure that is connected to love.

But because God also gave us the independence to desire to be "God-like," we have the option to reject our natural position of being a servant of God. Because love requires freedom – and God wants our love – we have been given the freedom to reject being His servant of seek His position.

Because we now seek His position, we subject ourselves to self-centered pleasure and its natural consequence, pain. Yes, one who seeks God's position must experience the results of a self-centered existence. This means fleeting flashes of pleasure combined with pain.

Once we became envious of God, there was no place for us in the spiritual realm. We were banished from the spiritual realm due to our self-centered desires.

This is also communicated in Genesis:

So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. (Genesis 3:23 NIV)

The "Garden of Eden" is a symbolic representation of the spiritual realm. And the phrase, _"the ground from which he had been taken,"_ refers to the fact that the physical body is derived from the physical world. Our temporary physical body is an earthly body.

We also find another clear statement that we (symbolized by Adam and Eve) were given physical bodies for our fall into the material world:

The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. (Genesis 3:21 NIV)

What are these "garments of skin?" These physical bodies – which cover our spirit-person just as clothes cover the body – are like garments. We are each covered by these physical bodies.

And it so happens that these "garments" – the physical body – that cover us are made of skin.

Our purpose for taking on a physical body was that God understood our desire to be God-like. He knew that we wanted to attempt to be the enjoyer. He saw that we developed self-centered desires. So He gave us a physical body so that we could attempt to enjoy in a self-centered fashion.

These desires manifest into our taking on a particular type of temporary physical body. Our physical bodies are designed, in other words, to execute our desire for self-centered enjoyment and independence from God. Our bodies were designed for us to play out our desires to be in God's position.

This is why everyone around us, including us, strives to achieve self-centered desires. Each of us desires attention. We want others to love us. We want others to admire us. We want others to care about us. Ultimately, we want others to serve us.

We can see this in its purity in a baby. The baby enters the world crying for comfort, and love. The baby cries to be held; to be fed; to be rocked and cuddled. When the baby is left alone for awhile, it will cry harder. It will scream bloody murder, only to calm down once it is being fed or nursed.

Do babies come into the world ready to give anything back to the mother who carried them for nine months and then labored for two days before? No. The baby wants more. More food. More attention. Then later is it more toys. Then we want the other kids to respect us. We want our peers to like us, and give us respect. We also want bigger toys. And later, we want to enjoy sex.

As we grow older, our self-centeredness expands. We want to make lots of money. We want a beautiful husband or wife. We want a big job, a big house and we want to drive a big car.

When these do not satisfy us, we want a family. We want kids. We want to create little people who will look up to us and love us. Then we want to teach our little creations our great wisdom, so they can do want we want them to do.

Then later on we want to retire. We want to sit back and enjoy life. We want to take a cruise. We want our grandchildren to come around to love us and serve us.

This is how most of us see becoming happy here in this world. And what is all this? This is the desire to be like God. We want to be loved, be served, own stuff, create people and be the king of our own little kingdom. This is God's position. And this is what we want.

None of the people living in the physical world want to serve. No one wants to be a servant. We all want to be masters. We all want to rule over others. This is our disease, and this is why we were sent here to this physical world. This is why we were sent away from God. So we could try to enjoy life.

We choose self-centeredness over our natural position of God's loving servant. When we did this, we were escorted out of the spiritual world. We lost the taste for our loving relationship with God.

Once we became envious of God – we developed a new taste: A taste for self-centeredness. We tasted what it was like to feel like a king. We tasted what it would be like to be the center of the universe.

Of course, we never became the center of the universe. But we became the center of our universe.

But once we developed this taste of self-centeredness, we were hooked. We wanted more.

That's what self-centeredness brings. It brings hope that what is just around the corner will satisfy me.

This is what lust is: The desire for something that we do not yet have. Lust is consuming. We are consumed by lust because it never ends.

The righteousness of the upright delivers them, but the unfaithful are trapped by evil desires. (Proverbs 11:6 NIV)

First we want something we don't yet have. Should we get it, it never satisfies us. All we can think of is getting something else. We must have more, and more. Desires never stop and say, "Okay, I have what I wanted, now I am happy."

Rather, one desire sparks another. And another. For this reason, desires result in a string of new desires.

Our desires were initially the product of envy. Seeing the Supreme Being enjoy in a particular way, and becoming envious of the Supreme Being.

Our envy of the Supreme Being not only seeded our desires. It also separated us from the Supreme Being. It formed a break in our relationship with God.

Let's say that we had a childhood friend for many years, and suddenly found ourselves competing with that friend to be captain of a sports team.

Then let's say that we became team captain, and our friend didn't. They then become jealous that we became captain and they didn't. Could we continue our childhood friendship as it was? No. That jealousy would interfere with our friendship. Our friendship as it was would be dissolved by the jealousy.

It is the same with God and each of us – the living beings He created. Once we become envious of God's position, we thereby give up our position of one of God's loving servants and friends within the spiritual realm.

This caused us to fall from the spiritual realm and take on a physical body in the physical world. Basically, we lost our seat in heaven and have fallen to earth.

We "landed" in the physical world by taking on a physical body. We were given a body that allowed us to exercise the desires we developed through self-centeredness.

But the body we inherited isn't us.

This is critical because in the physical world, these bodies are temporary. They are born, get old and then die. They are temporary vehicles from which we attempt to play God's role – focusing on our own pleasure and trying to have others love us and worship us.

Our spiritual selves, however, are eternal. In the spiritual realm we never get old. We never die. In the spiritual world we are our bodies. In the physical world, we are not our bodies. We operate them, just as a driver operates a car.

We can only be truly happy acting within our natural position. Assuming we are cleansed of enviousness, we can become happy by exchanging love with God and love with all of God's other children.

But cleansing that enviousness is quite a chore. It doesn't take place over night.

We can start by understanding that loving God is our natural position. We can see inside of us and as we look around at others, and see that everyone including us is seeking love and to be loved.

Yet we are never satisfied with the type of love we find in the physical world, because all the other citizens of the physical world are also trying to be in God's position. So we struggle and compete with each other for position and attention. We struggle for God's position, in other words.

And what little love exists within this world is predicated upon our temporary physical bodies. We typically love only those who have bodies within our body's family, or those who marry our bodies, or those who somehow prove their devotion to us. Otherwise, we don't love others, and others don't love us. This is not really love, because it is conditional.

Real love is unconditional. When someone really loves another, it doesn't matter what body they have on or what family their body comes from. It doesn't matter if the person hates them. Real love is unconditional.

This is the kind of love we are desperate for. This is the type of love that comes from the Supreme Being, and those within the spiritual world who love God unconditionally – they also love others unconditionally. It is like an infection: Those in the spiritual realm are all infected with spiritual love.

But once we decide that we want more for ourselves – we want what God has – it all dissolves. In an instant, we find ourselves fallen from the spiritual realm, and sucked inside of a physical body's sperm to be fertilized. Then the body develops around us, and we begin to identify with a temporary physical body, as we seek to use it for achieving our self-centered goals.

We abandoned our love for God and became jealous of Him – so we were pushed out of the spiritual realm.
Question Three: What is our purpose for existing?

The Supreme Being created each of us. In our pure state, each of us is a spiritual being with a spiritual form, personality and character. We are each a child of God in the purest sense. We each are a separated part and parcel of the Supreme Person.

God created each of us to exchange a relationship with Him. We are each one of God's friends, so to speak. He created each of us in order to enjoy a particular loving relationship with.

Just consider – what would you do if you were all alone on a desert island, cut off from the outside world. And you had the ability to reproduce by yourself. Most certainly, you would create some children, right? You would create children that you could raise and love – who would also love you back, right? Why would you want to live on that deserted island with no one?

Yes, this makes total sense to us. But why should God be like us? He is – but not that He is like us. We are like Him. We were each created by Him and thus each have a little piece of Him. This is why each of us needs relationships – because we come from a relationship with God. And God enjoys relationships.

Yes, God enjoys loving relationships, but that love must be freely given. What if God simply created us to love Him but we had no choice but to love Him? Would that even be love? No.

Today, we can create robots that will do whatever we want them to do. We simply give them an instruction and they do it. When we want our robot to cook our dinner, it does that. When we want our robot to give us a bath or go get the groceries, it does these things. Without question.

But such a robot could not love us. There were be no question of love because the robot is a machine, without the freedom of choice to love or not love.

God is smarter. He created living beings from Himself. When He created us, He gave us the freedom to love Him or not.

Such freedom is the only way that He could truly receive love. He had to let go, and give us some independence.

This means that He had to grant us the independence to reject Him if we wanted to. The independence to turn away from Him. The independence to even deny His existence if we wanted to.

With this freedom of choice, certainly there are many of His children that chose to love God and exchange a relationship with God.

After all, the Supreme Being is also supremely lovable. God is not an old, wrinkled up guy with long white hair and a beard as depicted in art of the middle ages. Such a strange depiction of God this is! As if God cannot control His age? As if God cannot control time? As if God cannot control His appearance? Even humans can dye their hair and put on make-up to hide their age. But God has no control?

What a small-minded depiction that is.

Time is an element of the physical world created by God. God is not subject to time. God created time. As such, time does not have any influence upon God. Nor is the spiritual realm governed by time as the physical world is.

Since God is not subject to time, there is no beginning to God. And there is no death for God. The Supreme Being has always existed. Eternally.

Furthermore, the Supreme Being is always youthful. He never gets old. He is always fresh and beautiful. He is always attractive. He is the most beautiful person in existence.

For this reason, so many of His children choose to remain in love with God. They can't get enough of Him. The Supreme Being is always in their hearts, and they don't want to ever forget Him.

So their lives are filled with happiness. And fun. They are always involved in so many exciting loving pastimes with the Supreme Being. He is the center of their lives. He is the love of their lives. They don't even realize that their Beloved is God. They simply think of Him as their dearmost Beloved, or Friend, or Master, or even Child.

These are the basic relationships of the spiritual realm. The angels of the spiritual realm relate to God in different ways, but they boil down to either a conjugal relationship, a friendship relationship, a servitor relationship or a parental relationship. Yes, some of the angels of the spiritual realm relate to God as their child. And He reciprocates those relationships.

And because the Supreme Being wants true love from each of us, He also gives each of us the freedom not to love Him.

This is given in the form of independence. The Supreme Being has ultimate independence from everything. He can do as He likes.

Because each of us is created by Him, each of us also has a kernel of that independence engrained in us. We each have a sort of rebel characteristic, you might say.

This kernel of independence is frequently tested by God in the spiritual realm. He has His ways of testing us. This testing is symbolized in the Book of Genesis by the fruit and the serpent as discussed in the previous chapter.

In the story of Genesis, we find that Adam is tested by the serpent and Eve, to eat the fruit:

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. (Genesis 3:6 NIV)

Once Adam decides to bite into the fruit, everything changes. Their eyes are "opened." They realize they are naked (symbolizing their loss of purity):

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (Genesis 3:7 NIV)

And then God kicks them out of the _"garden."_

This is essentially what happened to each of us. Each of us was tested and failed, and was booted out of the spiritual realm.

The "fruit" is envy. Each of us ate that fruit, and once we ate it, we lost our love for the Supreme Being. We became self-centered. We chose not to love God.

We were booted out of the spiritual realm because we didn't want to be there anymore.

Because real love requires the freedom not to love, God also created us with the free will to decide whether we wanted to love Him or not.

Question Four: What is the purpose for this world?

Those of us who have chosen not to embrace our relationship with God have been put into a physical body in the physical world to give us a chance to exercise our freedom away from God.

This is the primary purpose for the physical dimension. This material universe is made up of arrangements of atoms and molecules. We might see various shapes and forms around us. But these are like mirages. Because our retinas, optic nerve and brain cells are designed to see these shapes, we are led to believe they are solid objects and they are permanent.

But their not. Any physicist will tell you that the atoms and molecules of this world aren't even touching. Yet we think they are these solid objects.

Why would our eyes deceive us? It's not just our eyes that deceive us. It is our brains. What our eyes receive are just a bunch of small reflections of light. It is like pixels on a computer. But the brain takes these image dots and creates images from them.

It is sort of like how animation works. Animation is a series of drawings that are run by the eyes very quickly. The brain is tricked into thinking the images are moving, but they're not.

In the same way, the brain is tricked into thinking that the forms and shapes the eyes see are solid objects. They are simply moving atoms that reflect light in different ways.

This world is more like a hologram.

The purpose of this world is not just to trick us into thinking the forms and shapes around us are solid. It is set up to trick us into thinking that these forms and shapes are permanent. It is set up to trick us into thinking that we are these bodies, and those around us are their bodies too.

The world is set up to make it seem that this is all there is. We're just a bunch of material bodies.

This creates the illusion that what happens here – the events and the consequences of this world – are permanent too.

This is called immersion.

It is like a video game. The video game is set up to seem realistic. Why? So the player becomes immersed into the game. The player gets hooked on the events because they seem so real. They seem like events outside of the game. The player gets hooked, and immersed into the game.

What would happen otherwise? What would happen if the video game was not realistic? No one would buy the game. A few people would try it out and see that it is so unrealistic that they could not get involved in the game. The video game would be trashed like an old VHS B movie.

Consider this carefully. What is it that makes a video game successful? It must be realistic – that is, seem like it is really taking place. It must somehow reflect what takes place in the "real" world.

Such a video game must also be engaging. It must be exciting, or thrilling. All of these specifications can make a video game successful, because people become engaged and immersed in it.

This is how this physical world is set up. By nature, each of us is a spirit-person from the spiritual realm. In the spiritual realm, we are immersed in so many different activities. These include relationships, games, fun competition, laughter, excitement and so on.

The only way this physical world could become immersive for the spirit-person is if we can be engaged in similar activities as exist in the spiritual realm. For this reason, there are so many different events and relationships here to become engaged with. Events include so many social events, competitions (sports), humor, theater and so on.

Relationships that exist in the physical world include the body's mother, father, siblings and other family members. Those who share the same family. Other work environment. Those we may date or marry. Other types of friends.

The variety of different events and relationships in the physical world engage our soul's natural need for events and relationships. The only problem is that the events and relationships of this physical world are all temporary. Thus they are not real in the sense that they will last. Most are based upon the temporary physical body. When the physical bodies move apart, or die, such a relationship falls apart.

The point is, these events and relationships of the physical world are a virtual reflection of the ongoing and permanent events and relationships that take place in the spiritual realm.

Just as the video game is a virtual reflection of what happens in the "real" world, this physical world is a reflection of what happens in the spiritual realm.

This physical world is a virtual reflection though, because these bodies are our surrogates. They are not who we are. We are driving these physical bodies around just as a person drives a car or flies and airplane.

But other than being eternal rather than temporary and virtual, the events and relationships of the spiritual realm differ in another important way:

The events and relationships of the physical world are based upon self-centeredness. And the events and relationships of the spiritual realm based upon love.

In the spiritual realm, everyone is in love with the Supreme Being. Everyone is expressing that love with the events and relationships of the spiritual realm.

Each of us aspires to reclaim this love as we live in the physical world. We want no more war, no more starvation, no more crime and so on. We want everything to be just dandy here.

But it isn't. There are so many problems here. These problems range from pain to cheating.

Yet this world is so intriguing because it seduces us into thinking that I am the center of the universe, and if I can get the next material thing, I will be happy.

This seduction is set up by the Supreme Being in order to immerse us into a situation that we desired. We desired at some point to feel independent from the Supreme Being. We desired to become the center of the universe. These desires set up our fall into the physical realm, and our position in this world at the moment.

But the amazing thing about this physical world is that while it immerses us and seduces us, it also teaches us. Yes, the events and consequences of this world are set up to teach each of us specific things – things that we need to learn.

This is important. It is why each of us is undergoing different learning situations at different times.

It is not as though we are in a classroom where the teacher takes the whole class through a series of lesson plans through the school year. In such a scenario, theoretically the students are each learning the same lessons at the same time.

The Supreme Being is exponentially more creative and intelligent than this.

First, the Supreme Being created each person as an individual: An individual with a separate personality, a separate self-concept and a separate character. Yes, there are definitely similar people – similar personalities and similar characters. But no two personalities and characters are precisely alike.

This is one of the beautiful things about the Supreme Being. He can create an infinite number of distinct personalities.

Here in this world, for example, a car manufacturer can design about 20 makes of cars at once. But then each make will have to be duplicated over and over in order to supply everyone with a car.

The Supreme Being not only creates unlimited unique spirit-persons. He also creates physical bodies that uniquely reflect each spirit-person who occupies it. Yes, there are similar-looking human bodies and similar-looking animals bodies. Yet each of these bodies has a unique DNA. Each human has a unique fingerprint. Each has a unique iris.

Such uniqueness is actually a larger reflection of the majestic nature of the Supreme Being. The Supreme Being is an individual, but He also has an unlimited number of 'sides' of Himself. He has an unlimited potency in terms of being able to change Himself.

Sometimes, for example, we will find that a person can have a change of heart and make a major change in their lives. They might have been one way for most of their life. But suddenly they have a realization and they make some big changes.

The Supreme Being can also make changes if He wants to. But in His case, He has an unlimited potential for making changes. He can have a change of heart at will – and for His own pleasure He often does.

Indeed, the Supreme Being also maintains an infinite number of hobbies, occupations, and things He likes to do. So He maintains a myriad of stations, and there are an unlimited number of dimensions within His personality.

This unlimited number of dimensions is where we – His children – can each be created with a unique personality.

And as a result, each of us travels a unique road. We each have a unique history of decisions and choices. It is for this reason that each of us is also traveling down a course that is unique, and we are each learning unique lessons. Just imagine how endlessly intelligent the Supreme Being is, to create a school that runs an unlimited number of students through unique lessons.

But know that ultimately, this is set up by design. The Supreme Being designed a system of learning that outputs lesson plans according to our unique history, decisions, concerns and consequences.

Let's go back to the classroom scenario. Let's say a class has 30 students and they are each sitting at their chair in the class. But instead of learning the same lesson plan the teacher is giving them all, each classmate is each learning a unique set of lessons. It is like each student has their own teacher.

But here it is not as if we each have a different teacher. Our ultimate teacher is the Supreme Being. But the Supreme Being is utilizing His automated system, and this system teaches us lessons on demand, as needed.

These lessons come in the form of observations and consequences. Each of us can look around us, and observe the decisions of others and see the consequences of those decisions. We may not see precisely the history of decisions, but we can usually see a specific consequence related to a specific decision.

For example, we can observe how a person who steals will be punished. The type of punishment will correspond to the type of stealing. A child who steals a candy bar from a store might have to pay the store back plus do some service as a consequence. But an adult who robs a bank will go to jail for many years – having a major part of his life stolen from him as a consequence of stealing money from many.

We can see from observing these that there is a serious consequence for stealing from others. But the specific consequence will depend upon how bad the damage was and to what degree the person was aware of the affects of their actions.

The worse these criteria are, the worse degree the consequence will be. For example, the child who stole a candy bar may not have been aware that the store has an owner and the stealing will be stealing from the owner. If the owner gets stolen from enough, the owner of the store won't be able to feed his children. The child thief may be oblivious to all of those things.

But the adult who robs a bank will certainly be more aware that his acts will hurt others. This increased awareness will certainly result in the bank robber going to jail, or otherwise suffering greater consequences.

Indeed, the volume of the effect will increase the consequence as well. Stealing $1 million from a bank will have a greater consequence than stealing a candy bar from a store, for example.

But sometimes we observe that the consequences for an action may be oversize compared to the action. Most of us have heard of instances where starving adults were thrown in jail for stealing a loaf of bread. Such a consequence seems to be unfair for those of us who observe the single action.

The problem with this is that we did not observe the person's prior activities. Those activities that resulted in the person getting to a point where he was hungry. Those prior activities were probably also involved in the sentence being so stringent for stealing a loaf of bread.

So while we can observe many actions and consequences to those actions, we can't necessarily see all of them. This is because we are each paying for actions and decisions we made from prior lifetimes. Lifetimes that are typically forgotten during the current one. Yet still, known by God.

Nonetheless, observation is how we can learn in the physical world. We can see what others do and learn not to do those things because we see the consequences of doing them. For example, after observing bank robbers go to jail, we can learn the lesson needed – that what belongs to another should be respected, and we should not therefore steal from others.

This lesson – as all the lessons here do – falls in line with the greater lesson to love others. To care about others.

Actions that hurt others will result in us being hurt. By not loving and caring about others, there are consequences to our actions. And those consequences typically result in us being hurt proportionate to how we hurt others. In this lifetime or the next.

Question Five: What is the meaning of life?

Life has meaning. Those who propose life has no meaning are simply not aware of its meaning. This is like a dog who jumps into the back seat of a car. The dog doesn't know where the car is going. He doesn't know there is a purpose for his owner driving the car away. The dog is oblivious. But this doesn't mean the car or the trip has no purpose. The owner of the car is driving the car somewhere for a purpose.

Interestingly, those who claim there is no ultimate meaning to life will go home each night and have relationships with their family members. Even so-called cosmologists who claim the universe was created by an accidental big bang with no ultimate purpose will go home to their families and kiss their children as they go to bed.

Aren't they conducting life with meaning? Or do they not mean to love their wife and kids? Are they just pretending? Surely not. They care about their loved ones, and this gives their lives meaning. It gives their lives purpose.

Furthermore, why should they care about anyone else or love someone if life has no meaning? Why should they care if their child is sick? Why should they care about getting a paycheck and going to work in the first place? Why should they even get up in the morning if life has no meaning?

We can find meaning all around us, simply by looking at all the relationships between people. Our entire society is built around relationships. Not just family relationships, but also friends, colleagues, peers, fans, sponsors and employers. We are surrounded by relationships. Without relationships, society could not operate.

Relationships also sustain us. Without relationships, we shrivel up inside. We go nuts without relationships. Relationships provide the glue for our existence, both within and without.

The reason nature and society is built around relationships is because we were created within the context of our relationship with the Supreme Being. This is our primordial relationship, and this relationship is actually the only relationship that fulfills us. Other relationships of this world actually act as band-aids. They provide us with a façade of the relationship we need – the one we have with the Supreme Being.

In other words, the Supreme Being enjoys a variety of loving relationships with innumerable living beings – His direct and indirect expansions – within the various 'houses' or planets of the spiritual realm.

Because we were created to exchange relationships, we need relationships. Having relationships is part of our makeup. For this reason, if we don't have our relationship with the Supreme Being, we will seek relationships with others in an attempt to regain our relationship with God – the Perfect Person.

Just as a video game is a perverted reflection of the physical world, this physical world is a perverted reflection of the spiritual realm. This is why the physical world maintains a myriad of relationships – just as the spiritual realm does. However, the relationships of the physical world are all based upon self-centeredness, while the relationships of the spiritual realm are all based upon love.

In the physical realm, people are typically focused on what is gotten out of a relationship. What is the reward. When we are cared for, we will care back. But if we are not cared for, then we will not maintain such a relationship. In the spiritual realm, love is unconditional. Care is unconditional.

It is like comparing two different dinner tables. At one, as the food is passed around, everyone seeks only to make sure they get enough on their plate, sometimes at the cost of others not getting any.

At the other dinner table, as they pass around the food, everyone is making sure that everyone else got their food before taking theirs.

In the same way, the citizens of the spiritual world are only interested in pleasing their beloved, the Supreme Being – within their particular relationship with Him – along with assisting (and caring for) the other citizens – who are also engaged in their own relationship with Him. It is one big happy family, with the Supreme Being at the center.

Certainly, we each have the opportunity to give our life meaning. If we are speaking of our life in the physical world, the meaning of this life should be to grow spiritually so we can regain our loving relationship with God.

From the spiritual perspective, the meaning of life is to please the Supreme Being.

The physical world, while it may give some illusion of some independence and some dominance, is primarily a place of education. Here we are slowly and gradually educated. Here we are taught that we all need love. Here we are taught that when we hurt others, we are hurting our closest family members. Here we are taught that we need a protector — and we can't do it alone.

So why did the Supreme Being and His associates create the physical world? Remember that His indirect separated expansions – expansions of His expansions – were created with the freedom of choice: We can choose to love and care for the Supreme Being or not.

Quite simply, the physical world and these temporary physical bodies were created to house those of us who chose NOT to love and care for the Supreme Being. Each of us individually rebelled against the Supreme Being, and this caused each of us to fall to the physical world, away from the spiritual realm.

And this is why the physical world is full of lessons in the form of consequences. And it is those consequences to our actions that create our suffering.

Question Six: Why do we die?

Death is the equivalent of being informed that this is not our permanent home. Just as a high school student will graduate from high school one day, each of us will leave these bodies as they die.

Nevertheless, death is considered a nightmare to most people. Despite the inevitability of death, when someone dies it is considered shocking. Why are people shocked when someone dies even though every body dies at some point? Why is it considered so shocking even with those with older bodies die?

Because we are hiding from the reality of the situation. We are hiding from our real identity. We are convinced that we are simply physical bodies. This is illusion. And this illusion is incongruent with the inevitable death of the physical body.

Due to this illusion that we are the physical body, when a parent loses a child, they will often ask:

If God is good, why did He allow my baby to die?

Or if a person has lost any family member, they may ask:

If there is a God, why did my ______ (insert wife, parents, friend, pet) have to die and leave me?

In other words, we question God's existence or love for us because someone close to us was wearing a temporary physical body. And we question God's existence because their physical body died and they had to leave that physical body.

But we have to remember three things:

1) These physical bodies are not us. They are like cars, that might get fender-benders or might break down. Our eternal spiritual selves are not touched by the suffering of the physical body (other than the lessons we might learn).

2) The Supreme Being set this world up as a place for those who rejected Him to have the freedom to live life without Him.

3) But also, because He loves us and wants us to be happy, the world is set up as a place of rehabilitation.

Let's consider point number three carefully. Just figure how schools are set up to teach children. How are they set up?

Schools are set up with grades and classes. The child will enter the school at the lowest grade. This could be first grade or kindergarten. After first grade or kindergarten, the student graduates up to the next grade. Say second grade. Then after learning the lessons of second grade, the student will graduate up to third grade.

This process continues for several years. Each grade is set up in such a way to teach the children certain things. When they've finished that year, they go to the next grade.

Then, as the grades advance, the students are given a chance to go to different classes. Each class will study a particular subject matter. Instead of a grade that covers all subjects, the students will take several classes, and learn those subjects in order to graduate.

This process is logical, because learning takes place in stages. One cannot teach calculus to a child who doesn't know how to add or subtract. First they must be taught the basics. Then the advanced subjects are taught.

This is why there is death. During a lifetime within a particular physical body the living being will learn a set of lessons. When that lifetime is over, another begins, with a new set of lessons.

These different sets of lessons are taught through different situations and different species of life. For example, the lessons taught during the life as a monkey will be different than the lessons taught during the life as a human.

This is how the Supreme Being set up the physical universe. There are many, many different species of organisms in this world. Each organism is a vehicle that the soul may occupy temporarily. Each organism or species has an inherent capacity to learn.

Some species are by nature more ignorant than others. Those who inhabit an ignorant species are learning basic lessons. As they learn those lessons, they graduate to higher species and learn more advanced lessons.

Just about every species of life has mating and family. Parents take care of their offspring in the most ignorant species. Why? Because relationships are the core lesson related to the living being.

As the living being or soul graduates from the lower species to the higher species of life, the lessons become more advanced. In higher species, there are more options for handling things. Acts of violence can be replaced by acts of tolerance. Such lessons are for the more advanced species. These include humans and some of the more intelligent animals.

Over a period of four decades, Dr. Ian Stevenson and Dr. James Tucker from the University of Virginia compiled a database of over 2,500 children who reported that they had lived in another body before they were born.

Many of these reports were meticulously investigated and corroborated. The child had accurately described a previous life in another body. They described what could not have been otherwise described, unless they had indeed lived in a previous body.

The research behind these reports were meticulous as mentioned. The researchers investigated every possible explanation for the child knowing intimate details about the person who died. They knew what no one else would have known in many cases.

This provides clear evidence that we can live multiple lives. But what it doesn't illustrate is how one can live in an animal body before gaining a human form, or vice versa. Why not?

Because an animal lifetime is grossly ignorant. There is a greater propensity for complete forgetfulness in the body of an animal. This is because an animal's cognitive abilities are severely limited.

We discuss this science of transmigration of the spirit-person from body to body in more depth in our free book, _"The Evolution of the Self."_

The bottom line is that each of these bodies must die. In order for the spirit-person or living being to graduate to the next level and learn new things, there must be a facility of change. This is the death of the physical body.

Death is simply a passage. One might compare it to graduation day. On graduation day, the student is given their degree and they are sent to the next grade to learn. Or, if they are completed with their education, they are sent out to get a job.

Death has a rap. It is actually a good thing. Just consider, for example, if we had to live within these bodies forever.

Our bodies are composed of cells, blood, mucus, poop, pee and bacteria. They have to be fed and given water in order to operate effectively. Our bodies get diseased every so often, with colds, the flu and other infections. Our bodies are easily wounded and injured. Injuries range from twisting an ankle to being stabbed or losing a leg. Or they can become completely paralyzed.

Our eyes can grow so weak that the body is practically blind. The liver, kidneys, heart and lungs can each become diseased, and give us different types of problems. Our intestines can act up and make our body sick for days at a time.

Why would we want to live within this body forever? Such a proposal would be like asking if we could be dunked underwater and held underwater forever.

Why wouldn't we want to be held underwater? Because we don't belong underwater. The natural position of a human is on land – breathing air.

In the same way, the natural position of our inner self is not within the physical world. We belong in the spiritual world, where there is no death.

When the body dies, we do not die.

After all, we know scientifically speaking that life cannot originate from DNA. The living being is spiritual in essence. Thus the living beings were, in fact, impregnated into the physical dimension, and have individually been evolving through the different species of physical bodies.

We might compare the consequential sufferings of the physical world to how a child might be properly disciplined by caring parents. Parents do not want to, nor like disciplining their child. But they do it out of love. They do it because they ultimately want the best for the child.

If the Supreme Being had set up the physical world to be this perfect place where there were no consequences for our actions, we'd never want to go home to the spiritual realm. We would never be encouraged to return to our natural position.

But He also set it up so that we only come home if we decide we really want to. We must make a commitment to go home. We can stay as long as we want, cycling through body after body. If we want to stay away from Him, He allows that. But at the same time, He also encourages us to decide (on our own) to come home. It is rather perfect, actually.

Just consider, for example, a person whose consciousness was so dark that he only thought of himself, and considered others as objects of his enjoyment. So he hurts others, abuses others, even kills others. What is needed to rehabilitate such an individual?

First they need to recognize that there are others outside of himself, and that he isn't the only person who exists. He also needs to realize what it feels like to be hurt, because he has no concern for the hurt of others. He also needs a little dose of humility to realize that he's not so great after all. This person is a candidate for a lower species of life who is subjected to being attacked by others much larger than he.

Let's say he gains the body of a rat. As the wild beasts of the field – the wolves, cats, hawks and so on – attack, the person is taught what it feels like to be attacked by those who have more power. This perfectly emulates his abuse of others: A perfect consequence learning scenario.

In addition, the rat species will usually have a close family, and the mama rat will protect her babies against attack for awhile. This teaches the person that we need protection. We can't do it alone. Then the baby rat grows up and becomes a mama rat. As a mama, she also protects her babies.

In this way, the person learns not only that she needs others, but that others need her. In other words, the person begins to learn about caring for others and being protected. This part of our education process provides a foundation for learning about love. It is like a house that requires a strong foundation.

In the same way, our education process requires us to have a strong foundation of understanding the nature of love, compassion, care and nurturing. Why? Because this is part of our rehabilitation process for returning to the spiritual dimension.

As we graduate up the 'grades' and evolve spiritually once within the human form, we begin to learn 'post-graduate' lessons, such as how to care for and nurture others who are less fortunate, or from lower species. In the higher human species, we begin to learn the finer lessons of love, such as how to serve others, and how to remain humble even when others admire us or need us.

The spiritual world is replete with these aspects to the absolute degree. God's world is full of love and relationships. It is a blissful world where everyone loves each other and cherishes God and His associates. It is the place where we yearn for (and people like John Lennon sang about), but could never have in the physical world – because the physical world is full of 'works in progress.'

Here everyone is looking desperately for fulfillment. Fulfillment, however, is only available when we return to our eternal relationship with God as one of His loving servitors.

And the emptiness we all feel here in the physical world can be immediately resolved by our deciding to return to Him. He wants us back in His loving arms because He knows that only this will make us happy. Only loving Him and caring for Him, and returning to our unique relationship with Him will give us the happiness and fulfillment we seek.

In other words, death doesn't have to mean that we return to the physical world by occupying another physical body, or another species.

If we become rehabilitated, and we regain our natural love for the Supreme Being, we can graduate from the physical world and return to the spiritual realm.

Question Seven: Why do we feel pain?

Pain is the complement of pleasure. If one desires pleasure, the experience of pain is required. If there were no pain, how could a person experience pleasure?

The question of why there is pain boils down to why we desire pleasure. Why is it that we desire pleasure? Why do we abhor pain? To abhor pain is to desire pleasure. The two are inseparable.

The assumption that sectarian teachers and their institutions make is that this world is meant only for our pleasure. As if our central purpose for existing is our own enjoyment.

It is obviously not. We can simply look around us and see that pain is rampant among the physical bodies of the world. Pain starts with the physical body. Pain is based upon the physical body.

And the pain of the physical body is the consequence of prior activities. Pain does not exist on its own. Pain is a consequence of self-centered enjoyment.

We can consider a verse from Genesis in this regard:

And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." (Genesis 2:16-17 NIV)

Note that previous verses explain that God planted this _"tree"_ along with the _"tree of life"_ in the _"middle of the garden."_

Why would God plant a tree in the middle of the garden that would cause Adam and Even to "surely die?"

And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground – trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2:9 NIV)

First, it is important to understand that these verses in Genesis are allegorical. They are symbolic to a real situation. In other words, these are not physical trees. They are symbolic. Have we ever seen a tree of life or a tree of knowledge growing anywhere?

Within the spiritual world there are so many activities, which revolve around the myriad of relationships that exist between the Supreme Being and each spiritual living being.

Each of us has a unique relationship with the Supreme Being, and there are different types of relationships. Each type of relationship comes with particular activities, as we render loving service to the Supreme Person – and exchange our particular flavor of relationship with Him.

These relationships can be described symbolically as 'trees' because trees give 'fruit' that are _"good for food."_ And loving relationships with God are effectively our spiritual _'food.'_

Then Genesis 2:16-17 describes that God gave Adam and Eve (symbolically, each of us) the freedom to eat from any tree. But He warns them about the two important _'trees' – 'the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil'_ – in the _'middle of the garden.'_ Why are these two trees in the _"middle of the garden"_?

This is not a geographical _"middle"_ being discussed. This is indicating the center: these are the most important 'trees:' These are the _central_ _'trees.'_ Why?

The _'tree of life'_ represents love for God. It is central to the various relationships that exist within the spiritual realm because all of these relationships are based upon feelings of love for God.

And the _'tree of knowledge of good and evil'_ represents the ability to reject the Supreme Being and try to become God – essentially becoming envious of God. This is why God says eating the _'fruit'_ of this _'tree'_ would cause them to _"surely die."_ Because rejecting our relationship with God causes spiritual death: The death of our loving relationship with our Best Friend.

Such an ability to choose is critical in the spiritual realm because in order for real love to exist there must be the freedom of choice. God created this _'tree'_ of choice because without the choice to not love God, we could not truly love Him. It would be slavery if God created us without the choice to love Him. We would effectively be robots.

We have to remember that God put the _'tree'_ of _'knowledge of good and evil'_ there. Why would God put a _'tree'_ with attractive _'fruit'_ in the middle of the 'garden' and then ask Adam not to eat its 'fruit'? God didn't have to put this 'tree' there, let alone in the 'middle' of the 'garden.' If He really wanted to make sure Adam didn't eat of its fruit, He would not have put it there in the first place. This only confirms that putting the 'tree' there and then asking 'Adam' not to 'eat' the 'fruit' of the 'tree' symbolically means that God has given us the freedom to love and serve Him, or not.

God created each of us in order to freely exchange a loving relationship with Him. This is why we are all so crazy about love. Just listen to any song or watch any movie. They are all mostly about seeking love or exchanging love. Everyone needs love because we were created to love. Love is in our nature.

But we are never happy with the so-called love we find here in the physical world. It never seems to be enough. Why? Because God created us to love Him. And until we are loving the Supreme Person, God, we are never satisfied.

So what does the _"knowledge of good and evil"_ have to do with the freedom to love God or not? "Good" here is taken from the Hebrew word טוֹב (towb) which does not mean "good" in the sense of righteousness, as it insinuates when placed next to the word "evil." טוֹב means something that is 'pleasant, agreeable, rich, happy, prosperous' and 'valuable in estimation' according to the lexicon.

Furthermore, " _evil"_ is being translated from the Hebrew word רַע (ra'), which can mean 'evil' or 'wicked,' but these are fairly low in the grammatical hierarchy of the word. The more practical translation, according to the lexicon is 'bad, disagreeable, malignant, unpleasant, giving pain, displeasing, sad, unhappy' and so on.

In other words, the _"knowledge of good and evil"_ is a poor translation of the Hebrew, put forth by those with a poor understanding of the event Genesis is describing. The more precise translation would be something akin to the _"knowledge of pleasure and displeasure,"_ or the _"knowledge of pleasure and pain."_

What we are talking about is enjoyment. If someone has the knowledge of pleasure and pain, or the knowledge of pleasure and displeasure, then they become aware of enjoyment. They become able to enjoy. Just consider if a person does not know what is painful or displeasing. They won't be able to understand what is pleasing or enjoyable. They cannot enjoy unless they understand ("know") the opposite of enjoyment.

So why is knowing enjoyment a big deal in the 'garden'? It is because God is ultimately the Enjoyer in the spiritual world. He enjoys the love and the loving service of His children.

Because He understands ("knows") pleasure and pain, He is the ultimate Enjoyer. In the spiritual dimension, we enjoy God's enjoyment. When God is pleased, we experience pleasure. So our pleasure is connected to His pleasure. This exists within the loving relationships of the spiritual realm.

But we know from Genesis that God also offered us the choice to also know pleasure and pain. We have the choice to try to become independent enjoyers. Though it is not our natural position, we still have the choice to seek enjoyment independently of God.

This sort of _"knowing"_ enjoyment is all about wanting what God has. By wanting to experience enjoyment independently, we are effectively wanting to be in the position of God. This is confirmed by the serpent later in Genesis:

" _For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:5 NIV)_

Again, the _"good and evil"_ here is taken from the Hebrew words described above, which are better translated to _"pleasure and pain,"_ ultimately meaning enjoyment.

And the operator in the serpent's statement is: _"you will be like God."_

The bottom line is that we were created as God's lover and loving servant, and God is our Beloved. This makes God effectively the Enjoyer. He enjoys our loving service, and we (in our natural position) enjoy pleasing Him and exchanging a relationship with Him.

However, we can also desire to be the enjoyer, and be the beloved. We can strive to enjoy for ourselves and try to attract others to love and worship us. This is our choice: To love God or be envious of God. Being envious of God is the same as striving to take His position as the enjoyer.

Essentially this is none other than self-centeredness. And self-centeredness is the _"fruit"_ of the _"tree"_ that God instructed us – symbolically, Adam – not to eat.

By _"eating of"_ this _"fruit"_ of self-centeredness we become envious of God, and effectively lose our loving relationship with Him.

By becoming self-centered, and envious of God, we _"die"_ in the spiritual sense. As we read on in Genesis we find this confirmed: Adam does not die in the physical sense from eating the fruit. Does this mean that God was lying to Adam? No. The type of death God is describing is the worst type of death: It is losing our natural position within the spiritual realm. This is confirmed:

So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden. (Genesis 3:23 NIV)

The event being described in Genesis is our falling from the spiritual world. Because the spiritual realm is populated with love and loving relationships, envy and self-centeredness have no place there.

Each of us comes from the spiritual realm, but we do not have to stay there if we don't want to. Each of us has the choice to love God or decide to love ourselves first and foremost.

Those of us who have chosen not to love God by default become self-centered and envious of God. We have eaten the fruit God asked us not to eat, and thus now find ourselves banished to this hellish physical world, away from Our Best Friend God and our natural loving relationship with Him.

This is why there is so much pain and suffering in the physical world. This is why the physical world is so full of sadness, wars, violence, greed and envy. Everyone is struggling to enjoy at the expense of others.

" _What has happened to us is a result of our evil deeds and our great guilt..." (Ezra 9:13 NIV)_

This is the antithesis of the environment of the spiritual realm, where everyone seeks God's enjoyment and cares for each other. We have fallen from that spiritual realm and have forgotten our loving relationship with God, and our natural position as His loving caregiver.

But what about God making man in His image? Here is the verse from Genesis:

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, in Our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:26-27 NIV)

This verse is discussing the physical bodies of humans and other creatures. Each physical body is occupied by a spirit-person. The spirit-person is from the spiritual realm. The physical body is a vehicle that the spirit-person drives for a few decades.

So why was the human form modeled in God's likeness?

Those of us in the physical world became envious of the Supreme Being. We wanted to enjoy as God enjoys.

So the Supreme Being created a virtual dimension where we could temporarily occupy these physical bodies. He created these forms in His likeness so that we could virtually pretend that we are the center of the universe and we are the central enjoyer. This temporary situation provides a façade that we are independent from God.

But this doesn't mean that we are independent from God. It also doesn't mean this world is set up for our enjoyment.

Rather, the physical world is set up for us to think it is set up for our enjoyment. Meanwhile, it's actual purpose is to rehabilitate us.

Why don't we see this? Because we are blinded by our chase for material enjoyment. Even though there is suffering all around us. Even though we are born into pain, and experience constant pain throughout our lives. We are so teased by this world that we refuse to see it as it is.

This is blindness, and those who teach this world is meant for our enjoyment are the blind leading the blind.

Yes, there are glimpses of pleasure in between longer periods of pain. Those glimpses of sensual pleasure are usually very short and very flickering. The periods of pain are more consistent and tend to last longer. And those periods of pain are typically linked to our prior activities:

As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it. (Job 4:8 NIV)

Yet because we are focused upon the tiny pleasures, the pain we feel becomes diminished and less important. We ignore the pain because we are so laser-focused upon the fleeting pleasures of this world. As we chase the pleasures, we easily forget the pain.

The real reason we easily forget the pain and the pleasures of this world is because these are only impacting the temporary physical body. The spirit-person lies separate from the body. The only pain or pleasure the spirit-person will feel relate to the attachment the spirit-person has for the body.

Furthermore, the pains and pleasures are easily forgotten because we are always looking forward to the next thing.

This is why, for example, mothers will have multiple babies, even though the pain of childbirth is one of the worst pains the body can experience.

This is confirmed by the root Hebrew word רדה (radah) in this verse, which means to dominate or rule over ("and let them rule over"). The human body was designated to be able to rule over the other creatures of the planet, including, as stated here, the fish, birds, mammals and so on. In other words, the human form was designed to emulate God's dominance.

God's design, however, does not give complete dominance. Nor does it give complete independence. Surely God could have given us a facility where each of us could have a more perfect ability to control others around us. But this would defeat the main purpose of the physical world.

The fact is, we are not God. We are not in control. We are not independent of God. In fact, we need God. We need our Best Friend and Companion in order to be complete. This is why we are all constantly looking for that perfect friend or lover. We'll never be happy away from God, trying to pretend being like God. And God knows this.

The physical world, while it may give some illusion of some independence and some dominance, is primarily a place of education. Here we are slowly and gradually educated. Here we are taught that we all need love. Here we are taught that when we hurt others, we are hurting our closest family members. Here we are taught that we need a protector — and we can't do it alone.

So why did the Supreme Being and His associates create the physical world? Remember that His indirect separated expansions – expansions of His expansions – were created with the freedom of choice: We can choose to love and care for the Supreme Being or not.

Quite simply, the physical world and these temporary physical bodies were created to house those of us who chose NOT to love and care for the Supreme Being. Each of us individually rebelled against the Supreme Being, and this caused each of us to fall to the physical world, away from the spiritual realm.

The Supreme Being set this world up as a rehabilitation center in hopes that we might some day decide to return to Him and His world. He ultimately wants us to be happy, and we'll never be happy away from Him and His world. So He created this world as a learning center:

Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until He comes and showers His righteousness on you. (Hosea 10:12 NIV)
Question Eight: Does God make us suffer?

Sectarian teachers who supposedly represent Jesus cannot properly answer this question. Neither can those of other sects around the world.

They will often say it is because satan has taken over the world, or God is struggling with satan.

This, however, is an atheistic argument: It is atheistic because it means that God has lost some control over this universe – as if satan is somehow stronger in some way than God, or can compete with God.

This is atheistic because understanding God's existence means we understand God is in complete control. He never loses control to satan or anyone else.

In addition, many sectarian teachers will proclaim that sins are caused by this satan individual. Others say that suffering is caused by the "original sin" of Adam and Eve, and we are all suffering for their sin.

As if we have no responsibility for our sins.

This is the classic scapegoat utilization: Some of us have a tendency to blame our decisions and errors upon someone else in order to evade responsibility.

Due to these and similar arguments, sadly many people who follow one of the sectarian faiths have become atheistic – or at least agnostic.

For example, in a 2017 interview with National Public Radio, Mimi Leder, the executive producer of the show, _"The Leftovers,"_ said:

" _I actually am Jewish but was raised an atheist. My father was an atheist, and my mother is a survivor of Auschwitz and three other concentration camps and [a] death march. When you speak to her today, she's alive at 94 years old and swingin' hard. She has been an agnostic most of her life because she always would say to me, you know, "How could that have happened to my family? How could that have happened to me? How could that have happened to millions of people? How could there be a God?"_

We find many statements like this throughout societies that embrace sectarian institutions. Why? Because these sectarian institutions and their teachers cannot explain suffering. They mislead people because they don't know what causes suffering. They tell their followers that someone else is to blame. Satan or Adam and Eve is to blame for suffering.

Others simply blame God for their suffering.

So does God cause the suffering in the world? Did He cause the holocaust – the genocide of over six million Jews? Did He cause the Ottoman Empire's genocide of over a million Armenians? Did He cause the Roman genocide of millions of Jewish and early Christians during the First Century A.D.?

Did He cause the various other slaughters that have taken place over the centuries, including recent massacres of Syrians, or the Bosnia genocide a few decades ago?

What about various terrorist killings we see today? Is God causing these terrorist killings? Some of these terrorists are even claiming to glorify God as they murder innocent people.

Is God responsible for all this? Or how about suffering that occurs around us every day? People getting cancer. Or getting other diseases. People dying. Or people getting shot. Is God causing all of these forms of suffering?

The clear answer is no. Hitler and those who carried out his instructions caused the holocaust. They made those choices to murder Jews and others throughout Europe. They made the decision, and carried out these murders. They built the buildings and put the cyanide in there. They lured the people into the chambers and locked the doors. Hitler and those who carried out his instructions did these things.

Same goes for the other acts of genocide, massacre and slaughter. For each of these slaughters, someone gave the orders. Others carried out the orders. Those who gave the orders and those who carried out the orders are responsible.

God did not do these things.

Rather, God gives each of us a measured amount of free will within the physical world. Each of us can affect the lives of others around us through our decisions and actions. We each have the freedom to help others or harm others.

This is called free will. God gives each of us a measured amount of free will within this temporary physical world, because we sought independence from Him. Accordingly, God steps back and gives us the freedom to make choices that will affect our lives and other lives within this temporary (virtual) landscape.

If God didn't step back and allow us to make bad choices freely, we would not have free will. If He didn't allow us the freedom to make evil choices, He also could not allow us the freedom to make good choices. We wouldn't have any choices at all if He restricted us from making evil choices.

Rather, as discussed with the prior questions, God has created a virtual world filled with temporary physical bodies, within which we have been given the autonomy to make choices – good or bad.

But there is another side of this ability to make choices: The responsibility of our choices. This means accountability. True freedom must come with the accountability for those who abuse that freedom.

How does one abuse their freedom? By restricting the freedom of others.

The epitome of such abuse is murder. By murdering another creature – human or otherwise – we are taking away their ability to exercise their own free will. Such infringement requires accountability.

Free will comes with this accountability. Accountability is required because everyone must have access to free will. It is not that God just gave some people free will.

In order to guarantee free will for everyone, there must be accountability for those who infringe upon others' free will.

This means there are consequences to our actions. Consequences go either way. Good actions create positive consequences and actions that restrict the freedom of others – by harming others – create negative consequences at some point in the future – either in this life or a future life.

In other words, those who commit others to suffering must themselves suffer the same fate, to the same degree committed to others. This is accountability.

Hitler, for example, due to his causing the suffering of millions of people, also caused his own suffering: Suffering that he will be experiencing for many lifetimes to come. Same with those who carried out his orders. It doesn't matter whether they were tried or not later. They will suffer the consequences of their actions. If they had the choice, they will suffer the consequences of their choice.

This is the free will and accountability system that the Supreme Being designed on our behalf. We requested independence from God. We rejected our position as being subservient and wanted to be free from His direction. We wanted independence from God.

So He gave it to us. He designed a virtual environment where we could pretend to be someone else, and act freely without His interference.

This is what we wanted. Now, we can't suddenly, after demanding independence from Him and freedom from Him, go back and blame Him for the suffering that some of us have committed upon others.

In other words, we can't have it both ways. We can't demand independence from the Supreme Being – expecting to have the free will to make our own choices in life – and then blame Him if some of us use that free will to hurt each other.

### Can't we have it both ways?

No. We can't blame God, when God simply gave us the freedom to make our own decisions.

We can't blame God, when God simply created an environment that gives us the freedom to orchestrate our own governments, and select our own leaders, and worship our own lords.

We can't blame God for something that Hitler chose to do, and millions of German people followed this racist tyrant.

We can't blame God for the Ottoman Empire's ruler ordering the murders of Armenians, and millions of Turks joining his military and murdering those innocent Armenians.

We can't blame God for Stalin's ordering the massacres of thousands, and Russian soldiers carried out those orders.

We can't blame God for the orders of these evil people. And we can't blame God for thousands of soldiers carrying out their orders to massacre people.

Each of these rulers are responsible for those massacres due to the orders they gave. And each of those people who carried out their orders are responsible for those massacres as well.

God is not to blame. We wanted this freedom. We wanted the responsibility of governing our own countries, societies and other institutions. This is what we wanted, and He gave us that freedom. We can't blame Him if some of us misused that freedom.

But certainly, the Supreme Being also set up, along with this freedom, a consequence system that pays back each activity – good or bad – that affects others. This means that each of those responsible for the suffering inflicted upon others will be met with the consequences of that suffering.

They will have returned to them their next lives – or multiple lives as needed – precisely what they inflicted upon others. This is the natural law of consequences – cause and effect – that the Supreme Being designed alongside the free will He gave us.

Why? Because freedom comes with responsibility. This is inherent within freedom.

One cannot have freedom without having the responsibility of that freedom. In fact, freedom without responsibility is not real freedom. It is a façade of freedom. It is fake freedom.

Let's say, for example, a teenager said they wanted to have their independence, and moved away from the parents. Would the teenager truly gain their independence if whenever they did something wrong, the parents swooped in and fixed it?

Certainly not. Such a teenager who wanted their independence would likely get upset if the parents came in and interfered in their lives after they wanted their freedom. Even though they would probably appreciate their mess being cleaned up, they would not have truly established the independence they demanded.

We are in this situation. We demanded independence from God. So He gave it to us. We can't now blame Him when some of us screw up. We can't now expect Him to come and bail us out when we messed things up. After all, we wanted that independence.

And in order to have such independence, we must also suffer the consequences – good or bad – for what we do with that independence.

Just consider again the teenager who leaves home and requests his independence. Let's say he gets a great job and works hard and makes a bunch of money. Would the parents be right if they came in and took that money? Would that be giving the teenager his independence – taking what the teenager earned on his own?

No. If the teenager was truly independent, whatever he earns is his. This also goes for whatever the teenager owes as well. If the teenager has some debts, the teenager will have to pay their own debts off by working.

This is precisely how God designed the physical world. In fact, we find that Jesus and the Prophets all spoke of "debts" – things that we may have done to others, that we now "owe" the consequences for:

" _And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." (Matt. 6:12 NIV)_

This is the same idea. When we hurt someone, we accrue debts. When we help someone, we accrue benefits. This is the nature of freedom. This is the freedom that we requested from God.

So what about those innocent victims who were murdered by Hitler and other mad-men? Were they suffering the consequences of their own activities of the past?

No. They were victims. A person may be born into a situation where there is suffering as a consequence of suffering they inflicted upon others. But for those who are victims of an evil perpetrated by another person, these are victims.

There could be no free will if victims were being "set up" in order to pay off their previous activities. And certainly, no evil person has the foreknowledge of who deserves to be victimized. An evil person who causes suffering upon others is causing their own suffering in the future.

Such a question is like asking if Jesus was murdered as a consequence of something he did before. Certainly not.

Just as other mad-men made the evil choices to murder millions of people, the Romans, influenced by the chief priests, made the evil decision to murder Jesus. And those Roman soldiers who carried out the persecution also made their decisions to murder an innocent person.

These decisions came from evil hearts. The Romans and the chief priests were responsible for the murder of Jesus' body, just as others ordered massacres on others.

Yes, we also cannot blame God for the persecution of Jesus' physical body. God did not kill Jesus' body. The Romans and chief priests collectively did their part to kill Jesus' body. As such, they are responsible for that murder. It is not that God sacrificed Jesus as some sort of maniacal lamb of sacrifice (as some profess). That is an insane proposal – that God sacrificed His beloved Jesus.

Rather, those Romans and sectarian chief priests were given the freedom to accept Jesus' teachings or reject them. If God forced them to accept Jesus and accept Jesus' teachings, that means none of us would have the freedom to worship God or not.

This would then negate the possibility of being able to come to love God either. Love requires freedom. If we don't have the freedom to love God or not, then there is no question of love.

Love can only come from a position of free will. A position of freedom.

### What are the three types of suffering?

We discussed other forms of suffering earlier. This included people becoming sick from cancer or some other disease. Or people becoming hurt or maimed. Or people starving or thirsty.

Generally, there are three types of suffering. The first is suffering that is caused by specific prior activity. This type of suffering is produced by the environment that the soul is born into.

That is, the type of body we possess and the environment we are born into. This includes the type of parents and the family arrangement. It also includes the society and the conditions prevailing in that society.

For example, a soul born within a child in a family that is starving in a desert land is likely paying in consequences for a past activity. Perhaps they denied food to someone, and effectively starved them in a previous life.

But if a child is living with his family in the desert and a terrorist blows their house up, killing the other family members, this is another type of suffering. This is suffering caused by someone else. In this case, caused by the terrorist. The terrorist will now become responsible for paying the consequences for that crime against others.

The third type of suffering is caused by the environment of the physical world in a general way. The general structure and nature of the physical world causes suffering in the form of sickness and disease. The design of the physical world causes our bodies to get old and become increasingly painful.

Sure, the body's genetic makeup (DNA) is generated due to past activity. This may make the body inclined to be healthier or sicker.

But it is the design of the physical world that inflicts the basic suffering of sickness, disease and death of the body.

Yes, the Supreme Being was involved in the design of the physical world. But we made the decision to come here. The specific design came out of our request for independence. In other words, we made the choice that caused the physical world to be set up for us.

You see, the physical world is set up specifically in response to what we wanted. We wanted to live independently of the Supreme Being. We wanted the free will to made good and bad decisions. We wanted the ability to mess up. But our main objective was to have some measure of control over things.

But having free will is not the same as having free reign. It is not that we became God and now we are in control. Rather, we have the extent of independence that we wanted to exercise.

So the Supreme Being simply made a dimension that would reflect our consciousness. The worse our consciousness became, the worse the environment would also become – because the environment we are in reflects our consciousness.

In other words, those in the physical world who have a kinder, more gentle consciousness are born into an environment that contains less suffering. And those who have a more selfish, evil consciousness are born into an environment that has more suffering.

You see, there are many planets throughout the physical universe. In some there is more suffering. In others, there is less. In some planets, bodies are alive for thousands of years. In others, bodies only live for a few years. Many of these are on other dimensions – which contain different atmospheres. Yes, other planets do maintain atmospheres that cannot maintain human life. But they can maintain life within a dimension our physical eyes don't see.

This variation of life and exercise of free will and consequences includes different species of life. A soul born into the body of an animal after being in a human form is playing out a combination of their consciousness and their past activities. In that animal body they may suffer some of the precise consequences for actions they took in their prior life.

In this respect, it is the specific type of body and its current surroundings at the time of birth that reflects a combination of our consciousness and actions in a previous lifetime.

But once given a particular body in a particular environment, we are now free to choose out the course of our life: What is our purpose in life and what direction we want to take. This leads us towards making different types of decisions. And it is those decisions that determine our future bodies and conditions.

Free will is the cornerstone of the physical world, for those in human form, our consequences are proportionate to our awareness. Animals, for example, do not have the same awareness as humans. As a result, animals do not suffer the consequences of their actions to the degree that a human will. Many of their actions are taken out of instinct, and thus are not creating consequence.

Animals are, however, still learning. And they are still continuing a certain type of consciousness. Such a consciousness perpetuates continued animal consciousness, with a limited array of choices. This allows lessons to be learned in a series of births, each creating learning experiences. In most cases, these learning experiences (often suffering) are a reflection of choices made from within a previous human form.

After those learning experiences and consequences are played out in other bodies, the soul may rise up again to human form. Within the human form, the ability to make decisions returns. Free will is now assumed.

Without this free will, there could be no chance for us to some day make a decision to return to the Supreme Being. There would be no free will to love God and love others.

In other words, suffering is not caused by God. We cause the suffering. Each individual makes the decisions that eventually cause his or her own forms of suffering. This includes each of the three forms of suffering mentioned above. These three forms of suffering are like levels of platforms. Each respond to a different level of our consciousness and consequences.

The type of body we receive – and the environment, the society, family, status and so forth – are all a result of a combination of our consciousness and our consequences.

The bottom line is that none of us are victims.

Each of us is the cause for our own suffering – and our own success. We bring suffering and success upon ourselves.

### What about 'an eye for an eye'?

This doesn't mean that any of us should take it upon ourselves to subject others to consequences. That is not our role. This is one of the fallacies of some of the false interpretations of Moses' teachings regarding _"an eye for an eye"_ – misinterpreted and mistranslated as well – by people among the same sect that ended up persecuting Jesus as well as some of the Prophets.

Moses wasn't telling us that God wanted us to take it upon ourselves to make sure that others received the full – or even unjust – consequence of their actions.

God wasn't telling them to punish others who break religious precepts by putting out their eyes or stoning them or murdering them.

Rather, Moses was instructing them on the realities of consequences. He was teaching them that the law of consequences is such that they would receive the same suffering they inflicted upon others – either now or in the future.

It is outrageous to think that God intended for people to inflect suffering upon others – such as stoning and other punishments – for breaking religious tenets such as not wearing the right robes or being obedient to their spouse.

For example, stoning a woman to death because she didn't wear the right clothing. Or stoning someone to death because they committed adultery.

It is a crime to persecute someone viciously for such things, far outside the harm they may have caused others. That would be like belting a child with 20 lashes for throwing some food on the wall. What kind of parent would do that to their child? Only a vicious, evil parent.

Rather, Moses' teaching was that if we take out someone else's eye, by the laws of nature, we will suffer the consequences of that action at some point in the future – either in this lifetime of the next. Moses wasn't telling his students to take matters into their own hands and do the "eye for an eye" themselves.

Yes, this is how it might be written in the Bible. But Moses' teachings were given orally. They were then passed down for thousands of years before they were written down. As such, when they were written, they were written out of context of Moses' real teachings. They were expanded, and altered, by those who sought power over others and wanted to use Moses' teachings to maintain their control over others.

Certainly, in cases where a person is harming others, society must take steps to protect people by punishing those who harm others. The motive is to keep people safe. Not to become the instrument of consequence.

Humans wanting to inflict "an eye for an eye" upon others is simply barbaric. Society should be helping to protect others from people who hurt others. But this should always be done with a measure of restraint, justice and necessity.

For example, research has confirmed for non-violent crimes, counseling and rehabilitation programs are more successful in preventing future crime than throwing the convict into jail for extended sentences, where they become hardened criminals.

In fact, giving a person a sentence that is too harsh may well inflict future consequences upon those who are responsible for that sentence. This also goes for the ancient stonings. Those who participated in stoning a woman for simply not wearing the right robe or not conducting some other religious rite surely will suffer the consequences of their actions.

Yes, this means that someone who participates in something also shares the consequence of that action. Not participating, or doing something to stop the harm, is better.

The reality is that the law of consequences – "an eye for an eye" – does work in the physical world. But it is not that we are its facilitators. It is automatic. Yes, a person should be punished for crimes by law – with a measure of restraint and justice – and with the aim to protect others. But we cannot take the consequence system into our own hands and expect that we will somehow be able to fairly effect it.

We must realize that every one of us are subjects to this law of nature. We are not in command over it. We will in all cases receive the consequences of our actions done with the intent of self-purpose.

The consequence may or may not be fulfilled by a punishment from society. But this is not always the case. In some cases, the punishment may not be enough to provide the full consequence. So future consequence will still be required. It will surely come – we should be assured. Just as we should be assured that just because Hitler shot himself doesn't mean he won't suffer the consequences of murdering millions of people.

In all cases, consequences are based upon fairness. It is always fair in the long run. Everyone gets precisely what is deserved.

After all, the Supreme Being created this physical world because we wanted to get away from Him. We wanted the freedom to exercise our desires. So He created this virtual place – hell – for that purpose.

But should He have created a place where we could just do what we want without consequences? Should we be able to harm others and just keep living on in health and wealth with no pay back? Such a scenario is completely unreasonable. Such a design lacks the basic premise of fairness.

The Supreme Being didn't create the suffering of this world. We created the suffering. It was our self-centered activities that created all the suffering in this world.

All the Supreme Being did was set up a world where every action has a reaction. It was each of us that made the decisions and did the actions. So the suffering that we have in this world is a product of our self-centered activities. As a result, we have suffering.

Just consider this verse from the Book of Genesis:

And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of Us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. (Genesis 3:22-23 NIV)

This allegorical verse defines some of the conditions of our banishment from the spiritual realm. The _"Garden of Eden"_ is the symbolic representation of the spiritual realm.

" _Has become like one of Us, knowing"_ is translated from the Hebrew phrase, היה אחד ידע (hayah 'echad yada`). This doesn't say that we became like God in the fullest sense. Rather, it indicates a change of consciousness. In the spiritual realm, we maintain the position as one of God's loving servants in one respect or another.

But there was a change of consciousness. Genesis represents this change in its symbolism to eating the fruit. What is this fruit? It is the fruit of enviousness. We no longer wanted to love and serve the Supreme Being and work for God's enjoyment. We wanted to receive enjoyment. We wanted to be the enjoyer. We wanted to enjoy as God enjoys.

This change of consciousness is represented in Genesis in this verse:

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (Genesis 3:7 NIV)

This consciousness change of realizing they were naked means they began realizing their self-centeredness. This means their consciousness changed from one of purity to one of self-centeredness.

This symbolism tells of that moment when we began seeking our own satisfaction rather than seeking to please God. This is akin to becoming envious of God's position.

We were created by God to love and serve God. Thus, our normal position in the spiritual realm is God's servitor. By nature, our joy is giving God enjoyment. Yet because love requires freedom, we also have been given the freedom to seek God's position of being the enjoyer. Should we become envious of His enjoyment, we seek to be _"like"_ God.

This phrase also indicates that the position of being self-focused is normally God's position. Therefore, the meaning of the verse in Genesis 3:22-23 is akin to now seeking God's position. We now seek to be like God, because we seek to be the enjoyer.

You see, self-centeredness is God's natural position. But it is not our natural position. This is why we naturally coil when we see someone acting in an obvious self-centered fashion. Their self-centeredness bothers us because inherently we realize that none of us are by nature self-centered.

In 3:22 above, _"Good and evil"_ are being translated from טוב (towb) and רע (ra`). The more accurate translation of these two words relates better to pleasure and pain. To the Supreme Being, pleasure and pain come naturally, because He is the reservoir of all emotions, and He is the enjoyer of all these.

Those in the spiritual realm whose lives are focused upon pleasing the Supreme Being do not experience self-centered pleasure and its natural consequence, pain. They are only focused upon God's pleasure, and thus they only experience spiritual pleasure – the pleasure connected to love. And even what could be supposed as pain for the inhabitants of the spiritual realm – mainly the pain of separation from God – is also spiritually pleasurable to those inhabitants.

But as explained in Genesis 3:22-23, to become the enjoyer means experiencing pleasure and pain – due to self-centeredness. By becoming self-centered, we immediately put ourselves into a condition that sometimes results in pain.

God is saying that because we now seek His position, we will know self-centered pleasure and pain on our own. We will thus have to experience the results of a self-centered existence – fleeting flashes of pleasure combined with pain.

However, we must remember this verse follows a previous verse that is critical to the equation:

The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. (Genesis 3:21 NIV)

Let's quickly review the meaning of this verse. The next word עשה (`asah) translated to _"made"_ also means to produce, do, work, act with effect or effect. So the word includes designing and producing.

" _Garments"_ translated from כתנת (kĕthoneth) is also used in Hebrew to describe a tunic or undergarment. It is worn underneath the clothes.

" _Of skin"_ is translated from עור (`owr), but specifically means human skin, the skin of the gums, and more appropriately, the physical body. While it can also mean the skin of animals, this usage is more obscure.

" _Clothed them"_ comes from the Hebrew word לבש (labash), which also refers to becoming covered or enveloped.

Why would Adam and Eve, who were previously naked according to the parable, suddenly put on underwear? And what were they planning to wear over top of the underwear?

This use indicates symbolism is being used. When we combine the Hebrew word עור (`owr) with לבש (labash), we find the verse is discussing becoming covered or enveloped by skin.

In other words, this verse is indicating that the Supreme Being, in response to Adam and Eve becoming self-centered, banned them from the spiritual realm.

This is a parable about us: Each of us was banned from the spiritual realm because we became self-centered.

And our being banned came in the form of becoming covered by these physical bodies.

In other words, we were kicked out of the spiritual realm and forced to take on physical bodies within the physical realm.

Consider that the human body is like an undergarment, because it lies beneath one's clothing. The human body was designed and produced by God. The human body was designed to envelop, clothe, or cover the spiritual living being, just as a suit of armor is designed to envelop, clothe or cover the body, and just as an automobile is designed to envelop, clothe or cover a driver.

As we discussed previously, one can scientifically arrive at the understanding that we are not the physical body.

We are each spiritual beings, temporarily occupying a physical body, much as a driver temporarily drives an automobile. Once the driver is behind the wheel, the driver steers the car. Sometimes the driver even begins to identify with the car.

In the same way, once within the physical body, by God's design, we begin to identify ourselves with the body. We then begin to seek out our happiness as though we were these physical bodies.

This is why none of us are happy. We are seeking self-centered enjoyment outside of our natural position.

As a result, we were given physical bodies with which to exercise the independence we desire.

But after some time within the body, we begin to identify with this temporary vehicle: We begin to think our body is "me."

Once we misidentify ourselves, we begin to seek our happiness within that identity.

But the Supreme Being did not design the physical world and these physical bodies without principles. Since we have chosen to act outside of our innate spiritual capacity, the Supreme Being had to design the physical world and these physical bodies with the concept of consequences.

Once we became envious, there was no place for us in the spiritual realm. We fell away from the spiritual realm due to our self-centered desires. These desires became manifest by our taking on a particular type of temporary physical body.

These physical bodies are designed to execute our desire for self-centered enjoyment and independence from God. These bodies were designed for us to play out our desires to be in God's position.

We can see this all around us. Just about everyone is focused upon accomplishing self-centered desires. We are each pining to be served by others, and loved by others. Our lives revolve around ourselves.

This starts from the beginning of physical life. We enter the world crying for comfort. As babies, we perpetually cry—from the time of birth until the time we can talk. Then once we can talk, we are still crying out. Why all the crying?

We want to be free of pain. Then we want to be fed. When we don't get fed, we cry. Then we want to be hugged. We want love.

In other words, we want service. Being fed – being taken care of – these are acts of service from others – namely our mom and dad.

Do babies come into the world wanting to give anything back to mama who carried them and sacrificed for nine months? No. We want more. We want food. Then we want attention. Then we want toys. As we grow older, we want the other kids to respect us. We want our peers to like us, and give us respect. We also want bigger toys. And later, we want to enjoy sex.

As we grow older, our self-centeredness expands. We want to make lots of money. We want to be the high school star. Then we want to be famous. Then we want a beautiful husband or wife. We want a big job, a big house and we want to drive a big car. It goes on and on.

When these do not fulfill us, we want more. Like a family. Yea, we want kids. We want to "create" little people who will look up to us and love us. Then we want to teach our little "creations" our great wisdom, so they can do want we want them to do.

Then later on we want to retire. We want to sit back and enjoy life. We want to take a cruise. We want our grandchildren to come around to love us and serve us.

This is how most of us see becoming happy here in this world. What is this? This is the desire to be _like_ God: To be loved; to be served; to own stuff; to create people; to be the king of our own little kingdom.

These are by nature parts of God's position. Yet this is what we want.

None of the people living in the physical world want to serve. No of us wants to be a servant. We all want to be masters. We all want to rule over others. This is our disease, and this is why we are here in this physical world, away from God.

Yet despite these facts, we each end up being servants. We become servants of our bodies. We become servants of our families. Servants of our employers. Or servants of our fans. Or servants of the buyers of the products we make or the things we do.

We can see this in the life of any politician. The politician wants to get into a position of power so they can rule over people. But in order to become elected, the politician must do some service. He must show people that he is worth something.

Then once the politician gets elected, he must serve the people. He becomes a civil servant – acting on behalf of the people. And those politicians who do not do at least some service for the people don't get re-elected.

So despite the fact that we each want to be served – we are by nature servants. We are not God. We are not in control. We are controlled by nature. We are servants by nature.

This is because we are created by the Supreme Being to love and serve Him. This is our natural position.

The _"tree of life"_ described in Genesis is described as being in the _"middle"_ of the _"Garden."_ What is the _"tree of life?"_ The _"tree of life"_ symbolizes our loving relationship with the Supreme Being, and its "fruit" is love for God – what ultimately fulfills us. This is why this symbolic tree is described as being in the _"middle"_ of the _"Garden"_ – which symbolizes the spiritual realm.

But once we became envious of God we had to give up our loving relationship with God.

Relationships are like this. Let's say that we had a childhood friend for many years, and suddenly they achieved something that we became jealous of. This envy would certainly overwhelm and damage that relationship we had. True friends do not feel envious of each other. They support each other. Enviousness thus damages any loving relationship.

It is the same with God and each of us. Once we become envious of God's position we automatically gave up our position of one of God's loving servants and friends within the spiritual realm.

Our jealously not only deprived us of our loving feelings for God. It also resulted in our fall from the spiritual realm. We fell and took on a temporary body in the physical world.

Yes, these bodies subject us to experiences of pleasure and pain as laid out in Genesis. But this occurs not because God is wanting to inflict pain upon us.

It is because in order to be self-centered, we must experience both pleasure and pain. The self-centered experience would not be complete without both experiences.

Why? Because being self-centered requires a degree of independence. And independence would not be possible without good and bad choices.

Let's say, for example, that a teenage boy no longer wanted to obey his parents and yield to household chores and the responsibilities relating to being a family member – which included family relationships. The child wanted to have the same freedoms as the parents had. What would have to happen?

In order to achieve this position, the parents would have to grant the boy independence. The boy would have to be let out on his own so that he could make his own choices. He wouldn't have to do any more chores around the house. He wouldn't have to take out the trash, for example. But in order to achieve that, he would have to move out of the house and be on his own.

Such a position would require that the boy would have to go out and find a job so that he could take care of himself. Then once he is making some money, he would have to rent a place to stay. Then he'd have to buy food and make his own dinners, and do his own chores.

And yes, the boy certainly would have achieved his independence. He now has the freedom to take out the trash or not.

But alongside that freedom come the consequences of freedom. These include working for the money. They include cleaning the house. And they include taking out the trash or suffering from the consequences of not taking out the trash.

What would that be? If the boy didn't take out his trash the trash would pile up and it would stink and rats would invade his apartment and he might get kicked out of his apartment for not taking out the trash.

Let's say that this happened and the boy did get kicked out of the apartment (evicted). And he had to live on the street. At this point, would the boy blame the parents for making him live on the streets? Would he say that it was his parents' fault that he didn't take out the trash and he got kicked out of his apartment?

That would be ridiculous. The parents simply granted the boy his independence – which meant he had to leave the house. Certainly, the boy did get what he was wanting from his parents. He got freedom from them.

So why would it be his parents' fault if he got booted out on the street for not taking out his trash?

What would we think about such a boy? A boy who blames his parents for such a thing would be thought of as simply being a spoiled brat. Someone who never grew up. Someone who doesn't take responsibility for his own actions.

This is precisely where we are at the moment. We previously wanted our independence from God. We wanted to enjoy for ourselves. We wanted to get away from the responsibilities of being a loving family member of the spiritual realm.

So He gave us that independence. He gave us a virtual dimension where we could take on an independent personality. This is the physical world and our physical bodies.

But in order to accomplish that independence, we also have to contend with the consequences of independence. That is, the consequences of making good and bad decisions – decisions that affect others either in a positive way or a negative way.

And naturally, the consequences of actions that affect people in a bad way are bad consequences – painful consequences. And the consequences of actions that affect people in a positive way are good consequences. Naturally.

Remember, this is part of the equation of being independent – alongside other independent people.

In other words, whatever suffering is taking place within the physical world is our responsibility. Each of us have made the decisions and taken the actions that got us to the situation we are in at the moment.

Yes, some of those decisions and actions were taken in previous lifetimes. This begins with the decisions and actions we took when we were in the spiritual realm before our fall.

But then each physical lifetime since then, we've made further decisions and actions that affected others around us. These actions have the consequence of affecting us specifically – in our current or next lifetime.

If we undertake something in a previous life that is not paid back in that lifetime, it carries on to the next lifetime.

You can read more about this science of transmigration of the spirit-person in my book, Evolution of the Self.

The bottom line is that we should not be blaming God for our current suffering or the suffering of others. He is not responsible. We are.

A suffering event was caused by causing someone else that suffering at a prior time – or prior lifetime.

For example, a person who is born into starvation was likely responsible for the starvation of others in a former lifetime.

This can actually be within the same region as well. For example, there are people in African countries who are raping women and putting families into hardship and even stealing food deliveries before they can get to the starving families. What happens to such a person? Often they are not caught or imprisoned or in any other fashion paid for their crimes against others during their lifetime.

Then say they are shot at some point. Where do they go? Does such a person – responsible for rape, murder and starving others – go to heaven? Don't be ridiculous.

They may land right back into that region where they were raping women and starving children. But this time, they are born in the womb of a woman who was raped, and as a baby, they starve because of the very tactics they had employed in their previous lifetime.

In other words, they receive the precise consequences of their prior actions. It is automatic. Why?

Because the Supreme Being gave us a degree of independence, and such independence requires a condition of consequences in order to be truly independent.

Such a system is also a learning system. It is a perfect system. Yes, there is suffering – but that suffering is, like the physical body, temporary. It is taking place within a virtual dimension. A virtual body.

First, this doesn't mean that we should not help starving children. We should not be making judgments, nor should we also deny children food or care. Such actions would only perpetuate the crime – for which the new criminals would pay.

As such, we should always have mercy upon others who are paying the consequences of prior activities. It is not that we should not help them. We should help them – as such love and mercy has the effect of helping to cleanse the consciousness.

This understanding does clear the air on the essential question of whether God makes us suffer.

God loves us and cares for us. He doesn't want us to suffer. He doesn't want our bodies to experience pain. But they must experience pain if we want to maintain the condition of independence. We must experience the consequences of good and bad activities if we want to remain in a state of independence – away from God.

It is really our choice. God did not choose our current situation for us. We chose it. Throughout the process, God has allowed us the independence to get away from Him and maintain a virtually independent lifestyle – one that we choose.

And we've made these choices all along. He's given us the freedom to reject Him and rebel against Him. Why?

Because He wants us to freely love Him. Love would be useless if we were forced to love. In order to truly receive love, God must give us the freedom to love Him or not. If we didn't have that freedom, then loving God would be impossible.

In order to give us this freedom, God created the physical world and these physical bodies—in order for us to gain our independence from Him and decide out of freedom whether we want to love Him or not.

This is a key element because suffering takes place on the level of the physical body—not at the level of the spirit-person.

For example, if my body fell off a bike and broke a leg, my leg might be broken and hurt, but the real me – the spirit-person – doesn't have a broken leg.

Again, we can use the automobile analogy. I can sit down in my car and I might drive over some nails that pop my car's tires. The car now can't be driven until the tires are fixed.

So I can simply stop the car, take out the keys and walk away from the car until the tires are fixed. It is not as if when the tires got flat, I suddenly lost the ability to walk. No. The driver is unaffected by the car's inability to drive.

Same with the car's engine. If the engine blows, the car won't run. The driver simply gets out of the car and walks away. The blown engine didn't affect the driver's health.

The reason why the driver is unaffected by the car's broken motor or flat tires is because the driver is not the car. The driver has a separate existence from the car. The car is simply a vehicle that the driver chooses to drive around.

As we compare this with our current situation, the spirit-person is driving the physical body around just as a person would drive a car. The difference is that the driver of the body – the spirit-person – is made of a composition that is different from the body. Not only is the spirit-person not the body: The spirit-person is of a different dimension than the physical dimension.

This means that the body's suffering does not affect the spirit-person outside of the spirit-person's false identification with the body.

For example, let's say that a man drives a shiny new car into a parking lot and a rebellious teenager walks by and puts a large scratch along the side of the car. Now that scratch didn't directly hurt the man or damage the man. The car might have a big scratch in it, but the man is unharmed.

Yet the man will likely get out of the car and become very upset that the car got scratched. Why? The man didn't get hurt.

But because the man is attached to the car, he gets upset. Perhaps the man wants to maintain the car in good shape so he can sell it one day. Or perhaps the man feels his identity is connected to the car. He feels that if the car looks bad, he looks bad. Either way, having a big long scratch on the car interferes with the man's purpose for the car. And because of this interference, the man becomes upset if the car is damaged in some way.

Now let's say the damage to the car possibly interrupted the man's ability to drive the car. Let's say that instead of just scratching the car, the teenager put sugar in the gas tank of the car. So the man could no longer drive the car.

Again, even though the man has a separate existence from his car, the man may become very angry that the teenager interrupted the man's ability to drive the car.

In other words, the damage to the car interfered with the man's plan for enjoying the car – by driving to where he wants to go.

This would make the man very angry, to the point where it seems that it was a life-or-death situation. Even though the car's health has nothing to do with the driver's health directly, because the driver had a purpose for the car, when it broke down it interfered with that purpose.

This may feel like pain to the driver, but the driver himself is experiencing no physical pain. Rather, the driver is experiencing some emotional pain from the damage. Perhaps a bit of anguish – like, "oh no, I won't be able to drive where I want to for awhile."

So the situation might feel like suffering to the man who owns the car – but only to the extent that the man was attached to the car.

If, for example, the car was an old beater with lots of dents and scratches, would the man feel the same?

Certainly not. The man would not feel as anguished by a big scratch. And if the car broke down, he wouldn't car as much because the car was old and worn out now. So in this case, the man might just walk away from the old car and start looking for a new car.

In the very same way, we have a separate existence from these physical bodies. But the more attached we are to these physical bodies, the more we will tend to have anguish when the body is hurt or damaged somehow.

And the more attached we are, the more we will perceive damage to the body as us suffering.

This brings us to the question of why these physical bodies were designed to suffer, and why do we falsely identify with them and believe we are suffering as they do?

The reason – quite simply – is because this world is not – as some ecclesiastical teachers portray – created as a place of enjoyment. This world is a rehabilitation center. And these physical bodies are like our rehabilitation chambers (or cells).

Yes, we are here to learn. This is why we are born into temporary bodies that are strife with challenges. Each of us must bear these challenges, and learn from them.

And each of us have our own set of challenges. Some of us are born into sickly bodies and are challenged with dealing with those types of challenges. And some of us are born into healthy bodies but must suffer a set of challenges related to society or mental issues, or otherwise.

Is one type of challenge easier than another? This depends of course on how the person handles that challenge. For example, one person may be hungry and poor and yet be able to handle these challenges with honor and humility and thus learn their lessons. Another person – with a healthy body and wealth – might have some challenges with their family relationships and be in complete anguish and torment because of those relationships. Who is suffering the most between these two?

Certainly it is the one who is not learning much from their challenge.

We might consider this situation similar to a person who sits down at a computer and begins playing a computer game. Once the person begins the game, they will pick an avatar or icon to play in the game with. This avatar or icon then becomes subjected to the various challenges of the game.

The virtual world set up by the computer game might, for example, be based upon war or say crime. In this way, the game will exert challenges upon the icon and player based on war or crime. The icon might be shot at, or stabbed, or bombs might be blowing up around the icon, and the game player must figure out a way to maneuver around these.

And sometimes the icon might even get blown up or killed, ending the game.

But in this event, the person playing the computer game can just turn off the computer and walk away – unscathed.

This analogy – comparing the physical world and these physical bodies to a computer game – maintains other positive comparisons. In a good computer game – just as in life – there are various lessons that are taught. While many computer games might be programmed just to provide escape and entertainment, some are set up specifically for learning.

The physical world is like one of these. In such a computer game, the icon might be subjected to various challenges that require the person playing the game to solve problems or otherwise deal with difficult situations in order to learn something. As such, when the person finishes playing the computer game, they will come away knowing some stuff they didn't know before.

Such is our situation – if we choose to learn the lessons this world is providing to us.

Yes, each of us will make it out of these physical bodies – this physical lifetime – unscathed. If our arms and legs are blown up in a war, our spirit-person will still be whole. This is because the spirit-person lies on another dimension. Just as the computer game player is on a different dimension than the computer game – we exist on another dimension outside of this physical realm.

And while the physical world is real – just as a computer game is real – both of these – the computer game and the physical world – are virtual realities in that they are programmed to mimic reality. They are not complete within themselves, but rather, reflect in some way, reality.

The central difference between this physical world and physical body and a computer game is that we are stuck here, and we cannot control when the game (the lifetime of our body) will end.

The other critical difference is that while a person might become enmeshed into a computer game and begin to identify with his or her avatar or icon, the Supreme Being has set up the physical world in such a way that we completely forget our real identity as spiritual, and we mistakenly identify ourselves with these physical bodies.

This is because this is all controlled by the Supreme Being and His perfect programming design. Yes, God is in complete control. He created the program of the physical world and these physical bodies, and they are perfectly designed – with DNA and societies and time lux – in order to present to us particular problems and challenges.

Yes, within that control, He gave us free will – and thus a minimum of control within this physical dimension. We can make decisions about what direction we want to take in life and control whether or not we will stay within this virtual physical realm. We can humbly make a choice to learn the lessons this world and body are teaching us – and doing so will allow us to graduate from this world and return to our home in the spiritual realm.

Again this might be compared to a computer learning game. Consider the student who begins using a computer learning game for school, but refuses to learn the lessons of the game. Such a student will simply not graduate.

This also happens in this world with those of us living within physical bodies. If we don't learn the lessons this physical world has been programmed to teach each of us – in our own particular way – then we will be forced to "replay the game" and take on a new body after the death of this physical body.

Yes, each of us has a particular body born into a particular situation that is programmed to teach us particular lessons. These lessons are specifically suited for our particular stage of learning. Our DNA and situations we are born into – and evolve throughout our lifetime – are perfectly designed to teach us – or re-teach us – particular lessons designed specifically for us.

This is why each of us has unique DNA and lives a unique life when looked at from the end of our lives.

In other words, our body and our environment reflects perfectly the lessons we must learn. These lessons are produced by a combination of our consciousness and our past decisions – resulting in our past activities – here and in the spiritual realm before we came here.

Such scenarios are called consequences. In programming language it is called the "IF/THEN statement."

IF we do something, THEN a particular thing will take place as a result. IF we do something else, THEN another particular thing will take place as a result.

For example, IF we decide to use our body to steal from another, THEN our body will be put in jail. Such a scenario – of stealing – results in our time and freedom being stolen back.

Or IF we are mean to someone, THEN others – often the same people we are mean to – will be mean to us.

And so on. These consequences are programmed into the physical world by the Supreme Being – who remains in control. Some consequences might occur immediately, while some may occur later – some in another lifetime.

Jesus, in fact, taught this law of programmed consequences. We can know this as Jesus told a man whose body he had healed:

" _See, your body is now well. Sin no more so nothing worse happens to you." (John 5:14 NIV)_

Here, to _"sin"_ is to act in such a way that either harms others or is acted upon in a self-centered manner – each of which creates consequences.

We also see this in the question that Jesus was asked by his disciples:

" _Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" (John 9:2 NIV)_

This indicates that Jesus' disciples 1) understood the law of consequences – that ones activities result in consequences; and 2) that those consequences can carry over from one lifetime to the next.

Here Jesus' disciples are questioning whether the blindness was a consequence of the man's previous activities, or was a consequence of the parents' activities. (Just consider, in other words, the burden to parents who must raise a blind child.)

But in order for the man to have sinned before he was born, he would have had to have lived before he was born.

The bottom line is that _"sinning"_ – which means to act in a self-centered manner – creates consequences. Consequences that relate to learning.

Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. (Gal. 6:8 NIV)

Just consider, for example, consequence learning as now professed by child psychologists as the best way for parents to discipline their children. Instead of spanking children – called "arbitrary discipline" – parents are now encouraged to set up consequences for acting out. This, they have proven, better teaches the child.

So let's say a child throws food on the wall during dinner. While arbitrary discipline might be to spank the child (spanking is unrelated to throwing food), consequence discipline would be that the child would have to clean the wall, and repaint it if necessary. Such a cleaning and/or repainting might take the child several hours to complete in order to bring the wall back to its former state.

But what would happen while the child was cleaning the wall? The child would experience the results of their activity. They would see just how hard it is to clean up food thrown onto walls. This would hopefully teach the child not to throw food.

So how does this relate to our learning in the physical world?

Just consider the types of consequences that result in our activities – and which of our activities are considered the most offensive: Those activities that harm others.

When we harm the bodies of others, we set up the consequence where our current body or a future body will be harmed in the same way. What does this consequence teach us? It directly teaches us empathy – to understand the pain that others go through.

And what is empathy? It means to put ourselves in another's shoes. Empathy means to care about others.

And caring about others leads to – loving others.

In addition to providing us the freedom we desire, this is what the consequence system of the physical world is set up to teach us: To love again.

We are each from the spiritual realm – an environment where love abounds. And we are each created by the Supreme Being – a Person who unconditionally loves each of us – regardless of what we may do and regardless of what we may say.

And just as a parent loves their child and wants the best for them and must as a result have to apply consequences to their actions, the Supreme Being has set up this virtual reality of the physical world in order to have us experience virtual consequences in order to teach us to love again.

Yes, virtual consequences. Remember that we are not these physical bodies. The consequences that take place in the physical world occur for something that is separate from us. Like a car in a demolition derby.

Just think about it. In a demolition derby, cars are crashing into each other, getting dented up and completely demolished. Meanwhile, the drivers are fitted with helmets and cages so they won't be hurt as the cars collide.

In the same way, the spirit-person is driving the physical body. The physical body may be getting beaten up or imprisoned, but the spirit-person within remains unharmed. The separation between the physical world and the spirit provides a cushion so that the consequences of the physical world do not damage the spirit-person.

This doesn't mean that the physical world doesn't affect the spirit-person. It's supposed to. But the effect is upon the heart of the spirit-person. The events of the physical world will hopefully create a greater sense of humility for the spirit-person. This greater sense of humility is meant to help counteract the development of envy and self-centeredness that has developed within the heart of the spirit-person.

We might compare this with the teenager who plays a video game where the game icon gets beat up or shot at during the video game, but the teenager remains unharmed. In this case, however, the video game is set up to help teach the teenager. In this way, when the teenager turns off the video game, he can take away some lessons.

This of course goes back to the central reason we are here in the physical world within these temporary bodies in the first place: Because each of us – at some point – made the choice to become self-centered rather than God-centered and love-centered. We each decided that we would rather enjoy ourselves than seek to please the Supreme Being and His other children and associates.

This decision – to become self-centered – is the choice that each of us dwelling in the physical world made at some point. Why?

Each of us are children of God – but we are also His friends. He created us to play with Him and have lots of fun with Him, and love Him and love each other.

But what meaning would this have if we had no choice? If we had no option? If we could not choose not to love God and His other children, then what value would loving Him have?

Just consider a child of a wealthy family say 200 years ago when slavery was legal, and all the child's playmates are slaves of the family. They have no choice but to play with the child. They are not playing voluntarily. Such a situation would mean that the "playing" of these slave "playmates" would also not be real. It would be contrived – forced.

Would the Supreme Being want to have friends that had no choice but to play with Him? Certainly not. Such "play" would be like playing with robots – who experience no real love.

This is why the Supreme Being has given us this power of choice: Each of us has the power to choose to love Him. This means God has set up things so that we can choose not to love Him. Heck, He has set it up so that we can even choose not to believe that He exists.

Such a freedom – to not believe in God – is the ultimate freedom of choice. This, in fact, is why the Supreme Being doesn't often appear in the physical world to our senses. He stays mostly invisible in order to provide us with the complete freedom not to accept His existence – so we can choose not to love Him without any remorse or influence.

He even allows various philosophies that deny His existence for the same reason. He sets up so many barriers to convince us that He doesn't exist.

Why? In order to make believing in His existence – and wanting to love Him and be with Him – a challenge. There are so many barriers in the way. In order to believe in His existence and come to love Him we must break through so many challenges – the first of which is, "If God exists, why can't I see Him?"

And the reason He makes this step so challenging is because He only wants us to return to Him if we are completely ready. We must be ready to fall in love with Him again. We must become ready to commit ourselves to Him.

And to the degree we are not ready – to the degree that we cannot commit ourselves to Him – He presents us with various doubts and challenges to His existence. These are presented from within our mind as well as without in the form of different philosophies, such as those that claim that God is a void or that we are each God – and we are not individuals and so on.

Yes, these philosophies – as well as the many misinterpretations of scriptures – are allowed and even arranged by the Supreme Being in order to present to us challenges to His existence – in order to ultimately give us the freedom of choice whether we want to return to Him or not.

You see, the Supreme Being is the person we have been looking for our entire lives. People say they are looking for a soulmate because they are looking for their lost relationship with the Perfect Person – the Supreme Person.

And this is why Jesus' most important instructions – as was Moses' and all the other prophets – were to love the Supreme Being and love His children:

Jesus replied, "The most important of all the instructions is, 'Hear O Israel – the LORD our God is our only Lord – and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength' – this is the most important instruction. And the second is like it – 'You shall love any other person as yourself.' There is no other instruction greater than these." (Mark 12:30-31 NIV)

This is also why there is so much evil in the world. Some speculators will say that because there is so much suffering and so much evil in the world that there could be no Supreme Being.

What they don't care to see is that it is our choices – as individuals and societies – that have created the evil in the world. This is the result of being given freedom. Some choose to abuse this freedom.

And the basic sufferings of the physical world – pain, disease, old age and death – are simply consequences of our wanting to enjoy life without the Supreme Being. They are natural consequences of self-centeredness.

For example, let's say a young boy throws his dinner plate on the floor. What should the parent do? Should the parent clean it up for him? No. That would just encourage the boy to do it again. He would not learn. But if the boy has to clean it up, then he will be less likely to do it again – if he learned anything. The consequence of having to clean it up should have taught him not to do it again.

In the same way, if the Supreme Being simply removed the consequences of things we have done in our past, we would never learn from them. In the case of causing pain upon another, if our bodies come to experience that same pain, we will come to know "how it feels." That will hopefully give us some empathy – understanding what it is to have such pain. And thus try not to cause pain to others. This lesson, if it is learned, leads one to care about others – a prerequisite for loving others.

Such a learning experience serves to rehabilitate our hearts. As we become rehabilitated, our hearts become more eligible to return home to the spiritual world – our home, full of love. Should such a person – who is becoming rehabilitated – turn to the Supreme Being and ask to return home to Him: For those, the Supreme Being sends His representative – His loving servant – to retrieve them.

This is why Jesus did not want those who were healed to announce it to the public. The healings were personal – they were intended to reveal God's authority to those who were healed and those who observed it.

Such persons – who have a change of heart and sincerely want to return home to their relationship with God – will, upon witnessing such events, perceive God's representative and understand his purpose of coming here to save those who are ready to return home to God.

This is why Jesus would often say stuff like, 'according to your faith you are healed.' Because they had become ready to be relieved of their consequences. They had become ready to return to their relationship with the Supreme Being.

And as for those who claim, "God doesn't exist because there is suffering," they aren't seeing the complete picture – nor are they considering that there may be someone in charge who is more intelligent than they are.

They don't see that we are not these physical bodies. These physical bodies are temporary and virtual identities. We live in them for a few decades and they get sick and die. We identify ourselves as a child for a few years, and then the body grows older. Then we identify ourselves as a young man or young woman for a few years, and then the body grows even older. Then we identify ourselves as an elderly man or woman and then the body dies and we lose that identity too.

We are none of these identities, because the physical body is a vehicle – like an airplane we get into and fly. Just as the pilot is not the plane, we are not these physical bodies. And just as a person playing a computer video game is not the icon or avatar in the game, we are not these physical bodies.

Therefore, what we see around us are physical bodies suffering. It is all temporary. For example, a person might lose their legs in a car accident, but the person is still the same person. The person within is still the same – the accident did not affect their real self. In the same way, if we lose our entire body – at the time of death – we are still the same person. We are spiritual in composition – not matter.

So just as one would not blame a computer program for allowing the avatar or icon to get blown up in a war game, we cannot blame the Supreme Being. Just as the video game can be a learning experience, the sufferings of these temporary physical bodies is also a learning experience – if we choose to learn from it.

And just as a person can shut off the computer and stop playing the video game we can decide not to 'play the game' of the physical world. We can – at any time – decide that we want to return to our home in the spiritual realm and return to our Master and Best Friend, the Supreme Being.

Question Nine: Why do children suffer?

The answer to this question is similar to the answer to the previous question, but with one major difference.

The problem being presented is that presumably, children are innocent and thus should not suffer from any consequences. Because they were recently born, they haven't done anything to deserve their situation. Right?

Wrong. The assumption is that children have no existence prior to being born. Could this be true?

If we accept such an assumption we would have no good explanation for child prodigies. Some have theorized that child prodigies have larger cerebellums and long-term working memory. But these are baseless theories, because childhood prodigies come in all sizes and shapes. They also have different brains and different types of skills.

As we touched on earlier, this is related to the research of rebirth. Such a notion has been documented among thousands of children by psychiatrists Jim Tucker, M.D., and Ian Stevenson, M.D. As researchers and professors from the University of Virginia, Dr. Tucker and Dr. Stevenson compiled over 2,500 cases of children recalling their previous life. Each case was corroborated with evidence from historical documents.

In one case, for example, a child at the age of six remembered his previous lifetime, occupation and where he lived. The child remembered living in Hollywood, and went by the name of George. He spoke of people who were in the movie business with him in the 1930s and 1940s. He spoke of having four children and many other intimate details. Dr. Stevenson corroborated the information, finding the boy had accurately told of events and situations that would not have been available to the boy.

Dr. Stevenson's and Dr. Tucker's research continued over a three decade period. Over 70 percent of the cases involved children under the age of seven. According to the research, by the age of seven, most children will forget their former lives.

In 2013, Dr. Tucker, a psychiatry professor at the University of Virginia, wrote _"Return to Life: Extraordinary Cases of Children Who Remember Past Lives."_ Previous to that, Dr. Stevenson and Dr. Tucker wrote, _"Life Before Life: Children's Memories of Previous Lives."_

In these books, Dr. Tucker and Dr. Stevenson describe over 300 documented cases of a child having a birthmark at the precise spot that related to how they died in their previous life. For example, a child who recalls being shot in the head also bears specific and lasting birthmarks at the entry and exit wound of the gunshot. Other children had birthmarks at the very location their previous body lifetime after being stabbed to death.

Other children had physical attributes that reflected their prior activities in a different lifetime.

This element of consequences carrying over to the next lifetime was also taught by Jesus, despite it being manipulated out of much of the Gospels. But we still find traces. Not only in the discussions of Elijah and John, and transfiguration, but in a question by Jesus' disciples about a man born blind:

" _Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" (John 9:2 NIV)_

Jesus' disciples were asking him whose consequences were being paid for in the blindness. Since the man was born blind, the only way he could have sinned prior to being born blind was if he sinned in his previous lifetime – in another physical body.

Or it could be that the blindness of the man was a consequence of something his parents did. The reason this question is being asked by Jesus' disciples is because he was teaching them about the consequences of sin.

And what is sin? Sins are self-centered activities, condemned by the Supreme Being's instructions. Any self-centered activity has a consequence. A self-centered activity that hurts another person will result in us having whatever effect we had upon another come back to us in one form or another – either in this life or the next. Similarly, if we help another person with a self-centered objective, then the consequence will be that we will be helped by another in the future.

This also means that as we continue to destroy this planet, we will reap the consequences by being born back onto the planet as it descends into environmental chaos.

To those of us who are responsible for polluting the air and creating greenhouse gases – even if our bodies may die before the calamities of global warming have their complete effects – will not be escaping those effects. We will be transfigured – born – into physical bodies that will have to suffer from the droughts and starvation that global warming creates. One way or another, we will have to reap the effects of what we sow during this lifetime.

This is fairness. The Supreme Being is extremely fair. Why would he set up a system where a person could destroy the environment yet not have to suffer the consequences of his actions? Is it fair for one person to create the problem yet another person has to experience the results? No. The same spirit-persons who created the problems in one life will be born into physical bodies – in one species or another – that will experience the effects of the problems they created in their previous lifetime.

This is critical because in the physical world, these bodies are temporary. They are born, get old and then die. They are temporary vehicles from which we focus on achieving self-centered pleasure.

### Is this fair?

Just consider, for example, if we were forced to return home to the spiritual realm after this one lifetime was over – even though we weren't finished with our plans for self-centered pleasure. Would that be fair? To force us to return to where everyone was worshiping God and wanting to give pleasure to God?

No, that would not be fair. Love is based upon freedom. In order to receive true love, God gives us the freedom not to love Him.

Should someone choose not to love God, that person takes on a temporary physical body in the physical world – a physical body that allows us the ability to ignore God and chase after our own pleasures.

Yes, God grants us the ability to ignore Him and even deny His existence.

Such a situation of freedom is not abruptly snatched back at the time of death by God. For God would never force us to return back to Him before we are ready.

To achieve this purpose, the Supreme Being designed the system so that we could take on another body within the physical world to continue to chase our desires.

So what kind of body will we inherit in our next life?

This depends upon our consciousness. And our prior activities. It is a combination of these two. The combination of the consequences of our prior activities and our consciousness will manifest a particular type of physical body accordingly.

One might consider this to be like getting into a particular college. A high school student might want to get into Harvard or Yale but if they are a C student it is unlikely they will be accepted. They will have to have put in the hard work to get good grades in order to receive the good consequence of being accepted at one of these colleges.

But the college also relates to ones desires as well. A person who didn't want to get into college probably wouldn't even apply in the first place. Since they don't apply, they won't get in.

We could also compare this to what kind of car we drove. A person might want to drive a Ferrari sports car. Or perhaps a big four wheel drive Jeep or Hummer. Depending upon the person's consciousness, they will desire a particular type of car.

But money is the other side of the equation, and money represents consequences. A person who worked hard and saved a bunch of money might have enough money to buy a Ferrari. Otherwise, they might have to purchase a used car with a cheaper price tag.

In other words, the car a person ends up driving typically reflects a combination of that person's consciousness (what kind of car they want to drive) and how much money they have (what kind of car they can afford).

We can also extend this same formula to practically anything within the physical world. From houses to spouses, what we get relates to a combination of what we desire and what we deserve.

This includes the type of body we inherit in our next lifetime. This includes the gender of the body. The attractiveness of that body. What kind of family that body is born in. What country that body is born in. On and on – every circumstance is created by the combination of one's desires and what we deserve from our previous lifetime.

Yes, we get to choose our next lifetime. Not precisely in terms of which family or which country mind you. But by the consciousness that we cultivate combined with the consequences that the activities of this lifetime, we can pretty much determine whether we will be in a human body, an animal body, or return home in our original angel body.

It is within the spiritual realm that we are truly happy. We are happy because we are exchanging love with God and love with all of God's other children. We can see that this is our natural position as we look around and see that everyone including us is seeking love and to be loved.

Yet we are never satisfied with the type of love we find in the physical world, because all the other citizens of the physical world are also trying to be in God's position. So we struggle and compete with each other for position and attention. We struggle for God's position, in other words.

And what little love exists within this world is predicated upon our temporary physical bodies. We typically love only those who have bodies within our body's family, or those who marry our bodies, or those who somehow prove their devotion to us. Otherwise, we don't love others, and others don't love us. This is not really love, because it is conditional.

Real love is unconditional. When someone really loves another, it doesn't matter what body they have on or what family their body comes from. It doesn't matter if the person hates them. Real love is unconditional.

This is the kind of love we are desperate for. This is the type of love that comes from the Supreme Being, and those within the spiritual world who love God unconditionally – they also love others unconditionally. It is like an infection: Those in the spiritual realm are all infected with spiritual love.

But once we decide that we want more for ourselves – we want what God has – it all dissolves. In an instant, we find ourselves fallen from the spiritual realm, and sucked inside of a physical body's sperm to be fertilized. Then the body develops around us, and we begin to identify with a temporary physical body, as we seek to use it for achieving our self-centered goals.

We abandoned our love for God and became jealous of Him – so we were pushed out of the spiritual realm.

Complaining that God is cause of our suffering is like a bratty child complaining that because they had to clean up the mess they made – the consequence of throwing food or something – their parents must not exist.

Jesus did not teach this. In fact, we know that Jesus taught that the physical body suffers due to the law of consequences. This is why he said to a person that he healed:

" _See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." (John 5:14 NIV)_

Jesus is connecting sin with suffering – not only here, but throughout his teachings, prompting the oft-paraphrased teaching:

A man reaps what he sows. (Galatians 6:7 NIV)

And what is sin? "Sin" means to live a life focused upon ones own enjoyment at the expense of others.

But Jesus did not teach consequences only in this life. He clearly taught his students that if a man lives a life of sin he will also suffer in his next life – in what is often called the "afterlife."

Yet people will say that Jesus did not teach the transmigration of the soul – sometimes called reincarnation or resurrection. So we ask, how could a person have an "afterlife" if their body has died? How can they suffer in hell if their self does not transmigrate from the current body to another one – or at least to another environment?

The body that died will decompose and turn into soil. So surely they are not suffering in hell in that dead body. They had to leave that body at the time of death. This is why a dead body has no personality.

Even though early Christianity accepted transmigration/resurrection and the Roman Catholic Church banned it in the following centuries, we know that Jesus taught transmigration – the existence of a prior life and an afterlife. Consider the question raised by Jesus' disciples:

" _Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" (John 9:2 NIV)_

By the nature of the question we know that Jesus' disciples accepted the possibility that the man – actually the spirit-person occupying the body of a man – had a prior existence. The only way he could have sinned before he was born is if he had a prior life within which to sin.

The nature of this question also tells us that Jesus indeed taught that the suffering of this lifetime is connected with the activities of a prior lifetime. And the activities of this lifetime will produce consequences in the next lifetime.

And this is why people are born into suffering. As a consequence of the suffering that we inflicted upon others in a prior lifetime.

For example, what do you think would be the most appropriate punishment for a person who forces starvation onto another person in this lifetime? Come on, what is it?

Yes – you know what is the most appropriate punishment: That person who forced starvation upon another should face what they forced upon another: And be born into a body and environment where their body is starving. In fact, that would be the only real fair punishment for such a cruel crime of forcing starvation upon another person – right?

This doesn't mean that we should not have mercy upon others and we shouldn't help those who are starving in this lifetime: Certainly we should have mercy and we should help such children – just as Jesus did. But as we struggle to understand WHY there is suffering in the world – this is why.

But to understand this more completely, one must become fully aware that we are not these physical bodies. This is an important point. So it is not as if suffering is being inflicted upon me – the spirit-person – it is being inflicted upon a future vehicle that I may occupy temporarily.

A fair way of looking at this would be our cars. If we took our car and we rammed into another car and dented it all up – an appropriate consequence would be that our car also gets dented right? But we must understand that the denting takes place upon the car, not the driver. The driver can get out of the car even if it is dented and walk away unscathed.

It is the same with the suffering of the physical body. We are not these physical bodies. They are temporary vehicles. We might get into one vehicle that doesn't work properly but we are still the same spirit-person. And within a few years we will have to leave that physical body anyway.

This is why we accept that a person with a handicapped body is equal to a person in a non-handicapped body: Because innately we realize that the person lies deeper than the physical body.

And it is this person – this spirit-person – who needs to become happy by regaining our loving service relationship with the Supreme Being. It is this spirit-person who becomes great only when he becomes a loving servant of the Supreme Being and the children of the Supreme Being. Jesus stated this clearly about himself:

" _By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but Him who sent me." (John 5:30 NIV)_

Wanting to please God means becoming his loving servant. Jesus sought to please God because he saw himself as God's loving servant.

The reality is – and the answer to the question above about suffering – is that the Supreme Being has set up a world of consequences. Each action – unless it is in the service of God – comes with consequences in the physical world.

And these consequences carry over to the next lifetime. If one was a thief in this life, in the next life he will be born into a situation where everything is taken from him. If one is responsible for starving someone in this life, he will come to the next life – the next physical body – in a situation where he is starving as a child.

This never means that we should not try to help those who are suffering in this world. We should always have mercy upon others, and help them when possible. That is our choice, of course. We can either help others heal or turn our backs. Today there are many organizations that are helping to feel people who are starving. So it is easy to help.

Question Ten: Is God an angry God?

Saying that God is an angry God is offensive, and it is atheistic. Why? Because becoming angry suggests not being in complete control. To suggest that God is angry suggests that God has or can "lose" His temper.

Such a notion would suggest that anger can control God. That something else can control Him. Or that He can lose control.

The Supreme Being is always in control of His emotions. He is always in control in general. Never is the Supreme Being not in control.

This doesn't meant that the Supreme Being cannot become angry if He wants to become angry. This also doesn't mean that the Supreme Being cannot feel hurt – or feel any other type of emotion that we can feel.

But He is always in control over His feelings. Any feelings that He has and expresses are feelings that He chooses to feel.

The fact is, the Supreme Being has a giant heart. His love for us is enormous. He wants us to be happy. He wants us to be in a situation of being joyful. If we are not feeling joy, He is sad for us.

And if we do something that is destructive to us or others, certainly God can feel angry. But such anger is still joyful to God. It is still blissful, because it is felt in love.

The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. (Exodus 34:6-7 NIV)

The phrase, _"slow to anger"_ in this verse is translated from the Hebrew word אָרֵךְ ('arek). This actually does not indicate anger at all. Rather, the word literally means, "patient."

This word was similarly used in another verse:

But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. (Nehemiah 9:17 NIV)

So this is saying that God is patient, as well as loving and forgiving – and gracious. Those who have inferred that God becomes angry are sectarian institutions that want to scare their followers into submission.

Being an angry God is simply inconsistent with _"abounding in love"_ and being forgiving, patient and gracious. It is obvious that anger has been inferred upon God by those who do not know Him.

But God certainly does become saddened by activities of His children that harm others or reject Him.

One could compare this to an adult who becomes sad or disappointed when the child does something that is self-destructive. But there is a big difference between this situation for a parent and the situation of God. What is the difference?

The difference is that the parent is not in control. Ultimately, the parent cannot control what the child will do. The child is a separate person and that child can act out or ultimately pretty much do what they want, against the parent's will. This means the child could get out of control and the parent could lose control and become angry and do something they will regret later.

The Supreme Being, on the other hand, is always in control. He never acts in a way that He regrets. And nothing and no one can be out of His control.

Yet He grants the living beings like us a bit of virtual freedom. The freedom is given – it is not taken. And this freedom is limited in scope.

This might be compared to a parent who has a baby and he drops the baby into a crib with a little area to crawl around in. The baby cannot crawl outside the area the parent has set up for the baby. So while the baby is given some freedom to crawl around, the baby cannot leave the crib. The baby cannot just walk out of the house or something.

So how will a parent usually respond to the baby's movements in that controlled environment of the crib? The parent will typically be entertained by the baby. The baby will seem very cute, as it tries to crawl around the crib and tries the put everything into its mouth. The parent will laugh with glee as the baby struggles around the crib as an infant.

In the same way, the Supreme Being has set us up in a limited environment, with a limited amount of freedom. We are in these temporary physical bodies and we are bouncing around this physical world trying to exercise our freedom. Why would He become upset? This is the place He set up for us. We cannot do any real damage here because we are limited by these physical bodies. They are temporary virtual machines that we drive around for awhile.

Sure, like a demolition derby, we can really crash into some other cars and put some serious dents in some other cars. We can also demolish another car and send the driver packing.

Yes, we can harm other people's bodies. We can even kill another's body. But the person within that body will simply get away. We cannot touch the person within that body. Our only control is within this physical dimension – where everything is virtual.

By virtual we don't mean this dimension and these bodies do not exist. It's just that they are not our real identities. They are machines that we drive.

And it is serious business if we harm someone else's body. Our body will become harmed as a result. We will suffer the consequences of harming some other body.

Yet this is still not outside of God's control. He can regulate and control what is going on at any point.

But that doesn't mean that He does. He typically gives us each our independence. But this independence is always granted. We don't take the independence. He grants it.

This means that He is never out of control. He is never being tested. He is never threatened by us.

Just as the parent sees the baby in the crib as cute, the Supreme Being also sees us as cute. We are entertaining Him. He is watching and laughing – as we try to pretend that we are the greatest.

After all, He created us. So what is not to like?

But when we act in ways that harm our spiritual selves, then He can become disappointed. He can become sad for us – because we are not embracing what is joyful – what is blissful – and that is our loving relationship with Him.

Yes, He does want us to love Him. He wants to exchange a relationship with us. And this is why He encourages us to embrace His loving self. This is why He sends His representatives – to show us how much He loves us.

But feeling angry – as portrayed in some of the verses of Old Testament – is not accurate. Consider for example, this verse:

The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. (1King 11:9 NIV)

Here the word _"angry"_ is being translated from the Hebrew word, אָנַףּ ('anaph), which might mean angry in some contexts, but also means to be displeased.

Translators who translate this word to "angry" simply did not know God. God is never subject to losing His temper.

Surely the Supreme Being might be displeased by certain actions, just as He can be pleased by other actions. This does not necessarily translate to anger, however.

And there is a big difference between becoming angry and displeased. Becoming angry is mutually exclusive with control. Being displeased includes the possibility of being in control, yet granting a measure of freedom.

When the Supreme Being gives us the freedom to love Him or not – to reject Him or not – He certainly has the right to have feelings as a result of our actions. God can, after all, feel.

Let's say, for example, that a father is teaching a child to walk. He is holding the child as they get up on their feet and shakingly put one foot before the other.

Now let's say that the parent let's go of the child to let the child try to walk on his own. And the child stumbles and falls.

Does the father become angry at the child for falling? Certainly not. The father loves the child, and is probably laughing at the child's attempt to walk. Certainly the father does not become angry at the child for not walking. He just let the child go.

The father can still become displeased that the child didn't make it a few more steps without falling. Certainly the father wants the child to succeed and be a great walker. The father is neither wanting the child to fail nor becoming angry at the child while it is learning.

This is more precisely our situation, because we are here to learn. We are each undergoing a learning experience. Each of us must suffer the consequences of our actions _so that we can learn._

And certainly, each of us will fall down. Each of us will have periods where we goof up and make bad decisions. Times where our self-centeredness prevents us from seeing clearly.

Does God become angry at this? Certainly not.

But He does feel transcendental sadness when we choose self-centeredness over love. He does feel disappointment when we choose to forget Him and chase after the temporary glitter of this world.

But that sadness and disappointment is love. It is because He wants us to be happy. He wants us to live out our life in a way that is completely fulfilling to us.

The Supreme Being wants each of us to be happy, and the only way that can happen is if we are exchanging our loving relationship with Him.

Why? Because this is our nature. This is our purpose for existing.

Some see the various instructions of the Supreme Being – given personally and given through His representatives – as if they are threatening us: As if He is saying, "You better do this stuff or else."

But that's not it at all. The Supreme Being is telling us that if we don't put our love upon Him, we will be empty within. If we don't exercise our loving relationship with Him, then we will be miserable. We will be unfulfilled. We'll be lonely inside – even if we are surrounded by many other physical bodies.

So the situation is more like a best friend who tells his friend who wants to jump off a bridge into the freezing water below, "please don't jump. You will be hurt. You'll feel pain."

Such a statement by a best friend is not a threat. It's not, "don't jump or I'm gonna get you." Or, "don't jump or else." Rather, it is a kind warning, given out of love. Given out of care.

The Supreme Being's instructions are very similar. They are given to us out of love. He doesn't want us to suffer anymore. He doesn't want us to continue suffering in our self-centeredness. And He knows that if we continue to live in a self-centered manner, we will continue to suffer.

Let the one who is wise heed these things and ponder the loving deeds of the LORD. (Psalms 107:43 NIV)

The Supreme Being is perfect. Even though it seems that we are suffering, we should know that this is a virtual world, and these physical bodies are not us. We are in a virtual learning system. Yes, things sure seem real. But when we are in a dream, we also think the dream is real. But then we wake up and realize that it was all just a dream.

We can do that in this lifetime as well. We can wake up at any time and realize that this physical lifetime is virtual, and we are not these physical bodies.

We can then decide to redirect our life towards rebuilding our relationship with the Supreme Being. We can get to know Him again. And once we get to know Him, we will come to love Him. Why? Because He is the Perfect Person. He is our Soul Mate. He is the One we have been looking for our entire lives.

Question Eleven: How do I escape this world of suffering?

We can't do this alone. This hellish physical world with all its suffering, heartache and temporary nature is simply too strong for us. We can't overpower it. We can't break through it. We can't overcome it.

We sometimes hear this – how we can overcome the world. But this is not a reality. The material world has overcome us. We can see this everyday as people identify themselves as the temporary body. People will say, "I don't feel well," when their body is ill. People will say, "I am 40 years old," when the body is 40 years old. Or "I am American," simply because the body was born in the United States.

By identifying ourselves with the temporary body, we are essentially admitting that we are stuck here. By identifying ourselves with this temporary physical body, we are confirming that not only are we stuck, but we are so stuck that we don't even realize that we are stuck.

It is like a zoo animal that has been born in the zoo, and not knowing anything outside of its cage. The animal thinks that he belongs in the cage.

In the same way, we are so immersed in this world that we don't know anything else. We think of this place as our home. We think that we can become happy here. We think that we can become fulfilled here.

All we have to do is look around us to figure out that this will never happen. We can see from the most wealthy, famous and accomplished people that achieving the ultimate success here in this world brings no happiness. It brings no fulfillment. We can see from all the suicides and drug overdoses among those who have achieved fame, money and success here in this world.

Even among those materially-successful people who haven't died from suicide or drug overdose, we find they are not happy. They are not fulfilled. How can we tell? Because they need more. They are chasing that next big thing. They aren't satisfied with what they have. They want more.

This is the nature of the material world because it doesn't bring fulfillment. We are perpetually wanting more because what material success we do have doesn't fulfill us. So we constantly think that next thing will do it for us. The next thing we buy, or the next thing we accomplish, or the next person we have sex with, or the next child we have, or the next house we buy, or the next thing we eat – will fulfill us.

This is the constant tease of the material world. Yes, we are being teased here in this world. Because we think that we are this body, we think when the body is given some delicious food, or sex, or some other thing, we will be happy. But we are not.

It's like a hungry person driving up to a gas station and filling up the car's gas tank with gas, and expecting not to be hungry anymore.

The driver of the car is still hungry, because the driver is not the car. The car is a separate vehicle.

In the same way, the spirit-person within the body is separate from the body. Just as a car needs a driver, the body is a mechanism that requires a spirit-person to drive it.

When the driver of a car steps out and walks away, the car doesn't move. It just sits there.

In the same way, when the spirit-person leaves the physical body at the time of death, the body just sits there, lifeless.

Okay, so we can theoretically realize that we are not the physical body. That is the easy part. The hard part is leaving behind the notion that if we satisfy the body, we will be satisfied. This is what hooks us into this world.

In order to change this consciousness, we need help from a higher authority. One who has control over the physical world.

One could compare it to treading water in the middle of the ocean. What if we were to fall overboard in the middle of the Pacific ocean. How could we possibly swim thousands of miles to the nearest shore? But if a rescue helicopter were to find us and pick us up – we could transverse the ocean easily, because the rescue helicopter flies above the ocean. It flies over it. But in order to be picked up by the helicopter we will need to take shelter of the chair the chopper lowers down to the water. We'll have to get into the chair completely in order to be pulled up.

God's unconditional love and compassion are like a rescue helicopter. Because He transcends the constraints of the physical world, He can lower a chair down in the form of His representative and save us – should we take shelter in the teachings of His representative. His love and mercy lay outside the restrictions of time and space.

God's mercy comes in the form of a relationship: Building a relationship with the Supreme Being. The Supreme Being is about relationships: He enjoys relationships with each of His children, but gives each of us the choice of whether we want to return to Him. Love requires freedom, and the Supreme Being gives us the choice to be self-centered or devoted.

Becoming devoted means taking shelter in the Supreme Being. It means relying upon Him. It means taking sanctuary in Him.

Those who become devoted to Him and want to be with Him are taken under His wing and nurtured. Those who want to be away from Him receive physical bodies with which to play out our self-centered desires – remaining eternally bound from one lifetime to the next within this physical world – essentially lost in the pit of hell.

But if we take shelter in God with sincerity, devotion and love, He will save us. This is why Jesus' most important teaching was:

" _The most important of all the instructions is, 'Hear O Israel – the LORD our God is our only Lord – and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength' – this is the most important instruction." (Mark 12:29-30 NIV)_

So how do we get to this point of falling in love with God and taking shelter in the Supreme Being?

First, we need to want to get there. We need to have the desire. This desire can be cultivated, with prayer, studying the scriptures, praising God's Holy Names and making offerings to God.

This is an ancient system, one that has been passed down from teacher to student for thousands of years. The Prophets from many centuries ago taught this. Jesus taught this. All the bona fide representatives of God have taught these techniques to their students, in order for them to prepare themselves to return to their relationship with the Supreme Being.

Let's go over each of these practices one by one:

### How do we pray to God?

It is important to pray multiple times a day. What does it mean to pray? To pray means to submit oneself to the Supreme Being. Prayer doesn't mean asking God to give us material stuff. It doesn't mean asking God to heal my leg, or keep our dog from dying. Prayer isn't asking God for money or success.

No. God is not our waiter. He is not there to fulfill every command we might have.

Prayer means asking God if we can learn how to love Him and please Him. It means asking God to help us get closer to Him.

The consciousness of a prayer should be similar to the consciousness of someone who is reaching out to a long-lost friend. Let's say that we haven't seen a person we were close friends with 20 years ago. So we pick up the phone and call them. When they answer the phone, will we begin by asking our friend to give us some money? Will we start by asking our friend to come around and mow our lawn and repair our roof?

Certainly not. Our friend will probably hang up on us. They will understand that our intention in calling them wasn't to renew the friendship: It was to get something from them. To take advantage of them in some way.

It is the same with our relationship with God. For us, this is a lost relationship. We have blown off God and are trying to regain that relationship. It would be a mistake to try to use God for our own self-centered purposes as soon as we connect with Him.

### How can we please God?

Praising God's Holy Names is a prime way to please God, and communicate to Him that we want to please Him and renew our loving relationship with Him.

We can praise God by singing or reciting His Holy Names. We can praise God by singing or reciting prayers that the Prophets have sung or recited in the past. We can choose any of God's bona fide Holy Names to praise. God has numerous Holy Names.

We can recite God's Holy Names in the morning when we awake. We can recite God's Holy Names in the afternoon. We can recite God's Holy Names in the evening. We can sing God's Holy Names while playing the guitar, or the piano.

When we recite God's Holy Names, we can start with a short prayer to Jesus Christ. This will give us an entryway into praising God's Holy Names.

After that, we can praise God quietly or loudly.

Here are some verses from the Bible that support this practice of praising God's Holy Names:

From there he [Abraham] went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the Name of the LORD. (Genesis 12:8 NIV)

...and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the Name of the LORD. (Genesis 13:4 NIV)

Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called upon the Name of the LORD, the Eternal God. (Genesis 21:33 NIV)

Isaac built an altar there and called on the Name of the LORD. There he pitched his tent, and there his servants dug a well. (Genesis 26:25 NIV)

" _You shall not misuse the Name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his Name." (Exodus 20:7 NIV)_

" _You shall not misuse the Name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his Name." (Deuteronomy 5:11 NIV)_

" _...he may minister in the Name of the LORD his God like all his fellow Levites who serve there in the presence of the LORD." (Deuteronomy 18:7 NIV)_

" _If what a prophet proclaims in the Name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him." (Deuteronomy 18:22 NIV)_

" _The priests, the sons of Levi, shall step forward, for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister and to pronounce blessings in the Name of the LORD and to decide all cases of dispute and assault." (Deuteronomy 21:5 NIV)_

" _Then all the peoples on earth will see that You are called by the Name of the LORD, and they will revere You." (Deuteronomy 28:10 NIV)_

" _I will proclaim the Name of the LORD. Oh, praise the greatness of our God!" (Deuteronomy 32:3 NIV)_

David said to the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the Name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied." (1 Samuel 17:45 NIV)

Jonathan said to David, "Go in peace, for we have sworn friendship with each other in the Name of the LORD, saying, 'The LORD is witness between you and me, and between your descendants and my descendants forever.'" Then David left, and Jonathan went back to the town. (1 Samuel 20:42 NIV)

He and all his men set out from Baalah of Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the Name, the Name of the LORD Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim that are on the ark. (2 Samuel 6:2 NIV)

After he had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the Name of the LORD Almighty. (2 Samuel 6:18 NIV)

The people, however, were still sacrificing at the high places, because a temple had not yet been built for the Name of the LORD. (1 Kings 3:2 NIV)

" _You know that because of the wars waged against my father David from all sides, he could not build a temple for the Name of the LORD his God until the LORD put His enemies under His feet." (1 Kings 5:3 NIV)_

" _I intend, therefore, to build a temple for the Name of the LORD my God, as the LORD told my father David, when He said, 'Your son whom I will put on the throne in your place will build the temple for My Name.'" (1 Kings 5:5 NIV)_

" _My father David had it in his heart to build a temple for the Name of the LORD, the God of Israel." (1 Kings 8:17 NIV)_

" _The LORD has kept the promise He made: I have succeeded David my father and now I sit on the throne of Israel, just as the LORD promised, and I have built the temple for the Name of the LORD, the God of Israel." (1 Kings 8:20 NIV)_

When the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon and his relation to the Name of the LORD, she came to test him with hard questions. (1 Kings 10:1 NIV)

Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the Name of the LORD. The god who answers by fire – He is God." Then all the people said, "What you say is good." (1 Kings 18:24 NIV)

With the stones he built an altar in the Name of the LORD, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs of seed. (1 Kings 18:32 NIV)

The king said to him, "How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the Name of the LORD ?" (1 Kings 22:16 NIV)

He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the Name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths. (2 Kings 2:24 NIV)

But Naaman went away angry and said, "I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the Name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy." (2 Kings 5:11 NIV)

After David had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the Name of the LORD. (1 Chronicles 16:2 NIV)

So David went up in obedience to the word that Gad had spoken in the Name of the LORD. (1 Chronicles 21:19 NIV)

David said to Solomon: "My son, I had it in my heart to build a house for the Name of the LORD my God." (1 Chronicles 22:7 NIV)

" _Now devote your heart and soul to seeking the LORD your God. Begin to build the sanctuary of the LORD God, so that you may bring the ark of the covenant of the LORD and the sacred articles belonging to God into the temple that will be built for the Name of the LORD." (1 Chronicles 22:19 NIV)_

Solomon gave orders to build a temple for the Name of the LORD and a royal palace for himself. (2 Chronicles 2:1 NIV)

" _Now I am about to build a temple for the Name of the LORD my God and to dedicate it to Him for burning fragrant incense before Him, for setting out the consecrated bread regularly, and for making burnt offerings every morning and evening and on Sabbaths and New Moons and at the appointed feasts of the LORD our God. This is a lasting ordinance for Israel." (2 Chronicles 2:4 NIV)_

" _My father David had it in his heart to build a temple for the Name of the LORD, the God of Israel." (2 Chronicles 6:7 NIV)_

" _The LORD has kept the promise he made. I have succeeded David my father and now I sit on the throne of Israel, just as the LORD promised, and I have built the temple for the Name of the LORD, the God of Israel." (2 Chronicles 6:10 NIV)_

The king said to him, "How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the Name of the LORD ?" (2 Chronicles 18:15 NIV)

The other events of Manasseh's reign, including his prayer to his God and the words the seers spoke to him in the Name of the LORD, the God of Israel, are written in the annals of the kings of Israel. (2 Chronicles 33:18 NIV)

" _Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the Name of the LORD be praised." (Job 1:21 NIV)_

" _I will give thanks to the LORD because of his righteousness and will sing praise to the Name of the LORD Most High." (Psalm 7:17 NIV)_

" _Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the Name of the LORD our God." (Psalm 20:7 NIV)_

" _The nations will revere the Name of the LORD, all the kings of the earth will revere Your glory." (Psalm 102:15 NIV)_

" _So the Name of the LORD will be declared in Zion and His praise in Jerusalem." (Psalm 102:21 NIV)_

" _Praise the LORD. Praise, O servants of the LORD, praise the Name of the LORD." (Psalm 113:1 NIV)_

" _Let the Name of the LORD be praised, both now and forevermore." (Psalm 113:2 NIV)_

" _From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the Name of the LORD is to be praised." (Psalm 113:3 NIV)_

" _Then I called on the Name of the LORD: "O LORD, save me!" (Psalm 116:4 NIV)_

" _I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the Name of the LORD." (Psalm 116:13 NIV)_

" _I will sacrifice a thank offering to You and call on the Name of the LORD." (Psalm 116:17 NIV)_

" _That is where the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, to praise the Name of the LORD according to the statute given to Israel." (Psalm 122:4 NIV)_

" _Our help is in the Name of the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth." (Psalm 124:8 NIV)_

" _May those who pass by not say, "The blessing of the LORD be upon you; we bless you in the Name of the LORD."" (Psalm 129:8 NIV)_

" _Praise the LORD. Praise the Name of the LORD; praise Him, you servants of the LORD" (Psalm 135:1 NIV)_

" _Let them praise the Name of the LORD, for He commanded and they were created." (Psalm 148:5 NIV)_

" _Let them praise the Name of the LORD, for His Name alone is exalted; His splendor is above the earth and the heavens." (Psalm 148:13 NIV)_

" _The Name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe." (Proverbs 18:10 NIV)_

" _At that time gifts will be brought to the LORD Almighty from a people tall and smooth-skinned, from a people feared far and wide, an aggressive nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers – the gifts will be brought to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the LORD Almighty." (Isaiah 18:7 NIV)_

" _Therefore in the east give glory to the LORD; exalt the Name of the LORD, the God of Israel, in the islands of the sea." (Isaiah 24:15 NIV)_

" _Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the Name of the LORD and rely on his God." (Isaiah 50:10 NIV)_

" _And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD to serve Him, to love the Name of the LORD, and to worship Him..." (Isaiah 56:6 NIV)_

" _From the west, men will revere the Name of the LORD, and from the rising of the sun, they will revere His glory." (Isaiah 59:19 NIV)_

" _At that time they will call Jerusalem The Throne of the LORD, and all nations will gather in Jerusalem to honor the Name of the LORD. No longer will they follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts." (Jeremiah 3:17 NIV)_

" _Sing to the LORD! Give praise to the LORD! He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of the wicked." (Jeremiah 20:13 NIV)_

Then the officials and all the people said to the priests and the prophets, "This man should not be sentenced to death! He has spoken to us in the Name of the LORD our God." (Jeremiah 26:16 NIV)

Now Uriah son of Shemaiah from Kiriath Jearim was another man who prophesied in the Name of the LORD (Jeremiah 26:20 NIV)

" _You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the Name of the LORD your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed." (Joel 2:26 NIV)_

" _And everyone who calls on the Name of the LORD will be saved" (Joel 2:32 NIV)_

" _...we will walk in the Name of the LORD our God for ever and ever." (Micah 4:5 NIV)_

" _He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the Name of the LORD his God." (Micah 5:4 NIV)_

" _Then will I purify the lips of the peoples, that all of them may call on the Name of the LORD and serve him shoulder to shoulder." (Zephaniah 3:9 NIV)_

" _But I will leave within you the meek and humble, who trust in the Name of the LORD." (Zephaniah 3:12 NIV)_

" _Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord!" (Matthew 21:9 NIV)_

"' _Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord.' " (Matthew 23:39 NIV)_

" _Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord!" (Mark 11:9 NIV)_

"' _Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord.' " (Luke 13:35 NIV)_

" _Blessed is the king who comes in the Name of the Lord!" (Luke 19:38 NIV)_

" _Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord!" (John 12:13 NIV)_

" _And everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved." (Acts 2:21 NIV)_

So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the Name of the Lord. (Acts 9:28 NIV)

" _Nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: "The Lord knows those who are His," and, "Everyone who confesses the Name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness." " (2 Timothy 2:19 NIV)_

" _Brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the Name of the Lord." (James 5:10 NIV)_

" _Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved." (Romans 10:13 NIV)_

### Can we make offerings to God?

Another facility to regain our relationship with God is to make offerings to Him. This is typical of any budding relationship. A young man will bring flowers to a young woman as he is courting her. Why? Because making an offering shows our care, and our intent to please the person.

We can offer practically anything of value to God. Except, we cannot offer God a living organism. We can offer God a flower, some fruit, some water, or our meal before we eat it. When we offer, we can recite one or multiple of God's Holy Names.

Such offerings, over time, build our relationship with the Supreme Being. As we progress in making offerings, we will begin to feel His presence as we make the offering. We will begin to exchange a relationship with Him.

A number of verses in the Bible have confirmed the importance of making offerings to God. Here is one of them, spoken by God Himself to Moses:

" _Tell the Israelites to bring me an offering. You are to receive the offering for me from everyone whose heart prompts them to give." (Exodus 25:2 NIV)_

Notice that God says, "whose heart prompts them to give." God isn't forcing people to offer to Him. He is suggesting that this practice will help them re-establish their relationship with Him. But they don't have to. It is their choice.

It is love that God wants. He doesn't want our stuff. He doesn't want our food. He owns everything. Rather, it is the expression of love that we have for Him when we make an offering that He is seeking.

And it isn't that God needs our love. Rather, we need to love God. He simply wants us to be happy because He already loves each of us.

" _Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'" (Mark 12:30)_

How does loving the Supreme Being and caring for His children help us get out of hell?

By putting our hearts and minds upon the Supreme Being, and caring for His children, we return to our innate position as one of God's loving servants. Beneath our physical bodies, and beneath all of our self-centeredness lies the spirit-person within.

This spirit-person needs to love and be loved. This is why giving and receiving love is sought out amongst all things by each of us. But we don't find giving and receiving love satisfying until we place it upon the Supreme Being. This fullness will also automatically give us love for His children as we see others as they are – like us, children of God.

By putting our hearts, minds and activities upon the Supreme Being – wanting to please Him, serve Him and glorify Him – we no longer need to return to the physical world and take on another physical body after this lifetime ends. We the spirit-persons become gradually cleansed, allowing us to eventually return home to the spiritual realm and return to our innate relationship with God.

And what is the goal of life?

"Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." (Deuteronomy 6:5 NIV)

"Love the LORD your God and keep his requirements, His decrees, His laws and His commands always." (Deuteronomy 11:1 NIV)

"So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today – to love the LORD your God and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul..." (Deuteronomy 11:13 NIV)

"If you carefully observe all these commands I am giving you to follow – to love the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and to hold fast to Him..." (Deuteronomy 11:22 NIV)

"...because you carefully follow all these laws I command you today – to love the LORD your God and to walk always in His ways..." (Deuteronomy 19:19 NIV)

"For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commands, decrees and laws" (Deuteronomy 30:16 NIV)

"...and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life...." (Deuteronomy 30:20 NIV)

"But be very careful to keep the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the LORD gave you: to love the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, to obey his commands, to hold fast to Him and to serve Him with all your heart and all your soul." (Joshua 22:5 NIV)

"So be very careful to love the LORD your God." (Joshua 23:11 NIV)

"Love the LORD, all His saints!" (Psalms 31:23 NIV)

"Let those who love the LORD hate evil, for He guards the lives of His faithful ones and delivers them from the hand of the wicked." (Psalms 97:10 NIV)

"' _Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment." (Matthew 22:37-38 NIV)_

, "The most important of all the instructions is, 'Hear O Israel – the LORD our God is our only Lord –and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength' – this is the most important instruction." (Mark 12:29-30 NIV)

"' _Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind;' and 'Love others as yourself.'" (Luke 10:27 NIV)_

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