 
### My Logical God

Copyright 2014 Ronald Roell

Published by Ronald Roell

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Defining God

2. A Perfect God

3. Perceptions

4. Fear

5. Prayer

6. A Conversation with Jesus

7. The Bible

8. Love and Relationships

9. Parenting

10. Reincarnation

11. The Universe

12. The Creator

13. Conclusion

About the Author

Connect with Me

Acknowledgements

This book would not be a reality without the acceptance, guidance, love, and support from the woman who somehow had a way past every barrier I had built around my heart. She is my muse. She helped me understand what I now share and the importance of doing so.

My children contentedly did without so much of what they were used to as I pursued this decade's long journey of self-awareness. I cannot thank them enough. I would not be the man I am proud to be without what they taught me. Being their father is the greatest privilege of this lifetime. If I accomplish nothing more of significance than being involved in their contributions to this world it is still an experience beyond anything I would have imagined for myself.

Thank you to my grandfather who has been my spirit guide for the past fifteen years or so. He has instilled wisdom and understanding through dreams and communications that have proven invaluable to what is shared on these following pages.

I need to thank this friend in my head, this little voice I had always defined as God. It is this friend that shared what is written here. I know it came through me and I wrote it down but, in all honesty, when I re-read much of what is written here I am just as amazed as I think you will be.

Finally, I need to thank you. Thank you for investing in you and questioning what you have been taught.

Introduction

The prospect of writing a book had never so much as crossed my mind through the first forty years of my life. As a matter of fact, I had actually read very few books over my entire lifetime other than the mandatory ones in school. I went to one year of college and that was enough for me. I was always drawn to the trades. I loved working with my hands. I loved the dirt, the sweat, the kick-ass toughness it took to work dawn to dusk, and the rock-hard, V-shaped body it provided me. I was proud. I learned the trades, all of them. I started a small remodeling company, taught myself a computer design program, and eked out a living for my young family and myself. I constantly challenged myself to find interesting clients and challenging remodeling jobs, and I rose to the occasion. I won national awards and had projects featured in national magazines. I was professionally driven and passionate about the remodeling business. I was good at it. Twenty-five years of sixty-hour weeks takes its toll on both the body and the mind though. My motivation waned and I questioned my entire position in life.

My wife and I were just cohabitating, it seemed. We never learned how to communicate with each other, so trying to talk about something I didn't understand proved futile. Our fifteen-year marriage ended in divorce. Interestingly enough, I burned out professionally at the same time. I think my personal identity was so interwoven with my professional identity that when my personal identity collapsed, it caused everything to implode. People were shocked, except those who knew us from a distance. Things are much more apparent when you're watching from a distance. It provides a "big picture" perspective. My parents were some of those on the inside and they were surprised. I had only shared the good stuff with them. I hadn't truly communicated with them either. There seemed to be a common theme developing: the importance of communication.

During and after the divorce, I relied heavily on my parents' involvement in my children's lives. Finally, the fear, turmoil, and heartache we were all feeling subsided. A new rhythm to life began.

Elders have this awesome way of slowing life down so you can actually breathe, and my children were fortunate to be able to breathe deeply every day, until the day that stole our breath away. My mom was diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive form of cancer and had months to live. Seven weeks later, she was gone. While mom was sick, I asked her if I could write a poem to read for her at her funeral. When I was young, I wrote a lot of poetry but hadn't written any for twenty years. When I asked her if she would mind if I did that for her she said, "I am so glad. I hoped someone would, but I didn't know who to ask. You'll be perfect for it. Thank you." So I did and read it from the podium of a Catholic alter to a standing ovation during her funeral mass.

My entire life was driven by passion but now, I had no passion for my career and my passion for life in general was in a great state of flux. I wasn't suicidal, just totally spent. I was in a completely foreign place and time. I never knew myself to be scared of anything and now I was scared of everything. I never knew myself to be tired and now I was so exhausted I could barely get out of bed in the morning. I always felt I knew the answers, yet I no longer knew the questions never-mind the answers.

Strangely enough, during this entire journey, I never felt alone. By that time in my life, I had been exposed to the concepts of spirit guides, reincarnation, higher selves, God, Jesus, and guardian angels. I don't know which one of them was with me, but something was.

My lack of professional passion didn't bode well for my income status, but my spiritual beliefs became my new focus. I'm a firm believer that our soul is the most important aspect of who we are, yet we typically invest the least amount of time and effort into nurturing it. So, I began to nurture mine. But first, I had to determine what my spiritual beliefs actually were. I'm not talking about what I proclaimed to believe. I mean, what I actually believed. The only way to do that was for me to question everything—every last thing. So that's what I started to do.

A short time after my mom died, I experimented with writing poetry again. The poem I wrote for Mom opened that channel within me. It was during the writing of a poem called "You're Welcome Daddy", which I'll share later, that I was inspired to write this book. When I received that initial inspiration, ten years ago, I made a commitment to honor that inspiration. I have tried several times to write this over the years, but they were half-hearted attempts at fulfilling that early commitment.

For quite a while, I had convinced myself this book was for my children and anyone else who was drawn to it, but honestly, it was for me. There's something about saying something out loud that changes a thought into reality. There's also something about putting a series of thoughts into text that suddenly transforms a convoluted theory into a logical progression. That's what this book is about for me—making sure what I believe makes sense to me. I want to leave something behind in order for my children to truly know me—the inner me that I have only shared with them in bits and pieces. The only way that can happen is if I learn who I am and what I believe.

I grew up Catholic and I remember a particular sermon in which Father Mike said, "We are a soul with a body, not a body with a soul." That changed the way I viewed myself and still do to this day. The body dies while the soul lives on. The body is simply a vehicle with which to experience this universe.

If I'm going to proclaim something as real, like a soul, at the very least I need for my proclamation to be interwoven with reality. I don't need to be able to prove something is real or actual in order to choose to believe in it, but I should never be able to disprove it. If I continue to believe in something that can be proven to be inaccurate or false, I'm choosing to live a lie.

It's my opinion, and chosen belief, that a soul exists within each of us. It just makes sense to me that there's a greater purpose to each of us than just the events of this lifetime. My biggest problem is that so much of what I have been taught revolving around the concept of the soul can easily be refuted by logic and science. And if I'm going to bet my soul on something, I'm going to make darn sure it makes sense to me. The only way I know how to do that is to question everything. Unless I question something, I can't understand it. If I don't understand it, I can't believe it. If I simply accept what someone else tells me is true as being true, it's not my truth. It's just me proclaiming their truth as mine. What if they were wrong?

I believe if God is real, God will make sense. A god of this universe will compliment other components of this universe like math, science, theory, and logic.

The Bible is a series of writings attempting to explain God's relationship to man. This book explains one man's relationship to God. This is my personal bible. This is... My Logical God.
1. Defining God

My oldest daughter bought me a beautiful, clear, acrylic angel with fiber optic wings that changed colors as they moved back and forth. I placed my angel on top of a tall piece of furniture in my bedroom so her wings almost touched the ceiling. It was as if my angel watched me as I lay there on my bed with tears running down my cheeks. I stared at the hypnotic rhythm of those angel wings and told God, "I surrender. I'm turning it all over to you because, obviously, I have no idea what I'm doing. I always thought I knew what I wanted, but this isn't what I wanted at all. I always thought I was in control, but my life is totally out of control. I have no idea what's in my best interest, but you do. I have no idea who is my best partner, but you do. I have no passion for my profession anymore and no idea what I should do for work anymore, but you do. I have no idea how to move through any part of my life. I'm out of ideas and I'm just so tired. I'm turning it all over to you. I'm allowing myself to be guided from here on out."

Everything was gone. Everything I had worked for my whole life was gone. I had just finished telling my son, at 45 years old, I was worth less than I was at the age of 15. It was strange, because even though I was worth less, I didn't feel worthless.

I felt broken. Not broken as in cracked in half but broken as in being tamed. I didn't have any fight left in me. In hindsight, I think that was the point. The motivation to achieve everything I had achieved was to prove to everybody else how good I was or that I was better than them somehow. My life had been ego driven and I didn't realize it.

I cried like a baby for a while. I finally stopped and just lay there. There's a strange peace in surrender.

I needed to change the direction of my life and life-changing events are meant to do exactly that—to change the direction of our lives. I sat up and wrote a prayer:

Dear God,

Please allow me the ability to love me,

to honor me,

and to know me.

Please allow me the courage

to follow my intuition

and to be true to me.

Please allow me the wisdom

to move toward the sun

and not a shooting star.

Please allow me the compassion

to shine my heart light as a beacon

to illuminate the darkness of those in need.

Please guide me down the path of my soul's preference

and supply me with the strength and determination

to jump the hurdles without diminish to my conviction.

As I sat on the edge of the bed, I reflected on my life. What jumped out at me wasn't the awards I had won or the magazines I had been featured in. It wasn't the stuff, and it wasn't the things I had built. It was the unique spiritual events I had experienced. Apparently, the stuff I no longer had never really mattered that much to me anyway. What I still had was what I valued most all along. I didn't know it at the time, but it was the end of the old and the beginning of the new.

I don't remember many specifics about my childhood, but I recall always feeling different. To this day, I have no idea why. By all account, I was like everybody else, but I never felt that way. When you feel different, all you really want is to be like everybody else. So that was what I became—like everybody else—and I built my life around the man who was like everybody else. I betrayed the real me for the sake of the man I wanted to be.

I believe that young boy always wanted to be the man I currently am, but I sure didn't make it easy on him. That seven or eight-year-old boy lay on the narrow strip of carpet left after twin beds and a dresser filled the 12x12 bedroom I shared with my brother. I don't remember why I was drawn to poetry, but I was as I lay there, stomach down, on my floor with pen in hand as I wrote:

Why live when there's no one to live for

Why give when there's no one to give to

Why love when there's no one to love with

Why laugh when there's no one to laugh at

Why try when there's no goal to achieve

Why cry when the tears are for no one

Why walk when there's no one to walk to

Why look when there's no one to see

I laid my cheek on the carpet in a quiet surrender and closed my eyes. After a couple of minutes, a gentle voice emerged from the darkness of my mind and said,

"Live, to give life.

Give, for the sake of giving.

Try, to build confidence.

Cry, to express feeling.

Laugh, to bring happiness.

Love, simply because you are loved.

Walk, to deliver.

Look, to enjoy all that has been given.

I was surprised with the answers but not startled by the voice for some reason, as I ran to the living room to show my mom what I had just written. She was amazed and asked, "Did _you_ just write this?"

"Yeah, I guess you could say that. I wrote the questions and a little voice in my head answered them for me," I said. She gave me a hug and said she was proud of me. And that was that.

That was the first conscious memory I had of this friend with whom I share my mind and my life. If I try to define what it is, who it is, where it is or anything else about it, I would be making something up. I chose to interpret this voice as the voice of God. Whether it is or not, I don't know, but what I know is that it's forever patient, forever kind, forever caring, and forever considerate. It's everything I would worship in a God and everything I would strive to be in a person.

Life was emotionally painful for me during my preteens. I once stood on the front right corner of our house next to the hose reel, my forehead against the warm brick, as the sound of kids playing baseball in the circle echoed between the houses. I thought, "It would be a whole lot easier if I wasn't even alive anymore." I wasn't suicidal because I never thought about killing myself, I was hurting, and I don't remember why.

My teen years became filled with something I loved—work. I worked for my uncle in his custom home building company. My twin cousins and I became inseparable. We worked eighty hours a week, came home long enough to take a shower, and went back out together again.

All of the friends with whom I spent any social time went to a local Catholic high school. If I wanted to go to the same school, I would have had to pay part of my tuition. Where I went to school wasn't important enough to me to do that. Heck, if I was going to work hard, it would be so I could play hard and have nice things, not so I could sit in the same classroom as my friends. They were convinced they were getting a better education than I was, but I was no more stupid than the rest of them. I knew they were no more morally better off than I was, so I was satisfied going to our public high school for free. For the first time in my life, I felt I was one of the guys. I had friends and God was still a good friend. I could call on that little voice in my head whenever I wanted and it was always there unconditionally. Life was good.

Then, on one of those thirty-four-degree misty, rainy New Year evenings, a group of us headed to a local high-rise hotel. There was a party on the eighth floor, and I was at one on the third floor. Suddenly, there were screams. "Kurt fell! Kurt fell off of the ledge!"

I looked out the window. Kurt fell from the eighth floor and was lying on the second floor roof, one floor below me. All I remember next is letting go of the bottom of that rail as I dropped to the roof below. I couldn't let him lay there by himself. I ran to his side and knelt next to him. I could hear the gurgle in his chest as he tried to breathe. I reached in his mouth to make sure he didn't swallow his tongue while sirens drew closer. I didn't know what else to do. I didn't even have a jacket to put over him, and we both shivered in that winter mist.

I rode with someone to the hospital, but to this day, I have no idea who. I sat in the waiting area of the emergency room with a couple other friends of his and some members of his family. The doctor emerged from behind swinging doors. "I'm sorry," was all I heard him say.

How can life change so much so fast? I couldn't wrap my mind around it and, for the first time I could remember, the voice in my head was silent, too. This internal turmoil went on inside of me for a couple of months, as life in the outside world seemed to return to normal.

There must be something about misty, rainy days. It was early spring, maybe three months or so since Kurt's death, and the clouds hung very low with a constant misty rain seemingly suspended in the air. The windshield wipers were on as I pulled into my favorite parking spot for eleven o'clock mass. I didn't need an umbrella as I walked quickly up the six-foot wide concrete sidewalk toward the solid oak door on the side of the relatively small contemporary-styled church. Once inside that building, I always felt closer to God for some reason. I think it was the eyes on the oversized figure of Jesus twisted precariously on the cross that hung behind the alter.

For months, I had been trying to talk to God for answers or peace of mind, but I received and felt virtually nothing. On this particular day, I asked God once more for some sort of reasoning or understanding. Nothing, yet again. I felt completely abandoned and angry.

"Dammit. Do you even hear me? Are you out there somewhere? Are you real or am I just wasting my time with all of this crap? If you are out there, give me some sort of sign. Please. Any sign. I'll know it when I see it." Still, I felt nothing, no words, no calming presence, no nothing.

After church was over, I milled about, gradually working my way to the same side door I had come in. My hand firmly pushed open the heavy oak door as the misty rain continued outside. Suddenly, as if I had stepped on some sort of switch, a round circle of light spanning the full width of that six-foot wide sidewalk, appeared directly in front of me. I stopped and the man behind me bumped into my back. I stepped out of the way and slowly turned my head toward the sky to find the source of illuminating light. A small circular hole in the clouds allowed a single ray of sunshine to reach the earth. _Oh my God, you are too cool_ , I thought. The clouds closed up and the light disappeared.

As I reached my car, I sat in silence and awe for what seemed like hours. "Did that really just happen?" I kept asking myself. "Why was it so important for Kurt to leave now? We're so young."

The answer I received was, "Ron, there are many things in this universe that you will experience and will never understand. There are so many reasons for every occurrence in your lifetime. It is impossible to pinpoint any of them. Rest assured, if it happened, there are many reasons for it. There is a positive outcome of some kind for every event no matter how difficult or unreasonable the event may seem."

I could live with that. Maybe I didn't have a specific understanding of why Kurt needed to go, but if I allowed him to make a difference in my life, it was the highest honor I could pay him. He continues to make a difference in my life and, now, maybe he can make a difference in yours. This is one way, we never die.

I still get chills every time I tell that story. It has just as much significance to me today as it did when it happened thirty years ago. The power of the experience just can't be put to words. Is it evidence God exists? To me, yeah, it is. At the very least, something, somewhere responded to a mental conversation I had in my head, addressed to God. Something responded to my plea during a time of despair. The odds of that light on the sidewalk being some random event minutes after a heart-felt request are pretty slim.

There have been additional experiences over the years that were so unique and personalized I can arrive at no other explanation other than there is something working in unison with us in order to help us experience our universe. Most people call that... God. But I noticed God was with me all of the time, not just when I followed the rules. God was there regardless of whether I went to church or went fishing on Sunday morning. God didn't disappear until I went to confession and then reappear in the confessional. God was there no matter how much meat I ate during lent and my God was there whether I was keeping the Ten Commandments or breaking them.

The rest of my twenties and thirties were spent doing what most twenty and thirty year olds do. I maintained a casual friendship with God but primarily focused on my career and family.

My real focus in understanding my overall spiritual perspective was when the life I had built crumbled around me. I went through the darkest time of my life up to that point, and it was amazing how many times I thought about that light on the sidewalk. I remember lying in bed thinking, "Okay God, who are you really? What are you really all about?" Somehow I knew this would be a journey of discovery, not a quick answer I would feel or hear.

We have become such a mental society that we feel less and less with our hearts, and what we do feel with our hearts, we give less and less credibility to. The problem with being so mental is that our minds can justify anything. Humanity used to be far more labor-oriented and focused mental attention on the task on hand. As humankind has become more technologically advanced, the body has to do less physical work and more thought. With the advent of the Internet, information that wasn't accessible a couple of decades ago is now available at our fingertips. We can literally research anything, including the positions of organized religions and the origins of those positions.

Since I was born and raised Catholic, I used the Catholic catechism and the Bible, available on the official Catholic website, as my two primary resource tools when I questioned things. The Catholic catechism has an extremely extensive website that details the entire belief system, as well as footnotes, tracing you back to the origins of many of the individual beliefs. I will readily admit I am far from an expert on the catechism. As a matter of fact, the only time I have ever actually referred to it was during the research for parts of this book.

I really felt I needed to start at the beginning, the very, very beginning. What is the definition of God? When I started this journey, my personal definition was: God is perfect, God is unconditional, and God is the creator. I don't remember how I arrived at that definition. I don't know if it was something I was taught or if it was a definition I arrived at because it made sense to me. I could no longer separate my early teachings from my opinions. Is there an actual definition of God, or are we just taught about the characteristics God supposedly has?

So, I went to the catechism to determine the church's official position. I scanned the early parts of the text searching for the words "God is" followed by a definitive word. What I found surprised me. I don't remember being taught that "God is truth itself"(1) and "God is love itself"(2) but yet there it was. The word "is" here is tremendously important. Think about it. If God is defined as truth itself, and God is defined as love itself, there is nothing truth and love need in order to remain truth and love. Truth doesn't care if you keep holy the Sabbath day, and love doesn't care if you are in a homosexual relationship.

_Houston, we have a problem_. I asked one question and my answer is already at odds with virtually everything I was taught.

God is love doesn't mean God is loving. God is love means just that, GOD IS LOVE. Love wants nothing. Love needs nothing. Love has no agenda, no rules, no punishments, no desires, and no limitations. Love has no debt or obligations in order to experience it. Love is everywhere, anytime, available for anyone every time. Love heals and love bonds. Love provides security, safety, strength, and serenity. Love is perfect. Love is unconditional and love is eternal. Any characteristic I can apply to love, I can apply to a God I can worship. Divine love is the gift of love before I even choose to experience it. It's the gift of love TO experience.

Virtually every person, regardless of age, race, or nationality, regardless of how rich or how poor, no matter if illiterate or a scholar, regardless of physical, emotional, or spiritual health knows love. We all know love even though there's no accurate way to put it into words in any language. Love is a knowing that there's something more within us to experience. The unique thing about love is, no matter how much you use, it never goes away. That is the epitome of being unconditional and perfect. It seems strange though. We experience love within us, but we're programmed and taught to look outside of ourselves for it.

I made a conscious decision to be more kind to people. I might give a simple complement to a stranger or help someone in a small, unexpected way. I found the more I was kind to _others_ , the happier _I_ became. Isn't that strange? I was being kind to me by being kind to others. I realized that even during my darkest times, when I feel unloved, I have the ability to offer kindness to others. Kindness is love shared. It's when I'm kind to others that I experience the love I have for myself. Kindness is available within each one of us in unlimited quantity and it only takes a decision in order to experience it. The more we offer it, the more we experience it. The more we experience it, the more we realize how much love we already have, because we cannot give away what we don't have. It's only by offering kindness to others that we get to experience love, because what we receive from others is kindness defined as love.

It's often said that love and fear are the only two true emotions, but I don't think love and fear are in the same category. Fear is the instinct of the human animal. It's a means of self-preservation. It's the fight-or-flight response. Love, on the other hand, is not a response. It's the cause of a response. Love isn't compassion. It's the cause of compassion, just as it causes honesty, integrity, consideration, sympathy, empathy, and kindness. We feel love in the heart, but we feel fear in the body.

I sat in meditation one sunny afternoon in my favorite spot in the park down by the river. I was paying attention to where in my body I experienced love and not once did I experience love with my mind. A thought isn't a feeling. A thought starts in the mind and is justified in the mind. It causes the body to react, is enjoyed with the mind, and is gratified with the mind. There was never a part of any one of my mental experiences in which I experienced love in my mind. I remembered loving experiences with my mind, but when I did, I felt them in my heart.

By slowing down and appreciating the various processes of life that my mind enjoys, I'm able to feel some of them in my heart as well. That's why it's so important for me to remember to "stop and smell the roses". When my mind becomes my leader, it leads me anywhere but to my heart. When I rush through life simply following my mind's commands, my life tends to lose feeling and becomes sterile.

My intuition is my loving guide, while my mind is my physical guide. My intuition will guide me down a loving path, while my mind will take me on any other path.

God's love is supposed to be far greater than the love man can experience or offer, yet most of the actions and requirements religion attributes to a loving God are hardly indicative of a loving human, never mind a loving God. Love of another isn't exemplified by demanding love, worship, and offerings _from_ another. Love is exemplified by offering love, worship, and offerings _to_ another. The same thing applies to God.

I really don't think it much of a stretch to say that love is the primary motivation behind every human act, except the instinct of the human animal to survive. Love and hate are the primary motivators from one human toward another. While love is real and constant, and requires nothing other than a choice in order to experience it, hate is the extreme lack of affection. Affection is not love. Affection is an outward exhibition of compatibility. Hate is the absence of compatibility and has nothing to do with love. Hate is a perception of the lack of love, and what we perceive as real becomes real to us. What we recognize as hate directed toward us might not be hate at all. What we identify as hate is often a form of jealousy or envy and—as strange as it may sound—deep down, is a form of appreciation.

If I know someone has a high level of disdain for me, I have to assume some responsibility for that. I have some responsibility for every situation I find myself involved in so there is always room for an apology. An apology will entice someone to be less defensive even if the apology is somewhat of a generic one. I seldom assume responsibility for something I feel I didn't create, although I have definitely done that before, too. Sometimes, it's necessary to put out the fire so healing can begin. A statement as simple as, "I apologize for offending you," can often be like throwing water on a fire. The sincerity of the statement is just as important as the statement. We have to be willing to own our own stuff.

If I don't take responsibility for my day-to-day actions, I resort to blaming others for those actions. If I'm angry, it's my fault. It's my responsibility to include people in my life who add quality to it and to exclude people from my life where there is conflict. Hate is typically a result of waiting too long to exclude people who contribute pain or conflict to the experience of life. Ultimately, it's my responsibility to cease interaction with those people before feelings turn hateful.

So really, hate is simply a perception. Hate is the perception of the lack of love, but the lack of love never really existed. If I feel I hate someone, I can choose to be kind to them at any period in time. By choosing to be kind to them, I experience love. I might not experience compatibility with them, but I can choose to not hate them.

Hate is a conscious choice, but love is a conscious choice as well. It seems most of humanity straddles somewhere in-between. People continue to pray for what they perceive they lack. They make pilgrimages to faraway lands. They get on their knees to worship and offer money to the religions that claim they can bring us closer to the one true God. Unfortunately, an organization that promotes itself as being able to bring you closer to God needs to keep you distant from God, in order to keep convincing you that you need to be brought closer to God.

Humanity continues to do what it has always done and ignores the consistent message of the messengers. Every messenger who was called into this dimension came to deliver one message... to love each other. Instead, we negate the message and worship the messenger. If I want to honor the messenger, I need to live the message. If I want to be close to the messenger, I need to live the message. If I believe the message, I can forget the messenger if I live the message.

A messenger doesn't come for the glory, or for the trappings, or for the adulation. A messenger doesn't come to be honored and worshiped. A messenger doesn't come to have temples, statues, or religions built to honor them. A messenger doesn't come to divide people. A messenger comes for one reason... to deliver a message. So far, in history, that message has been the same one over and over and over again. "LOVE ONE ANOTHER."

So what do we do? We build temples while people sleep on park benches. We fly halfway around the world to be in the same city of our messenger while people die in our own cities with no shoes on their feet. We go to a place of worship and rush out to beat traffic. We yell at our children, sleep on the couch, flip off our neighbors, work more, play less, judge others, and pray. We pray for forgiveness for things we voluntarily do. We pray for peace while we own guns. We pray for guidance to a place we already know how to get to, and we pray from temples littered with gold and statues to celebrate a death while we ignore the message of a lifetime. "LOVE ONE ANOTHER."

Loving each other begins by performing acts of kindness like calling an old friend, visiting an elder, letting someone turn into traffic in front of me, getting out of the fast lane, giving someone a compliment as I walk by, and so on. Acts of kindness are things I offer for the primary benefit of the other person. Acts typically aren't all that genuine and require effort. Acts are performed by actors. The more I act kind, the more I _am_ kind. The more I'm kind, the more kind I become.

As I offer acts of kindness, I often prefer a certain outcome from my act. Let's say I let someone out of a parking lot into traffic in front of me, and they don't acknowledge my kindness with a wave. I frequently find myself cussing their apparent irrelevance out in my mind. Their acknowledgment was a condition I had attached to my kind act. As long as a preferred outcome is attached to an offering, the offering is conditional. Conditions are a form of barter—I'll let you in front of me as long as you say thank-you. The expectation of receiving a thank-you was a condition. Conditions are indicators of an act of kindness instead of me being kind. Being kind is unconditional and takes practice, sometimes lots of it.

The biggest difference between an act of kindness and someone being kind is that the actor performs the kind act for the intended benefit of the _other_ person, whereas the person being kind performs the kind act for his or her _own personal benefit_. When I offer acts of kindness with conditions attached, I feel good when those conditions are met and frustrated when they aren't. When I'm truly being kind, the offering has no conditions, and I experience joy and pride from being a kind person. It's the giving that brings me pleasure not the response to the gift.

Giving from an unconditional perspective could be a lifelong goal. Whenever I realize I offered kindness unconditionally, I smile. I appreciate each conditional act of kindness I offer, but I still strive to make them unconditional whenever possible. The more conscious effort I put toward unconditional giving, the more pride I feel. It's a lifestyle change, and I don't expect it to happen overnight.

This reminds me of how I play golf. I don't keep score anymore. I just try to enjoy one shot at a time. If my drive is long, I appreciate watching it soar. If it is short, I focus on the next shot. If I shank it and it flies into the woods, I get pissed off and stomp around a bit. Then, I tee it up again. The number of balls I hit into the woods is probably the reason I only play golf once or twice a year. But the fact I only play golf once or twice a year is probably the reason so many drives end up in the woods. As it is in life—the result is indicative of the effort and the effort dictates the result.

Embracing a new spiritual perspective is also a lifelong goal for me. This adjustment has required a lot of effort, but it's worth it. I feel liberated. This journey to define my personal version of God is beyond anything I can verbally articulate.

Since accepting "God is love", I have found joy experiencing love through offering acts of kindness and being kind. In the same way, since accepting "God is truth", I have discovered pleasure in being truthful. When I'm honest and forthright about things most others would never share, I feel like I'm truly at one with God.

Something I now recognize is that people don't judge me nearly as often as I believed they did. When I share what used to be my darkest secrets, it gives others permission to reveal their dark secrets to me, and they frequently do.

The interesting aspect of most of these conversations is that at the end of the conversation, they often thank me. By sharing their secrets, it seems to reduce a burden for them and helps them feel better. I seldom do anything special except share my secrets and listen to theirs. I gave them nothing they didn't already have except a place to feel safe. I guess they feel safe with me because I have skeletons I am dragging out of my closet, too. I won't judge them, because I'm equal to them. By sharing my truth, they offer me their truth. By sharing my truth, I experience the love and respect I have for myself. By being honest with other people, I experience God as truth and, by being kind to other people, I experience God as love.
2. A Perfect God

I had never considered God to be truth or God to be love. I had never been taught anything like that throughout all of Catholic grade school or through any mass I had been to, at least not that I recall. I agree with it, but neither truth nor love needs anything from me nor anyone else, but we're taught God theoretically wants many things from us. How does that fit in? And what about the word "perfect"? I was always _told_ God was perfect, but then I was _taught_ about an imperfect god. How can this be?

I have always considered God to be the best, the pinnacle, the most awesome version of anything I could think of that can't be improved in any way, shape, or form. It turns out that is the literal definition of perfect.(3) Perfect has to mean something though. I cannot define something as being perfect and then attach a series of imperfect qualities to it and expect it to remain perfect. If I define God as being perfect, it means God cannot be improved in any way. When I think of the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses, and Jesus, there are many ways I can describe that god, but I don't see how that god cannot be improved in some way.

The dictionary defines sin as not giving God what God wants(4), and the catechism defines sin as disobedience toward God(5). Disobedience is also not giving God what God wants. What is perfect about that? Simple logic tells me the only way I cannot give God what God wants is if God... wants. If God wants, it means God lacks whatever it is God wants. If God lacks anything, God isn't perfect. The true reality is that if sin is defined as "not giving God what God wants", and God is perfect, sin cannot exist. If sin does exist, God cannot be a perfect God. So, which way is it? It can't be both ways.

God is supposed to be greater than me on all levels. I mean, if I would be more kind and considerate than the god I'm being taught about, it doesn't make sense for me to be worshiping something not as kind as me. By comparing what I'm told God did to what I would do, and by comparing what I'm told God wants to what I would want, I establish a barometer against which to determine if this is a god I can believe in or a god I'm simply taught about. Our belief systems are voluntary.

One reason I don't believe God would ever make specific requirements of me, like the Ten Commandments and "sin" itself, is because requirements are limitations, and limitations would hold me back. I don't understand why a loving god would ever limit me. Why would God keep me from being the most awesome version of myself? As a matter of fact, wouldn't God inspire me to continue to be a better person, not because of fear of punishment but because of the joy of experiencing my full potential?

Rules and requirements support the concept of one person being better than the other, but perfect equality is the perfect integration of differentness. A beautiful symphony doesn't recognize the violin over the flute. A beautiful painting doesn't recognize red over black. Perfect equality uses the perfect integration of all differences so all are mutually complementary not mutually exclusive.

A system of rules creates a perspective of superiority by those living within that system, who typically feel since they're putting forth the effort to live within a certain set of guidelines, they're superior to those living outside of the guidelines. Rules promote dissension and dissension is hardly perfect, unconditional, or loving. Dissension is the byproduct of the perception someone is superior and someone is inferior. It promotes the concept of good and bad, which separates people instead of bringing them together. Any concept that divides man and promotes man being separate from each other is not a concept that supports a perfect God. A perfect God has to include all components on an equal basis or it would make one component more important than the other which is imperfection. Therefore, any system that divides people and promotes separatism from each other has to be an imperfect system. A divine system that supports a perfect God will constantly lead people towards perfection and equality.

The primary reason why unilateral rules do not work effectively is because there are so many different reasons for one single event. Every single person experiencing an event is going to interpret that event differently and is there for different reasons. If three people were in a car that was involved in an accident, one person might have been on his or her soul's preferred path, another person might have decided to go at the last minute, and the other might have had the intuition to not get in the car but got in anyway. Each one of those people experienced the same thing at the same time for entirely different reasons. One person was fulfilling his or her soul's chosen route, one person experienced a random occurrence, and one person experienced an event because of his or her free will decision. This experience might not have been primarily about these three individuals at all. It might have been about the driver of the other car. There are so many different potential scenarios to every experience, it's inaccurate to define any action or experience as being good or bad. That's why man establishing a structured system that unilaterally defines actions or occurrences as being good or bad is an act of futility.

There is no way to know for sure why an event happened. When trying to figure out the reason for a difficult experience in your life, it's important to always leave the door open for more reasons to present themselves. The universe will use one experience for many different reasons. If we decide a painful experience had one reason but don't leave ourselves open to learning more from that one experience, the universe will have to send us additional comparable experiences to ensure we learn the lesson we were supposed to learn in the first place.

Let's say my long-term relationship ended. I decided the single reason that relationship ended was to teach me to be more patient before getting emotionally attached. I was comfortable with that reasoning and moved forward into another relationship which ended as a short-term relationship. I decided the single reason that relationship ended was to be more selective with my dating partners. I moved forward into another relationship. That relationship ended as well. I decided the single reason that relationship ended was because we had varied political interests. The biggest problem in this entire scenario was that I'd assumed there was a single reason for the demise of each relationship. All three lessons could have been learned from that first breakup, which was ended for several reasons, not one. I got emotionally attached too soon, I wasn't selective enough with my dating partners, and we had varied political interests. Because I didn't learn the other two lessons that first time around, the universe sent me more lessons.

I was right to believe the experiences existed for a reason, but I failed to see there was more than one reason. By rewording this, the statement can become more accurate. Instead of believing _the_ reason for the break was... I needed to change my way of thinking to _a_ reason the breakup occurred was ... "I decided a reason the relationship ended was because we had varied political interests," leaves the door open for me to learn more lessons from the original event. There is never a single reason for any occurrence. If we choose the single reason perspective when analyzing occurrences in our lives, we will almost certainly experience a similar type of pain many times throughout our lifetime until we learn all the lessons attached to those particular experiences. This doesn't just apply to relationships. It applies to any experience we have. When we allow ourselves the privilege of learning from our experiences, we see the synchronicity instead of random chaos.

When I hear someone make a proclamation about God, I simply ask myself, "Can that version of God be improved in any way?" If the answer is yes, it means that proclamation was about an imperfect god. When I hear the words "God wants", I know the god of that statement is an imperfect god because a perfect god cannot want. Aren't The 10 Commandments a list of what God wants and hell a result of not fulfilling those wants? Once again, the problem with that concept is that if God is perfect, God cannot want, so the 10 Commandments couldn't have originated from a perfect god. Since hell is a potential result of sin, and sin can't be part of a perfect god, hell can't exist if God is perfect. This means the entire foundation of organized religion collapses if God is perfect, yet most religions claim to worship a perfect god.

This isn't just me twisting words or meanings of words in order to fit a preferred outcome, because I don't prefer the outcome to be any certain way. I just want to reach the truth. In this case, if I believe in the god of sin, hell, and eternal damnation, it's a literal impossibility for that god to be perfect. If God is perfect, I literally don't have to do anything in order to satisfy God, because God is always perfectly satisfied.

The first time I came to this realization, I had to sit with it for months. I had never heard anything remotely similar to this, yet it had to be true. I tried to talk myself out of this for a long time because it changed everything. It's scary to feel your entire faith system being shaken to its core. Where was I going to go from here? I eventually had no choice but to simply accept it. I could see no way around it.

I must admit though, some of what man justifies doing to man is the epitome of everything I have been taught is sinful. What if I redefine sin and simply take God out of the equation? In that case, sin becomes a violation of man, by man, but has nothing to do with God. That makes sense. It allows God to remain perfect while recognizing man often violates man, which would be defined as sin.

If I can tweak the way I think about sin, what if I did the same to the concept of hell? What if hell is a place I go with my mind, not a place I will go with my soul? Just because I was taught about hell doesn't mean I have to accept it as a reality, because what I perceive as real becomes real. I cannot perceive of a God I would honor to be vindictive enough to send me to hell for any reason. There are plenty of other options.

If being afraid of hell motivates me in any way, it makes hell a reality in my life, but fear of hell has never motivated me. For as long as I can remember, I have believed in a god that was loving and caring enough to make me over again before banishing my soul to hell for eternity. I was trying to imagine the type of "personality" or "mindset" a god must have in order to deal with any soul in that manner. It wasn't very pretty and it certainly wasn't perfect. It was an approach I can't ever imagine myself ever adopting for any reason. Isn't this akin to parents banishing their children to a lifetime of pain and suffering because they chose to do something the parents didn't want them to do? These parents would be condemned for child abuse, yet we honor a god that theoretically takes the same approach. What is perfect about that?

If I believe in a perfect god, it means everything from this point forward will be a whole lot different than anything I have been taught.

A perfect god has to be the foundation of everything moving forward, because perfection is the highest version of anything. A perfect god also has to be an unconditional god, because conditions are limitations or restrictions (6), so simply by definition, a condition cannot be perfect. I had to think about that one for a while, too. There are no conditions in order to be at one with God. There is nothing I have to do or say. I am already at one with God.

If God is unconditional, it means God's love must be unconditional and limitless as well. I can't have an unconditional god that places limitations on God's love, because the limitation is a condition. If God's love is unconditional, does that also mean God's hate is unconditional and limitless? I don't see how it can because hate is the perceived lack of love. Not only is the lack of love a need for love, and therefore a condition, but a lack is also imperfect. Not only can hate not be unlimited, but hate cannot be included as part of divinity at all. The lack of love would render a perfect god to be imperfect. Besides, if God is love and God is perfect, there is no way to limit what God is without rendering God imperfect.

_God's love is unconditional_. I try to feel that, to think that, I meditate on that, and I try to realize the depth of the meaning of that. Unconditional means _no_ conditions.

Is this the truth and the light? God needs nothing from me. I don't need to do or say anything to please God. No offerings bring me favor. There is no need for penance or fear of consequences. There's no action I can take to bring me closer to God than I am right now in this moment, and there's nothing I can do to make God angry with me or disappointed in me for any reason. If I feel distant from God and desire to feel closer to God, all I need to change is the way I think about God.

All of this was so new to me that I took the time to write down a list of all of the things I thought I had to do in order to satisfy God. It turned out, this list wasn't really about God. It was about me. This list represented what it would take for me to be satisfied with myself. The truth about an unconditional god is that I placed those conditions on myself. God wasn't placing them on me. If I believe God is perfect, God is already satisfied with me and has always been satisfied with me. A perfect god could never place a condition on me that would make God dissatisfied with me.

Conditions are voluntary acceptance of limitations to the human experience. They're burdens we place on ourselves and others. This is how we hold each other down. If someone tells us we need to act a certain way in order to please them, in order to please God, or in order to please somebody else, we have the ability to say no. If we accept what they're telling us, we're voluntarily accepting that burden. The beauty of an unconditional God is that none of the conditions we attach to ourselves, or that we accept from others, are actual criteria that have to be met in order to satisfy an unconditional god because an unconditional god has no conditions and thus no burdens. Sometimes, I wonder what a perfect, unconditional god would be like in human form and how that God would treat people. Then I find myself somewhat embarrassed. I mean, if I can imagine God treating someone a certain way, why can't I treat them that way as well? If I'm really honest with myself, it's because I'm choosing to not be godlike. I have the capability, but I'm consciously choosing to not exercise it.

When I make the conscious choice to be more godlike, I not only improve the quality of life for those whose lives I touch, I also improve the quality of my life and the life of those around me. Being more godlike isn't my obligation to God, being more godlike is fulfilling my obligation to me.

A perfect God doesn't want anything or need anything from me, which gives me the peace and comfort to just simply be. An unconditional god is all welcoming and all embracing. I feel like I have a friend with me constantly. I'm never alone even when no one is around. There's always a safe place for me to feel weak and vulnerable. I have a constant support system that will never judge me, because there are no conditions to meet in order to be in the favor of God. I don't have to worry if what I'm doing is okay or not okay. There's nothing holding me back from being the highest version of me or from the lowest version of me. I have the freedom to question my version of God and feel embraced because of it. My desire to be close to God requires that I constantly question every aspect of God. There's nothing a loving god would ever do to prevent me from getting closer to God. There's no way to ever disappoint perfection, nor is there a way to ever disappoint unconditional love and truth. I can never be an actual disappointment to God ever again. When I don't have to focus on pleasing God, I can focus on being proud of me. I can focus on being a better person because of my beliefs instead of in spite of them. I'm able to respect and embrace all people of all beliefs without feeling they're wrong or wondering if I am. Isn't that the epitome of what loving each other is all about? I feel like I'm in love with the world. I realize I'm not compatible with everyone in the world, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate them or respect them. It doesn't mean I won't be kind to them or embrace them. It just means we don't agree on everything. Since I feel whole within myself and at one with God, I no longer need anything from anybody else. When I no longer need anyone to be anything other than whomever they choose to be, I can comfortably accept them for whomever it is they choose to be.

I used to find myself judging people as "good" or "bad", "right" or "wrong". Those are actually opinions as to how someone else's actions apply to my life. Besides, isn't it the reasoning behind a person's decision that makes it good or bad, right or wrong? Unless I know a person's reasoning behind his or her decision, there's no way to accurately form an opinion of them.

I used to find comfort in a god that would forgive me if I was bad or if I was wrong. I now realize a perfect god will not forgive me because a perfect God will never judge me to begin with. The only way to judge something as good or bad is if there are conditions that have to be met in order to be defined as "good" or "bad". A perfect god has to be an unconditional god with no conditions from which to form a judgment.

Judgments form perceptions, and my perceptions are the way I view things, which then become my day-to-day realities. This reality dictates how I experience my lifetime.

In order to change the rest of my life, I try to change my judgments into determinations. A judgment was when I decided someone was good or bad because of an action they took. A determination, on the other hand, is withholding the judgment of good and bad and determining a particular individual doesn't add quality to my life right now. It wouldn't make sense for him or her to be involved in my life at the moment. This determination could last for a few minutes or for a lifetime. By withholding judgment, I honored both myself and the individual. By honoring myself, I changed my perception, which would change my day-to-day reality and the rest of my life. By being nonjudgmental, I hoped to develop into a nonjudgmental being. Being nonjudgmental is being unconditional. By being unconditional, I could consciously experience a divine aspect of my being.

Saving, judging, condemning, and forgiveness require conditions that have to be met in order to allow those things to happen, so a perfect god won't save me. A perfect god won't judge, condemn, or forgive me, but I can. It's my responsibility to be the best I can be. Only I know what I'm capable of, and if I deliver anything less than the best of which I'm capable, it's a result of my own decisions. Others will judge me because not everyone is on the same journey as me, but I don't have to accept their opinion of me as a burden to hold me down. It's my responsibility to not judge them back.

Often, being alone will lead to feelings of loneliness, but a perfect, unconditional, loving god will always provide a sanctuary. There are no lines of separation between a perfect god and me. If I occasionally choose to be a lesser version of the best I can possibly be, it'll be recognized and judged by me. This is the liability of living in awareness. There's nowhere to hide. This is why it's so important to know, love, and accept myself. I have an obligation to myself. When I fulfill that obligation, I contribute fulfillment and beauty to this universe. What I experience is what I invest into this universe. If I'm frustrated with myself, I put more frustration into the universe for others and myself to experience. If I'm disappointed with myself, I put more disappointment into the universe. If I judge others, feel inferior, feel inadequate, and am disappointed with myself, I invest more judgment, more inferiority, more inadequacy, and more disappointment into the universe. When we love and accept ourselves, we invest love and acceptance into the universe. Which universe would you prefer to live in?

Living in awareness is hard, and changing my awareness is even harder. Every ounce of effort to get over that hump has been worth it, but doing so has required a ton of dedication. Once I think I have achieved a higher awareness, I find myself slipping right back into the life trends and thought processes that had limited my life thus far. It's like an addiction, and maybe that's what it is. We become addicted to the way we have always done things. Living like we have always lived is effortless, but living in awareness requires constant effort.

Immersing deeper into spirituality has caused a substantial elevation in my mindfulness of occurrences happening around me. It has also caused a considerable boost in my awareness of what others are feeling as they move throughout their day-to-day lives. Living in awareness is like planting seeds while I watch people starve. I have had to find a way to watch people hurt and let them be. Just because I think I can help them doesn't give me the right to impose my opinions on them while they voluntarily make decisions that cause themselves a lot of pain. I need to honor them as individuals. I can offer them the seeds, little nuggets of information, which have life-changing potential should they water and nurture those seeds. Not many do and that's ok. I used to be disappointed if I tried to help and that help was ignored, but I realized my disappointment came from me having a preferred outcome of my help. A preferred outcome is a condition, and a condition is simply a potential source of frustration. By placing fewer conditions on my kindness, I'm able to connect with the unconditional aspect of the perfect, unconditional god I believe in.

There are many ways to experience God by simply being me. The higher level of consciousness I achieve, the more I'm aware of those experiences. Higher awareness brings into focus how special I really am. Special doesn't mean better or superior, because none of us are superior to another. Higher consciousness is somewhat like focusing a camera, binoculars, or telescope. We all have the capability of looking at, and seeing, the same things. Higher awareness allows me the ability to see the same things others see with a better clarity as to how things relate to the rest of our experiences.

If I feel superior to another or desire to feel superior to another, it's a sign I still believe in a conditional god. Within a perfect god all things are equally special.

3. Perceptions

The first fifteen years of my life were spent putting information into my mind of what God theoretically was. The second fifteen years of my life were spent trying to make sense out of what I was taught. The most recent fifteen years have been spent trying to unlearn what I was taught in the first fifteen years.

Over the past decade, in the more advanced countries, there has been a mass exodus out of organized religion. It seems this exodus is continually interpreted as people turning away from God. My personal experience is that these people are turning away from religion, not God. God is very important to the people I know who have left the church. People who invest common sense into the constant contradictions of organized religion realize there's no possible way for what they have been taught to be true.

A history of inaccuracy doesn't make inaccuracies accurate. It simply perpetuates inaccuracy. If I were trying to fix the leak in a hose with a Band-Aid, I would still have a leaky hose. If I put on another Band-Aid, then another, and then ten more Band-Aids, all I would end up with is a leaky hose with a bunch of Band-Aids wrapped around it. The only way to repair a leaky hose is to cut out the damaged section and splice the two ends back together again. Historical inaccuracies are the same way. A lie cannot be fixed with another lie. Imperfection cannot be made perfect. Jealousy can never be made just. Insecurity will never be secure, and bias will not suddenly become impartial. Inaccuracies about God can only be fixed with the truth about God. Isn't it ironic? God is defined as "Truth Itself". Inaccuracies about God can only be fixed with God itself.

Religions have the right to determine their own belief system and to justify it however they choose. We, as individuals, have the right to decide if we accept those claims as our claims. If we reject those claims, it doesn't make us less holy. It makes us less religious. Spiritual people are individuals to whom God is very important but for who organized religion no longer works. Most of the people I know are spiritual, and the ones who are still religious are becoming less and less so. Not one person I know has gone from leaving religion to turning away from God. Most people I know, religious and spiritual, have very individualized perspectives of God. The religious seem to have the same general framework as each other, but the image of God they paint within that framework is different for every one of them.

Personally, I define a perfect, unconditional, loving god as the highest possible version of anything I can possibly imagine. If somebody else's definition of God is different than mine, it doesn't make me right and them wrong, or them right and me wrong. It's just a different definition of God.

There have been many unique perspectives presented here so far that sound confusing because they're so different from what we have been taught. In reality, they're simple, because they're in the most basic form, not because they're easy to embrace. When God is stripped of what we've been told God is for centuries, that God cannot possibly be, God is revealed to us in a simple form.

Often, it's the simplest form that proves to be the most difficult to accept. It's like a piece of clay lying on a table. Imagine being told you can mold that piece of clay into anything you choose, but the future of your soul will ride on it. Some will gladly embrace the opportunity to shape that clay into something that makes sense to them. Most will look around the room to see what everyone else is doing and do the same out of fear of being wrong. There is no wrong. It's clay. It's meant to be shaped and molded. If one way to shape that clay was more special than another, it would require conditions to exist, which indicates imperfection. Perfection and unconditional recognize all components as equally special. Let's face it. Everyone wants to feel special, and we're all special. The problem arises when "superior" is attached to the concept of special.

The concept of superiority is the fuel that drives the free enterprise system. Basically, this system is set up from the concept that the more I have, the more special I am. It originates from, and supports, a consistent place of never having enough. When we come from a place of lack, we value what we don't have, and then once we have it, we value what we don't have. When I came from a place of lack, no matter how much I had, it still wasn't enough. Now that I come from a place of enough, no matter how little I have, it's always enough.

I can't change the free enterprise system, so I had to learn to comfortably live within it. My personal life has been a financial roller coaster. I had very little, then I had a lot, then I had very little, but now I always have enough. I learned to live within my means. I realize the people who didn't like me when I had a little also didn't like me when I had a lot, and the people who loved me when I had a lot also loved me when I had a little.

Personal possessions don't impress people. _We_ impress people. I have found that the greatest way to have someone feel good about who _I_ am is to help them feel good about who _they_ are.

The peace of mind I have now means more to me than any personal possession I have ever owned. Outside possessions often reflect the opposite of how we feel on the inside. When we need a lot of the fancy trappings on the outside, it's usually because we feel incomplete on the inside. When we feel complete and whole on the inside, we don't need to adorn ourselves with fancy trappings on the outside.

That doesn't mean if I drive a nice car, I'm an insecure person, or if I live in a nice house, I'm an egotistical person. It means if I feel more special with those things than I did before I had them, my perception of myself is out of balance. I'm as equally special to the universe, and everyone within it, with or without those things. It's the reason I have nice things that makes all the difference in the world... my world. If a nice car makes me feel superior to people with regular cars, it's not the nice car that's the problem. It's the perception of superiority that signifies the problem. If I feel superior _with_ the car, it means I felt inferior _without_ the car. Why would I feel something outside of me would satisfy my internal feeling of inferiority?

The truth is, in order to truly experience happiness, I need to change only one thing... my MIND. It's my mind that applies conditions to what should be and shouldn't be. It accepts that I'm incomplete and need something, or need to do something in order to make me whole. That's the great illusion, and the mind is the great illusionist.

Inferiority and unhappiness are perceptions that only exist in my mind, which means they can only be eliminated with my mind. What exists within the mind can only be addressed by changing the mind, not by changing what's outside of it.

If I feel I'm superior, it's due to those who are willing to surrender their equality to me and accept the concept of their own inferiority to me. If I feel I'm inferior, it's because I have surrendered my equality to those I feel are superior to me. The inferior worship the god of superiority, but the superior also worship the same god. The "god of superiority" is the concept of one entity being superior to an inferior entity and an inferior entity being less than the superior entity.

Most often, when we subscribe to the concept of superiority, we try to find balance in our lives by feeling superior to some and inferior to others. This superior-inferior lifestyle creates a lifetime of highs and lows. The truth is a life of equality.

Once I realized and accepted total equality, my life took on a much greater sense of calm and stability. I accomplished this by recognizing when I felt inferior or superior, and immediately affirmed to myself I was neither superior nor inferior but was equal to. This was a conscious process that systematically changed my subconscious, which then changed my behavior and ultimately changed my life.

Our thoughts affect our behavior, which affects our thoughts, which affects our behavior, which affects our thoughts, etc. Life is cyclical unless we make the effort to get out of the cycle. When we change our thoughts, we change our lives.

Most of this work is internal soul-searching accomplished through meditation and personal reflection. I approached several church elders with questions over the years and predominately received the same response, "Son, that is where the power of faith comes in." A leader's primary responsibility is to teach. "Faith" means they don't know the answer either. But they should. The only faith that should be involved, regarding God, is whether there is a god. Once you get past that hurdle, it should all make sense to you
4. Fear

Questioning our feelings about anything is scary, but questioning our "faith" is probably scariest of all. I mean, that's what faith is, isn't it—accepting what I'm told is true even if there's no proof behind it? I don't need proof of everything in order for me to believe in it but I certainly do not believe in anything I can disprove. Obviously, when I started to question my religious teachings I was able to disprove many things. When our faith starts to fall apart fear is a natural by-product. Heck, it is typically our faith we turn to when we feel our life is falling apart so where do we turn when our faith is falling apart?

I never thought of myself as being afraid of much of anything, but I'm actually afraid of a lot of things. I'm afraid of sharing this message. I'm afraid of not being clear enough. I'm afraid of creating confusion instead of clarity. I'm afraid of success. I'm afraid of complacency. I'm afraid of the reaction to this information. I'm afraid of all of those things, but I'm more afraid of not sharing this message than I am of the potential results of sharing it. I'm afraid of that change, but I'm also excited because I have come to realize that fear is the first sign of growth.

Fear is normal. We fear what we don't know, but the great neutralizer of fear is education. The more we know about something, the less we fear it. Fear is never something to be ignored, nor is it something we should surrender to. The human being is a three-part entity, soul, mind, and body. All three entities utilize fear as an indicator of something we need to stop and examine closer. If we surrender to fear, we'll forever live in a state of fear. Surrendering to fear is comparable to taking a picture of one moment in your life and then living the rest of your life in that moment. We can get stuck in that moment and never move past it. Fear is simply an indicator to slow down for a minute and consider our next step.

That sounds simple, but sometimes, we have no idea what our next step should be. The only thing worse is when we're afraid to take that next step. That situation is paralyzing and full of anxiety. The three most traumatic events of my life were like that, and those are the only three times in my life that I remember actually experiencing the physical effects of anxiety. The first time anxiety really struck me was during my divorce. I would wake up with my body literally trembling. I had to move hair from the shower drain daily just for the water to disappear, and I lost 25% of my body weight in three months.

It was the stress of it all. I hate conflict, and especially on a daily basis. It wasn't constant yelling but the fear of the unknown for both of us. Up to that point in my life, I had a tremendous amount of control over the direction of our family life as well as my professional life. But, at that point, I had set into motion a series of events I not only had no control over but limited influence over as well. She and I had structured our marriage to serve two distinct separate roles. She was very good at hers, and I was very good at mine. We were so good at our individual responsibilities that we didn't need to communicate. She was a homemaker and I was a self-employed remodeling contractor. All we did was work at our individual jobs. Her being really good at her job allowed me to be really good at my job. When we weren't working, we were focused on the kids. Since we didn't need to communicate, we never learned how to communicate, and therefore, couldn't communicate about simple things or about really important things.

Children learn what they live and I knew that our children would model their future romantic relationships after ours. If they did, they wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of ever being truly happy, because she and I weren't happy. I prayed for a couple of years for an answer I knew I already had but was scared to death to act upon. I think I hoped she would make the decision before me. What finally pushed me over the edge was the realization that the only chance any of us had to be happy was if she and I went our separate ways.

I had never been more scared of anything in my life than I was as I went through my divorce. I never doubted the decision or the need to make the decision. I was scared of the uncharted waters in front of us. It took a couple of years, but she and I finally figured out that we weren't the other's enemy. We also realized the children thrived when there was as little conflict between us as possible.

I can honestly say she seems to be much happier in the relationship that she is in than I remember her ever being in ours. She deserves that. I'm in a much happier relationship now than I have ever been in my life. I deserve that. All three of our children seem to be happy and fulfilled in their lives. They deserved us doing everything we could do to assure that. All it took was the courage to overcome my fear and hope the decision I was making was the best decision for everyone involved.

Paying off professional debts and structural problems with the house I was trying to sell left me with no savings and more debt. If it wasn't for my parent's ability to loan me the down payment to buy a small house, I literally would have been homeless. I had never borrowed a dime from my parents in my entire life. They never even had to put gas in my car, and now, they had to put a roof over my head... and I was in my forties. I thought I was pretty much at my lowest point. But I was wrong.

Within a year, my mom was diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive form of cancer. Seven weeks later, she was gone. I'm not so sure that my mom understood me, but she was about the only person in my world who came close. I felt so lost and so alone, but unfortunately, this still wasn't the bottom.

After missing one payment, the no-interest credit cards became high-interest credit cards. I could barely put food on the table. If I didn't file for bankruptcy, I would be in the same financial position when I was sixty-five as I was when I was forty-five. I knew what I needed to do, but I was afraid. My father's opinion of me was important. I knew his opinion of other people who had filed for bankruptcy, and I didn't want him to think of me that way. I didn't want to let him down, so I stretched it out a couple of more years until I literally had no other choice. I actually had to pay my bankruptcy attorney in installments because I didn't even have enough money to file for bankruptcy.

The physical effects of anxiety returned during my bankruptcy. That experience was every bit as traumatic as my divorce. I was ashamed to be me. I felt as if I was sentencing to death the only man I ever knew myself to be. The man I was once so proud to be was gone.

Everything about me and my life, as I knew it for forty years, had been completely stripped away in five. I went from being proud, to scared, to disappointed, to numb and ashamed to be me. I didn't consciously know it at the time, but I didn't have the strength to fear what I might find if I looked deep within myself. I have no idea why I was compelled to take that path, but that's what I did. I looked deep inside myself. There's tremendous peace in knowing you have nothing left to lose and nothing left to protect. There's also peace in knowing humility. If you think you might be at your lowest point, you're not there yet. When you are at your lowest point, there's no doubt about it.

As I did my soul-searching, there was only one time I asked, "What did I do to deserve this?"

The answer I got back was, "You did everything to deserve this."

Most of what I experienced was a process of my own doing and undoing. My mom's death was a process of life, but other than that, everything I experienced was caused by decisions I had made and I had to own that.

Once I accepted and embraced that I'm solely responsible for my experiences, my life began turning around. I still don't have much, but that's because I don't need much. I have started paying my father back, not because he needs it, but because I do. I drive an old truck, but it's paid for. I buy nice clothes for my children, but I shop at Goodwill for myself because, for some odd reason, I like the way it makes me feel. I know who I am and what I'm about, and I'm totally comfortable with that now. The only thing I know about tomorrow is that I will embrace it when it gets here. A good friend of mine would always sign her notes with, "I wish you enough." I thought it was silly at first, but I realize that sentiment might be the kindest thing anybody has ever wished for me. I now live my life from a place of enough. No matter how little I have, it's always enough.

I haven't experienced the physical indicators of anxiety for several years. That's why I was surprised when the symptoms reappeared over the past couple of days. I take it as a compliment. This book is tremendously important to me, but also I think it has the potential to be extremely important to anybody who reads it. That's where the anxiety comes in. I have to do it right. I'm afraid of having the intention of bringing clarity but delivering confusion. I'm afraid of the people who believe in God of the Bible finding themselves feeling like they have no God. I'm afraid of hurting people.

Changing spiritual perspectives can be scary. At least when people are standing right in front of you, you can physically interact with them, whereas God is a figment of our imagination. Literally, we have to imagine God. Whether or not God exists is somewhat of the eternal mystery, but at least, a logical god is one that is consistent and makes sense.

The one thing that organized religion offers, that life without religion doesn't offer, is a sense of specific structure. If you're a person who thrives in a structured environment, a spiritual life that appears unstructured can be scary at first.

If you thrive in structure, create your own structure. It's when people create structure and proclaim their structure to be the "only way" that problems begin. People who aren't comfortable with their belief system are the ones who are trying to convince others to join them in their belief system. If a person is truly comfortable in their belief system, they don't need anybody else to authenticate it for them. Offering perspectives is healthy, but imposing them on others or proclaiming others as being wrong is not. Your way isn't the only way. My way isn't the only way. Their way isn't the only way. All ways are equally valuable. Proclaiming the only way shows good intent but little wisdom.

I have found the greatest way for me to overcome fear is to recognize it, determine its origin, and then move into it. If my fear is a physical fear, I try to recognize what it is I fear and then go around it. To turn around and go back is to surrender. If I allow myself to perceive myself as weak, I become a victim. On the other hand, if I move into what it is I fear, or go around it, I continue on my preferred path. Going around an adversarial obstacle is the smartest and healthiest way I have found to overcome that obstacle.

If a person still fears repercussions from the god of a faith system they chose to leave, it means they really haven't let go of the faith system. They have probably only let go of the obligations of the faith system. A religion, or faith system, presents a version of God. A version of God that causes fear cannot be a perfect god. A perfect god must be an unconditional god, and an unconditional god has no conditions from which to cause fear.

Many of those who are religious fear for those of us who are on an undisciplined spiritual path. I used to take offense when those types tried to "save" me, or when they not so subtly told me I needed to go to confession and rejoin the flock. I don't take offense anymore. I now engage them in conversation, ask them questions about their faith system, and share some of my perspectives. We seldom end up agreeing, but we usually part ways with a mutual respect for each other. I admire the passion people have for their beliefs much more than the beliefs themselves.

Change is growth and growth is overcoming fear. As long as I surrender to whatever it is I fear, it's like placing my feet in concrete. Everybody else will be moving around me, but I'll be standing still.

I found that the greatest change that's required in a life after religion is that I had to take personal responsibility for everything that happens in my life. In a religious life, we're taught that God is responsible for virtually all good, and man and the devil are responsible for all bad. In life after religion, it's necessary to take responsibility for both the good and the bad in life.

The more I embraced a spiritual life and left the religious life behind, the more I realized good and bad are personal interpretations of people or events. I'm personally responsible for everything that happens in my life through the choices I make. If I welcome a person into my life who causes me pain, I have to accept it was my decision to let them into my life. It's also my responsibility to exclude them from my life. To continue to include someone like that in my life and pray for happiness is an act of futility. Prayer is often a request for God to get involved in something we don't want to take the personal responsibility of creating.

This life has nothing to do with God. This life is our opportunity to choose to experience ourselves as we choose to be. If this life were about God, it would mean we would have to be separate from God. It would mean that either God needed something from us or we need something from God. The thought that God could need something from us is one of the most arrogant opinions humanity can have. To reduce the image of God to such a state of insecurity that God demands our worship and our obedience, to reduce the image of God to such a state of inadequacy that God needs offerings from us and special days to pay God homage, and to reduce the image of God to a jealous, spiteful, murderer is the biggest insult we could pay to God. Yet, that's the god I was taught about. A god that eternally subjects humans to all forms of pain and suffering because they were disobedient, a god that kills through a flood and plagues, a god that leads a select group of individuals into a desert and kills thousands of others along the way, and a god that theoretically sends a son to be sacrificed is somehow worthy of honor, worship, and exultation? This isn't even a god deserving of appreciation. If a person placed these demands on you would you even consider them a friend?

To recognize God as perfect is the highest honor we could possibly bestow God. To celebrate God as being at one with us instead of incomplete without us is the greatest gift of recognition we could offer. A perfect god that needs nothing offers everything. An unconditional god that has no conditions offers unlimited opportunity. A loving god offers a sanctuary of peace, comfort, and acceptance in order for us to heal, live, and thrive. An adoring god offers a hand up while a needy god requires a handout.

I'm not a sinner. I'm not a bad man who occasionally does good things. I'm I good man who has made some decisions I wouldn't make again, and awareness is the gift from those decisions. I'm a much better man since I recognized and embraced a perfect god that I am part of instead of an imperfect god I'm separate from.

Questioning the religion we're taught about requires a lot of strength and conviction, especially when part of what we're taught is that we should never question our religion. Transparency becomes a vehicle of trust because transparency requires complete honesty—something few of us know much about because few of us are able to be completely honest with ourselves.

It's much easier to be honest with others than it is to be honest with myself. When I'm honest with others, I control the amount of information I divulge to them. It's selective honesty, not total honesty. When I'm honest with myself, I have no control over the quantity and intensity of the information that comes up. This is total honesty. Where there's honesty, there's a future. Lying to ourselves becomes a habit that, like any other habit, requires effort to break. When I first started the process of total personal honesty, I was afraid to start because I teared up every time. I was afraid if I started to cry, I might never stop. What better way to prove to myself how much I was deceiving myself? So... I cried. I cried a lot and I cried for quite a while. I didn't even know what I was crying about half of the time, but I eventually stopped. And when I did, I didn't see the need to look back or to try to figure out why I was crying. Why really doesn't matter. From that moment on, I decided to move forward with as much personal honesty and awareness as I possibly could. I had to start somewhere, so what better time to start than at that moment?

Making adjustments in life is hard, especially wholesale adjustments that affect the core of who you know yourself to be. If I find myself getting emotional thinking about things I wish I would have handled differently it's proof of healing I need to do. The only emotions that will emerge are emotions I had previously suppressed. When I live in total honesty with myself, I seldom suppress any emotions, because I deal with them in the moment. Whatever I suppress becomes a part of my past that I have to deal with later. It doesn't go away. The more I suppressed, the more my past affected my present. My emotions became like a chalkboard I refused to wipe clean. I tried to squeeze more and more writing between the words, and then smaller words between those words, and then even smaller writing and so on. I ended up with an emotional chalkboard full of a bunch of gibberish with no beginning and no end. So, I wiped it clear with my tears and started over. I now live in the moment and feel much more alive. There is no "past" I have to contend with. The past only exists in our minds.

I used to think it would be too hard to start over. I was scared to even think about living my life in an entirely new way. The fact is... we never start over, we just move on from here. The big question is, do I want tomorrow to be similar to today? If I want tomorrow to be better than today, I need to head in the direction of my dreams. Otherwise, I'll continue to live a nightmare, and it's no one else's responsibility to get me there than mine.

It's never too late because it's always today

5. Prayer

When we're afraid, one of the first things we tend to do is to pray. Unfortunately, I was taught to pray in a non-interactive way. I was told to either thank God for something or to ask God for something. And if I was going to ask God for something, the best way to get it was to thank God for something first. The problem with this scenario is that I was never taught to listen to God. My personal objective was to form a relationship with God. How in the world can I have a relationship with something I simply talk at and don't listen to? A relationship has to be a two-way street in order for an actual relationship to be formed.

God not only has value to me, but I'm also valuable to God. Organized religion teaches of a god that desires our worship. If I'm nothing but a sinner with a predisposition for wrongdoing, as I was also taught, why would God want to be associated with me? Worship from those who are convinced they're lowly isn't worship. It's desperation of the lowly. There's no glory in that. Worship from those who recognize their own intrinsic value is true admiration. There's great value in that. If my worship is important to God, it's because God admires me and desires me to admire God. But, as we have discussed before, if God is perfect, God cannot want or desire, so my intention with prayer is to satisfy me, not God.

If it were possible for me to be in the physical presence of God, I would like to think I wouldn't close my eyes and bow my head. I would like to think I wouldn't recite the Our Father, the Apostles Creed, or any other prayer someone else has written. I would like to think I could look God in the eyes and have a personal heart-to-heart discussion. I want to be able to _listen._ I want to learn, to advance, and grow. I want to be a friend to God, and I want to have a friend in God. None of that can be accomplished if I don't have the ability to understand what's being communicated back to me. I firmly believe God communicates with all of us all of the time, but we have to be willing to recognize those communications for what they are.

Most of us have been taught that God is "out there somewhere" and we're separate from God, If we were separate from God, it would make God imperfect. When I first tried to implement the concept "if God is perfect, I must somehow be part of God," into my life, I had a hard time embracing it. It's still foreign to me, even though I know it must be true. I struggled with the concept that God isn't "out there", God is "in here."

All of my life, I felt I had a pretty good line of communication with God, and all of a sudden, that communication was in a state of flux. Since I altered my opinion of what I was taught God was, to what I thought God must be, I had a hard time reestablishing a connection with God. I had all kinds of things running through my mind for months. I wrestled with questions like, "If God is perfect, and we're part of God, am I talking to myself? Am I making all of this stuff up? If God talked to me, would it be the same as God confirming something exists outside of God? If I feel I'm having a conversation with God, but I have to be part of God, what is it I'm actually communicating with?"

Yeah, I know. Get a life, right? What can I say? I work by myself. I predominantly live by myself. And this stuff is really important to me. When I'm by myself, I have these ongoing conversations in my head. When I hear people's justifications for doing some strange things in life as, "I heard voices in my head," I can empathize with them. I even asked a friend once, "If someone commits a horrible crime because they claim they heard the voice of God telling them to, do they go to heaven for obeying the voice of God, or do they go to hell because of their actions?"

I needed answers. If I reestablished the line of communication with God, I could probably get the answers, so I went back to the same approach I'd had most of my life. The communication picked up like it had never stopped. One of the first questions I asked was, "Are you on the inside of me or on the outside of me?"

And the answer was, "There is no place I am not," which correlated perfectly with the perfect god concept.

The truth is, I don't know if I'm talking to God or not, and I don't care. I know the information I receive, in order to share with others, is information I have never put into me in this lifetime. This information, and my comprehension of this information, is so unusual in relationship to my upbringing, and to the life I have lived so far, I don't know where it's coming from, but it's there. Everyone has the same capabilities, but it requires refinement and effort in order to "hear" what is coming back to me.

How did I accomplish this? First and foremost, I had to desire an emotional relationship with God. Secondly, I had to feel worthy of a relationship with God. This required unlearning most of what I was taught. I had to embrace the fact that I was valuable to God. We don't invest time and effort into what we don't value. I didn't expect God, regardless of what form God actually is, to invest time or effort into a relationship with me if God didn't value me. It was only once I felt worthy of awesome events happening in my life that I recognized the awesome events when they showed up. When I get down on myself, or don't feel good about myself, awesome events stop showing up in my life. Awesome events happen around us all of the time, and in order to experience them, all I have to change is my mind.

I would classify communication with God to be an awesome event, but if I don't feel worthy of communication with God, there's no way to recognize, or interpret, the communication when it happens. If I don't feel worthy, it's like trying to have a cell phone conversation in the middle of a tornado. The tools are there. The connection is there. The participants are there. The conversation is even there. I just can't hear anything because of all of the conflicting noise surrounding me. This tornado is usually one of my own making and is typically calmed simply by elevating my opinion of myself to the level of the entity with which I desire to communicate.

Talking _at_ God was similar to making a Christmas list and expecting presents to simply appear under the tree. Talking _to_ God formed a partnership in which I had to take responsibility for creating, or at least co-creating, events in my life. If I'm praying for something, I have to be willing to do my part. The only way to know my part is by learning to communicate with God.

First, I had to desire communication with God. Second, I had to feel worthy of communication with God. Third, I had to learn not to discredit the conversation that came to me. This isn't something I was ever taught. It's something I have always done. For lack of a better explanation, I have imaginary conversations in my head. This is how I formed my friendship with God—through these imaginary conversations. I never paid all that much attention to these dialogues until I started questioning the faith system I was raised in. During these internal conversations, I would ask questions I genuinely didn't know the answer to, and I would receive answers I had never heard before. Sometimes, they were complex answers, but I understood the complexity. It all began to make sense—not the religion—the answers. They began to knit together and the image of a logical god started to appear on the canvas of my life.

I have been able to teach several friends how to pray this way, and I offer the method now. The results of this method have far more to do with the mindset of the approach than it does the methodology of the approach.

First, we need to feel the most kind, loving, caring, unconditional presence we can think of. You know the difference you feel in your body when someone is angry with you verses the feeling you have when someone is whole-heartedly in love with you? Choose the loving feeling.

We need to establish a "safe place". This is essential for all of us. As long as people feel safe, they thrive. People who don't have a safe place to mentally, emotionally, and spiritually retreat to will always feel threatened. It's impossible to have a loving dialogue in a place you feel threatened. This place can be a physical place, but more often than not, it's a safe, calm sanctuary of the mind.

Invite this loving presence, or "friend", into your sanctuary and take some time getting to know each other. Simply have an imaginary dialogue about anything that crosses your mind. This friend already knows you and is comfortable with you. This time is about you getting comfortable, so please do this step as often as you need to. There's no timetable on the effectiveness of this. It may take once or it may take a thousand times. We're retraining our mind to add credibility to something we have been taught to discredit, and retraining the mind is far different than changing our mind.

All dialogue is interpreted by the mind so just because a dialogue originates in the mind and is not heard with the ears, doesn't disqualify its authenticity.

The mind is sterile. It's like a computer. The mind processes information, and it can merge just about any information we put into it. We created this new friend in our mind. We're having conversations in our mind, and our safe place is in our mind. But, if all of it stays in our mind, it will be imaginary conversations in an imaginary place. What we seek is a dialogue with God. A dialogue requires a relationship, but relationships cannot be experienced with the mind. They are experienced with the heart.

So, let's meet our new friend in our safe place and have a loving conversation with her (or him). It might be easiest to imagine our friend being a deceased loved one for a while. Mentally, have a two-way conversation with her. Allow her to ask you questions and you offer her answers. Feel it in your heart. Ask her questions and imagine her answers. Feel it so deeply in your heart, it brings you to tears, literally. Emotionally expose yourself to her. You're in a safe place with a safe person, so tell her things you never had the chance to tell her before she had to go. Let her tell you things she never had the opportunity, or the courage, to tell you before she left. Feel it in your heart.

Pay attention to the sensations of these heartfelt experiences. Get to know these sensations so you can recognize them anywhere. Allow the image of your new friend to change into whomever it is you would like to communicate with, but don't change the all-knowing, all-loving, familiar essence of who you have gotten to know your new friend to be. Pay attention to each experience and each answer within each experience. If an answer resonates in the heart, recognize it as valuable. If an answer has no feeling attached to it, recognize it as simple conversation. You can use the same technique as you move through your day-to-day physical life. Certain things people say will cause a similar feeling in your heart. When something resonates in the heart, it's "heartfelt" and is meant for you to notice.

The more often you involve your new friend into your daily life, the more comfortable you'll get with the whole process. I know, it sounds crazy, and maybe it is. But it works. Eventually, your friend will become your safe place and can take on the presence of any entity with whom you choose to communicate. If you would like to communicate with God, imagine your new friend being God. If you would like to communicate with Jesus, imagine your new friend being Jesus. The more unbiased you are in your spiritual belief, the more authentic communications will be. If the underlying goal of your communications is to authenticate a predetermined belief system, your mind will actually create mental communications in order to authenticate what it already believes instead of being open to unbiased communication. On the other hand, if the only objective is to establish communication and are open to whatever it is that comes through, the communications are less likely to be fabricated by the mind.

So, first we established a new friend, then we established a safe place. We then met our new friend in our safe place and established a comfortable, safe, non-judgmental friendship with them. Next, we had loving heart to heart dialog with them and imagined them being whomever it is we wanted to converse with. Now it is time to actually become a believer in our ability.

The more comfortable you get with these internal dialogs the more unique questions you want to include in the dialogs. Ask questions you genuinely do not know the answers to and pay attention to the answers that come back. Don't be afraid to make things up. Don't censor yourself. Do not shut down the mind because the mind has to be involved in this process.

Soul communication will not respond to tests so asking questions in order to prove the effectiveness of this to yourself or others is futile. The soul is unconditional and neither has conditions nor responds to them. Remember my light on the sidewalk story? That happened because of my heartfelt plea. There was no intention of a test. Although the request may have been the same as a test (if you are out there just show me a sign), the difference lies in the reason for the request. For example, two people are in the water and both ask for a life ring to be tossed to them. The purpose for one request is to save themself from drowning but the reason for the others is to make sure you can toss the ring that far just in case they need it. The drowning plea will be answered but the other will not. A plea is a prayer but a personal desire is a request regardless of how it is presented or who it is presented to. Prayers are answered but requests may not.

The most important aspect of this entire process is to include your heart. Imagine any mental dialog you may be attempting to move from your mind, down your torso, through the heart and then to whomever it is you desire to communicate with. You want your words, thoughts, and questions to be covered with love. "Covered with love," doesn't mean it all has to be feel good dialog. It is possible to be hurt and angry but still loving. Just be you.

Eventually you will start to receive answers with information you know you didn't know before the answer came to you. It will probably scare you the first few times it happens but just remember these are loving dialogs. There is nothing to be afraid of. You may also start to notice physical things begin to happen that were part of these conversations. If you choose to start living this way you will realize, through experience, the physical world works in conjunction with the spiritual, not separate from it. This is a way to experience your faith instead of simply believing it.

We can use this process to communicate with our angels, masters, Jesus, the deceased and any soul actually. Communicating with the soul is much different than communicating with the body so don't expect the same answers from both

Obviously, this is all easily debated and can be dismissed as mental fabrication... because it is. Isn't that what life is though? Life is simply a series of events and how we choose to perceive them. Isn't perception an interpretation of our mind? If so, perception is a mental fabrication. Why does perception have more credibility than mental communication?

As you go through this process, you'll find yourself consistently trying to discredit the value of these mental conversations. I ask you though, isn't that what happens when you remember something? If you ask yourself, "What is 2+2?", do you hear a little voice in your head say 4? If you ask yourself what directions you have to take to get to the grocery store, do you hear yourself mentally going over the path in your mind? Those are voices in our head that we have gotten comfortable with. These voices are no more credible than the voice of your new friend, except the voice of your new friend is new, and created consciously, whereas the voice that will direct you to the grocery store is subconscious. It's not until a concept is part of our subconscious that we truly give it credibility.

The way to import something into our subconscious is to consciously accept it as being real, or to at least have the potential to be real. Once we consciously accept something, it's the frequency in which we revisit that concept that helps to import it into our subconscious belief system. This could take a day or a lifetime and depends on how firmly seated the subconscious concept we're trying to dislodge is in our mind.

A friendship and dialogue with God sounds really cool until we realize the vulnerability of having an all-knowing friend. A physical human friend only knows what we share with him and what we want him to know. A spiritual friend, on the other hand, knows everything we never wanted anybody else to know and seldom want to know ourselves. Unless we're willing to make ourselves that vulnerable and transparent to God, this will never work. We have a fear of transparency typically because we feel we have something to hide or protect ourselves from. The beauty of an unconditional god is that there can be nothing an unconditional god is not aware of, but there's also nothing an unconditional god will judge or condemn. There's no need to protect ourselves from something that cannot ever happen.

People will often make the conscious choice to become more spiritual or to involve God in their life in the hopes that their life will become easier. It doesn't. When you choose to bathe yourself in God, there's no towel to dry off. There's no rock to hide behind. You have to be willing to become totally transparent in all you do at all times. The awesome part is that we never have to do it alone again. We'll always have a friend to share our grandest accomplishments as well as our deepest secrets—all with a loving, caring, unconditional friend.

Prayer works, but when we pray for specific events to take place, we often interrupt the preferred path of other souls. I pray for the soul of another to experience whatever is in that soul's best interest, not the person's best interest. I pray for my soul the same way. The only prayer that I ask the angels to help me fulfill is to guide me down the path of my soul's preference. That's the only prayer I offer for others as well. For example, every time I see a medical helicopter fly overhead I pray, "Please let that soul experience whatever is in that soul's best interest." To pray for someone to get well is a selfish prayer. If it's in that soul's best interest for its body to expire, it would be more painful and detrimental to that soul if it had to continue to live within this realm. Prayers do make a difference and a soul can occasionally choose to stay within this dimension even if it's in its best interest to move on. The pleading of many for someone to get better can cause that soul to alter its original path. This isn't a good thing. Praying for a body to heal and praying for someone to fulfill their soul's intention are two different things. One is selfish and the other is selfless.

I don't wish for any of my loved ones to pass away, but they all will. Death is the only guarantee of life. If we're living, we're dying. None of us knows when that last moment will take place for us or for those we hold dear. If we move through life letting those we love know how much they're loved, and embracing the love offered to us, no matter when our last moment takes place, we'll be ready for it. There's no prayer that can prepare you, or I, for that last moment. Only we can prepare ourselves for that last moment. It's not anybody's responsibility to come to our rescue when it's time to leave.

So, how does all of this apply to prayer? We're in a constant state of prayer. Every thought is a prayer. Every action is a prayer. Every inaction is a prayer. Every experience is a prayer. If God is perfect, there can be no time when we're not communicating with God.

There was a quote in the Bible where Jesus said we're all capable of doing the same things Jesus did. For the life of me, I couldn't find the quote, so I said a prayer asking Jesus to lead me to it. I still couldn't find the quote, so I forgot about it. As I pursued an unrelated interest, I ordered a small paperback book through the Internet. Low and behold, the quote I was looking for was in that book. That quote led me to another quote, which then led me to a third. I found it interesting that I had never even heard of these quotes before, yet they were all attributed to Jesus. "Whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater works than these." (John 14:12) "If you ask anything of me, in my name, I will do it." (John 14:14) "I do not accept human praise." (John 5:41)

So, I took these quotes and modeled my prayer technique from them. I don't praise Jesus, because Jesus doesn't accept human praise. I address much of my prayer directly to Jesus because, if I ask anything of Jesus in Jesus's name, Jesus will do it. I whole-heartedly believe, we're all capable of what Jesus did and, apparently, are capable of even greater works than He.

After I adopted this approach to prayer with Jesus, a subtle mental dialogue took place. This was predominately casual conversation about general life events. None of that prepared me for what happened next.
6. A Conversation with Jesus

_What follows is a true account of an actual event. The text is as accurate as I could legitimately remember, because I had no way of instantly recording what came to me. Immediately afterwards, I wrote down as much as I could remember, as accurately as I could remember with little embellishment._

The howling wind outside the frosted window reminded me of the bone chill that led me to the one winter indulgence I look forward to. The reflection in the mirror grew hazier as ribbons of steam rose from the surface of the undulating pool between the edges of the seventy-five-year-old, pitted, white, porcelain bathtub. The gentle flicker of the lone candle illuminated the steady rise of the water as I eased my body into it. Beads of sweat started down my forehead as my body temperature raced to become at one with the water surrounding it. My eyes slowly closed as I listened to the rhythm of my heartbeat. I could see the dance of the candle flame through my closed eyelids as I asked Jesus if I could have a conversation with Him.

"Of course," he said, as His presence filled the tiny bathroom.

I asked Jesus what I thought was a relatively simple question, "Jesus, what was your life really about? What really happened?"

Jesus replied, "Some of what is written is accurate, most of what is written was misunderstood before it was written, and some of what is written is a lie.

"I'll address the parts of my life you're familiar with first. The story about me as a young boy teaching the priests at the Temple, well, our conversations had nothing to do with scripture. As a young boy, I was always happy and carefree, even though our people were very much oppressed. The Romans ruled by fear so most people lived in fear, and they surrendered to fear, but I was seldom afraid. I was running past the priests that day in the Temple. They stopped me and asked me how I could always be so happy. I explained to them the place to find happiness is in the mind. If I want to be happy, I can be happy. If I focus on being happy in my mind, it doesn't matter what my body is experiencing, I can still be happy. Happiness and joy is a state of mind, not a state of the body. This dialogue lasted for hours, because they tried to convince me it wasn't true, but I consistently showed how true it was. I taught them how to be happy by perceiving it. Our conversation had nothing to do with God, with scripture teachings, or anything to do with religion at all. It was a happy boy teaching unhappy priests how to experience joy.

"The middle years of my life are often considered the 'missing years.' I was growing up just like everybody else, because I am everybody else. I'm no different than you, you're no different than me, and we're no different than anybody else. I taught that many times. The yokes most people pick up in their lives didn't burden me. I didn't need anything outside of me to be happy.

The older I got, the more I felt sad and burdened, and I turned to things outside of me to avoid the feelings inside of me. I was a very sensitive empath. I could feel other people's pain, sadness, and confusion within my own body. The more I paid attention to it, the deeper I felt the pain. When someone is sensitive to the energy others give off, they feel it so deeply within their own body they interpret it as being their own emotions. That's what empathy is, literally feeling others' emotions as your own. I felt so much confusion, pain, fear, and anguish within myself I had to escape for a while. That was the first time I spent many days and nights in the desert. I brought no food and I knew where the water was. I had to get away and figure things out. After several days in the desert alone, decompressing with prayer and meditation, I was able to feel like my old self again. I was able to feel the energy around me. I was able to feel the energy of the scorpions and locusts that became my source of food. I became so at one with myself that I could feel the vibration of the world around me.

"It was during that time that the image of me talking to the chief priests as a young boy continued to play over in my mind. I realized the power of the mind. I realized the interpretation of my life is dictated by how I perceive my life. If I perceive myself as being oppressed, I'll live under the veil of oppression. But if I perceive myself as being free, even if I'm in shackles, I'll experience freedom. This applies to all of humanity.

"Love is no different. People have forever searched outside of themselves for love, but what's outside of you only accumulates outside of you. If you feel a void within, the only way to fill that void is by turning within.

"When I arrived in the desert, I felt lonely and misunderstood. But, by being in my aloneness, I learned about myself. I learned who I was and what was important to me. I learned I felt more alone with people all around me than I did when I was by myself. I learned loneliness had nothing to do with the number of people who surrounded me on the outside. It has everything to do with how connected I felt to my inner self. I learned to know myself and knowing myself migrated into loving myself. When you're alone, you're compelled to forge a relationship with yourself. That's the key that unlocks the gate to this entire dimension. Once you're in relationship with yourself, you can truly know and love yourself. Once you know and love yourself, there's no amount of oppression that can destroy you. And you're free to experience this world in a way most simply imagine.

"That became my entire message—to love others as you love yourself. It seems simple but has been misconstrued. The key component of the entire message has been lost in translation. The most important part of the message was to love yourself first.

"The love you feel in your soul is like a bucket. If you constantly love others without loving yourself, it's the same as having holes in the bottom of your bucket. The love that cascades into your bucket is spilled instantly to those surrounding you with open mouths. This process appears admirable, but it leaves you with nothing in your bucket from which to drink yourself. You become needy and a provider at the same time. You need to drink from another's bucket in order to quench your own thirst. This is drinking from the well. If you love yourself first, your bucket has no holes. In which case, you're able to give away all of the unconditional love that overflows from your bucket. The fuller your bucket is, the more you're able to give away and teach others to love themselves first. Imagine the surplus of love that cascades around you. There's no need, only surplus. This is the fishes and the loaves.

"There's a big difference between being in need and being needy. Being needy is a way of life, whereas being in need is a temporary state of being. Being needy requires handouts, while being in need requires a hand up. An outstretched hand is important regardless of what's in it, but it's equally important to discern the difference. Constant focus on the needy is draining, whereas filling a need is rewarding. The needy isn't just the man in the gutter. It's also the man under the robe. A robe simply covers the man beneath it. It doesn't elevate him.

"I spent some time with John the Baptist, sharing with him what I shared with the high priests as a boy. There were things I had done, said, and thought as a young man that I wasn't proud of. I felt so clear and pure on one hand, but on the other hand, I carried many regrets. So, while I was with John, I had him cleanse me of my sins. Sins aren't violations against God. Sins are violations against ourselves. I had betrayed myself. I had done things in my past that I would no longer do again, and I didn't want to continue carrying them with me. I wanted to wash them away. That's what baptism is. Baptism is a voluntary cleansing of the soul by the visualization of letting go of what's inside of the body as the outside of the body is cleansed. The involuntary baptism of a child, on the other hand, is a violation of a child's inherent purity. If an infant is baptized in order to wash away original sin what is actually happening is the attachment of original sin to the child, instead of washing it away. A perfect wondrous god would never create an imperfect creation. By baptizing a child, a parent accepts a child as a sinner and raises it as a sinner, which becomes their original sin.

"It was with John the Baptist that I met Mary Magdalene. She was my muse. We spend every second of our lives with our self so sometimes we don't value our own unique perspectives. Mary helped me embrace and truly value myself. As we traveled together, she helped me realize the value of teaching others the power of the mind. She pointed out that when we love ourselves first, it frees the mind to be used in so many other ways. When our mind recognizes and embraces the love of the soul, it frees itself from the inherent search for love. When the mind isn't searching, it's finding and experiencing. And when it is, it's at its highest power. Mary made me aware of this and I practiced it on our journeys.

"It was these 'mind games', if you will, that became interpreted as miracles. The changing water into wine miracle, which was attributed to me, originated from a story that I told my followers about something that happened before there were any followers.

"Mary and I were at a wedding that had indeed run out of wine. Mary suggested it would be a great opportunity to attest to the power of the mind and the power of persuasion. There was another couple outside of the tent that was complaining about the wine jars going empty. I told them to fill their cups with water. When they returned, I told them that I had special powers, but the only way for the special powers to work was if they believed that I had powers. A free mind can easily convince an enslaved mind, by using that to which it is enslaved to influence it. In this case, the minds of the other couple were already enslaved to the effects of the wine they had previously partaken in. Once they assured me they believed I had special powers, I placed my hands over the cups and said a prayer. I asked them to slowly place the cups to their lips and imagine the taste of the finest wine they had ever tasted. As they did so, their minds convinced their tongues the finest wine did indeed fill their cups. They handed us their cups as they ran back into the tent proclaiming the good news that there now could be plenty of wine for all to drink. Mary and I were gone before they came back outside.

"Up until that time, I had only considered the power of the mind in my own life. It was Mary who helped me realize the power of the mind isn't only man's greatest strength. It's also man's greatest weakness. Those who are convinced they have great power can easily convince minds that are enslaved to the effects of fear that they do indeed have great power. And they can prove it by preying on the fearful mind. Current governments rule this way.

"My message was becoming clearer and clearer to me. An enslaved mind is a voluntary slave, and a voluntary slave can be voluntarily freed.

"As far as me raising people from the dead, those were just embellished healing events. For what reason would I raise someone from the dead? Death is traumatic enough once. Causing the necessity to die twice in the same lifetime would be a great transgression.

"My healing miracles were no more miracles than the ones your doctors create every day. Your people attribute most of their healing to the pills they are given to heal them. In some cases, these pills do heal, but in many other cases, it's the confidence people place in the pills that does the healing. As in my case, it was the confidence people placed in me that caused their healing.

"The mind creates what it focuses on. If the mind focuses on the pain, it creates more pain. If the mind then focuses on the compounded pain, it compounds it yet again. The mind can do this until it literally cripples the body. If this process is caught early enough, freeing the mind can literally free the body. It's those types of healing events that are considered my miracles. There are many more special events than these that were never written about because they produced no visible differences. When the mind and the soul are united, even in a nonresponsive container, a person can live their life in a state of bliss. It's those events of which I'm most proud.

"Mary was the catalyst to keeping my message focused on two things: love yourself first, and the power of the mind. I was simply teaching people how to be happy. The last thing people needed was another prophet teaching oppression. The concept of one single god that needed something was relatively new. The high priests sent out many other prophets speaking of this needy god. My message wasn't that message. My message was to love yourself and when you love yourself, you're able to love others. When you're truly able to love others, it's then that you are truly at one with the highest god. The highest god cannot possibly want anything from you. The highest god offers to you.

"What I was teaching worked. As I moved through the towns and villages, I left a trail of happiness behind me that no amount of oppression could take away. The mind is so powerful that if you control it, no one will ever control you again. If you control your mind, your soul is free. They can take your body, but they cannot take your soul. They took many bodies.

"Both the Romans and the high priests controlled through fear, but throughout the towns and villages, people were starting to be happy. Most people had never even known laughter. Most had never felt kindness even amongst themselves. But when I left the town, there was an entirely new energy within it, because I taught them to change their mind. By teaching them to focus on joy, they experienced joy. It really was that simple. You experience what it is you pay attention to. Joy was a way to experience the one true god. The highest god that wants nothing from you, but offers joy to you in order to experience, was a god they could experience. Up to that point, God was something people were told about. Up to that time, God was a needy god that contributed to their feeling of oppression. The god I taught them about is the one true god of love that is offered freely to you with no need of offering from you.

"As you can imagine, both the Romans and the high priests were tremendously alarmed by this new wave of awareness, so the high priests sent for me. When I met with them, we went high up on the hill. They told me that as far as I can see could be considered my kingdom. Then they took me to a great feast and said that I could eat like that every day. They showed me beautiful robes and personal slaves and said that all of that could be mine. They took me to a house with stunning paintings and mosaic floors surrounded by attractive people, and they said all of that could be mine as well. The Satan of your teaching was actually the high priests themselves.

"I asked what they wanted from me. They said everything they showed me could be mine, and I could continue to teach my message if I agreed to become the leader of a new church they were forming. If I agreed to teach what I was teaching but associated it with a needy god that required sacrifices and offerings on a consistent basis, all of what they showed me could be mine. All of the sacrifices and offerings to this one needy god would have to be purchased, and they would have to be purchased through the elders of the church. Rome was already in agreement with this proposal and would receive a percentage of the proceeds from the purchase of these sacrifices and offerings. They said it could bring peace to the region.

"I couldn't have cared less about the power and all the trappings they offered me, but the potential for peace caused me to seriously consider it. Oppression, punishment, and death inflicted by the Romans, and nurtured by the high priests, consistently followed at my heels and caused me great sadness. I went back into the desert alone to sort through everything. At one point, I had even decided to accept their offer and become the first Pope. As tempting as the opportunity was, I realized I would have to trust those who are renowned for their betrayal. If I said yes, I would be betraying everything that I stood for. People were able to experience the joy of the magnificent unconditional God through their lives simply by changing their mind. If I said yes, I would be sentencing them to lifetimes of futility. If they experienced oppression or death because of embracing joy, at least they would die as free men. If I agreed to represent a needy god, they would live as slaves to the Romans, and they would die as slaves to a needy god.

"So, I went back and arranged for what is known as the Last Supper. I told Judas about the offer from the high priests and of my decision to turn it down. I explained to him why my decision was what it was, and he completely understood, as I knew he would. I told him that the priests grew anxious for my decision and asked if he would be willing to be the one to notify them. He agreed, knowing full well he was putting his life at risk. At the Last Supper, I informed all gathered that life, as we knew it, was over. I broke the bread, and we drank from the cup representing the son of Man. The son of Man is all of humanity. I knew that all lives I had touched would be changed, one way or the other, that night. Although, I consistently explained we're all the son of Man to those who were with me, they held me in such high regard, they didn't look at themselves as equals anymore. They considered me to be the single son of God.

"I informed them of the high priests offer and of my decision to turn it down. I let them know Judas would deliver my decision to the high priests after dinner. I told them the soldiers would be able to find me in the garden afterwards. Although several disapproved of my decision, they were all too happy to allow Judas to be my messenger. They realized we would either be set free or condemned.

"Judas went to the high priests and notified them of my decision to be true to my God. They were furious and seized Judas. The high priests told the Romans of my decision and turned Judas over to the guards who were dispatched to seize me. Once they got to the garden, they apprehended me and hung Judas as an example of what would happen should anyone else support me. They mocked him by throwing silver coins at his feet while thanking him for the information as he died on the tree.

"The rest of those with me scattered. That moment was somewhat surreal, actually. Everybody else saw a man dying in a tree, but I heard a man say, 'Thank you for setting me free.' Judas truly understood the importance of what we did and what he had just done.

"The Romans captured several of those who were with me, and each one systematically denied being part of us. Peter was well-known to the Romans and to the high priests. He often went ahead to the towns and villages where we were headed to gather a group of people with whom I could share the message. The high priests paid close attention to Peter's denial of being part of us and watched how he handled my path to crucifixion. Peter wore impressive clothes and liked nice things. He enjoyed the attention he received by going into the towns first. Peter was both a leader and a follower.

"During my extended stays in the desert, I learned many things about myself and many more things about the power of the mind. The body is a slave to the mind, but if your soul can control your mind, your mind can control the body. If you're in tune with your soul, you can go through the mind to control the body.

"It gets hot in the desert during the day and cold at night. I learned to control my body by controlling my mind. At night, I could slow my heart rate and relax my body to the point that I was at one with my surroundings. During the day, I could deny my body the experience of the pain from the heat and become one with my surroundings once again. Through deep meditation, I could withdrawal to the deepest recesses of my mind and soul so that my body was barely functioning in a recognizable state. I didn't know it at the time, but I was preparing myself for my crucifixion.

"As the Romans drove nails in my wrists and through my feet, the shock of the pain was unexplainably intense. After the shock wore off, I could channel much of the pain away, just as I did in the desert's intense heat. As I withdrew deeper and deeper into my mind and soul, the function of my body grew slower and slower, just as it did in the cold of the night. When the Romans put the spear into my side, I was so deep into the recesses of my mind and soul, my body didn't respond. They pronounced me dead.

"My body was in such extreme pain that I stayed in the deep recesses of my mind and soul. The Romans laid me in the tomb. As they rolled the stone, I prepared to die, to surrender my body, but I just lay in the cold darkness one heartbeat at a time.

"Ironically, it was people's perception that I was the only son of God, instead of humanity being the son of God like I was trying to teach them. This caused the high priests to remove my stone after three days. They wanted to see if I had fulfilled the Scriptures. The flood of light into the tomb startled me and fully integrated the holy Trinity again. The holy Trinity is body mind and soul. When the holy Trinity is fully integrated in its highest form, you're at one with God, and fully aware of it.

"As I sat up and took off my wrappings, the high priests fled in fear of what they were witnessing. They thought I was resurrecting in fulfillment of the Scriptures. Maybe I was, in a way, but not as an authentication to the god of which they taught. I walked out of the tomb with my burial linens shaped as a robe.

"My body was still in intense pain and much of my next few months was spent not fully engaged to my body. This is what is currently considered an out-of-body experience because it is. The soul will remove itself from the body so it is not severely affected by the trauma.

"I appeared to the group to show them that I was still alive, but the beginning of the end was already set into motion. The fact that everybody thought I was dead, but now I stood in front of them, fulfilled the prophecy of the needy god the high priests had been promoting. Even the group I had traveled with could no longer resist the temptation of agreeing with them. Everything that I had set into motion crumbled right in front of me.

"My most trusted confidant, Judas, has been painted through history as the one who betrayed me. The ultimate betrayal was when Peter betrayed me for the fourth time as he accepted the position of the first Pope, the same position for which I was crucified for not accepting. The power and the trappings were too much for him to resist. The combination of the popularity of our movement, the power and influence of the Romans, and the persuasiveness of the high priests made the concept of a single god that constantly needs something from you, unstoppable.

"The concept of loving yourself first was much more foreign a concept in that era than it is now, and it's almost unheard of today. Several from the group that traveled with me left to teach on their own and taught fairly accurate representations of what I was teaching them. Several followed Peter and promoted a needy god. I eventually left town with a couple of close comrades and focused on creating Masters instead of teaching crowds. If one Master could touch one million lives, it would be a great accomplishment. But, if one Master can teach ten others to be Masters, each of those ten can touch one million lives. This quiet approach has ultimately brought the God of love into many more souls than the god of fear could imagine

"As the ultimate insult, the high priests insisted on incorporating me into this new religion by promoting that I died for people's sins. I wasn't crucified to save people from their sins. I was crucified because I refused to admit there was such a thing as sin.

"What kind of God would send a son to experience such persecution and the horrors of crucifixion? It never ceases to amaze me that people think God couldn't come up with a better plan than that. Somehow people accept the idea that the god associated with the crucifixion is a kind, loving, and merciful God. Do they not realize that if the highest god truly wanted something, all God would need to change is their mind? God certainly wouldn't need to torture and kill a son in order to relieve man of something a loving god would not require in the first place.

"A loving god loves. Love provides wondrous experiences and needs nothing. In a wondrous god, people find joy, happiness, and freedom. A needy god has demands. The concept of the needy god was born out of man's desire to feel superior to another, and when people subscribe to the worship of superiority, it's because they worship an inferior god. When people worship the highest god, they feel special in their equality.

"A wondrous God supports no superiority. Witness the earth. Everything works in perfect synchronicity. There's time and purpose for everything. Death brings new life. Hardship brings new opportunity. The earth always accepts and never complains, yet man continues to betray her and then complains about the results he created. When you love yourself first, you don't just love humanity, you see the value in all things."

"So, what about the Bible and you rising into heaven? How did all that stuff play out?" I asked.

"Most of what's in the Bible is as it was originally written. Very little of what was originally written was actually written by the people that it is attributed to. Those who penned what you read in the Bible today weren't my followers, but followers of my followers. Most of it was written by memory, and memory tends to be a servant to an intended purpose. As I had said before, several of those with whom I traveled interpreted my physical appearance to them, after being laid to rest in the tomb, as fulfillment of the Scriptures. It was their followers who wrote what you read in the Bible. Followers are easily influenced and the high priests were very influential. It wasn't long before those brothers were convinced I had actually died and resurrected in fulfillment of the Scriptures. They quickly merged my lessons to fit their intentions.

"My primary message of the importance to love yourself first was easily twisted into a selfish act in my followers' minds. The high priests were aware that the adoration of 'selfless acts' would leave the loving in a constant state of need, which would develop neediness, weakness, and vulnerability. The vulnerable are easily convinced they need what those who appear powerful have to offer. The simple alteration of that message was the single most powerful event in the history of the church even as it stands today. The development of prayers, which consistently convince the vulnerable they're sinners follows as a close second. Both cases leave the vulnerable in a perpetual state of vulnerability, and when the two are combined, a spiritual and emotional emptiness is established. They're then convinced only the powerful can fill these voids, thus creating eternal spiritual and emotional dependence. This is all voluntary martyrdom, which serves no one except the martyr. Martyrdom serves the martyr simply by the ability to experience dying for something they believe in. Martyrdom doesn't elevate oneself in the eyes of a loving god. What need does a loving god have for an offering of pain and suffering?

"I was already heralded as the son of God by many, so the inclusion of me into the concept of the needy god was easy and swift by changing two simple things. They changed the message and experience of the joyous god, which had provided freedom and happiness, into a message of continued oppression, which many continue to experience today. By changing the concept of a god that gives to you into a god that needs from you, there's no way to experience a truly loving relationship. Secondly, by changing the message from loving yourself first into giving love to others first, there's no way to experience love except through another.

"Very little of what is written about me in the Bible is accurate. If you lay a transparency of loving yourself first over the top of any statement in the Bible, you'll be able to determine its authenticity as to whether a statement can be attributed to me or not. Anything that involves sin, condemnation, or judgment of any kind can be attributed to others.

"The entirety of my message consisted of two things: love yourself first, and perceive it and it is real. When you use your mind in order to change your perception, your entire world changes. When your world changes, you influence everybody else's perception of their world. When this happens, they experience their world in an entirely different way than they did before. I didn't teach them so that their mind would know God. I taught them so that their heart would feel God. By loving yourself first, you experience God. When you experience God, it matters not what your mind knows. When you experience God, you share God, and when you share God you cause other people to experience God.

"The body is a tool of your dimension. The human animal has the most advanced mind of your dimension, and that's why the soul resides in it. The soul travels throughout all dimensions. When it's in other dimensions, it knows and feels love, but it cannot experience love as you can through the sensations of the human container. When the soul is in other dimensions, the way it feels love is much the way you feel love in your heart when you remember a loving experience. The advantage of experience in your dimension is that your dimension is multidimensional. Once the soul is accustomed to energy, it can experience anything within your universe. Within your dimension, the soul cannot only experience love as you do a memory, but it can also experience love through the sensations of the physical container.

"The greatest benefit of the physical container is that the energy of the human container is slow enough to allow physical sensation, but the mind is advanced enough to recognize the soul. The greatest liability for the soul is that the mind is so powerful the preference of the mind easily overrides the preference of the soul. The preference of the soul is your intuition and can be felt in the heart, but the preference of the mind is what you're taught to put most credibility in. The mind cannot be felt.

"There's no need for the container, or body, of your dimension in any other dimension. When the high priests interpreted my walking out of the tomb as fulfillment of the Scriptures, it was easy to insert my physical resurrection as fulfillment of the Scriptures as well. Since there's no need for a physical container in any dimension other than yours, any claims of physical elevation into the heavens is simply an attempt to present one entity as being superior to another entity. The only place superiority exists is within the perception of inferiority. Change your perception of inferiority and superiority eradicates itself."

"If all of this is so different than you intended, what's your opinion of the religion that was theoretically built around you?" I asked.

"The original inception of the religion that wanted me as their leader was simply another way to tax the people of Rome. It had nothing to do with true appreciation of God. As like many of the Roman things, the concept was brilliant. When people worshiped many gods, they made individual sacrifices to those gods. The Romans and the high priests couldn't capitalize on what these people offered to their gods. If they could convince the people to buy their offerings from Rome, they would add a small fortune to their overflowing coffers. A tax isn't considered a tax by people that hand it over voluntarily. When people make an offering to their god, they focus on the favor they hope it brings them, not where the offering ultimately ends up. Your collection baskets are the same.

"The high priests' concept was to make one god over all gods. This new, singular god was a needy and judgmental god, but you could easily earn forgiveness and favor by making offerings to it. By doing this, the people would make offerings to the one god of the high priests. These offerings had to be blessed by the high priests and could only be purchased from the high priests.

"The second stroke of brilliance was to use sex as a way for people to constantly reaffirm that they were bad and needed forgiveness. This was much easier done than you can imagine. The Roman elite was constantly engaged in sex, even publicly. The people despised the Roman elite. The further they could distance themselves from them the better. Since members of the Roman elite were constantly engaged in sex, it was easy to convince these new followers that sex was bad and, if you engaged in it, you were just like the Romans.

"Human instinct is the one thing that's stronger than the mind. In this case, the power of its own mind became the human animal's enemy. The mind was convinced that if it acted the same as that which it despised, it would become that which it despised. The mind easily surrendered itself to the god that theoretically also despised what it now despised.

"These people formed a personal identity with this needy god. The high priests convinced the people that Rome had oppressed for so long, that the one joy that they were able to consistently partake in was now also considered a sin. These followers were manipulated into believing their pain and sexual frustration is what God wanted. They could offer their physical and emotional pain as sacrifice to this god. They could offer their sexual frustration as sacrifice to this god as long as they didn't indulge in any sexual experiences. Since the instinct of the human animal is stronger than the power of the mind, people would engage in sexual activity regardless of the consequences. The high priests knew this.

"If you voluntarily engaged in pleasure, especially sexual pleasure, you had to make a blessed sacrifice to God, which could only be purchased from the high priests. Rome received a portion of all of the offerings purchased from this new god's worshipers. These offerings were intended to redeem themselves from the sins both Rome, and the high priests, knew they would continue to commit.

A deal was struck with Rome so that Rome would heavily persecute worshipers of all other gods except this one. Those who worship other gods were easily converted to the ideals of this god, if for no other reason than to escape persecution.

"The third and most ingenious move these high priests made was to make a mockery of the man who refused to worship their god in the first place. By twisting the memory of some of my followers, they secured their early participation in this needy god's worship. Eventually, it became clear to my original followers that this wasn't the path I had led them down. By the time they raised their concerns to the high priests, they were disposable. As part of the plan, their systematic executions were an example of what this god would do to the followers if they denied this god. Rome gladly played the villain role while the high priests pretended to condemn it. By taking this approach, it appeared as if the high priests and Rome were at odds, and it encouraged great numbers of nonbelievers to believe.

"This religion was built around a god of fear. It incorporated a loving messenger but was still built around a god of fear. People will voluntarily spend obscene amounts of money in order to calm their fears. Religions still rule this way and governments still govern this way. A tax by any other name is still a tax. As long as a religion, or any other entity, promotes fear, it stands to make an obscene amount of money. The more money it has, the more power it assumes. But the only thing money and power can buy is more fear.

"My overall opinion of this religion is that it is what it is. The only reason it still carries any influence is because people still choose to fear God. The core fundamentals of Christian religions are built around the god of the Old Testament. All people have to do is read Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus. As they do, they should ask themselves, 'Is this a kind, loving, and merciful god?' This religion promotes them as being children of God so they are to ask themselves, 'Would I do this to my children?'

"My inclusion in their religion doesn't change their god. The highest god has no need to announce itself as the highest god, for all other gods know the highest god. The highest god has no need to demand worship, for all other gods worship the highest god. The highest god has no need for offerings, sacrifice, and penance, for the highest god isn't for sale. The highest god has no need, for when you love yourself, as God loves God's self, you offer love of self to others to experience. What you experience when you choose to experience love is God's love of self. When you choose to experience love, you choose to experience God."

"Jesus, what is the most important message for today's world?" I asked.

"My message has never changed and applies today just as it did 2,000 years ago. Love yourself unconditionally, just as I have loved you. When you love yourself with no conditions, you offer love to others with no conditions, and they offer love with no conditions. Once you experience love with no conditions, you believe in love with no conditions and others will, too. They'll share what they believe and more will believe and share. Once you have a sea of believers, who truly love themselves, they'll have nothing to fear. Religions and governments will become unnecessary by a populace that truly loves itself.

"Love and fear are the antithesis of each other. Fear is the perception of the lack of love. They cannot coexist. As long as people worship a god they fear, love is held hostage. Love is always the highest good. Bestow it, and you will reap it. Limit it, and it'll limit you."

And He faded into the haze of the room... as I slowly opened my eyes.

"What in the hell am I supposed to do with this?" I asked. "Write it down. Write it down before I forget it."

So, I sat in bed until the early morning hours as page after page filled with the details of what I had just heard. It wasn't until the next day that I read what I had written as I relived the last evening in the bathtub. Honestly, it blew me away. It scared the heck out of me. Most of this I had never heard or thought before, but it all integrated together. It wasn't pre-established opinions that formed this conversation. It was the conversation that established many of my current opinions. The pre-established opinions I had weren't remotely similar to what was presented to me.

Was it really Jesus? I don't know, but there's some valuable information in there regardless of where it came from. The difference between loving yourself first and putting others first seems subtle, but I can see where it might make a huge difference in my life. The other accounts of Jesus's life offered to me in that meditation were in direct contrast to what's in the Bible, and the Bible is the primary source referred to regarding Jesus's life and "moral" practices in general. So, I decided to question the Bible. Not only did I want to question what's in the Bible but also where the Bible came from. The Bible didn't just appear one day. Someone had to have chosen what went in it, which had to have been written by someone.

If the Bible is true and accurate, it should be very apparent. The truth can neither be proven nor disproven. It can only be exposed. Most of my life, I blindly accepted the Bible to be truthful, accurate, and divinely inspired. What if it wasn't?
7. The Bible

That bathtub meditation made it apparent to me how subtle alterations of information, intentional or not, can have a monumental impact on generations as it's passed through the ages. One slight alteration changes information into misinformation. Two degrees of separation, carried on for a couple thousand years, can have a tremendously divisive affect.

I went to the library hoping to find a book about the origins of the Bible from a nonbiased biblical scholar, if there actually is such a thing, but virtually every book I found was substantially biased religion based and predominantly talked about the divine intercession of what was written in the Bible, not who put the book together. I tried the library, the Internet, and Amazon, all to no avail. In all fairness, I didn't even know how to describe what it was I was looking for. I gave up that search for a while and went to a local bookstore to find some interesting reading from a New Age author for which I have high regard. Although the author I was seeking is reputable, not one of his books was on the shelves, so I meandered. For whatever reason, I was drawn to browse the religious section of this bookstore. I might be many things, but religious is not one of them, so I had never considered checking out that section before. When I turned the corner, there literally was a book lying on the floor, so, out of courtesy, I picked it up to return it to the shelf. The book was called _Misquoting Jesus—The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why._ This book was exactly what I was looking for and it was literally lying on the floor in the middle of an aisle I had never been in, of a section of the store I had never been in, of a bookstore I had only been in twice in my life. This is the kind of thing I was referring to in the chapter on prayer when physical things start to happen as a result of mental communication. It is cool but eerie at the same time.

_Misquoting Jesus_ was written by world-renowned Biblical scholar Bart D. Ehrman. His manuscript was read, before publication, by at least four other "keen and careful scholars" as Mr. Ehrman refers to them. I'm not a keen and careful scholar, but it's important to me, when trying to form an unbiased opinion, that I access information that seems as unbiased as possible. This book seems to be just that—religiously unbiased. I have no reason to doubt Mr. Ehrman's research or information because, quite simply, you don't establish a world-class reputation by presenting information that can be proven to be incorrect.

I was always under the impression that the Bible was considered the word of God. Maybe I made the leap to interpret that statement to mean "the perfect and unaltered word of God", but I wasn't alone, because most of the people I know still feel that way. It never made sense to me why God would need to put anything in writing where it could easily be misinterpreted, distorted, and changed instead of putting it straight into our minds, but that's the accepted perspective.

The official Catholic position is "Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels just named (Matt., Mark, Luke, and John), whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts, faithfully hand on what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation until the day He was taken up into heaven."(7) But, the conflict for me in supporting this perspective is, according to Mr. Ehrman, "Not only do we not have the original manuscripts of the New Testament, we don't have the first copies of the originals. We don't even have copies of the copies of the originals, or copies of the copies of the copies of the originals. What we have are copies made later... much later. In most instances, they are copies made centuries later. And these copies all differ from one another, in many thousands of places. These copies differ from one another in so many places we don't even know how many differences there are. Possibly it is easiest to put it in comparative terms: there are more differences among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament."(8) You see, there have been so many alterations to the original penned words, not to mention there isn't one single version of the original penned words, how can anyone, the church included, proclaim what we have as being an accurate representation of what the original authors intended? It seems to me that the best anyone can say is that they agree with the information presented and _accept_ it as being true, not that it _is_ true.

More than 5,700 Greek manuscripts have been discovered and catalogued(9). One very strange aspect of the ancient Greek texts is that they were all copied by hand, usually by a church member who was able to write but who may or may not have even been able to read what they were writing. When these texts were copied, no marks of punctuation were used. There was no distinction between upper and lower case letters, and no spaces were used to separate words. This kind of continuous writing is called scriptuo continua.(10)

The church didn't begin to use professional scribes until the beginning of the fourth century(11) so for the first three hundred years, when it was probably the most important time to be as accurate as possible, well-intended believers were executing the reproduction of the text that would ultimately support millions of believers. There's a possibility that very little was lost in translation, but there's also the possibility that changing one word changed the entire meaning of a gospel, and the altered version is the earliest one we have today. I'm not faulting the church. Who knew thirteen guys could create a movement lasting over 2000 years? It's the information and experiences of those original years that this entire faith system is based on, though, and if what's currently accepted as being accurate is actually inaccurate, it places the foundation of current Christian belief on something that isn't real.

Another preconceived notion of mine was that the Bible was always in its current format, especially the New Testament. For whatever reason, I had always envisioned an ancient binder of sorts where the disciples deposited their personal accounts of their experiences with Jesus. In actuality, the early church used many different texts, varying widely from region to region, as doctrine for their faith. The first time the New Testament appeared in its current form was in 367, when the Bishop of Alexandra, Athanasius, wrote in his annual pastoral letter to the Egyptian churches under his jurisdiction about which books should be read as scripture in the churches. In it, he lists the current twenty-seven books excluding all others(12). So, for at least the first 367 years after Jesus's death, not only was the church in various stages of disagreement over which texts were most important to use, but obviously, the New Testament portion of the Bible couldn't have existed in its current form either.

Mr. Ehrman admits that most of the variations in the copies of the Gospels are relatively small and inconsequential, but there are some variations that are glaring. You know the stories about the adulterous woman taken to Jesus to be stoned (John 7:53 – 8:12) and where Jesus appears to His disciples after His resurrection (the last 12 verses of Mark)? Well, they weren't even originally part of those Gospels, or any other Gospel for that matter. Apparently, textual critics have been able to determine with relative certainty that they were added by scribes. In both cases, earlier versions of those Gospels didn't include those passages.(13)

I find the inclusion of the adulterous woman parable interesting but inconsequential overall. It's a fabulous message to live by regardless of who wrote it, and it doesn't affect church doctrine or practices much whether it's included in the Bible or not. The last twelve verses of Mark are a completely different story, though. The last twelve verses of Mark read:

"When he had risen, early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons.

She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping.

When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe.

After this he appeared in another form to two of them walking along on their way to the country.

They returned and told the others; but they did not believe them either.

(But) later, as the eleven were at table, he appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had been raised.

He said to them, 'Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.

These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages.

They will pick up serpents (with their hands), and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.'

So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God.

But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs."

Please read those passages closely because what's included in these twelve verses forms the foundations of several western religions. And these twelve verses weren't even part of the earliest versions of Mark's gospel, which still wasn't the original. Most biblical scholars agree that Mark was the first gospel written and that Matthew and Luke used Mark as one of their sources for their stories about Jesus.(14) There is a major problem with that. The modified longer ending was written and attached no later than the early second century.(15) Obviously, "no later" means it could have been earlier. The second century is the period from 101 to 200. The Gospel of Matthew is generally believed to have been composed around 70-110(16), which is the early second century. The composition of the Gospel of Luke is attributed to as early as the early 60s to as late as the later decades of the first century,(17) which also falls within the early second century.

Since the ending of Mark's gospel was modified at or before 100, since Matthew and Luke's gospels were written right around 100, since Matthew and Luke used Mark's gospel as a source for their material, and since Jesus rising from the dead is included in the twelve verses that were added to the end of Mark's gospel, is it possible the entire concept of Jesus rising from the dead is a total fabrication?

I started this bit of research questioning whether the Bible was the inerrant word of God and, much to my surprise, I found it isn't even the inerrant word of the Apostles. Try this, pick up your smartphone and ask it, "Who wrote the gospels?" Type the same question in any computer search engine. The authorship of the gospels isn't even attributed to the namesakes of the Gospels, which, up until a friend of mine pointed out the other day, I thought were all Apostles. Only Matthew and John were Apostles. If biblical scholars are correct, and the authors of Matthew and Luke's gospels used Mark's gospel as a source for their material, it means only one actual Apostle, John, wrote any of the Gospels. Even if the scholars are wrong, and Matthew also wrote the Gospel attributed to him, that still means only one sixth of the Apostles Jesus supposedly chose Himself have gospels in the Bible. What happened to the rest of them? If most scholars are correct, what we seem to have, at best, are not God's words, nor Jesus's words, nor the Apostles' words, but rather copies of the copies of a copy that was copied from something someone wrote who might have heard or followed one of the disciples. There are some fairly convincing arguments on some Christian Apologetic websites(18) to earlier dates for the Gospels, which I don't know enough about to accept or dismiss, but they're certainly not unbiased.

Pardon the pun here, I'll be a devil's advocate and say all of the Gospels currently exist exactly as they were originally written.

These are some of the things running through my mind:

If Jesus considered His message eternally unique, why didn't He have an official scribe?

Jesus didn't start a religion. His followers started a religion. If there are specific rules that need to be followed in order to meet the approval of God, as religions proclaim today, why didn't Jesus specifically and consistently proclaim them?

The Gospels we have are theoretically versions of accounts relayed by Jesus's followers. These are the same followers who fell asleep in the garden, were nowhere to be found during His crucifixion, lied to secure their own freedom, and were cowered in a room afraid to appear in public when Jesus apparently appeared to them after His supposed death. How much credibility do I place in the stories of the people who obviously were nothing like the man they followed?

If His disciples were inattentive enough to fall asleep hours before His crucifixion, when Jesus specifically asked for their help and their prayers, how attentive and accurate do I think they were relaying a story fifty years later about something that happened on a random day in a random city in front of a random group while Jesus was giving a random presentation?

To this day, many people perceive the Bible as a pristine, original document written by the hand of God. It's not. If you're considering betting your soul on the Bible, it has a history that's worth looking into. I don't know if the Bible was written by the hand of God, but I know the hands of many men were involved in the process after-the-fact.

The stories in the New Testament are believable and are presented as first-hand accounts of Jesus's life, so authorship and historical accuracy are important. If something is promoted as the Gospel of Matthew, it gives the impression Matthew wrote it, not a highly educated anonymous Jew. The Old Testament is a bit different because the stories seem archaic at best and, if read at all, are read with a scanning, dismissive attitude of an ancient people trying to explain something they didn't understand. That's all well and good until we realize the entire foundation of most religious belief lies in the Old Testament. Sin, Satan, Hell, eternal damnation, baptism, the Ten Commandments, penance—it all originates in the Old Testament. Religions recognize the stories of the Old Testament in order to authenticate the real existence of components in their belief system. The church's official perspective is: "God, the inspirer and author of both Testaments, wisely arranged that the New Testament be hidden in the Old and the Old be made manifest in the New. For, though Christ established the new covenant in His blood, still the books of the Old Testament with all their parts, caught up into the proclamation of the Gospel, acquire and show forth their full meaning in the New Testament and in turn shed light on it and explain it."(19) Personally, I see a ton of contradiction in the Old vs. New Testament, but the above perspective is the church's perspective.

The concept of original sin originates from the story of Adam and Eve. Organized religion looks at original sin as a very real and very serious component of the history of man and more-so the history of religious faith. Original sin is the foundation for all other sin(20), for "disordered appetites(21) for the necessity of baptism(22), for a woman's pain in childbirth, for the man being "master" of his wife(23), for tension, lust, domination and decay(24) for material deprivation, unjust oppression, physical and psychological illness(25) and even "as a consequence of original sin, man must suffer bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned."(26)

I don't want to get lost in technicality here, so for actual reading of the story of Adam and Eve, it begins in Genesis, chapter 3. As the story goes, God made one man and one woman to propagate humanity. God made them in the Garden of Eden surrounded by awesomeness, but there was one tree that they were told not to eat from. Apparently, a talking snake enticed Eve to eat from that tree and then she persuaded Adam to eat from the same tree. When God left them in the garden, they were naked, but when God returned, they had clothes on. Supposedly, eating from this tree gave them knowledge and with that knowledge they determined they were naked. When God asked how they knew they were naked, they were honest and told God they had eaten from the forbidden tree. God's response to Eve was, "I will intensify the pangs of your childbearing; in pain shall you bring forth children. Yet your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall be your master." God's response to Adam was, "Cursed be the ground because of you! In toil shall you eat its yield all the days of your life. By the sweat of your face shall you get bread to eat, until you return to the ground, from which you were taken; for you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return."(14)

Seriously... This story is recognized as the literal origination of sin, pain of any kind, frustration, lust, domination, decay, and even death? It's because of this story that original sin is "authenticated" and requires a baptism in order to remove it? According to the Catechism, "transmission of original sin is something we cannot fully understand."(27) Seriously? Not only can I not understand the transmission of original sin, but I cannot understand the concept of it in the first place. Punishment by God wasn't mandatory. It was voluntary, as was the magnitude of punishment. The god in this story voluntarily enacted the punishment that was handed down. The god of the story instructs Adam & Eve to not eat from or even touch the tree of knowledge "lest you die,"(28) but the serpent tells Eve, "You certainly will not die."(29) The ultimate irony is that they ate from the tree but didn't die, at least not instantly as the statement implies. Theoretically, Adam lived to be 930 years old, so that means God lied, the serpent told the truth, and Jesus ultimately proclaims we never do die.

Would a loving god set humanity up to fail from the beginning? Why would a loving god put the tree in the garden in the first place? Wouldn't the most loving thing be that God didn't include the tree in their garden? It says God did this to "test" man. Keep in mind, God is supposed to be perfect, and this perfect god just created this man and woman. What could this test possibly determine that this perfect creator didn't intentionally include in, and already know about, its newest creation? If God didn't already know about the flaw He couldn't have been perfect. If there was a flaw in God's first and second versions of humanity, could God not have addressed that flaw in the third human instead of banishing the entire rest of humanity to sin, pain, disordered appetites, material deprivation, unjust oppression, physical and psychological illness, tension, lust, domination, decay and then death?

Basically, we're supposed to believe Adam and Eve's god that theoretically tortured and then sentenced the rest of humanity to death is somehow a kind, loving, and merciful god? Does the punishment of a lifetime of pain and death sound kind and merciful? This whole scenario is somewhat like placing two three-year-olds in a room full of toys and a loaded gun, telling them not to touch the gun, and leaving them alone. After you hear a gunshot, you come running into the room and punish not only them but also every single one of their offspring for all eternity. Who do you think the police would arrest in this case? The children? Or do you think they would arrest the parent for putting a loaded gun in the room to begin with?

The story of Adam and Eve doesn't stop here even though I'm almost always compelled to end my thought processes here. Right after God punishes Adam and Eve, she gave birth to Cain and Able. Apparently, Cain "brought an offering to the Lord from the fruit of the soil", while Able "brought one of the best firstlings of his flock". "The Lord looked with favor on Able and his offering."

The fact God preferred Abel's offering over Cain's made Cain angry, and Cain, ultimately, killed Abel. God's response to Cain was, "You shall become a restless wanderer of the earth." (Gen 4:12) So let me understand this, God's punishment for Adam and Eve's disobedience is a lifetime of pain and ultimately death not just for them but for all humanity for all eternity, but God's punishment for murder was to make Cain a restless wanderer of the earth?

Cain was concerned that if he was a "restless wanderer on the earth anyone may kill me at site." (Gen 4:14) My question here is, if so far there were only Adam, Eve, and Cain on the earth, where is the "anyone" going to come from that may kill him? Cain settled in the land of Nod and immediately had relations with his wife. She conceived and bore Enoch. (Gen 4:17) Another question... Where did Cain's wife come from? Line 17 also says Cain became founder of a city. C'mon. There are only five people on earth right now (including Cain's wife, who mysteriously appeared from nowhere). What defines a city?

The following line (18) of Genesis details the next five generations of Cain. Apparently, polygamy is approved, because line 19 says "Lamech" took two wives. Six lines later, line 25, states "Adam again had relations with his wife and she gave birth to a son whom she called Seth. 'God has granted me more offspring in place of Abel, because Cain slew him,' she said." So, line 18 details five generations of Cain, but then line 25 celebrates Eve having a third son. It sure seems there's something strange about Adam and Eve's third son being born six generations after their second son, and I'm not sure where all the "wives" came from. There is no mention of any girls being born to Adam and Eve, but if Adam and Eve are the first male and female creations, the wives of Cain and Seth would have to be Cain and Seth's sisters.

The origins of humanity being one man and one woman would obviously have required incest in order to procreate the species. I know Catholicism doesn't recognize polygamy or incest as acceptable practices, but both are part of the same story that original sin and "made in the image and likeness of God" originate from. How can certain parts of the same story have such foundational impact to a religion while other parts of the same story are considered sinful?

The story of Noah begins in Genesis, chapter 6 and the first 6 lines are, "When men began to multiply on earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of heaven saw how beautiful the daughters of man were, and so they took for their wives as many of them as they chose. Then the LORD said, 'My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh. His days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years.'" At that time, the Nephilim appeared on earth (as well as later), after the sons of heaven had intercourse with the daughters of man, who bore them sons. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown. When the Lord saw how great was man's wickedness on earth, and how no desire that his heart conceived was ever anything but evil, he regretted that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was grieved. The story of Noah and the flood, as most of us know it, proceeds from this point. By the way, Noah was theoretically 600 years old when the rain started. (Gen 7:6)

I'm not sure who the "sons of heaven" are, but since heaven is theoretically where God is located, I would assume the sons of heaven were associated with God. If they took as many wives as they wanted obviously polygamy would have been okay with God once again. If relations between the sons of the heavens and the women of Earth produced evil offspring, is it implied that it was the women who contributed the evil since the sons were of the heavens? If God regretted that he made man on earth, how could God be perfect? A perfect god could never regret, because regret is a result of a mistake, and a mistake is a sign of imperfection. It was God's regret that put the entire story of the great flood into action to begin with. So, if God regretted, God would have to be imperfect, or if God was perfect, God didn't regret. If God didn't regret, it means Noah's flood didn't happen, or if it happened, the biblical reasoning behind it was flawed.

It seems strange to me how the story of a talking snake can be taken seriously, to the point it could arguably be considered a cornerstone of the church (original sin is the first sin from which all other sin originates), but so many other quotes directly attributed to God are so easily dismissed. The church makes it very clear that the "Holy Mother Church, relying on the faith of the apostolic age, accepts as sacred and canonical the books of the Old and the New Testaments, whole and entire, with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and have been handed on as such to the Church herself."(30) If you don't agree, you're to be anathema (excommunicated)(31). Please notice the "whole and entire, with all their parts," part of that statement. Here are some of the parts:

"For I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God." (Ex 20:5)

"When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go free as male slaves do." (Ex 21:7)

"Whoever curses his father or mother shall be put to death." (Ex 21:17)

"You shall not let a sorceress live." (Ex 22:17)

"My wrath will flare up, and I will kill you with the sword; then your own wives will be widows, and your children orphans." (Ex 22:23)

"You shall give me the first-born of your sons." (Ex 22:28)

"No one shall appear before me empty-handed." (Ex 23:15)

"I will wipe them out." (Ex 23:23)

"Take up a collection for me." (Ex 25:2)

"The rich need not give more, nor shall the poor give less, than a half-shekel in this contribution to the LORD to pay the forfeit for their lives." (Ex 30:15)

"Anyone who does work on the sabbath day shall be put to death." (Ex 31:15)

"I might exterminate you on the way." (Ex 33:3)

"You shall fear your God." (Lev 19:14)

"If a man commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death." (Lev 20:10)

"If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them shall be put to death." (Lev 20:13)

"A man or a woman who acts as a medium or fortune-teller shall be put to death by stoning." (Lev 20:27)

"The priest shall marry a virgin." (Lev 21:13)

"Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall be put to death." (Lev 24:16)

"Limb for limb, eye for eye, tooth for tooth! The same injury that a man gives another shall be inflicted on him in return." (Lev 24:20)

"Slaves, male and female, you may indeed possess, provided you buy them from among the neighboring nations." (Lev 25:44)

"But if you do not heed me and do not keep all these commandments, if you reject my precepts and spurn my decrees, refusing to obey all my commandments and breaking my covenant, then I, in turn, will give you your deserts. I will punish you with terrible woes—with wasting and fever to dim the eyes and sap the life. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will consume the crop. I will turn against you, till you are beaten down before your enemies and lorded over by your foes. You will take to flight though no one pursues you.

"If even after this you do not obey me, I will increase the chastisement for your sins sevenfold, to break your haughty confidence. I will make the sky above you as hard as iron, and your soil as hard as bronze, so that your strength will be spent in vain; your land will bear no crops, and its trees no fruit.

"If then you become defiant in your unwillingness to obey me, I will multiply my blows another sevenfold, as your sins deserve. I will unleash the wild beasts against you, to rob you of your children and wipe out your livestock, till your population dwindles away and your roads become deserted.

"If, with all this, you still refuse to be chastened by me and continue to defy me, I, too, will defy you and will smite you for your sins seven times harder than before. I will make the sword, the avenger of my covenant, sweep over you. Though you then huddle together in your walled cities, I will send in pestilence among you, till you are forced to surrender to the enemy. And as I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will need but one oven for baking all the bread they dole out to you in rations - not enough food to still your hunger.

"If, despite all this, you still persist in disobeying and defying me, I, also, will meet you with fiery defiance and will chastise you with sevenfold fiercer punishment for your sins, till you begin to eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters. I will demolish your high places, overthrow your incense stands, and cast your corpses on those of your idols. In my abhorrence of you, I will lay waste your cities and devastate your sanctuaries, refusing to accept your sweet-smelling offerings. So devastated will I leave the land that your very enemies who come to live there will stand aghast at the sight of it. You yourselves I will scatter among the nations at the point of my drawn sword, leaving your countryside desolate and your cities deserted." (Lev 26:14-33)

"Now go up and down the camp, from gate to gate, and slay your own kinsmen, your friends and neighbors! The Levites carried out the command of Moses, and that day there fell about three thousand of the people." (Ex 32:27-28) (This was the punishment for creating the "golden calf".)

All of those quotes, except the last one, were directly attributed to Moses's god as he spoke to Moses. The last quote was attributed to Moses... and these were just from Exodus and Leviticus. Just remember, "Holy Mother Church, relying on the faith of the apostolic age, accepts as sacred and canonical the books of the Old and the New Testaments, _whole and entire, with all their parts."_

This is the god that we're consistently told is perfect, kind, merciful, and who loves us unconditionally. My first reaction is to make excuses for what I just read. This is the god my childhood religion was built around and the demands, requirements, and actions of this god just keep getting worse. I took a few minutes and scanned the following books of the Bible which, after Exodus, goes Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, and Ruth. I was dumbfounded. THIS was the god I knelt down to? The Moses timeframe deals with the bizarre sacrifice routines, the specific ways to worship, the offerings, and it ends with Deuteronomy, but violence and murder are a staple in Joshua and Judges. Most of what I remember about the Old Testament was how the violence and murder was dismissed as, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth", which, apparently, the church also dismissed somewhere along the lines.

I'm embarrassed that I never informed myself about the god I accepted to be my god. I accepted what others told me as my own truth. I trusted others to lead me to the loving, compassionate, caring god they told me about. Instead, I was taught to worship a god that is insecure, jealous, and vindictive. The qualities of Adam and Eve, Noah, and Moses's _god_ are the qualities of _people_ I wouldn't choose to associate with, but for forty years, I got on my knees to pray to.

God didn't change when Jesus came along. The presentation of God changed. If God is perfect, the only way for God to change is if something was added or if something was taken away, which means one of these versions of God lacked something which is imperfection.

If Jesus came back right now and learned of the characteristics of the religions He is so closely associated with, I think He would be pissed. When you look at the teachings of Jesus you get a great example of the qualities of the god Jesus believed in. The more I research some of this, the more I wonder if Jesus even worshipped the god of the Old Testament. Is it possible Moses's god isn't Jesus's god?

"The LORD said to Moses, 'Speak to Aaron and tell him: None of your descendants, of whatever generation, who has any defect shall come forward to offer up the food of his God. Therefore, he who has any of the following defects may not come forward: he who is blind, or lame, or who has any disfigurement or malformation, or a crippled foot or hand, or who is hump-backed or weakly or walleyed, or who is afflicted with eczema, ringworm or hernia.'" (Lev21:16-20)

Aren't these the people Jesus sought out and readily embraced? This sure seems like a "in your face" to the high priests to me. I find it even more interesting how Moses's god would forbid "defective" people from making an offering when that god theoretically created that person to begin with.

"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." (Luke 6:27-36)

If Jesus was teaching us to "turn the other cheek", don't you think his god would at least do the same? If Jesus was teaching "love your enemies and do good to those who hate you", don't you think Jesus's god would do the same? If Jesus was teaching "bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you," don't you think His god would do the same? If Jesus's god wouldn't do the same, it means Jesus was teaching us to be better than the god we were supposed to worship. The god of the Old Testament didn't love his enemies or do good to those who hated him. Moses's god didn't bless those who cursed him or pray for those who mistreated him. The god of the Old Testament killed most of those people.

Believe it or not, independent sources have counted the specific number of deaths attributed to God in the Bible. This number only includes the deaths where a specific number of victims was quoted and doesn't include the great flood of Noah, the plagues, the killing of the first born Egyptian children, or any other mention of death without a specific number of casualties quoted in the Bible. The unbelievable number is 2,821,364 deaths(32) attributed to a perfect, kind, merciful, loving god. All done when all this god would have had to do was to change their minds.

Organized religion heavily promotes the position that Peter is the rock upon which the church was built. (Matt. 16:18) I don't remember it ever being brought to my attention that, seven lines later, in the same conversation, Jesus then said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do." (Matt 16:23) If Peter was an obstacle to what Jesus was trying to accomplish, why would He entrust Peter with the responsibility of building a church in His name? Why would He entrust that responsibility to someone He directly refers to as Satan? Could it then be accurate to say that the church was built on everything Jesus never stood for?

For years, I have been of the opinion that the Bible tried to merge two entirely separate gods into one faith system. The characteristics of the God presented in the Old Testament are entirely different than the characteristics of the god we're taught of in the New Testament. Jesus's god is kind, caring, forgiving, and nonjudgmental, which are the exact opposite qualities of Adam and Eve, Noah and Moses's god. This might be no more apparent than in comparing the Old Testament passage "The Lord is a warrior" (Ex 15:3) with the New Testament passage "The God of peace be with you". (Rom 15:33) A perfect god cannot change and a god of war is not a god of peace.

The god of the Old Testament proclaims, "Whoever curses his father or mother shall be put to death" (Ex21:17), but then Jesus, in the New Testament says, "If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26) I don't know about you, but it seems to me that hating my father and mother would come long after I cursed them. If the Old Testament is accurate as the church proclaims and, Jesus worshipped the god of the Old Testament, it would leave Him with no Disciples, wouldn't it?

The Catholic catechism claims that man has the capacity "to know God by the natural light of human reason because he is created 'in the image of God'". The footnote in the Catholic catechism that supports that position is Genesis 1:27(33). When I went to that verse in Genesis, I noticed the line directly above it, line 26, reads, "Then God said: 'Let _us_ make man in _our_ image, after _our_ likeness.'" What really caught my eye here are the words "us" and "our." God is speaking in plural form. "Let us make", "in our image", and "after our likeness." Doesn't this imply there is more than one god because God is obviously talking to someone or something of equal status? Then in Genesis 3:22, it specifically says, "then the Lord God said; 'See! The man has become like one of us, knowing what is good and what is bad!'" The key words in that phrase are "like one of us". "One of us" is a plural phrase. God is obviously talking amongst other gods.

It seems the god of the Bible is a polytheistic god trying to be inserted into a monotheistic religion. That would explain why God is a jealous god. That would explain why God demands our worship. That would explain the 10 Commandments, sin, punishment, the devil, and hell. That would explain God's overall insecurity. If God was one of many gods, God would feel threatened by anything of equal status. The god of the Bible might be a god, but if it's one of many gods, the god of the Bible has a god. That god would be a perfect, unconditional, and loving god.

Man created religious teachings. They can be traced through history. They were written by man, read by man, interpreted by man, revised by man, repeated by man, and, ultimately, accepted by man. It doesn't mean they are accurate. Religious beliefs are voluntary.

I have read all of the Gospels in the Bible, many of the Apocryphal Gospels, and the Gnostic Gospels, and it's very clear as to why the gospels not included in the Bible weren't included. They didn't maintain Jesus's image and/or Jesus's life in the way the organizers of the Bible either believed or intended to create. For example, I have often wondered why, if Peter was "the rock" upon which the church was built, and if Peter was the first pope, why wasn't there a Gospel of Peter? Well, there is. It's just not included in the Bible.

There are several fascinating aspects to that gospel, but what I found most interesting was the ending. After Jesus's resurrection, when the women found the empty tomb, it says, "Then the women fled out of fear. But it was the final day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and many left to return to their homes, now that the feast had ended. But we, the twelve disciples of the lord, wept and grieved; and each one returned to his home, grieving for what had happened. But I, Simon, Peter, and my brother Andrew, took our nets and went off to the sea. And with us was Levi, the son of Alphaeus, whom the lord..."(34)

Obviously, there is missing text at the end, so it's only speculation as to what's missing but, if you notice, there are twelve disciples grieving, not eleven (if Judas had hanged himself). Each one of the disciples returned to his home instead of going off to teach, and there's no mention of Jesus reappearing to them or of Thomas probing Jesus's wound, etc. As a matter of fact, "the women fled out of fear" ending is very similar to the original ending to the Gospel of Mark before the additional twelve verses were added.

Even considering all I have presented so far, what I find most intriguing can be found in the Gospel of John.

John 19:24 says, "So they said to one another, 'Let's not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it will be,' in order that the passage of scripture might be fulfilled (that says): 'They divided my garments among them, and for my vesture they cast lots.' This is what the soldiers did."

Obviously, the soldiers were intentionally fulfilling the scriptures.

John 19:28 says, "After this, aware that everything was now finished, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus said, 'I thirst.'"

So, once again, the scriptures were intentionally being fulfilled, by Jesus this time.

John 19:35-37 says, "An eyewitness has testified, and his testimony is true; he knows that he is speaking the truth, so that you also may (come to) believe "For this happened so that the scripture passage might be fulfilled: 'Not a bone of it will be broken.' Another passage says "They will look upon him whom they have pierced."

So, yet again the soldiers were intentionally participating in fulfilling the scriptures. John makes no mention of guards being at the tomb, nor does Mark or Luke, but Matthew goes to great lengths to detail their involvement. The guards are soldiers, and if the soldiers were involved in bringing other aspects of the scriptures to fulfillment, why wouldn't they make sure the most important scripture appeared to be fulfilled as well? Why wouldn't they roll away the stone and remove His body themselves? When Jesus theoretically appeared to Mary afterward, she didn't recognize Him. What's to say it was him? When Jesus is said to have appeared to two men on the road from Jerusalem they didn't recognize him either, and what's to say that _was_ him? For what reason would Jesus' appearance be altered?

A scripture that was intentionally carried out wasn't actually fulfilled. It was acted out. Fulfillment is when something happens without intentional involvement, as if caused by a supernatural force.

The Gospels can cast just as much doubt about the authenticity of these events as it can proof of them happening. Regardless, there are plenty of dots that need to be connected, and the resulting conclusions depend on what you connect them with. I now understand why the church claims, "The task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him."(35) Because when we interpret the Bible on our own, it's easy to arrive at entirely different conclusions than the church wants us to believe. Apparently, the church appointed itself this role during the Council of Trent in 1546(36), and it may be the most important sentence in the entire Catholic belief system. In essence, that statement says that if I consider myself Catholic, I agree that I'm not capable or qualified to interpret any aspect of the Bible and need the church to do it for me.

Now, I get it. Now I understand why I was always told "that's where faith comes in" whenever I questioned the priests and religious leaders about issues I had with what they were teaching me and about the issues I had with the Bible... because I wasn't supposed to be questioning the Bible or the church. What kind of organization demands we not question it? An organization that promotes itself as being able to bring us closer to God needs to keep us distant from God in order to convince us that we need to be brought closer to God.

I can neither prove nor disprove the truth. It will prove itself. All I can do is expose what appears to be truthful and decide what makes most sense to me.

The conclusion I have come to is that the Bible was assimilated in order to deliver a specific message, and specific works were chosen to deliver that specific message. If, as the church proclaims, God was the inspirer and author of both testaments(19), I would think there would be unilateral consistency throughout the book, but there's not. As Mr. Ehrman summarized, "Even if God inspired the original words, we don't have the original words. For the only reason (I came to think) for God to inspire the Bible would be so that God's people would actually have God's words; but if God really wanted people to have God's actual words, surely God would have miraculously preserved those words, just as God had miraculously inspired them in the first place. Given the circumstance that God did not preserve the words, the conclusion seemed inescapable to me that God hadn't gone to the trouble of inspiring them in the first place."(37)

So, where do I go from here? I just discredited the Bible to myself. I believe in Jesus. I believe in what He said and did, but I don't believe in others interpretations of what He said and did. The church claims Jesus as the son of God, but Jesus, over and over again, even during His trial with Pilate (Luke 22:69,70) declared himself as the Son of Man. There's a big difference. I also believe in the "Holy Spirit," or at least something else out there that can be instrumental in our lives in this dimension. How else can I explain the light on the sidewalk, or the bathtub meditation, or the various other "miracles" I have experienced? It would be unfair and inaccurate to proclaim that these things can happen to me but couldn't have happened to the various authors of the Bible. However, I also think it unfair and inaccurate to proclaim that it could have happened to them and not to me, or you, or to anybody else for that matter. I wholeheartedly believe, when miracles or inspirations happen, they don't necessarily have universal application. For me to declare that an inspiration I had has direct application to you is inaccurate. If I share my inspiration, and _you_ decide it has direct application to you, it's a different story, though. I also believe this is why Jesus spoke in parables—so that whoever heard the story could derive from it what they felt applied to themselves. Jesus could have been clear and dictatorial if that was His intent. Since He wasn't (on most things), it obviously wasn't His intent. If He was the only son of God, He would have proclaimed himself as the only son of God and experienced the same end result, crucifixion, as He did by declaring Himself the son of man. Jesus continually said to love others as you love yourself, and I believe the true meaning of that has been misinterpreted. I believe Jesus meant to love yourself unconditionally and to then love others the way you love yourself. Unconditionally. We must love ourselves _first._

The bathtub meditation is what led me to pursue my personal investigation into the Bible. In the Bible, I found legitimacy to what I'd learned during meditation about things not actually happening the way they were written. There's no way to prove that what I was offered in my meditation is true or that it came from Jesus. I addressed Jesus and received what I received. I'm now trying to personally authenticate and live what I learned to see if it makes a difference in my life. Before the research above, I had read very little of the Bible and hadn't researched any of it. I still haven't read most of it. To this date, I have read Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus in the Old Testament and parts of each Gospel (Matt., Mark, Luke, & John). When putting together the previous chapter, I kept hearing the phrase "seek and ye shall find" over and over in my head. I sought inconsistencies within the Bible, and it seemed all I could find were inconsistencies. I don't doubt that someone seeking to find consistencies within the Bible would see nothing but the consistencies. That's the point Jesus was trying to make. We'll find whatever it is we seek, and what we seek is what we pay attention to.
8. Love & Relationships

What if a failed relationship is actually a successful one? What if relationships aren't as random as they appear, and what if they serve a much higher purpose than physical and emotional gratification? Maybe we shouldn't promise, "till death do us part". That opens us up to believing we have failed when a relationship has run its course.

Relationships have a purpose. People come together in order to heal karma, and the length of time we stay together has much more to do with compatibility than it does love.

Have you ever heard the saying, "Karma's a bitch?" Well, karma is a free will decision that causes physical, emotional, or spiritual hardship to others or ourselves. And the balance between the love we invest into the universe and the pain we invest into the universe is our karmic debt. Pain is anything but love, like anxiety, frustration, anger, irrelevance, and sarcasm. In other words, most of what modern man considers his day-to-day reality is actually karma that's adding to his karmic debt.

Jesus's entire message was to love each other because love heals karmic debt and reaching karmic neutrality is the solution to this universe.

We have come to think of healing karma as a punishment to someone who has done something wrong to someone else, but that's not it at all. There can never be any punishment with a perfect god because a punishment is a result of not fulfilling a preference, and a preference is a condition. A perfect god can have no conditions and therefore no punishments. Healing karma is an opportunity for us to put pain behind us for which we feel others are responsible, not punishing people for the pain we feel they created. The way we accomplish that is by being kind to people who we feel have offended or hurt us in some way. That's why Jesus spoke of loving our enemies and turning the other cheek.

When we cause pain, we contribute pain into the universe that becomes our karmic debt. When we're sarcastic, it's karma. When we're frustrated, it's karma. When we're angry, it's karma. It's considered karmic debt because what we experience is what we invest into the universe for others to experience. It is like dumping poison into the universe that is our own obligation to clean up..

Imagine our soul being a credit card and the universe as the bank. This credit card is perpetual and the balance continues to accrue lifetime after lifetime. Every time we voluntarily experience or cause someone else to experience minor pain, (frustration, sarcasm, irritation, etc.) a small debt is added to our "karma card". Offering small, random acts of kindness to anyone can heal bad karma caused by small, random acts. It's through loving, caring, and embracing as many individuals in our lives, in a loving and respectful way, that we make payment installments on our karma card.

Events that cause heartache need to be healed soul to soul. The two souls that experienced the original pain need to be together to heal and release the debt. That's because it's not heartache it is soul ache. We describe experiencing love in the heart, but we actually experience it in the soul. This is why the soul is part of the body. The soul isn't energy and cannot experience energy on its own, so the soul uses the body to experience the sensations of love. Love is felt in the heart because the middle of the chest is the safest place for the soul to reside, in the center of the body.

If heartache caused in this lifetime isn't healed during this lifetime, the debt stays on our karma card and requires another life in order to pay off the debt. The significant people who show up in our lives, like husband, wife, children, lovers, neighbors, father, mother, etc., are there to address the karmic debt caused in a previous life.

Family relationships are usually about addressing karma that has accumulated over many lifetimes and requires consistent exposure to each other in order to heal. On the other hand, romantic relationships are often intended to be relatively brief. Once the karma has been healed, the length of the remaining relationship is determined by compatibility. Sometimes, the relationship is a strong one with a great deal of compatibility, which results in a long relationship. But sometimes, the personalities are no longer compatible, resulting in a short relationship. A short relationship that healed karma was a success, but a long, bad relationship that increased karmic debt was a failure. That's why it's important to not judge the length of a relationship as the defining component of whether it was a successful relationship or not. Of course, a long, good relationship will build positive karma and is considered a success.

If I can find a way to focus on the positive effects of someone being in my life, even after they exit my life, karma is being healed. If someone exits my life, and I become obsessed with the pain, the heartache, and the sadness this relationship causes, I'm not only missing the opportunity to heal karmic debt—which is why that relationship presented itself in the first place—but I'm probably adding to it.

It's never best for me to ignore pain or it will reappear at another place and time in my life in order for me to experience and address. Pain is like a bobber floating on the surface of life. We can pull on the line to make that bobber disappear for a while, but, eventually, it's going to show up at a different time in a different place in my life. The only way to prevent that bobber of pain from reappearing on the surface of my life is to reel it in and experience it. That's the only way to detach that bobber and remove the pain. The key to dealing with pain is to experience it so that I can heal it and let it go. If I refuse to let it go, and it turns into resentment and persecution toward the one who caused the pain, it then becomes karmic debt because I refused to heal it.

Many religions teach the importance of forgiveness. The real reason forgiveness is important is because it releases the karmic debt that would be created if I would continue to harbor resentment to whomever I felt hurt me.

A person's karmic debt is seldom healed in one lifetime because, in each lifetime, we heal some karma and create some karma. Most of us don't know we're doing it and are often creating more than we're healing. If we consciously live to heal karma while we intentionally limit creating karma, we can heal the karma created over many lifetimes in one lifetime

As we move through life loving and embracing others, we're healing karmic debt without adding to karmic debt. That's the fastest method to get to a zero balance on any credit card. One of the ways to heal karmic debt is to look back over our lifetime as often as possible and recognize the value that people who have exited our lives contributed to our lives while they were in it. Sometimes, a person added a painful event that was the foundation of a joyous occurrence, and if it weren't for that person, we wouldn't have ultimately experienced the joy. The soul that caused that type of event is usually a very advanced and loving soul. It's only the most advanced souls that recognize and are willing to assume the responsibility of causing life-changing pain. The people who we believe dislike us and those we choose to dislike often have souls that hold us in the highest regard. This is another reason to not be judgmental.

"Feel good" events are normally considered positive and painful events are typically viewed as being negative, but often the difference between a positive event and a negative event is simply in the way we choose to perceive it. The way we can eliminate all negativity from our lives is to learn something from each experience. This turns every negative event into a positive event because something was gained from it. This process removes the negativity of the experience, but it doesn't eliminate painful aspects of it. Not all positive events feel good nor do all negative events feel bad. Once again, that's why it's important not to pass judgment. We don't know why something is happening when it's happening, but if we're willing to be open-minded and rational after the pain has subsided, we can eventually recognize a contribution that the experience made to our lives. Sometimes we never know, but if we pass judgment we never will.

There's no way to know what our karmic debt is, but one thing is for sure, the more we learn to accept people who appear and disappear from our lives, and appreciate them for the contribution they made, the more peaceful our lives become, the less conflict we experience, and the more we're at peace. By feeling more peaceful and less conflicted, we're investing peace and joy back into the universe for others to experience, and we're healing karmic debt. When we take care of ourselves, we automatically take care of others. When we betray ourselves, we inevitably betray others. That's the true recognition of the statement, "We're all one." It's the true recognition of the statement, "Whatsoever you do to the least of your brethren, that you do unto me."

Karma may be the reasoning behind relationships, but what about the relationships themselves?

Over my fifty-four years, I was in one fifteen-year marriage that ended twelve years ago, and I have been dating the woman I'm currently with for almost five years. Other than that, virtually all of my relationships have been for a year or less. I have dated a lot of women looking for the right one, but there's that concept again, "the right one". Based on the karma explanation earlier in the chapter, maybe they were all, "the right one," or ones. I'm still close platonic friends with many of the women I have dated. To this day, I'm eternally grateful to every one of the women I spent time with because each of them taught me something about myself. I learned what I wanted in a partner, what I didn't want, what I admired about me, and what I wanted to change about myself.

Dating gets old though, and I got tired of it—all of it. I got tired of constantly learning about someone new, I got tired of explaining myself, I got tired of feeling like I was interviewing or being interviewed. I got tired of trying, so I decided to just be me for a while and not date anybody. The more time I spent with myself, the more I started to understand the man I was and why I was the way I was. I made changes in myself in order to become the man I wanted to be—for me. It sounds kind of weird, but it was like I was dating myself.

I spent more time by myself and got comfortable with my own company. Probably for the first time in my life, I knew me, all of me: the father me, the professional me, and the personal me, and I actually liked all of me. I remember thinking, "I'm totally okay with this. I'm totally okay being alone." It wasn't my first preference, but I was okay there.

I needed to love differently than I always had because, without a partner to share things with, I felt empty inside. The way Jesus explained the need to love myself first in my meditation made a lot of sense to me, and I think that's what I was doing by choosing to stop dating for a while. Being proud of myself, which I believe I have always been, is different than loving myself, which I believe I have never done.

The "loving myself first" approach made a lot of sense—mainly because I could experience it by myself. I caused and experienced it at the same time. Loving me and feeling good about myself starts on the inside and works out. When a person loves who they are on the inside, they wear it on the outside, and that's what makes a person beautiful. Otherwise, they're physically appealing, which is simply successful packaging. Realistically, we all need to feel good about the reflection in the mirror, but the mirror on the wall is only one-dimensional. It only represents how I see myself. How others respond to me is the universal mirror. This mirror reflects back to me, through how people respond to me, the way others see me. This mirror is three-dimensional and reflects my physical, emotional, and spiritual presence simultaneously. It's the only mirror worth looking at.

It sounds strange and conceited to talk about loving yourself, but keep in mind love is kindness, consideration, and compassion. If we don't feel that way about ourselves, it's kind of silly to think someone else should, isn't it?

Contrary to popular opinion, loving yourself and taking care of yourself first isn't selfishness. Doing so _with total disregard for others_ is selfishness. When we love another, we're actually offering them love of self. It's impossible for us to emotionally love another without loving ourselves first, because we can't give away what we don't have. We would have nothing to offer and would rely on our partner to provide whatever we feel is missing. That type of relationship becomes a burden.

Before I could actually love myself, I had to at least like myself. The way I started to do that was to emulate some of the people I held in the highest regard. I did things that made me proud of me. I figured that by doing so I could become someone I was proud of. I really appreciated when people were kind to me, so I figured, "Why can't I be that kind person for someone else?" The more I did this, the better I felt about myself. The kinder I was the more kindness showed up in my life. I know this works because I've done it, but it's an entirely different approach to life for me. One bad day will send me back to my original way of life until I consciously realize people around me aren't being kind. It's then that I realize I'm not being kind, and I readjust my approach. I know that when I'm kind to others, I'm kind to myself at the same time. When I'm able to live this way, I feel so much better about myself, because I'm making a difference. A simple act of kindness can help someone feel good about themselves, and the way people feel about themselves affects everybody else with whom they come in contact.

I have been able to more consistently realize the value in making myself a priority in my life. I used to expect somebody else to make me a priority in _their_ life while I made them a priority in _my_ life, and then I wondered why the relationship failed. Trading priorities is burdensome, and most burdens eventually get too heavy. When I make myself a priority to me, and she makes herself a priority, each other's load is much lighter.

I seriously think Relationships 101 should be a mandatory high school class. If I was taught something as simple as defining the true characteristics of love, it could have alleviated so much pain in my life. The earlier people know that a relationship isn't simply the romantic kind, the better everyone will be. A relationship starts as soon as two people's paths cross. All we need to do is to glance at someone and there's an instantaneous emotional, physical, and spiritual reaction, at which point we're relating and thus in a relationship. All relationships have a certain element of attraction within them, because it's the attraction that holds the relationship together. In a romantic relationship, the romance is the primary attraction. In a committed relationship, the commitment is the attraction, and so on. Regardless, all relationships involve love in some form or another. A simple hello is a form of respect, and respect is an exhibition of love.

Romantic relationships are another thing altogether. It seems that somewhere along the line, the accepted demonstration of romantic love is to fill each other's emotional voids. The problem is, if I offer you an emotional experience in order to receive an emotional experience, it is emotional barter, not love. Barter is when we trade something. I'll tell you I love you if you tell me the same. I'll hug you if you hug me back. I'll be kind to you if you're kind to me. If our emotions for the other person are contingent on their response to what we offer them, it's barter. This type of relationship is dependent on the other person for completeness, happiness, and wholeness.

Barter seems like a fair and equitable way to make both parties happy, and this works fine as long as both people have what the other needs. The problem arises when one partner runs out of "that" or when the other runs out of "this." Whoever runs out of whatever they're offering has no more to offer, but the demands from the partner don't stop, which leads to feelings of rejection and despair. The person with the demands will almost always blame the person who runs out of what they were offering, but the primary problem is with the demands, because it's the demands that cause the depletion in the first place.

Let's be realistic. Nobody wants to be in a relationship where a hug is met with a partner's arms dangling by their side, but the real message here is about the motivation behind the hug. If I offer a hug because I want a hug, it's not a loving gesture. It's simple barter. If I offer an emotion in order to receive an emotion, it's emotional barter not love.

Love is about acceptance. It's not about change. If I want someone to change in order for me to love them more, I don't truly love _them_. I love who I think they can become. When I desire someone to change in order to satisfy me, a chain of events is set off that's almost always terminal for the relationship. My need for someone to be different than whomever they choose to be is a process of mutual self-betrayal. I'm not only betraying myself by embracing someone I don't truly accept, I'm also asking them to betray themselves by changing who they are naturally.

Let's say Bill doesn't feel good about himself, and he meets Sally. Bill is condescending and sarcastic toward Sally in an effort to change her opinion of herself to a level equal to, or lower, than Bill's opinion of himself. If Sally feels good about herself, Bill's attempts will have the opposite effect. Sally's opinion of Bill will be reduced. On the other hand, even if Bill doesn't feel good about himself but is kind and complimentary toward Sally, it not only elevates her opinion of herself, it also elevates her opinion of Bill. Because of Bill's kind behavior, Sally likes him. Then, Bill starts to like himself, and everybody wins.

Since Sally took the time to know and love herself first, she enhances Bill's life and the lives of everybody she touches. Since Bill didn't know and love himself first, he couldn't initially offer Sally a healthy, romantic love of self, but he could offer love as kindness. Since Bill sees some of his good qualities through Sally's opinion of him, he's more kind and considerate to others. Their positive reaction fuels more positive growth. If Sally didn't feel good about herself, and Bill mistreated her, his negative behavior would have a negative effect on both of them. They would each legitimize the other's poor opinion of themselves, and they would need to rely on others for any sense of joy or serenity.

Sarcasm is humor at somebody else's expense, and it hurts. When sarcasm is directed at someone, look deep into their eyes and tell me I'm wrong. Somebody else is paying the price for the sarcastic person's enjoyment. When sarcasm is incorporated into the family unit, it has an exponentially corrosive effect. Everybody is verbally attacking everybody else, yet it's being done within the "security" of the family structure. This is an abusive environment. When people feel they are under attack, they either feel defeated and give up, or they feel threatened and go on the attack. This type of environment is hard enough for an adult to exist in, but when a child is raised like this, it has permanent effects. Sarcasm is a poison that infiltrates the lives of innocent victims far beyond the person to whom it was directed. There's no positive result from lowering someone's opinion of himself or herself.

Just as sarcasm is a choice, a complement is a choice as well. When we compliment someone, we elevate and support them, and we inspire them, which instills confidence and encourages them to fly. It all starts with the voluntary choice to offer a compliment instead of a sarcastic remark.

A compliment not only helps people feel good about themselves, it helps them feel good about you. The fastest way to have someone feel good about who _you_ are is to make them feel good about who _they_ are. Raise them up, encourage them to fly, inspire them. It doesn't matter who they are. We need to do it as often as possible.

There were times I felt compelled to change in order to satisfy someone, or I wanted them to change in order to satisfy me. Once the person desiring the change was satisfied with the person who was willing to change, everything seemed okay for a while. Once into a more relaxed environment, the person who changed almost always progressively changed back to who they were in the first place. Then, they got blamed for changing and ruining the relationship. The truth is that it was the original need for the change that set the relationship up for failure from the beginning. Changing for someone else proved futile because their happiness became a burden to me, or their responsibility for my happiness became a burden to them.

The only change that was positive and healthy was when I made a change in my life to satisfy me. The motivation to change has to come from within. I eventually learned that I can't make someone else happy. Their happiness is their responsibility, and my happiness is my responsibility. Once we're happy with ourselves, we can then share our happiness with each other in a demand-free, burden-free environment.

It didn't matter if the relationship I was in was personal, professional, platonic, or romantic. I always found there are two groups of people: givers and takers. The givers consistently give, and the takers consistently take. But givers seldom allow themselves to receive, and the takers seldom give.

A taker thinks about what someone else would give them or do for them in order to experience happiness. A taker will take from a giver until a giver has nothing left to give and then the taker will usually blame the giver for letting them down.

Givers tend to surround themselves with takers, because the takers allow the giver to experience being a giver. Givers cause happiness and consider what they can do to cause someone else to be happy. A giver receives a great amount of enjoyment simply by causing someone else to experience joy, and they usually only want one thing in return for their gift—to be appreciated. The kind of gift I'm talking about here isn't a box covered with wrapping paper. It's an act of kindness or consideration.

The primary hurdle a giver has to jump is to learn how to receive. It's much easier for a giver to learn how to receive than it is for a taker to learn how to give. I was always taught "it's better to give than to receive", and I took that to heart, but that's not true. It's just as important to be an appreciative receiver as it is to be a generous giver. A giver needs a person to receive the gift they're offering in order for a giver to experience being a giver. Being a gracious receiver is just as important as being a generous giver. A gracious receiver gives a giver the gift of giving. This allows the other giver to experience giving to someone who genuinely appreciates their gift. When the source of joy is experienced in the giving, the giver and the receiver experience the gift simultaneously.

The most complementary relationship is between a giver and a giver. This type of relationship is filled with an abundance of joy and appreciation because both individuals are consistently givers and receivers.

Each relationship has its own specific formula on which it's built. There are common threads that run between all relationships. Honesty and communication are two biggies for me. It doesn't matter if the relationship is between me and my partner, me and a client, or me and my children, the strength of any relationship I'm in is directly commensurate with the quality of communication. If it's not honest, it's not communication.

There isn't much that's more corrosive than the consistent use of the word "sorry". An occasional "sorry" is a good thing, but the more someone hears it, the less it means. The key is to stop doing whatever it is that requires an apology because if actions don't change, apologies are meaningless.

I have gotten to the point in my life where I consciously realize I'm supposed to come first. I mean that compassionately not egotistically. I love many people and if I'm not spiritually, emotionally, and physically healthy, I become a concern to them. A concern is a burden, and I don't want to be anybody's burden. It's nobody else's responsibility to make sure I'm healthy except mine. I'm a realist and I know that statement means something entirely different to a 30-year-old mother than it does to this 54-year-old man but not taking care of myself is my fault. If I don't carve out some time for what's important to me, if I'm constantly giving to others without giving to me, whose fault is it when I get frustrated, resentful, and have nothing left to give? I can't blame anybody else but me.

I'm not just in a relationship with my partner, I'm in a relationship with the world, and the world isn't made up of the same sex. A relationship is when people relate to each other, and somehow we have to relate to the opposite sex. The best way to relate to someone is to be like them. Everyone has a masculine and feminine side, and it's important to occasionally embrace whatever isn't our dominant side. When both partners are in touch with their masculine and feminine sides, they're comfortable exposing each side to their partner, and the relationship becomes more balanced. In a balanced relationship, both partners have more in common. I think the closest thing to a perfect relationship is when the man is woman enough to cry and the woman is man enough to hold him.

I know I have a very sensitive side, so much so, I'm often referred to as the woman in the relationship. Exposing those emotions is often perceived as weakness and goes against what society comfortably accepts, but there's nothing weak about being different than the way everybody expects you to be. It's important to be balanced. Same-sex couples are no different. The physical anatomy of both individuals is the same, but their dominant sides are usually opposite. One partner tends to have a predominantly masculine side, and one partner typically has a predominantly feminine side. It's really important for each partner to embrace both the masculine and feminine sides of each other in order to maintain balance in the relationship.

Often a couple that deeply loves each other will want to commit to each other through marriage. I don't understand the opposition to same-sex couples being permitted to marry. I especially don't understand the church's public opposition to same-sex couples being able to _legally_ marry. I don't agree with the church's position, but I understand it and how they justify it. But, the legal institution of marriage isn't the same as the _sacrament_ of marriage. The church has every right to withhold the sacrament of marriage to anyone they choose, because the sacrament of marriage is part of the church belief system. It makes sense to make sure anyone who believes in the sacraments and wants to receive the sacraments is also abiding by all of the other rules of the church. Practicing same-sex partners aren't abiding by their rules. As a matter of fact, the Bible says they should be put to death (Lev 20:13), but we don't see them pursuing that too hard.

Jesus said to love one another as I have loved you (John 13:34), which means to love each other unconditionally just as Jesus loved with no conditions. Jesus didn't say to just love members of the opposite sex. Actually, if the Gospels are correct, Jesus loved one man more than any other. "The disciple Jesus loved" is clearly referred to five separate times in the Gospel of John.(38) John 21:20 says, "Peter turned and saw the disciple following whom Jesus loved, the one who had also reclined upon his chest during the supper." One man reclining across the chest of another man is not a simple handshake kind of love. I'm not implying there was or wasn't physical consummation, but there's obviously an emotionally intimate, physically connecting type of relationship.

Love is a matter of the heart, and if our heart is led to people with the same anatomy, why should that matter? These aren't people who want to kill, persecute, or condemn each other. These are people who want to follow the only commandment Jesus ever gave—to love each other.

Christian is defined as "of, pertaining to, believing in, or belonging to the religion based on the teachings of Jesus Christ".(39) The church and most Christians refer to the passages in the Bible denouncing homosexuality in order to justify their position that homosexuality is a sin. The irony is that one man is attributed to have written all three of the New Testament accounts that denounce homosexuality.(40) And it wasn't Jesus. It was Paul. Paul is the only self-proclaimed Apostle(41) who never even met Jesus, even though they both lived at the same time. He converted to Christianity because of a vision he had and is the only person in the New Testament to denounce same-sex love. Even though, according to the Catholic Bible, homosexuality was "a practice not uncommon in the Greco-Roman world,"(42) which Jesus was a part of, Jesus didn't denounce or condemn same-sex love of any kind at any time. So, I don't understand true Christians denouncing same-sex unions because Jesus never taught that. Just because it's included in the Bible doesn't mean Jesus said it, did it, taught it, or even agreed with it. We're supposed to believe that the writers of the New Testament were inspired by Jesus after His death even though Jesus never referred to something during His entire life. Seriously? If it was important enough to guide the soul of mankind, don't you think Jesus would have somehow found a way to include it in His teachings somewhere along the line? Others inspirations are not His teachings.

It's a shame that the opinion of one man, who never met Jesus, who obviously viewed same-sex love as being offensive, who at an earlier time in his life found Christianity so offensive he tortured and killed them, has perpetuated almost 2000 years of discrimination against a specific group of humanity.

The church claims same-sex love is an unnatural act because "it lacks an essential and indispensable finality."(43) The way the church recommends dealing with homosexual urges is with celibacy. They want a homosexual to replace an act that lacks an essential and indispensable finality that's an expression of love, (which seems like an essential and indispensable finality to me) with another act that lacks an essential and indispensable finality that intentionally denies the expression of love. There's nothing more unnatural than intentional celibacy.

Basically, since procreation cannot take place, certain people are labeled as sinners. But, procreation can't take place for dozens of reasons in heterosexual couples including menopause, and there's no ostracizing for that. Or is there? Apparently the impotent cannot be married within the Catholic Church either.(43) The church considers marriage to be a "permanent partnership between a man and a woman ordered to the procreation of offspring by the means of some sexual cooperation."(44)

Just because procreation cannot take place it doesn't stop the emotional urges of the heart to be physically intimate with each other. What difference does it make if people are attracted to people with the same anatomy as theirs? I have always considered the love between two people to be the primary prerequisite to marriage but apparently the church doesn't see it that way. There are one hundred and ten canonical laws regarding marriage and not one of them mentions love. Jesus only had one law—to love. Love is love, and it's my responsibility to nurture the love within me for everyone.

It's not the responsibility of the people who are being judged to change in order to satisfy those doing the judging. It's the responsibility of the judgers to educate themselves about the people they are judging. Unbiased education almost always eliminates fear, and the elimination of fear almost always eliminates judgment. I believe if we do nothing more than eliminate judgment from our future, our lives and the lives of everyone we touch will be better. Judgment is the worship of the concept of better and better is simply a human perspective.

Jesus said to "love others the way I have loved you", and the way Jesus loved was unconditionally. It seems evident by so many of His examples. How can I love my enemies if they have to meet certain conditions for my love? How can I love those who hate me if I attach conditions? It was the conditions that made them my enemies and made them hate me in the first place. The people I feel closest to in my life are the people I feel will accept me no matter what. They will always be there no matter what. I will always feel safe with no matter what. "No matter what" is slang for "unconditional".

I don't have to reserve the courtesy of an unconditional relationship exclusively for my friends. I can offer it to anyone, just like Jesus taught and just like an unconditional god offers. The more like my god I choose to be to the people in my life, the more my relationship with God becomes like a friendship. And the more often I do this, the easier it becomes.

I spent most of my life wanting my father to be different than the way he was. My father's means of motivating me was to consistently point out what I was doing wrong instead of what was right. I consistently interpreted that as I was never good enough. I tried to make him proud of me, but I never heard him say those precious words, "I'm proud of you." Just to hear those words motivated me professionally for twenty years. "I'm proud of you" is just another way of saying "I love you" in a more manly way.

Since I started to love myself, I no longer needed him to be a certain way and was able to embrace whomever he chose to be. By consciously recognizing unconditional love for myself, I was also able to offer unconditional love to my father. The beauty of that was, he then started to offer it back to me.

I no longer need my father's pride of me in order for me to be proud of me. By simply dropping the condition of his verbal approval of me, I have been able to hear how proud he is of me in so many of the other things he says and does. By attaching a condition to an experience, it's similar to expecting someone who only speaks Japanese to say something to me in English. People who speak Japanese think in Japanese, and people who speak English think in English. If I wanted to hear him say something specific, it was my responsibility to learn Japanese, not his responsibility to speak English.

I used to think of the world as the globe, and that's not the case. The world I live in is the places I spend most of my time, which includes the people I come in contact with on a day-to-day basis. It's the people at the grocery store, gas station, work, home, library, and at all of the other incidental places I frequent on a daily and weekly basis. If I would like to experience a different world, it's my responsibility to create the impetus of change that I would like to see within my world. I can do this by changing my own actions. The fewer conditions I place on the love I offer others within my world, the better my experiences will be. My world overlaps your world, and your world overlaps their word. The combination of all these worlds forms our world.

I have known how important honesty is to me for a long time and found when I wasn't honest, I didn't feel nearly as good about myself as I did when I was. The need to combine my personal awareness, honesty, and the need for communication was never more important than it was when it came to sex. Experience had already taught me that physical intimacy was so multidimensional that if I didn't communicate what it meant to me, before the act took place, I could almost be assured that my proposed partner had a different outlook on it than I did.

Humans are part animal—and have procreative sexual urges—part spiritual so we have emotional sexual urges, and part mental so we have mental sexual urges. If one sexual partner is intending to address his/her animalistic urges, but the other partner wants to address his/her emotional sexual urges, the same sexual act can fulfill each partner, but it'll mean something entirely different to each of the people involved. That's where communication beforehand is so important.

There's nothing wrong with casual sex as long as both parties agree it's casual sex. Casual sex is damaging when one party considers the interlude as casual, but the other party approaches it as an emotionally bonding experience. If one partner deceives another in order to fulfill their urges, it's a violation.

Religion promotes God as being perfect and as being the creator while simultaneously convincing those same creations that they are sinners for enjoying their bodies exactly as they are created. Organized religion promotes the body as God's temple. Would you prefer to live in a celibate house full of stress, anxiety, frustration, and chaos, or would you prefer to live in an intimate house full of joy, playfulness, and loving gratification? My body is a temple, and I honor my perfect god by honoring my body. I honor the Temple of my partner by honoring her body and, as a result, her soul.

I believe the church's position on sex was an ingenious technique of the forefathers of religion. I believe they pondered, "What's the one thing all of humanity does, and will continue to do, regardless of repercussions, that we can use to convince people that they are inherently and consistently sinners?" Sex was it. So the guilt of sex was born from religion, not from God.

Theoretically, the primary reason for the requirement that a priest must be celibate is so he can be more like Jesus, but there isn't any proof Jesus was celibate other than absence of information. Celibacy is not natural. If the primary reason for sex is reproduction, don't you think we would be like so many other animals that only have brief times of procreative lust for each other? Sex is an emotional connection, a physical release, a means of reproduction, one of the best forms of meditation, and just plain fun.

If I want sex to be a deeply emotional experience, I need to make sure my relationship is a deeply emotional relationship before I decide to include intimacy. Because once I include intimacy into a relationship, there's no way to remove it. Communication about sex tends to limit the emotional highs and lows resulting from intimacy. If I'm a virgin and I have a certain goal of experiencing my first sexual experience in a certain way, it's my responsibility to choose a partner who is capable and willing to help me experience it the way I envision it. If I feel I have chosen a good partner and I'm in a relationship that hasn't included physical intimacy yet, but I feel like I'm getting closer to it, I need to talk to my proposed partner about it. I'll then need to talk about it some more, reflect, and talk about it a little bit more, because it's a big step. Teenagers need to know this because you can't bring back your virginity.

Even though sex is a lot of fun, it's not a game. There are a lot of potential repercussions from the act of physical intimacy, and pregnancy is not the only one. There are a myriad of sexually transmitted diseases, of which most can be treated in some way now, but treatment isn't always a cure.

Sex isn't just about physical gratification, nor is it just about procreation or lovemaking. It's about all of those things at different points in time. Sex is multi-dimensional. It's not just a physical exchange. It's a deep energy exchange, which is why masturbation is physically satisfying for a very short period of time. Masturbation provides a physical release but no energy exchange.

It's my responsibility to my partner to make sure I'm the best sexual partner I can be on a consistent basis. I ask my partner what she likes, what her fantasies are, how she likes to be touched, and so on. It seems silly to pay so much attention to everything that happens outside of the bedroom and then fumble through the dark under the covers. Communication about everything else is so important. Why not communicate about the glue that binds a relationship? If there's good sex, there's typically a good relationship. And where there's a good relationship, there's typically good sex, but good does not necessarily mean "a lot of." Expecting to always be in the mood is unrealistic, but withholding sex from a partner creates frustration, then resentment, and then deterioration within the relationship. In order to have a good sex life, it requires a consistent effort on being aware of what sexual mood your partner is in at any given moment and trying to meet them there.

In a heterosexual relationship there's no reason for a woman to go unsatisfied unless she chooses so. If I have no physical urges at the moment, but my partner has strong physical urges, there's no reason I cannot satisfy her. The biggest mistake a woman makes during a sexual experience is satisfying the man first. A man can lose interest quickly after his urge is satisfied, which then leaves the woman unfulfilled. This isn't disrespect. It's just the way the body works. Both the man and the woman should make sure the woman is pleasured before the man, as often as possible. This reaffirms to her she is a valuable part of the relationship. Let's face it, the better the sex, the more often it is desired.

The only time sex is bad is when someone is lying about its meaning in order to get it, when it's forced on another involuntarily, or when it's used as a tool to get other things that are wanted.

When I take on the responsibility of a committed relationship, it doesn't mean I have the responsibility to make everything the way I want it to be. When I enter into a committed relationship, I assume the responsibility to help make the relationship what we want it to be, but a relationship isn't reserved for just two people. We're in relationship with the world and everyone else in it. An awesome relationship is a sign of compatibility not love exclusivity. The more we share our love with the people who frequent our little slice of the world, the more love is reflected back to us, and the more we're able to embrace a loving world. The longer we wait for others to offer their love to us first, the more the world is filled with people waiting to experience love. All I need to do in order to experience love is to offer kindness to someone. Anyone.

I will create and experience my life through my thoughts, words, actions, and interpretations of people and events around me. I have to interact with people, and it's my responsibility to wisely choose to include people who enhance my life and compliment my personality so I can experience the type of world I desire to experience. Sometimes we can't choose who shows up in our world, but those who do are there to heal karma. We do so by accepting them, embracing them, and being kind to them—in essence, loving them. The only way to love them is by relating to them, and when we relate to them we're in a relationship with them.

We typically assume the reason for meeting each other was for the relationship itself instead of healing the karma, and we get lost in the dynamics of these relationships, often creating more karma than we heal. This new karma requires healing as well, and sometimes the fastest way to heal it is to change our opinion of the person or people involved. If I change my opinion of something, my entire life will change. Once I change my life, I change the lives of every single person with whom I come in contact.

We'll affect the lives of every person we meet for the rest of our lives. It's our obligation to do the best job we can to be the best version of ourselves we can possibly be, because each one of us makes a difference. We affect hundreds of lives every day, and we make voluntary choices as to how we do that. We either create karma or heal karma. That's why the only message any Master has ever delivered is: _Love one another_.

9. Parenting

There's no doubt in my mind Sherri and I came together in order to heal a lot of karma, and I think we have. We healed quite a bit through our marriage, then we created some through our divorce, but I think we have healed most of any created during this lifetime. I base that opinion on the fact that I feel no resentment or negative feelings toward her whatsoever, and I don't often feel many coming from her. I feel the primary reason we were brought together was for us to heal karma with our children but not always as husband and wife. Our parenting methods are dramatically different, and our children have thrived by being exposed to both methods instead of the two of us having only one parenting style if we had stayed together.

Whether I'm right or wrong, it's undeniable that one of the greatest privileges life has granted me is to be a father to my children. Sherri and I were married for less than a year when she got pregnant with our oldest daughter. We were ready to begin a family, so her pregnancy was no surprise. Around the middle of her pregnancy, I realized how different our lives would become, and I didn't know if I was so ready for that. If I wasn't ready, I needed to find a way to get ready, because there was no going back now. Part of my trepidation was selfishness. My life would change, and I wasn't so sure I wanted it to. I liked having a few beers after work, being able to work till dark, doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it, and I was afraid all of that would change. As we got closer to her due date, my concerns shifted to our family as a unit. How would we do this? What was our parenting style going to be? I was hardly ever nervous about much of anything, but that got me nervous. I remember talking to God about it, and every time I did, I felt this calming presence and an inner knowing that everything would be all right. An inner knowing is good until you're on the way to the hospital with your wife in labor pains, and you think, "How am I going to do this? I've never done this before. I don't have so much as an outline of any kind of parenting style. Give me a little help here God."

After over twenty hours of labor and two epidurals, the doctors finally decided to take our daughter via C-section. All babies pretty much look the same to me. But, the strangest thing happened when the doctor lifted our daughter's head out of her mother's belly. My first and immediate thought was, "Oh my God. I've seen her somewhere before." My second thought was "Yeah, right. You can hardly tell one baby from another and you think you can recognize one who isn't even fully born yet?" I finally have an explanation for that experience. I'll share it with you in a later chapter. Anyway, they told me to head to the recovery room and they'll bring Sherri and the baby to join me. I was meandering in the room, waiting for them to get there, and then it dawned on me, I had read a poem once that detailed how children learn what we teach them through our actions not through what we tell them. _That_ was going to be my parenting style—the golden rule. I'll treat my children the way I want to be treated and let my actions speak for themselves. I'll treat them with honesty, respect, praise, patience, encouragement, support, and lots of hugs. I wrote a list of the important components I wanted to make sure to include in their life. I took that paper to the office with me and taped it to the bottom right hand corner of my desk protector. I read it a couple of times a day for the first few weeks, then a few times each week for several months, then at least once a month for ten years. And I didn't just read it. I lived it.

I remember chuckling to myself a couple of months after my daughter was born. This was what I was worried about? Life changed alright, but for the better. Life suddenly had real purpose.

I decided when the kids were young to intentionally treat them as closely to adults as was reasonably fair to them. I would get down on the floor so I could enter their world where they felt safe, and they were able to talk to me eye to eye. I still do this to most children I meet as a sign of respect for them. I would play with my children on the floor, but I still spoke to them as adults. I asked their opinions of things, and they were amazingly profound. When I got home from work, I would ask myself, "What do they have to teach me today?"

They came bearing gifts of wisdom, vision, unconditional love, peace, and innocence. I came to realize that the innocence of youth isn't innocence at all. It's expertise adults persuade them to abandon. The innocence of youth is the way people of all ages are meant to be. Children share what's on their mind without vicious intent and with purity of heart. When we give a child the opportunity to contribute to our lives, it's the greatest gift we can give to ourselves. As adults, we're so focused on teaching children that we seldom consider learning from them.

A great example of what I'm alluding to can be found in a poem I wrote several years back while reflecting on some of the things my children taught me. My three children are merged into the one daughter in the poem.

" **You're Welcome Daddy**

"It's a beautiful day, Daddy

Can you call in sick to work?

We can pack a lunch

And I can take you to the park."

I rumbled and grumbled

And rolled out of bed,

I was saving that sick day

To go fishing instead.

I looked into

Those little blue eyes.

They were happy and excited

And I think I knew why.

I called the office

And said, "Clear the day.

Something important has come up.

Just find a way."

Hand in hand,

We pulled that little red wagon

Full of PB&Js

And her little dolly, Meagan.

There were children playing

From all walks of life,

Some in designer clothes,

Some black and some white.

Some had holes in their shoes

And some were on crutches,

An arm to the elbow,

And Coke bottle glasses,

This day at the park was different, you see,

For I became the student

As these children taught me.

Abdullah was playing

With Bobby Jo

And Sarah pushed the blind girl

On the swings to and fro.

Danielle gave a sandwich

To the boy with the big belly.

He devoured it and said,

"I love peanut butter and jelly."

You could no longer read Abercrombie Kids

On the back of Carson's pants

Through the grass stains

Where he slid.

And Abri pushed Chase

In his wheelchair to run the bases.

You see, Chase could barely stand

Because he had to use braces.

He hit that ball

With his makeshift bat

And laughed until he cried

Cause he has never done that.

Brandon helped Sarah

Turn the pages of her book,

In the shade by the tree,

Cause her hands didn't quite work.

I sat back and watched

As they taught by example.

This classroom of life

Of the willing and able.

For I was the student

And they were teaching me

The way that life

Is really meant to be.

For prejudice and hatred and partiality

Are all learned behaviors.

It's how they're taught to be.

Oh what a different

World this would be

If we acted more like children

And less like you and me.

As we strolled home from the park

Hand in hand,

I said, "Because of today,

I am a better man.

Thank you, honey,

I had a great time."

And those angel eyes looked up at mine

And she said,

"You're welcome Daddy."

Children are sent to us as teachers, not as students. Adults should learn more from children instead of teaching them, because when they do, they teach them about bias, prejudice, condemnation, and superiority. They teach children that they're naturally sinners, and saints are borne from a life of sacrifice not joyful celebration. Adults teach boys to suppress their feelings, and they teach girls to be more like the boys. Children are taught to strive to be better, providing inadvertent affirmation that they're never good enough. Children are taught we're bad people who occasionally do good things instead of good people who do some bad things once in a while. They're taught if they do bad things to others, God will do bad things to them, but somehow, God is wonderful and loves them.

One of the first religious things a child is taught about is Noah's flood. Our children are taught about a god that would kill all of humanity by one of the slowest, most devastating ways to die because these people made this god angry. Our children are taught about Moses and the 10 Commandments. The first part of the Moses story is about plagues and the killing of the firstborn child of anyone who didn't wipe blood over their door. Children are taught that God separated a sea so that the people Moses was with could pass, but then God closed the sea up and drowned the people who were loyal to the King who pursued Moses. God gave Moses a list of rules that everyone needed to follow or else God would punish them and they'd burn in hell forever. The end of the story for these children is that right before Moses and his people were ready to enter this awesome place God promised them, God told Moses he couldn't enter because Moses hit a rock with his staff instead of talking to the rock like God told him to.

No wonder they teach this stuff to children, because by the time we reach adulthood, we have heard it so often, we accept it by default. I never thought about how much death, judgment, condemnation, and fear would be attached to a god that's supposed to be our ultimate safety net. I never wondered what children's reaction would be if God appeared in front of them. Would they run _to_ God or would they run _from_ God? I should have wondered. These are my _children_. When I knelt down in front of them and outstretched my arms, they ran to me because they felt safe and loved there. What would they do if the god of their teaching knelt in front of them?

How can a god that supposedly loves them justify killing anybody, especially babies, and not justify killing them? Somehow children are supposed to accept that God's love is unconditional for everyone while they're being told of the atrocities God had done as punishment for disobeying and not worshiping God. Children are taught God will kill people that God supposedly loves, but it's horrible for people to kill people, even the ones they don't love. In essence, children are taught they're supposed to be better than the god they learn about. They are being taught to worship a god they fear instead of a god they love.

What my children had to offer me was probably even more important than what I had to offer them. Allowing them to contribute to my life is probably the greatest gift I have offered myself and possibly the greatest compliment I have offered them. I could see in their faces how proud they were each time I thanked them for teaching me something or when they helped me do something. It was important to them when they were recognized for the contribution they were making. I told them, I showed them, and I experienced it with them. I wanted a relationship with them so I had to allow them the opportunity to relate to me. I told them I loved them. I hugged them and kissed them. I sat with them even if in silence. I put my heart against their heart, and I trusted them. I did all of those things, and I have never stopped doing those things. I still press my heart against the heart of my 27-year-old daughter, which almost always brings tears to both of our eyes at the same time. I still hug and kiss my 25-year-old son in public, and he hugs and kisses me back. And my 20-year-old daughter still curls up in Daddy's lap on the recliner I raised all three of them in.

It's important that we offer to our children what it is we would like to receive from them. They emulate us. They want to be like us. We have to show them first and they'll gladly follow. If we tell them one thing and show them another, they'll do what we show them and ignore what we tell them.

My three children are adults now, so trust me when I say that throughout different stages of their lives children are going to test their parameters. All three of them tried to see what they could get away with and, most of the time, I was aware of it. The primary hard and fast rule I had in my children's upbringing was, "As long as you're honest with me, you won't be punished for anything you tell me. But, if I find out you're lying to me, your punishment will be more difficult than any one of your friends have ever been punished." I honored that.

What that approach did was give my children a safe place to come home to regardless of what they had done. We all make decisions that we wish we wouldn't have made, and it's at that point we feel the most vulnerable. If we don't have a safe place to go home to, we end up internalizing that fear, that personal disappointment, and all of the anxiety that goes along with it. Whatever it is we internalize, we'll have to revisit later in life in order to let go. A judgmental god is no different than a judgmental parent. If my children couldn't turn toward me at their lowest point, they would turn away from me. If they had judgmental parents and a judgmental god, they would have had no safe place to go.

Everything is a choice, and it's important that children take responsibility for their choices. When my children were about five or six, I explained to them the possible results of some of the things they wanted to do, then I let them make their own decisions. They made some great choices and some not so great choices. I tried to explain to them what the results of their actions might be whenever practically possible, especially if the result of one of their choices would be a punishment. If they chose the action that resulted in punishment, they were punished, but I firmly believe the most valuable step was the next one. I made sure they understood that I wasn't the one who punished them. They punished themselves because they knew the consequences of their actions, and they chose to do it anyway. I was honoring their decision.

I have found that laws are the catalysts of rebellion. If children feel dictated to and too restricted by parents' rules, they often try to prove their independence by breaking the rules. This is rebellion. It's the rules that initiated the rebellious response in the first place. Most children won't resist some structure and actually thrive that way. It's when the structure is too confining that they feel they have to break free. Laws limit people's ability to be who they prefer to be. Children prefer, need, and deserve to be involved in their own lives. The more limitations a child has, the more internal rebellion they're likely to develop, which results in misbehavior.

The more children feel they are participating in their life, the less they have to rebel against. This doesn't mean children should be able to do whatever they want to do, whenever they want to do it. What this means is that individualized rules with reward or punishment are more effective than unilateral rules with punishment only.

If my kids had a rule that they couldn't stay up past nine o'clock in the evening, one of the first things they would want to do was stay up past nine. I found if I told them if they were good and went to bed at nine on the weeknights, they could stay up until eleven o'clock on Friday night. But, if they were bad, they would have to go to bed at eight o'clock on Friday night. If they started to be bad during the week, I would remind them of the eight o'clock Friday bedtime, and they usually changed their behavior. If they didn't, I put them to bed at eight on Friday and reminded them the bedtime was a result of the decision they made to be bad. A small punishment like that had to be applied a couple of times to each one of them but not many after that. My hope was to teach them to assume responsibility for the decisions that they made. It showed them they have influence in their own lives and they're participating in the outcome of their lives. It also showed them that I had influence over their lives, but I'm participating in it and not dictating it. A child who doesn't know he or she is being taught is receptive to everything. This type of relationship proves to be a partnership with them and not a dictatorship over them.

Rules don't create leaders. They create followers and followers seldom live a fulfilled life. If I wanted my children's lives to be as fulfilled as possible, it was important to allow them the privilege of leading. I figured the best way to do that was to allow them to participate in their own lives by making their own decisions and honoring those decisions.

Abri's brother and sister are five and six years older than her. By the time she reached high school, they were living on their own, so she and I had some one-on-one time. She would often share the different things kids in her school were doing, or got caught doing, and I asked why she thought they acted like that. She replied, "I think they're just rebelling, Dad. Their parents try to tell them what they can and can't do so they find worse stuff to do. Heck, the only thing I have to rebel against is the fact I don't have anything to rebel against." That was when I knew I was on the right track.

She didn't, and still doesn't, do everything I would like her to do, but she doesn't know what I would like her to do because, for the most part, I don't tell her. Children will do most of what we ask them to do, but by doing so, they surrender who they are for the sake of who we want them to be. It's like capturing a butterfly and putting it under glass. We rob it of what made it beautiful to begin with—its flight.

The flight of a butterfly seems erratic and void of intent, yet year after year, millions of them end up at the same place, at the same time, for the same event. A free spirit seems like they don't know where they're going, yet they get there.

Watching Abri move through life is like watching a butterfly. She'll be close just long enough for you to want more, then she leaves for a while. There's a conspicuous absence when she's gone but a noninvasive presence when she's near. She stops to smell the roses as she flutters through life seeming to make random decisions that all knit together somehow. She's free, has always been free, and has thrived in that freedom. There was enough structure in her life without dictating her life. I made sure she always knew our home was a place to express anything she wanted to express without fear of condemnation or judgment. She felt safe there.

Children really only want two things in their lives: to feel safe and for their parents to be happy. I think the second is just an extension of the first. Children's parents don't have to be happy together as long as they're happy individually. Parents who are living happily together is the ideal environment, but parents living separate lives is often today's reality. Children identify so closely with their parents that if one or both of the parents is unhappy, the children take it upon themselves to try to be the source of happiness for their parents. This is a burden that even adults can't handle and is often the cause for adults divorcing. If an adult can't successfully handle the responsibility of being the source of happiness for another adult, imagine the burden a child feels trying to be the source of happiness for two adults. There's no way for that child to be a child or to feel safe. If either parent is angry, spiteful, or abusive in any way toward anybody, the child typically takes on those characteristics in an attempt to alleviate his or her parents of that burden.

Children want, need, and deserve our attention, but attention takes time. Negative attention demands far more time than positive attention, but attention is attention. If a child is offered little attention during their youth, they often become a rebellious teenager. Many parents have no choice but to get involved in a child's life once the parents' lives are turned upside down, but usually, the parents played a major role in forming that child's perspective in the first place. The common consensus seems to be to discipline a rebellious child with a series of strict rules, which causes more rebellion, which creates more rules, which creates more rebellion, and so on. The time to be part of a child's life is all of the time.

Punishment doesn't work. Our jails are great testament to that. The only people the threat of punishment generally affects are the people who wouldn't be compelled to break the rules to begin with. There's another way.

When I was fifteen, I was in a car with several other guys my age and one guy old enough to drive. We went to a local deli that was known for selling beer to underage kids. What we didn't factor in was, if it was known to us, it was probably known to the cops, too. We got pulled over for being underage with alcohol in the car. I don't remember being charged with anything, but I remember the ride home from the police station in the car with my dad. He didn't say much for a while, but when he did, it hit home for me.

He said, "You know you got off pretty easy back there, because you were honest with the police. But you're not going to get off so easy with me, because you lied to me. You're not being punished for the beer. You're being punished for the lie. I'm really disappointed in you, Ron. I trusted you."

That was the only time I remember being punished. I remember not complaining about being grounded for two weeks, because he was right. I lied about where I was going and who I would be with. I knew what we were doing was wrong and I did it anyway. I learned so much by how Dad handled that situation. He treated me with respect, he made me on my own stuff, and he taught me the value of honesty by making me live it, not just telling me about it. He did so in a way that allowed me to still have respect for him and for myself.

When my two oldest children were in their early teens, my life seemed to be one major hurdle after another. They were at a very influential and important age, but I barely had enough strength and personal fortitude to make it over my own hurdles, never mind try to shield them from theirs. I made the conscious decision at that time to expose them to my trials and tribulations. It was my life and I decided to live my life _with_ them instead of around them. I have found total and complete honesty to be my most valuable asset, and I can trace that asset right back to my dad. My honesty about my life and the experiences within it made my life real to my kids. Pain became real, but getting back up became real as well. By me sharing my trials and tribulations with them, they have come to realize that's a part of life. As they became teens, young adults, and adults, they know it's not unusual when life gets tough. They know it's not just happening to them, because it happened to dad, too. If I would have chosen to shelter my children, only share the good things with them, and protect them from the tough stuff, they wouldn't know how to handle adversity when it happens to them.

My oldest daughter, Danielle, is currently going through a divorce and I couldn't be more proud of either of them. From what I have been exposed to, they are both handling the entire situation with honesty and respect. They have their differences that apparently make them incompatible but that doesn't mean they have to be enemies. They are both wonderful people which is evidenced through my grandson. Even though they are each going through a very difficult time their son is wonderfully happy and carefree. I am sure she feels she is going through one of the most difficult parts of her life but as she is doing so she hasn't allowed adversity to distort her beautiful qualities.

When we're at our lowest point, and are troubled, God needs to be a safety net. God needs to be a place to go. If we feel we have betrayed a judgmental god, our family, and ourselves at the same time, there's no place left to go, so we lash out. We're like a caged animal and justify doing anything in order to be free. There's no safe place to go with a judgmental god, but with a perfect god, there's always a safe place to heal, where we always feel loved and accepted. There's no reason to rebel when there's nothing to rebel against. There's no reason to lash out when we don't feel tied down. There's no reason to panic in a place we feel loved. A loving god that embraces us at all times, for any reason, is a much safer place for a vulnerable soul to heal than with a judgmental god that has a history of killing and punishing.

There's currently a huge outcry over guns and school shootings, over the lack of prayer in school, over the removal of God from our everyday lives. We have to realize it's impossible to remove a perfect god from anything, from anywhere, from anyone, at any time. There's only one thing we have to change in our schools that will change the world. Minds. When we change our mind, we change our world. If we want people to value human life, we need to teach the value of human life. If we want people to be kinder, we need to teach and embrace kindness. This is saying nice things to each other, opening doors for each other, teaching that success is in the effort not the outcome of the effort. This is the recognition that sometimes the most valuable thing a teacher can offer is a hug at the perfect moment, and this is a realization that teaching isn't always about putting knowledge into a student but also in offering a safe place for a student to let their emotions out.

A child who values human life becomes a teen who values human life, which then becomes an adult who values human life. A person who values human life can stand on a train car full of automatic rifles and not pick one up, regardless of the law. A kind child becomes a kind person. A child who knows success from his or her effort isn't afraid to try. We learn best through example, and the most trusted example is in our home. I'm a firm believer that the holiest shrine anyone could ever visit with their children is the dining room table. What takes place there will affect them for the rest of their lives.

I believe the greatest gift we can give a child is independence, and the greatest gift we can give the world is an independent child. Independence creates self-confidence and self-confidence creates leaders. A leader doesn't necessarily mean a leader of other people, although sometimes it does. It primarily means that a person can lead himself or herself through his or her life in a strong, comfortable, and secure manner.

Parenting isn't about dictating to our children who they'll become. It's about constantly teaching them the value of being the best they can be and trusting in their process of becoming it.
10. Reincarnation

My dad has always thought of himself as a pretty good Catholic. He was concerned about me not going to church anymore. He told me I should start going to church again and go to confession because, "Those things can add up, you know, and then, all of a sudden, you find yourself going to hell."

So I asked him, "Dad, do you feel God loves us the same way that we love other people? Or do you think God loves us more? Or does God loves us less?"

He said, "Definitely, God loves us way more than we can even think about."

So I asked him, "If I did the worst thing imaginable and ended up in jail for the rest of my life, and you had the choice to make me over again or to send me to hell for all eternity, which one would you do?"

Without hesitation he said, "I would make you over again."

I paused for a second and then said, "Don't you think that's the least God would do?"

He gave me a halfhearted smile and said, "Let's eat."

For as long as I can remember, even as a young child, I believed in reincarnation. My simple rationalization was, if God loves me even a little bit, God will make me over again instead of sending me to hell.

After delving much deeper into my belief system and truly embracing the fact that God is perfect, doesn't want anything from me, and can't be disappointed in me, I was curious if reincarnation still had a place in my life. I agreed with the general concept of reincarnation, but it was the logistics of reincarnation I struggled with. I mean, if I'm proclaiming reincarnation as real, I have to have some sort of logical explanation as to how that can actually happen.

Scientists have determined that everything in this universe is energy and that energy never goes away. It simply changes forms. The body is made up of energy, and since energy never goes away, when the body dies, the energy that used to be the body has to go somewhere. Is that not proof that some sort of reincarnation exists?

The primary conflict I had with reincarnation was when the body died, how did the energy that used to make up the body stay intact in order to be reincarnated? I pictured the energy of the deceased body like a drop of water. If I walk into the ocean and dip my finger into the ocean, a drop of water forms at the tip of my finger (representing the human energy form). When that drop of water drips back into the ocean, does it stay as the confined set of molecules that made up the drop? Or do the molecules separate and become part of the ocean? The same question applies to the energy of the body after the body dies. Does the energy that made up the body somehow stay confined as that particular energy body? Or does the energy separate and disperse into the universe? Logic was telling me that the energy dispersed, but if it dispersed, how could reincarnation be possible?

The problem with my entire thought process was that I was focusing only on energy. I wasn't taking the non-energy aspect of the soul into consideration. I came to the conclusion that reincarnation exists in both the energy aspect of the universe and in the non-energy aspect of the soul. Within the energy realm, when the body dies, the energy that used to make up the body disperses into the energy universe just as the random molecules of a droplet of water disperses into the ocean. When the physical body dies, it releases the non-energy aspect of the body, which is the soul, the same way as it releases the energy that made up the body. The soul stays contained in its individual oneness. The soul moves on to the next dimension and is then reincarnated into a new physical container at a later date, while the energy that made up the body stays in this universe. This energy is randomly dispersed into this universe like smoke from a burning log to become miniscule parts of other components in the universe. This is another authentication of the "we are all one" statement. Anyone and anything that was ever in this dimension always was here, is still here, and will always be here, because energy never goes away. It simply changes form. This energy may or may not retain some sort memory. I don't pretend to know, but it certainly makes sense. So, in essence, our bodies have all been someone else before... many, many, someone elses and components of many, many, other things.

My soul, on the other hand, is, was, and always will be the individualized version of me, which is currently using this body as a temporary vehicle with which to experience this lifetime. Once my body dies, my soul will go through transition and will eventually be reincarnated into a future body in order to continue its journey to karmic neutrality.

If I experience life only through the body, I will always be dependent on the needs of the body and the necessity of fulfilling those needs, because the body is limiting. But the soul isn't _of_ this universe. It's _in_ this universe. The soul works in concert with the body to experience this universe and values this universe.

When I'm living a life that takes my soul into consideration, the concept of superiority tends to fade away, and the value of all things tends to take center stage. When I value all things, I respect all things, including the earth—all components of it and all components in it. Advancement is moving beyond the body, not making the body work less.

The human animal consists of the body and the mind, but the human _being_ consists of the body, mind, and soul. The human animal communicates through written language, oral dialogue, and physical motions, but the human being introduces intuition into the mix.

The soul uses the human animal container as its means of experiencing this realm. It communicates with the human animal's mind through intuition, which is the same thing as a "gut feeling" and is an inner knowing or inner awareness.

Did you ever have a feeling somebody was watching you or that you should go exceptionally slow as you were driving down the street right before a child ran from between parked cars in front of you? How many times have you had somebody you haven't talked to in a long time pop into your head only to have the phone ring moments later, and they're on the other end? How often have you heard a song play on the radio or have an animal randomly appear in your life that caused you to think of a deceased loved one? Have you ever sat at a football game and looked around the stadium and, out of the tens of thousands of people there, the same face repeatedly pops out at you? These experiences happen when our soul communicates with another soul in a manner our body cannot communicate with his or her body. These are gut responses that didn't involve our instinct to survive or mental thought processes of any kind..

If the soul can recognize other souls and communicate with our mind, it must have some ability to store memory. How could one soul recognize another without the ability to remember what it's recognizing? If the soul has a memory and that soul is part of us, it makes sense that we would be able to access the soul's memory somehow, which would help substantiate whether we have lived previous lives or not.

I came across an article about something called past life regression, which described it as the process of experiencing previous lives through hypnosis. Needless to say, I found the thought of this quite intriguing. I was living in Cincinnati at the time so I Googled "past life regression Cincinnati." There were several things that popped up, but I was eventually led to an article written by a Catholic priest about the importance of past life regression in physical healing. He was someone I needed to talk to. I called and introduced myself. I told him I was inquiring about past life regression, but I had a question first. "I know the Catholic Church doesn't believe in reincarnation, yet you're calling yourself Father and are promoting it in an article you wrote. Where do you fit in?"

He chuckled and said, "In all of the years I have been doing this, you're the only one to ask me that. Maybe I'm supposed to see _you_. I'm from a denomination called Old Catholic and, up until the mid 500's, the church supported reincarnation. Old Catholics still believe in it. Let's set something up for you to come on in, and we'll see what we can do for each other."

So I did.

On what I thought was an unrelated note, around the same general timeframe I remember telling a friend of mine that my mind felt like a bowl of cooked spaghetti. I could begin a thought about a problem but the entanglement of all of the other thoughts just caused the thought I was trying to address to break. I just felt totally out of sorts.

Anyway, I approached the first session with Father Marty expecting somewhat of a carnival atmosphere, where I would be hypnotized and then choose the movie of whatever life I wanted to watch, but that wasn't it at all. He put me into a deep relaxation and went through a process of questions and visualizations, which took about an hour or so. He brought me back out of the relaxation, and I said, "But Father, I didn't experience any other lives yet."

"Ron, we had a lot we had to heal about this life first," he said.

I really didn't know what he was talking about, but I accepted it and scheduled an appointment for the next week. On the way to my truck, I stopped in the middle of the parking lot and stared at the sky, the trees, and the birds. My mind was suddenly like a box of uncooked spaghetti. All of the problems were still there, but I could complete a full thought just as easily as it is to pull one piece of spaghetti from the box. For whatever reason, I didn't associate that new mindset with what happened with Father, but I was glad to feel much more like my old self again.

The next week, I went back, and we talked for two hours about the kind of things a deep mind might wonder about but never have anybody to converse with about. Once again, my past life regression was put off until the next week. As I was leaving, he gave me a pamphlet, which I promptly slid into my pocket. As I stood at the stove cooking dinner, I pulled the pamphlet out and read about soul retrieval. I called him right away and said, "Father, this soul retrieval stuff, that was what we did the first time I was there, wasn't it? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Yes, Ron. That was what we did. I didn't tell you because the mind will compensate for what it's aware of. Since you weren't aware of anything happening, it was completely uninfluenced. If I told you what we would do, the mind would have interfered with the process of doing it," he said.

According to the pamphlet, during traumatic times—the level of trauma is different for everybody—the soul can jump outside of the body in order to protect itself. Have you ever heard the saying, "I feel beside myself?" That's why. If the soul isn't in the body, the body becomes an organism to absorb the abuse without negatively affecting the soul. Many people with chronic illness have a soul that's on the outside of them instead of on the inside. The body has a much harder time healing itself when the soul is on the outside.

My life began to function normally again. My problems didn't go away, but I could deal with them again.

I finally experienced past life regression, and it helped make sense of my life. I understood why so many of the people in my life were there and what role they'd played in a previous life. It all knitted together so seamlessly that it's hard to dismiss it as fabrication. Although, I'll admit mental fabrication is a possibility, because it all happened through the mind. But the one thing I couldn't dismiss was the soul retrieval, especially after what happened next.

It was early on a crisp, fall morning, as I rolled to a stop at the light at the bottom of a long, steep hill. My light was green, but the intersection was fairly narrow. I was turning right, so I stopped to make sure there was nothing headed my way. To my left, a semi-truck cut through the early morning haze with no obvious intention of slowing down. I glanced back up at the light, and it was still green for me. _It's a darned good thing I stopped first_. I no sooner thought that than a small, red SUV hurried into the intersection using the thru lane to my left. It seemed like a slow motion movie as I watched the semi's grille impale that SUV's driver's door as if it had an X on it. That truck driver hadn't even hit the brakes. I felt my heart in my throat as I pulled to the side of the road. I ran to the SUV and tried to prepare myself for what I was about to see. The engine raced and smoke filled the car as I reached over the backseat and turned off the ignition. Somehow, the driver was on the passenger floor facing the backseat with her seatbelt still on. Her eyes pleaded for help as they met mine. Voices grew from behind me as others rushed to help.

The sirens seemed to stop as soon as they began from the fire-truck approaching the scene. The paramedic said they heard the accident from the firehouse right around the corner and, in the same breath, asked if I would stay for a police report. I climbed into the police van as the siren from the life squad faded up the hill she had just come down minutes before. They thought she would make it was all they would say as they asked me to take a seat. I told them everything I could and signed my statement.

I walked to the car and stood in amazement. Everything about that intersection looked just like it did when I stopped at the bottom of that hill in the first place. Everybody was gone. Everything was cleaned up like nothing had ever happened. Lives were changed forever, but nobody will know except the few who notice the ever-fading skid marks from her car being pushed sideways up the road.

I felt more and more "out of it" on the drive home. I sort of like felt you might feel after a glass or two of wine, not incapacitated but not fully functioning either. The day just got worse and worse. I got to the point of being emotionally numb and generally confused. I figured maybe I needed to get out of the house for a while so I took a drive. I pulled to the side of the road to honor the blue lights behind me. Not only did I not have enough money to get the tags in the first place, but now I had to pay for the ticket, the fine, and the new tags for a car that would soon be taken anyway, because I couldn't afford to keep up with the payments. The oncoming headlights sparkled through the tears as I pulled back into traffic. Mom's death, the money, the car, the divorce, the kids, my health—the same tightrope that somehow seemed manageable yesterday overwhelmed me today. _What the heck is going on?_ I thought as my head hit the pillow.

The next morning, it was no better. Actually, it was worse. I watched the vortex of the water swirling down the kitchen sink and thought, _That's exactly how I feel_.

I thought about calling Father Marty because he was the only person I knew I could talk to about what I was feeling, but what was I going to say? What could he do about it anyway? I sat in the living room, I tried to take a nap, I walked around outside for a while, but everything seemed to be getting worse. Nothing made sense anymore. _What am I doing?_ The simple things in life were tough to do and my life was anything but simple. _I'll deal with it in the morning_.

I awoke in the same clothes I had on the day before and felt just as bad as I did when I dropped into bed. _I have to do something about this_ , I thought, pulling Father Marty's card from my wallet. I don't know what message I left on his phone, but he called me back in a few minutes. "What's wrong, Ron? What happened?" he asked.

"Do I sound that bad? I don't know, Father. It's like the bottom fell out or something. It's like my life is suddenly this vortex spiraling downward, and I don't know how to stop it," I said.

"Has anything sudden or traumatic happened recently?" he asked.

"Well, not really, except the accident I witnessed the other day. It was nasty." I described some of the details.

He said, "Why don't you come on in about ten o'clock this morning?"

I said, "Father, I don't even have enough money to pay my bills. I don't have any way to pay you."

"Okay, be here at three then. This one's on me," he said.

"Thank you, Father," I said as my back slid down the face of the kitchen cabinet on my way to the floor. I buried my face in my hands and just sobbed.

I had no idea what he could do, but I had to try something. Six hours felt like six days, but I finally eased myself into his recliner. We had some idle conversation, which I think he sensed made me more anxious than it did calm.

"Go ahead and lay back. Just relax, deeper relaxed, and deeper, and deeper relaxed," he coaxed. He took me through a process that seemed semi familiar to me, but I was so relaxed, I couldn't tell if I was dreaming it, remembering it, or experiencing it. He brought me back to fully awake.

I was still lying there and could tell I felt better already so I asked him, "What did we just do? Why does that seem so familiar?"

"When you witnessed that accident, it was such a traumatic event, your soul jumped again. We just put it back to make you whole," he said.

I thanked him, stood, gave him a hug, and left with the same mental clarity as I had before the accident.

I shared all of that because, while I can somewhat dismiss the possibility of reincarnation as being a belief and past life regression as being a mental fabrication, I cannot dismiss the existence of the soul or the reality of soul retrieval, because _I experienced_ it on two separate occasions. The first occasion was totally new and I was uneducated about it until weeks afterward. On the second occasion, I experienced the entire cycle from whole and complete, to the downward vortex and bottoming out, to whole and complete in a four-day period. I wasn't aware of the second soul retrieval until afterwards either. Beliefs are one thing, experiences are another, and beliefs built on experiences are yet another. Most of my beliefs are built on experiences, and there's not a person in the world who can convince me the soul and soul retrieval aren't real.

In the previous chapter, I shared the story of recognizing my oldest daughter during her birth. The doctor lifted her head out of her mother's belly, and my first reaction was, "Oh my gosh, I've seen her somewhere before." Well, that was my soul recognizing her soul. In my past life regressions, I experienced previous lives with her, with my son, my other daughter, their mother, and most other key people in my life. I have "memories" of them in different clothing in different eras in different roles of different lives. Those sessions were invaluable to me. If you intend to pursue past life regression or hypnosis of any kind, I highly recommend non-suggestive hypnosis. Non-suggestive hypnosis is when you're asked what the events mean to you as you re-experience the event instead of the facilitator asking you what you see and telling you the meaning of the event.

The soul is where our feelings originate. The soul is where love resides. The soul is the originator of the deep emotional connection we feel with certain select beings. It's our soul recognizing their soul. The soul is where the desire for physical intimacy originates. Intimacy is much different than the procreative desire of lust. Intimacy is the desire to be at one with another. It's that "at-oneness" that allows us to truly experience the merging of two souls into one. This is why Tantra can be such a powerful experience. In typical physical union, most lovers will experience this oneness sporadically and for short periods of time, maybe just seconds. The more experienced Tantrics can establish and remain in this oneness for extended periods of time, sometimes hours.

Our mind serves three masters. It generates thoughts itself, receives and interprets messages from the body, and receives and interprets messages from the soul. Our mind and our soul have parallel responsibilities within the body. The mind's allegiance is to the human animal, whereas the soul's allegiance is to love. The soul uses the power of the mind to experience and interpret the sensations of this universe. It sends messages to the mind within the human container and the body responds to the mind's directions. The soul's messages are love-based and have to do with experiencing love in this lifetime as well as healing the karma from previous lifetimes. Each lifetime is a series of events and how we choose to perceive them. If we choose to perceive, or interpret, something in one way, it produces a certain interpretation of life, but if we choose to perceive or interpret the same thing in a different way, it literally changes the entire perception of our life. If we desire to change our life, quite often, all we have to do is change the way we perceive the events in our life.

When the soul is ready to incarnate into this dimension, it has a tentative plan. Once in the human container, this plan is subject to free will decisions, because free will can override the soul's preferred path. When we experience déjà vu, it's validation we're on our soul's preferred path. Things seem familiar to us because they are part of the path we charted before we were conceived.

When we reincarnate, we often travel in soul groups and are frequently reborn within a generation or two of each other. The primary reason for this is because we have inflicted karma on each other that we need to heal. Our parents are no exception. At least one of them is either a soul that will teach us how to heal karma or one with which we need to heal karma.

Our genes and chromosomes determine the size and shape of our body, but our soul chooses our parents. It doesn't influence their courtship, but it does determine our conception. Conception happens when a soul is ready for the container, not when a container needs a soul. Conception isn't by random chance.

The soul enters the container knowing what major events will take place while it's in it. The soul's preferred path always involves resolving karmic debt. When our soul is ready to reincarnate, we don't remain the same gender all of the time. Our karmic debt contributes to our soul's preferred path, which determines what gender we'll be in this lifetime. Karma from these previous life experiences will establish the sexual persuasion of this lifetime.

Before our soul incarnates, it's aware of the disparity between the love we have contributed to the universe and the pain we have contributed to the universe, and it develops a plan to balance these as much as possible. It's only through achieving a karmic neutral balance that we have the opportunity to step out of the cycle of reincarnation and into the angelic realm.

Pain we inflict on others during our human experience isn't always a negative karma event. Sometimes pain is a positive event that doesn't feel good. Contributing this type of pain to the universe is part of a soul's path, and the universe recognizes this type of pain as love that doesn't feel very good.

Heaven is supposed to be a place our soul goes to be rewarded and hell is theoretically a punishment for our soul, but if reincarnation exists, does that mean heaven and hell don't? If God is perfect, God can neither punish nor reward, because God doesn't want. Anything that's attached to God's punishment and reward is a fabrication of early religion.

Logically we would come to the conclusion that heaven and hell don't exist but actually they do. Heaven is the opposite of hell but not in the way we're taught. Hell is a place where we go with our minds, not our souls, but heaven is a place we go with our souls, not our minds. If someone believes in hell, it becomes real in their mind, and thus a reality, even if it's not an authentic destination for their soul. Hell only exists in the minds of those who believe in hell. Heaven isn't a reward. It's an automatic destination of all souls.

Life is cyclical, not just between elements of earth but between heaven and earth. When the body dies on earth, the soul is "born" in heaven, and when the soul "dies" in heaven, it's born on earth. This cycle continues until the soul reaches karmic neutrality.

Heaven is like a school for souls. It's a realm where souls are reunited with other souls they have spent previous time with on earth. We recognize and "know" each other, but it's the eternal form, or soul, of each other we know and recognize. That's why we consistently recognize that random person in the middle of a stadium. Our eternal form recognizes their eternal form, which never changes regardless of what the body looks like.

Heaven is basically like Earth without the restrictions or sensations experienced within the physical container of the body. "Life" in heaven is not a youth to elderly progression as it is here. Age is measured by awareness. In heaven, our soul becomes fully aware of the reasoning behind the decisions of every occurrence in our most recent life. We become aware of not only the decisions people made but why people made them. As humans, we're quick to judge people based on what they do-did without understanding _why_ they did what they did. It's the reasoning behind an action that determines why an action was taken in the first place. Once our soul knows the reasoning behind why people made the decision they made we become aware of how flawed many of our judgments and interpretations were during our lifetime.

Forgiveness on earth is typically an opinion of, "I'm right and you were wrong, but I accept you in your wrongness." In heaven, we go through an intense process of forgiveness, but we don't forgive others. We learn to forgive ourselves for judging others. Judgment is the opinion of someone or something being good, bad, right, wrong, they are going to heaven, or they are going to hell but determination is recognizing something as being beneficial or as detrimental. We judge on earth but learn to determine in heaven

In heaven, souls become aware of what the soul's preferred path was in the most previous life. The soul realizes how much of that preferred path was experienced and how our free will decisions deviated from that preferred path. Once our soul understands the reasoning behind our most previous life's events, we then look back onto the roadmap of the lives before that and become aware of how the experiences of this most recent life knitted into the experiences of previous lives. We then become aware of our karmic debt and who else is associated with large chunks of it.

Knowledge is the teachings of this lifetime and wisdom is the intelligence of the soul, which is always the truth. The truth is the only information in the heavenly realm. Wisdom and knowledge are two separate things that merge together in the human mind and become next to impossible to separate while here. Knowledge is simply information that may or may not be true. Wisdom is intuitive communication from the soul. Intuition isn't just communication from our soul to our mind. It's from one soul to another. The limitations of the body have no bearing on the soul, so my soul can communicate with my friend's soul in Florida and my mom's soul in heaven just as if all three of us were sitting in the same room together. The soul isn't affected by time or distance.

Once we have experienced our review period and understand karma and the dynamics of our position in the universal experience, the rest of the time spent in the heavenly realm is as "spirit guides". A spirit guide will share the path of life with a person in the human realm to help guide and inspire that person to heal as much karma as possible. Often this person will be a previous family member. The soul's preferred path is to heal as much karma as possible. Even if a soul isn't on the path it scripted for itself before its incarnation, it will often be on a spiritually healthy path with help from a spirit guide. The guide will inspire it to heal karma. Free will has the ultimate say, and if we choose to consistently listen to our mind and disregard our intuition, we can end up on a path totally foreign to our soul.

When the heavenly soul has an opportunity to heal large quantities of karma in the human realm, it prepares a plan to reincarnate into this dimension with the help of its angels. It's at this point that either the angels or the soul chooses the parents of its physical body. We then die in heaven and conception takes place on earth. The entire "life" cycle is then repeated. This is what Jesus meant by "we never do die."

The whole concept of angels never made sense to me. I was always taught that angels are God's helpers, and if God is perfect, what in the world would God need help with? The deeper I immersed myself into the concept of God being perfect, the more angels made sense.

The angelic realm is the intermediary realm between God and heaven. It's where souls that have paid their karmic debt reside. As long as my soul has contributed more pain to the universe than love, it will continue to have karmic debt and believe emotional pain exists. Emotional pain is the perception of the lack of love, which cannot exist if love is what God is. If God is perfect, the opposite of God cannot exist in real form, so it's only in karmic neutrality (the angelic realm) that a soul will consistently know itself as unconditional love.

Angelic souls are souls that have experienced the realm of this universe but have moved beyond the concept of being separate from God. Since these souls have experienced the human realm, they're able to embrace the concept that humans believe we're separate from God, even though we aren't. Angels were human once, too, and have experienced all of the perceptions and experiences that go along with believing we're separate from God.

Let's say I feel my life is total chaos and I pray to God for serenity, God cannot grant me serenity, because if God granted me serenity, it would authenticate that the lack of serenity exists within divinity. God cannot fix something that doesn't exist. If God fixed the lack of serenity, it would prove the lack of serenity was a reality to God, which would make God imperfect, because lack is imperfection.

The inability to fix something isn't an indication of God being imperfect. It's a result of God's perfection. If my hand constantly asked my mind to make my hand part of my body, while being part of my body all along, there's no way for my mind to make my hand what it already is. If my hand chooses to think it's separate from my body, that's my hand's prerogative. If my mind were able to reattach my hand to my body, it would be confirmation that my hand was separate from my body. God is no different. If I choose to think I'm separate from God, it's my prerogative to do so. If I want to feel like I'm sad, ugly, inferior, dysfunctional, or better than others, it's my prerogative to do so. Just because I exercise my prerogative doesn't confirm its authenticity. What we perceive we lack is a perception of ours, and if we change our perception, our lack goes away.

God cannot fill voids or requests. God cannot give me what it is I perceive I lack, but that doesn't mean that my prayers go unanswered. Angels are the ones that answer prayers. Remember that light on the sidewalk story in the first chapter? Even though I addressed my plea to God an Angel did that, not God. Some prayers are answered immediately while other prayers take quite a while, but all prayers are answered. Some answers might not be what we expected them to be, but an answered prayer is always beneficial to all individuals. A prayer won't be answered to benefit one and forsake another, because favoritism, superiority, and levels of importance are human perceptions. Any prayer that's answered must benefit any and all involved in an equal manner. Angels won't cause one individual to win while another loses and won't cause one to benefit more than another.

The primary purpose of the angelic realm is to help facilitate the soul's preferred path within the realm of this universe. Angels don't have personal agendas, because they realize they aren't separate from each other or from God.

Heavenly souls aren't angels yet but they are aware of the soul's preferred path, because they still have karmic debt themselves, so the souls in the heavenly realm can only help heal karma. Angels, on the other hand, are fully aware of each soul's preferred path, because they're karmic neutral and are no longer invested in this universe, except to help their fellow souls.

Sometimes, the most loving experiences angels provide is delivering gut-wrenching pain. Those painful experiences redirect our lives to a path that leads us to some of the most emotionally fulfilling people and events in our entire lives. If it were not for those painful experiences, we would never experience our most joyous experiences.

Virtually always, when two people come together, it's in order to heal karmic debt. Once their karmic debt is healed, it may be important to go their separate directions in order to heal more karmic debt. Sometimes, people can experience more love throughout their lifetimes by a relationship ending than by staying in a relationship that has run its course. When this is the case, a major and often painful event will be necessary to cause their split. In order to accomplish this, angels will inspire an event that ultimately ends the current commitment. This is another reason why it's important to not judge others. This isn't meant to imply that giving up on a committed relationship is a good idea, but we have no idea what the deeper reasons are for an event to happen.

When things like this happen, it's important to carry no resentment or disdain for the person who inflicted the pain or else it also becomes karmic debt. It's when we can look back on an event and be grateful for it and the person who caused it with true gratitude and appreciation that we know karma is healed.

We have been conditioned to think angels take on a human form with huge wings, but that's not true. An angel isn't something that only appears in physical form. An angel takes on any form. The words of a song, a roadside billboard with a perfect message, a random phone call, and a heartfelt experience with a total stranger are all angels. An angel is you, me, the flower, and the song.

Angels periodically come into our body and use it as an instrument to cause an experience our soul typically would have never been compelled to cause. When this happens, we often find ourselves wondering, "Why in the world did I just say that?" Or, "I have never done that before in my life."

I stood in the kitchen making dinner when my son bounded down the stairs from his bedroom.

He excitedly said, "Dad, I have a great idea. I think Abri (his younger sister) is a lot like me. I think we could both do better in school if you would just push us harder."

All of a sudden, it was as if I was floating in the room watching myself say, "Brandon, honestly, I really don't give a damn. I don't care how well you do in school. I'll love you just as much whether you live under a bridge or if you're a rocket scientist. I'm willing to help you, but this education, it's for you to become whomever it is you want to be because I don't care who you become."

Boom. I was back in my body, shaking my head in amazement. _What the heck just happened? I've never even thought that before and here I was watching myself say it. I love what I just said, but where did that come from?_ I thought.

An angel. I know it sounds crazy, but an angel entered my body and used me to benefit myself, my son, daughters, grandson, and countless others with whom I've shared this experience. It was a normal day and a potentially inconsequential discussion that an angel turned into a life-altering moment. It was the moment I knew I loved unconditionally and the moment my son became self-motivated. His grades went up and he passed high school with virtually no help from me. College was a little harder for him. His grades weren't what he thought they should be considering the amount of effort he put toward them, but his future boss summed it up beautifully when he said, "Brandon, they call someone who passes med school with a 4.0, Doctor. Do you know what they call someone who passes with a 2.5?... Doctor. Once you're out of school, you'll probably never be asked about your grades again. Life grades you on how much you learn, not how much you can memorize."

At 25, my son was promoted to Business Manager of Diagnostic and Professional Services at one of the leading trauma hospitals in the Midwest. Apparently, he learned quite a bit in a short period of time. I'm tremendously proud of him because he's proud of himself, and for that, I'm grateful. I would love him just as much if he lived under a bridge, but I'm not so sure he would.

That's just one example of how angels work. An angel saw an opportunity to influence a moment, maybe forty-five seconds, which will affect the lifetimes of many people. That angel provided us that wisdom, but it was up to us to nurture it and use it.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that all angelic events are acts of kindness or feel-good events. Painful events are life-changing events. If it happened, it happened for a reason, whether we were part of the feel good or painful side of it. We may never know what the reason was, but there's always a reason that's for the benefit of all involved. This is why it's so important to not live in a state of regret.

Angels have mastered the human realm of this universe and become karmic neutral, but they don't understand the way the universe works yet. That's where the Masters come in. They were once humans who achieved karmic neutrality, were once angels who understood unconditional love to the depths of becoming it, and they understand the most unique aspects of this universe in relationship to God. In essence, a Master is the most divine equivalent to God that can take on human form. Masters are previous angels that teach the current angels how the human realm, the angelic realm, and the universe all knit together in relationship to each other. Souls in heaven experience both heaven and earth. Angels experience the angelic realm, heaven and earth, but the Masters can experience any realm, at any time, in any form, for any reason.

Jesus was a Master, Buddha was a Master, and there have been many Masters whose names we'll never know. Masters don't come into the human realm to be glorified or even recognized. Masters come into this dimension as messengers to deliver the simple message that's the key to this universe. Love each other.
11. The Universe

When I think about a perfect god, I have to think B-I-G. This is the god of all things seen and unseen within this universe and beyond, and God's perfection has to include and apply to everything within that realm. If anything within that realm were excluded from God, it would render God incomplete and thus imperfect. Perfection is all encompassing. Meaning: You are part of God, I'm part of God, as are every single person, thing, concept, idea, and experience. They are all part of perfection. If any part of existence wasn't part of God, it would render God incomplete and thus imperfect. That is why it is so important for me to not judge another. By condemning one and raising another in exultation I am both condemning and glorifying the same thing. The man on the throne is no different than the man in the gutter... it is only our opinion of him that makes him different.

I understand the logic behind all of this, but let's face it. This world sucks sometimes. If the world I live in is perfect, I would hate to experience an imperfect world. This makes a lot of sense but no sense at all.

I work by myself, so work is like active meditation for me. One day, while building a deck, I was stopped in my tracks. It suddenly dawned on me. Imperfection in its real form cannot exist within perfection, but the illusion of imperfection _must_ exist within perfection. Without the illusion of imperfection, perfection would be incomplete and thus imperfect.

Perfection is balance and balance is experienced through opposites: in-out, up-down, happiness-sadness, ecstasy-horror, and so on. It's through opposites that I have the opportunity to experience the full spectrum of life. For example, if I'm on the highest part of a Ferris wheel, I don't immediately experience the bottom of it. I experience the entire process of progressing from the highest point to the lowest point and every point in between. Emotional highs and lows are the same way. Life isn't simply black and white. We have the privilege of experiencing every shade of gray in between. Happiness and sadness, life and death, fulfillment and worthlessness all work the same way.

Imperfection is a perception. All I need to do is to change my opinion of something and my whole world changes. All I need to do is change my perspective, outlook, and interpretation of things, and my entire reality changes. By attaching a series of conditions to my happiness, I allow my mind to control me, but when I realize a perfect god has no conditions I have to meet, it grants me the freedom to be whomever I choose to be.

If I believe in a perfect god, it means I'm perfect and you're perfect. It means sin and hell can't exist. It means everything from this point forward will be different than anything I had ever been taught. But, something about that didn't feel right.

I felt like I was on to something, but I knew there was so much more.

There's a park near the river where I go occasionally to meditate and write. I sat in that dark green chair, high on the hill, facing the gently flowing river. The autumn sun was warm on my face as I closed my eyes and tried to envision God's relationship to those of us on earth. I envisioned God as this tremendously bright source of light. The light rays were shaped like a huge pyramid originating at God as the peak of the pyramid, radiating downward in an ever-widening base that eventually enveloped the earth at the bottom. Humanity was at the base and God was at the peak. A little voice in my head asked me, "If God is the light, what is everything else?" "Oh my God— God is everything else. God is the darkness that makes the light apparent. God is the void, God is the nothingness that everything else originates from." I said to myself. I felt a simple smile and warmth in my chest. I knew I was headed in the right direction.

It's where nothing exists that we have the liberty of experiencing anything we desire to experience. It's where we have the freedom to create anything we can imagine, where there's consistent and perfect order. If I close my eyes and pay attention to the blackness, I can imagine anything I desire emerging out of the blackness. If I close my eyes and imagine the chaos where everything exists, I have a hard time finding anything. Once again, I really felt I was on to something but there was still quite a bit missing because obviously things exist. All I have to do is to reach out my hand and touch something or open my eyes to prove to myself things exist.

I got to a point where I felt stuck. I have some of my best meditations in the bathtub, including the one I had with Jesus, so I reached out to Him again. "You shared with me what your life was about, but now I'm curious about this universe. How does all of this really work and what is this all about?"

Once again, He did not disappoint.

According to Jesus, we live in The Universe of the Illusion of Separateness. An illusion is something that appears real but isn't. Most of us participating in the Universe of the Illusion of Separateness believe the illusion is real because what we define as our reality is actually the illusion. It's comparable to going into a movie theater and becoming so engrossed in the movie that we define our reality as what's on the screen. I have been in movie theaters, watching an awesome movie and I felt like I was part of the environment on the screen. I felt a strange sensation when the movie came to an end and the lights came on. It took me a while to acclimate myself back into the "real world" as I walked down the hall to exit the theater. All that happened within a couple of hours.

This entire universe, from the smallest atom to the largest galaxy, is designed to support the concept that we're separate from God. The number of grains of sand on a beach, leaves in a forest, blades of grass in the lawn, threads in a shirt, and stars in the sky. All of these appear separate from each other in order to support the concept that we're separate from God. This entire concept is simply an illusion because being separate from God is a literal impossibility. If we were actually separate from God, it would render God imperfect. If we thought we were separate from God but actually weren't, God would remain perfect even though we would experience ourselves as being separate from God.

This is an energy universe that works in a constant state of balance, which means for every answer a new question is created. For every high, there's a low. For every in, there's an out, and so on. This constant state of balance provides the backdrop of how we experience what we consider to be reality. For example, black makes white apparent and white makes black apparent. High makes low apparent and a low makes high apparent. The advantage of this process is that we don't simply experience high then low. We experience every distinct level in between high and low. We don't simply experience white and black. We can experience every shade of gray between the two. Opposites are the enabling factors for our universal experience.

There's pain in order for us to experience pleasure. For every level of pleasure we experience in our lives, there will be an equally opposite level of pain in our lives. That doesn't necessarily mean one joyous experience will be followed by an equally painful experience, but throughout our lives, there will be a consistent balance. The quality of our lives is determined by what we pay attention to. If we're consistently focused on the pain, we'll experience a painful life. Our life will be filled with no more pain than somebody who lives an extremely joyous life. It will just seem that way because the pain is what we pay most attention to, so we don't notice the pleasure. The exact opposite holds true. If we focus on the joy and happiness that appears in our lives, we'll live a joyful and happy life. Our life will be filled with just as many painful experiences as someone who defines his or her life as being painful, but we won't notice much of the pain because we won't pay attention to it. Sometimes, an event is so painful we have to notice it, but we don't have to dwell on it.

What we experience is what we contribute to this universe. People who live a joyous life contribute joy for others to experience. Once again, the importance of loving yourself first becomes apparent. When you love yourself first, you automatically add love to the universe. Unfortunately, most people wait to receive love before they give love. The problem with that scenario is there's a tremendous lack of universal love to experience. When people wait to experience love through others, they're not investing love into the universe, so the world is full of people _waiting_ to receive love instead of experiencing love by offering love. Since we heal karma by experiencing love, there's little karma being healed resulting in fewer and fewer souls being able to step out of the reincarnation cycle.

Science has proven everything within this universe is energy and since the universe is experienced through opposites the absence of energy must exist. Science proves the absence of energy every time it proves energy exists because one provides the contrasting component of the other.

So, the Universe of the Illusion of Separateness is experienced through the convergence of energy, which is tangible and can be proven, and non-energy, which is intangible and cannot be proven. We all know what energy is, but what is non-energy? Non-energy is the darkness that makes the light apparent. It's the void, the nothingness from which everything else originates. Non-energy is what God is. God enables this universe to exist, not by being an energy component of it but by being the non-energy component that makes all energy apparent.

If our bodies are energy, but God is non-energy, then God is, what we're not. But doesn't that contradict the concept that if God is perfect, we must be an equally perfect part of God? On the contrary, our body is energy, which is imperfect and part of the illusion, but our soul is the perfect non-energy part of God, which is love. That creates our ongoing dilemma. We experience what God is (love), through what God is not (our body), while immersed in an experience that our mind interprets as being real, which is actually just an illusion.

The Universe of the Illusion of Separateness is an energy universe, which has a survival mechanism that allows it to change forms but never go away. This survival mechanism is called distracting energy. It's what this universe uses to distract us from our soul's preferred path, because as long as we're not on our soul's preferred path, there's purpose for the illusion of being separate from God and the Universe of the Illusion of Separateness keeps itself alive.

The human being is not extra special. It just happens to have the most advanced mind in this realm right now, which is why the soul has chosen to use the human body as the vessel for the soul. If human beings end up exterminating themselves, the soul will inhabit the containers of the next most intelligent animals on the planet. If or when that happens, which seems more likely every day, the chosen animal will experience the physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of love in order for the soul to continue on its journey toward karmic neutrality.

Satan, the devil, and evil are common names for distracting energy which is perceived as the opposition to God, but God has no direct opposition. Distracting energy could be construed as being opposition to God, but opposing God isn't the intent. It's a survival mechanism. God cannot have anything outside of God in real form or God would be incomplete and thus imperfect. This seems to verify the _illusion_ of separateness because within an illusion things seem to be how they're not. The devil and evil are presented as being bad and causing bad and painful occurrences. As we had discussed before, pain isn't always a bad thing, but what feels good isn't always a good thing either. Distracting energy will often present itself as something that feels good, and when something feels good, it causes us to want to stay in that feel-good place regardless of whether we're on our soul's preferred path or not.

A perfect example is the popularity of metaphysical teachers promoting their concept as being spiritual. The true secret about _The Secret_ is that it's not a secret whatsoever. _The Secret_ is metaphysics and has nothing to do with spirituality or God. Metaphysical manifestation is man finally realizing how to manipulate the energy universe in which we live.

Any concept that promotes "this is what God wants for you" has good intent but little wisdom. If God wanted me to be happy, it would authenticate in the divine realm that my unhappiness exists in real form, but the truth is unhappiness only exists in my mind. Happiness is a voluntary choice. If I consider myself to be unhappy and pray to God to grant me happiness, and then envision God granting me happiness, I will experience happiness. It wasn't God that granted me happiness. It was me. I envisioned happiness and let go of the concept that I was unhappy. I created that happiness in my own mind when I perceived myself accepting it from another source. I said a prayer for something to come my way that I didn't feel I had the capability of providing to myself. All the prayer gave me was the personal strength to change my mind. When I change my mind, I change my life.

Metaphysics works. The concepts in _The Secret_ work. The power of intention and the law of attraction work. These things all have to do with manipulating energy. Anything that has to do with energy, or manipulating energy, is simply another form of energy.

Metaphysics is living the life of our mind's preference, which is full of external gratifications, whereas living the life of our soul's preference is full of internal gratifications. Metaphysics promotes the concept that we need experiences outside of ourselves in order to experience a more fulfilled life. This is the epitome of distracting energy. This perception of external fulfillment, for an internal void, perpetuates itself throughout the entire lifetime.

The mind produces energy, which reacts to other energy. Some of these metaphysical approaches give the impression that we can just sit on our couch and draw awesome experiences to us. In actuality, if all we do is sit on our couch, all we'll experience is the attempt to draw awesome experiences to us. We'll never actually experience the awesome experiences.

Metaphysics doesn't work that way. Instead of drawing experiences to us, we subconsciously start to move toward those awesome experiences. By consistently focusing attention on a preferred experience, we import that preferred experience into our subconscious mind. Once there, our mind takes steps in life toward fulfilling that mental vision without consciously realizing it. We're not drawing that experience closer. We're being drawn toward that experience by systematically creating mini events that lead us to the grand event.

Once we start to incorporate this technique into our life and experience the personal pride of accomplishment, we become attached to the power of the mind. This sense of euphoria is heightened even more with status and the envy of others for our accomplishments. The key to the success of metaphysics is to feel we deserve the experience we're striving to acquire.

Shortly after we attain a goal, distracting energy will convince us to focus on a new goal. While there's a sense of satisfaction to reaching each goal, it's short-lived. The mind is so powerful that the human experience can never satisfy it, which means the mind is always in a state of lack with this approach. When we experience life from a state of lack, no matter how much we have, it'll never be enough. But, when we experience life from a state of enough, no matter how little we have, it'll always be enough.

If you want to surround yourself with more stuff, this is the way to do it. But, in the still of the night, when it's dark and you're all alone, ask yourself how much more stuff it's going to take to fill the internal void that gets bigger with each external accomplishment.

The fact that I'm proposing this universe to be an illusion doesn't change our reality, nor does it change the way we go about our daily lives. The only way our reality will change is by definition. Our "reality" is actually just an illusion called The Universe of the Illusion of Separateness. It's designed to support the concept we're separate from God, which we cannot be, if God is perfect.

This all sounds like a bunch of sci-fi, make-believe stuff, but there are current scientific experiments going on at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory just outside Chicago, Illinois called the Holometer Experiment, which "aim to determine whether our perception of a three-dimensional universe is just an illusion." Obviously, this experiment doesn't involve the "God" thesis, but the illusionary universe isn't as far-fetched as it may seem.

We have to be willing to realize that the experience of this universe isn't strictly about humanity and the human form. This universe is about all forms. All forms of energy that exist within this realm experience God in some way or another. They must experience God because God is the non-energy that makes energy apparent. If something is apparent in the energy universe that we live in, it must be experiencing the non-energy component of God or it could not become apparent. That's why it's so important to respect all things. The soil is just as important as the flower. The flower is just as important as the weed. The weed is just as important as the tree, and the tree is just as important as me. We're not superior. We don't dictate to the universe. We're part of the perfect synchronicity of the universe not superior to it. The fact that we subscribe to the concept of superiority is the primary cause for most transgressions against others, against the earth, and against other creatures of the earth. Transgressions aren't committed by an advanced society. Transgressions are committed by a desperate society.

We're becoming more and more dependent on oil, electricity, the Internet, cell phones, grocery stores, and the government itself. There's nothing advanced about dependency. It causes weakness that perpetuates more weakness. The dependent never become strong. They are the weak who think they're strong, because they accepted what the independent have convinced them they needed.

We're all dependent in one way or another. That's the animal side of us. We all have the potential to be so much more advanced if we embrace our soul more often. We embrace our soul when we embrace our feelings and attain a higher level of consciousness. When we're there, we tend to have more joyous, ethereal, out-of-body experiences. THIS is advancement.

So what? What good does this awareness do me? The awareness of how the universe works allows us the opportunity to participate more comfortably within it. By realizing we're not separate from God, or each other, we have the opportunity to take a much more loving and relaxed approach to life and each other. When we perceive our world differently, we love differently, and it's pretty obvious the way we love each other needs to change.

The key to this universe is to love each other "as I have loved you", which is unconditionally. Love with conditions is just barter, and barter has nothing to do with love. By unconditionally loving each other, we automatically heal karmic debt and we can step out of the cycle of reincarnation and into the angelic realm. As angels, we can help others on their path toward karmic neutrality, and the pace of souls stepping out of the reincarnation cycle grows exponentially, thus creating more angels. More angels develop into Masters and more Masters develop more angels into Masters. Once all souls are Masters, there's no need for the Universe of the Illusion of Separateness, and it all starts right here with me and you. We must love ourselves first before we can love another, and when we love others, we heal karmic debt thus starting the whole cycle. Nothing else we do matters.

I have heard "time" explained as if everything that we experience has already been predetermined, and we're just selecting which option we desire to currently experience, very similar to a computer game. We can play a computer game and it gives us the impression we're actually creating the events on the computer screen right at that moment, but in actuality, we're not creating anything. All of those events were already created by someone else and written on the disk. We're just choosing which sequence we would like to experience those events in.

The problem with this concept is that it means there's no such thing as creation. If we cannot create, it means there was intended purpose to every experience within this universe. An intended purpose is indication of a desired result, and a desired result is a condition. If there's a desired result for our life experience, it means God is conditional. If God is conditional, God is imperfect.

If we had a computer disk with everything on it, everything is a finite number. It means all that could exist would be limited to what's on that computer disk. It's only where nothing exists that anything we desire to experience can be experienced. Creation is limitless where nothing exists. That's what was meant by, "Seek and ye shall find." Where nothing actually exists, we can find anything we seek. It's only through an unconditional God that we would have the free will to seek whatever it is we desire.

Free will seems to be that wildcard that gets played every time a person doesn't know how to reply to an uncomfortable question about their beliefs. "Because man has free will" is often the answer to everything from heaven to hell and everything in between. Free will is man's ability to make a choice and act on that choice, regardless of whether that choice will be a benefit to anyone else or not. But, free will isn't just about man. Did you ever see a butterfly, or a bird without the freedom to do whatever it wanted to do? A cat, giraffe, and an ant have free will. Dogs _definitely_ have free will. Free will is the ability to make a decision and act on it without God limiting our ability to do so. Limitations are conditions and conditions aren't unconditional.

Free will isn't the ability to choose good over evil. Free will isn't the ability to turn toward or away from God, because if God is perfect, God is everywhere we turn. Free will is a freedom of choice without punishment. That's the free aspect of free will. If the exercise of free will results in any penalty or repercussion for using free will, regardless of the decision, free will isn't free at all. It's simply will. If God punishes us for any reason, free will ceases to exist.

What seems to seldom be taken into consideration is why free will exists in the first place. If I believe God is the Creator, it means God would have created free will. But, every rule, sin, and regulation God theoretically imposed on mankind would be a limitation to the free will man was granted to begin with. Why would a creator make beings with free will and then command them not to use it? Why would a creator then punish those same beings for not obeying its commands which the creator could have removed as an option? If mankind didn't have free will, the earth would actually be the Garden of Eden we were taught about, where God theoretically placed Adam and Eve in the first place. If we're able to frustrate God or withhold something God supposedly wants, doesn't that make us more powerful than the god we're taught about? If God is the creator and God loves us, why would God create us with a component that's not just the source of our pain and suffering but also the source of God's frustration with us? Why is free will even a part of the human experience? If God is the Creator, God didn't have to include this in the universal design unless... free will _had_ to be included in the universal design.
12. The Creator

Free will _had_ to be included in the universal design because if we live in the Universe of the Illusion of Separateness, it's in an illusion that anything can happen. If our ability to experience anything was limited or restricted in any way, it would change the illusion into a divine reality. If that were the case, it would authenticate that God had a preference and that something exists outside of God, which, in either case, would render God imperfect. Free will is also the validation of a perfect, unconditional god that wants and needs nothing. The idea of a perfect god, an illusionary universe, and free will all seem to be perfectly complimentary, but what about God as the Creator? Does that fit, too?

God being the Creator is probably the most widely accepted single belief about God in all of humanity because of how beautifully the complexity of everything in this universe complements each other.

I just can't believe God would want this world to be the way it is. I mean, if God was the Creator, we have to place the full responsibility for everything onto God—not just the good stuff. If God was the Creator, God is also responsible for the concepts of greed, war, abuse, rape, murder, torture, and brutality. God would be responsible for sickness, death, depression, homelessness, starvation, and the concepts of irrelevance, lying, cheating, manipulation, and malnutrition. God would be responsible for predators, fear, freezes, fires, floods, and earthquakes. If there was a creator all of this would have had to have been created so it could have been an option of choice. All of this stuff doesn't just appear out of nowhere.

There's nothing about any of this that seems perfect nor is it very loving. Something tells me that a loving God didn't intend for a person in a Mercedes to be able to drive past the homeless body lying dead in the gutter from starvation... and to not even slow down. Granted, there are plenty of great things about the human experience and the way the earth works. But, if we consider God as the Creator, we can't just give God credit for the great things, blame the human atrocities on the "free will" of man, and write off the devastation of natural occurrences as just the way it works. If God is the Creator, it works the way it works because it was intended to work that way. If this universe was intentionally designed to be the way it is, I'm completely wrong about everything I believe in. While this is a possibility, I don't think I'm wrong in believing in a perfect God.

The concept of free will is often referred to when people choose atrocities toward other people. If God is the Creator, free will didn't have to exist. It's not like we would have missed something if we never knew it was possible. Is it not also a possibility that God could have eliminated the concepts of abuse, pain, and degradation of every kind from the concept of free will, so choosing them wasn't an option?

It's ironic that organized religion recognizes God as the Creator of one man and one woman, which obviously would have required future incest to perpetuate the species, and then recognizes incest as a grave disorder. God theoretically condemns that same man and woman into "original sin" for exercising the free will they didn't need in the first place. As far as the story of Adam and Eve goes, If God is the Creator of all things it means God didn't just create Adam and Eve but God must have created the tree, the fruit, the rule, the temptation, the decision to indulge in the fruit, the serpent, the punishment, etc. If God is the Creator, no option of choice can exist without having been created to choose between. That's why the concept of sin makes no sense to me. If God is the Creator and sin exists, why did God create whatever is considered sinful? The popular response is, "to test man." Well, keep in mind that God theoretically created man, too, so what could man possibly be capable of that God didn't include in man from the start?

If God was the Creator, it means that God created Satan directly, created the concept of "falling from grace" that allowed Satan the opportunity to actually become Satan, allowed "falling from grace" to happen, or God inspired humans to fabricate Satan so they didn't have to blame God for all of the stuff they proclaim God doesn't approve of.

If God had a preference for something not happening, like Adam and Eve not eating from a particular tree, do you not think God could prevent it from happening? If anybody can cause something to happen that God preferred not to happen, it means any one of us is more powerful than God. If God had the preference of an event not happening, do you believe God couldn't stop that event?

Creating is a process of bringing forth something that has never existed before. When creating, a creator selects components to include into its creation. Just a simple selection process produces imperfection because not all components are included in all things. For example, there are certain components that make up a giraffe, and there are other distinct components that make up an elephant. It's impossible for either the giraffe or the elephant to be perfect because the elephant doesn't include all of the components as the giraffe, and the giraffe doesn't include all of the components of an elephant. A perfect giraffe is simply a giraffe that fulfills all of the qualifications determined by a human or humans as to what a perfect giraffe would consist of.

We have to ask ourselves, for what reason would God create? If God is perfect, God needs nothing, wants nothing, and desires nothing. If God is perfect, God wouldn't need anything outside of God in order to experience God.

Perfection cannot create imperfection or it would render all of perfection imperfect. For example, a perfect factory makes perfect plates. If suddenly there is an imperfect plate it means the entire factory is imperfect because it has problems in it that created a plate that was imperfect. God is no different. If something is credited to a perfect creator it must be perfect by default. If it is considered imperfect there is no way it originated from perfection.

The entire universe is in a constant state of change, but change is the primary indicator of the lack of perfection. Anything that changes is an imperfect component in an imperfect environment. So, the simple fact we're in an ever-changing universe tells me there's no way a perfect god created it. On the other hand, if God permitted the Universe of the Illusion of Separateness to form, the universe would be in a constant state of flux, because an illusion is unstable and can contain anything within it—none of it actually being real.

The universe is the way it is because this is what energy does. It moves, shifts, attaches, detaches, forms random things for random reasons, creates life and ends life for no reason other than because that is what it does. This is how the universe keeps itself alive.

Every living component within this universe creates what it desires. We call that evolution. On a more specific human application, we call it metaphysics. We create reality with our thoughts.

Energy impulses (thoughts) from energy participants within this universe creates evolution. For example, a hummingbird has distinct capabilities that most other birds don't have. These specific characteristics have been developed over thousands of years of evolution. Let's hypothetically imagine hummingbirds originally having the current capabilities of a yellow finch—relatively small in size, short bill, and normal flight capabilities. A group of these finches end up in an environment where the temperature is suited for them and they're comfortable. This particular environment has many nectar sources like flowers, flowering trees, and so on, but very few seeds small enough for them to eat. They have enough food to get by on an annual basis, but there's more potential food in the flower blossoms and nectar plants, so they feed on them. Most of the nectar is deep within the flower and they have to destroy the flower to get to the nectar because of their short beak. They think about having longer beaks and longer tongues. The universe responds to their thoughts, creating longer beaks and tongues for them, but this takes time. Their minds are so tiny that their thought impulses are energetically weak, so it takes tens of thousands of years of these thoughts to modify their beaks. As their beaks start to modify, they realize this would be a whole lot easier if they could flap their wings fast enough to hover in the air and think about that. So, the universe gradually modifies the rate their wings beat. Eventually, these birds change into what we currently call hummingbirds, which I would say are still in a consistent state of evolution.

As the birds change, the flowers also change, which causes a chain reaction with the plants and trees changing as well. We know that science has proven dinosaurs have turned into birds. There has to be specific reasoning behind each miniscule change that turns one of the largest land animals into one of the smallest animals that spends very little time on land.

There is a distinct beauty about this constant state of change and the ebb and flow of life, but there's nothing perfect about it. As a matter of fact, it's the epitome of imperfection, but there's a beauty in the perfection of its imperfection. Perfection is a constant. So, since all things are in a constant state of change, God is either not perfect or not the Creator.

If God is indeed perfect and is not the creator, where did this place, this universe come from? What role does God play in this whole equation?

God is the great enabler. God enabled this universe to come into being but didn't create the universe. The Universe of the Illusion of Separateness is random energy chaos that settled into patterns allowing creation to take place. The entire universe is the result of a perfect god being perfect by allowing an environment to seem to exist separate from God. This place is made from energy, which is that which God is not. In order for God to be perfect, the illusion of being separate from God must exist while the reality of being separate from God must not exist.

So what is it in this universe that is the non-energy component of this universe that makes the energy components apparent? LOVE. Love isn't energy. Love can be experienced through an energetic response, but love itself isn't energy. Love is what's there before the experience, before the physical repercussions, before the heart beats fast, before the face gets flushed, and before that warm feeling in the middle of your chest. Love is what's there _to_ experience before it's experienced. When we experience love, we experience God.

The reason we have such a hard time understanding all of this is because when we merge the experience of what God is into the experience of what God is not. So many possibilities present themselves that it's hard to differentiate between what's real and what's the illusion. The ultimate irony is that if God is perfect, what we define as real (energy) is actually the illusion, and what we would define as an illusion (the absence of energy) is actually real. When we take the black of what God is and experience it through the white of what God is not, we end up with unlimited shades of gray.
13. Conclusion

Life is simply a series of events and how we choose to perceive them. This book is a perfect indication of that. I was originally taught the same perspectives that most Catholics were taught. When those perspectives didn't make sense to me, I chose to look at them differently. I chose to use the foundation of what made sense and build on top of that. The writings in this book reflect what was built.

My real hope and goal is to inspire people to question their beliefs. It is important to question our beliefs in order to actually believe them. If we don't question what we claim to believe there is no way to understand it and if we don't understand it there is no way to actually believe it, we simply proclaim it. We can proclaim allegiance to anything but a blind allegiance is not beneficial to anyone.

There are plenty of people who believe in something with different characteristics and a different name. I respect that and don't mean to imply anyone's beliefs are wrong simply because I don't share them. Question your beliefs in order to solidify, modify, or surrender them altogether. Whatever belief system results from a thorough personal analysis is truly a belief system. If your belief system is one where you dismiss the notion of a finger pointing man on a cloud somewhere but accept that there's something bigger than ourselves out there, so do I. I happen to call my "bigger thing out there" God.

Look at what humanity justifies doing to each other. We've got to do something different. There are so many of us who just allow ourselves to be led blindly through life. Please take some time to invest in meditation or deep thought. Invest in yourself. Get to know yourself. Learn to love yourself. Learn what it is you think you believe and then question it so you can understand it. If it doesn't make sense to you continue to question it until it does. Abandon the parts of it that don't fit because it is _your_ belief system. Accepting someone else's belief system, including the one presented here, without a clear understanding and your total agreement is not living your truth, it is living your lie. When your spiritual beliefs become clear to you, your life's purpose becomes much clearer, too.

The purpose of all life is to know love but this cannot be accomplished without knowing and loving yourself first. When you offer love to another you are offering love of self and it is impossible to offer what we don't have. Emotional barter is not love. Love is simply kindness defined as love and kindness is love experienced. I assure you, your life's purpose will be revealed once you know and love yourself.

Do not make the mistake of pampering yourself to find your life's purpose, it doesn't work that way. Pamper and be kind to yourself for no other reason than to know and love yourself. Once you are consistently kind to yourself and enjoy yourself you will automatically be drawn to things you haven't experienced before. Gradually a pattern will emerge and you will notice you are much happier and peaceful while doing a certain something. That is your life's purpose. Be careful to not immerse yourself so completely in that passion you forget to be kind to yourself or it will throw you right back into stress and anxiety. Do not be disappointed if that purpose is different next month, next year, or ten years from now. Life is ever changing and so are our passions.

The reason I had to invest the past ten years of my life into this process of personal spiritual clarity is because I blindly accepted so much of what I was told. Please don't make the same mistake with this book. The opinions in this book are my own and are presented as accurate and true because they are to me. They make sense and knit together but my opinions don't have to be your opinions, and I would prefer they didn't become your opinions simply because you have read them here. If anything I've written here resonates with you, I urge you to think about it, pray about it, research it, verify it, and meditate on it before you accept it as your truth. My hope is to share my processes and conclusions as evidence there are different ways to perceive things to jump-start your opportunity and freedom to connect with what resonates in your heart.

Our beliefs are voluntary. To some degree they were imposed upon us as youth but, as the ability to reason is developed within us so is our freedom from imposed belief. What we are told God is, has to match the qualities we are told God has, did, didn't do, wants and doesn't want. If things don't match up we are being misled.

If God is imperfect this book is irrelevant. It is based solely on a perfect god. But, if God is imperfect, anything goes. Imperfection can support any claim, anywhere, at any time and if there isn't support, something can just be made up because imperfection is never true. As soon as one falsehood is attached to the truth it makes everything following it false.

Faith is considered belief that is not based on proof(45) but if I am going to claim something is real the faith aspect is short-lived. I can have faith God exists because there is no tangible proof God exists but if I proclaim God is perfect God must fit all of the aspects of perfection. Perfection is a constant state. It is, always was, and always will be perfect just as the truth is perfect and love is perfect. To take us all of the way back to the beginning of this book, God is defined as _truth itself_ and _love itself_.

A god that is love eliminates the concepts of sin, hell, eternal damnation, judgment day, and the need for baptism, confession, and penance. The Bible becomes a book of literature, the Ten Commandments, the ark, the Ark of the Covenant and religion become a thing of the past with a god that is truth. And, a perfect God could not have been the creator of an imperfect universe. A God that is truth and love is a perfect god that wants nothing and needs nothing.

This is all so new and different from anything I have been exposed to it actually scares me sometimes. Where do I go from here? I don't have a father in the sky that is going to punish me for what I do wrong and reward me for my rights. Heck, there aren't even any wrongs or rights. This is a self-governing system which is exactly what free will is. The fact this compliments free will is authentication of compatibility of concepts where-as the punishment of sin, hell, and eternal damnation is the removal of free will and lacks compatibility. The truth is always compatible with the truth.

The truth isn't always comfortable though, especially when we are presented it for the first time. We find comfort in what we know and we know what we have been exposed to. It was more important to me to find the truth and then get comfortable with it than to live in a system I knew was a lie.

The statement, "everything happens for a reason" is accurate, but the reason is determined by our souls preferred path not by some plan God has. If God is perfect God cannot have a plan. When we make decisions following our mind, we're choosing a certain path. When we follow our heart, we're taking a different path. When we combine our heart and our mind, we're on yet a different path. The reason things happen is because of the path we choose to follow.

When our life is relatively stress free it is an indication our mind and soul are on complimentary paths. Visualize your hands outstretched palms facing each other. A single rubber-band hangs loosely around the wrists. Move the right hand forward a couple of inches, then the left hand a couple of inches in front of the right. The rubber-band builds a small bit of stress towards the end of each movement but, as long as both hands are on separate but parallel paths the stress is minimal. Now take your right hand and gradually move it to the right and the left hand towards the left. The hands are now moving in separate directions. What is happening to the rubber-band? It is becoming tighter, more stressed, and life is becoming much more uncomfortable. As with the rubber-band, stress, frustration, and anxiety are indicators our soul and our mind are not on parallel paths.

One of the biggest causes of frustration and anxiety in our life is disappointment. Disappointment is caused by unfulfilled expectations so if we reduce the level or quantity of personal expectations we immediately reduce our stress level. If we limit or eliminate the expectations we have of others we reduce it even more. And if we meditate, exercise, and self-pamper we are even less stressed. When we take care of ourselves we love ourselves and the souls preferred path is always love.

Sometimes, our angels need to send us experiences in order to substantially alter the direction of our lives. This isn't always an indication we are on the wrong path, sometimes we have just outgrown the path we are on. If drastic changes to our life are necessary we will go through difficult times. That is why life changing events happen–to change the direction of our lives. While we don't often get to choose the events of our lives, we have almost always chosen the reason for them.

In difficult times we often turn to spirituality because we feel lost. The good news is that when we start to invest in our spiritual perspectives, it's an indication that we're found not lost. The lost are the ones who never bother to question where they are. The fact that you were led to this book and exposed to these perspectives is an indication you found and value yourself.

Life is about the journey. It's about the process of finding. When we believe we have found, we cease searching, and we stop finding. We find by questioning.

We are not the only ones that need to question what we claim to believe. Our organized religions must analyze what it is they're preaching as well. What they're claiming as the truth is impossible to be true. Society is much more informed and more intelligent than it has ever been. Whether early religions intentionally misled or not, I have no idea. The fact is, current religions are still misleading and many of their constituents are now smart enough to realize it.

There's great value in organized religion, but the days of leading through fear of God are over. A perfect God cannot be the god of fear depicted throughout the Old Testament and suddenly become a loving god in the New because perfection never changes. An intelligent society asks questions and it doesn't take many questions before becoming aware that the answers provided don't fit with the asserted proclamations. People need and deserve to be informed of the truth of a perfect, loving god that gives them a sanctuary of embrace regardless of the decisions they justify making.

I believe the first organized religion that takes the initiative to look at its teachings, admit they were wrong and promote the characteristics of a perfect, loving god instead of a needy, judgmental, vindictive god they just label as perfect will quickly become the largest and most successful religion in the world. People flock to independent churches looking for a message that makes sense and a loving god that will send people to hell for not worshiping it does not make sense.

Our spiritual beliefs are the core of who we really are. They determine how we interact with each other as we move throughout each day. If we're not willing to admit we may be wrong it is virtually guaranteed that we are.

This universe is complex beyond our wildest imagination because where nothing exists anything can exist. And where anything exists everything must co-exist. While this universe is mind-boggling in its complexities the solution to it is equally unbelievable in its simplicity—to be kind to each other.

Even if I'm wrong about everything else I have written, I know this fact to be true; Love feels good. It feels good giving it and it feels good receiving it. Kindness is love experienced and the more kindness we give away the more kindness we receive as a reaction to our kindness. It doesn't happen every time but it happens most of the time. Please try it. Try it for a day and pay attention to the response of each effort. That evening reflect on the day and how you feel about _you_. They are part of your past and your past only exists in your mind, but you are your future. This is the beginning of loving yourself. You are not a sinner, you are not a bad person, you are a person that justified every action you ever took. Those actions provided you awareness of what you wanted and didn't want to do again. To wish them away would be to take away the awesome parts of your personality that resulted from those original decisions. Pay attention to what you like about you and release what you don't. Do things that make you proud of you. Be someone you admire. Loving yourself is not selfishness, it is imperative to your enjoyment of this lifetime. Kindness is the secret to everything and _you_ being kind to _you_ is the beginning of it all.

If we move through life simply accumulating information but do nothing about importing that information into our minds, we end up simply being a library. All of this information is worthless unless we put it to use. If we come across something that makes sense to us we need to try it to prove to ourselves it either works or doesn't. It isn't fair to ourselves to have components of our lives we are dissatisfied with and be unwilling to change them.

Change is growth and growth is seldom comfortable. Just as a butterfly, we're all in various stages of our spiritual metamorphosis, which brings to mind a question I must attribute to Fr. Michael Beatty:

" _How do you describe to a chrysalis,_

who has only known life as a caterpillar,

what their life is going to be like as a butterfly?"

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Resources

1. Pg. 20, God is Truth: Catholic Catechism line #215,

2. Pg. 20, God is Love: Catholic catechism line #221

3. Pg. 28, Perfect: Dictionary.com

4. Pg. 28, Sin: Dictionary.com

5. Pg. 29, Sin: Catholic catechism line #397

6. Pg. 34, Condition: Dictionary.com

7. Pg. 92, Dei-verbum 19

8. Pg. 92, Variants in Manuscripts: Misquoting Jesus, Bart D Ehrman, page 10

9. Pg. 92, 5700 Greek manuscripts: Misquoting Jesus, Bart D. Ehrman, page 88

10. Pg. 92, Scriptuo continua: Misquoting Jesus, Bart D. Ehrman, page 48

11. Pg. 92, Scriptorium: Misquoting Jesus, Bart D. Ehrman, page 73

12. Pg. 93, First New Testament appearance: Misquoting Jesus, Bart D. Ehrman, page 36

13. Pg. 94, Passages added: Misquoting Jesus, Bart D. Ehrman, pages 62-68

14. Pg. 95, Mark as the first gospel: Misquoting Jesus, Bart D. Ehrman, page 212

15. Pg. 95, Mark second century attachment: Wikipedia: Mark 16

16. Pg. 96, Composition of Matthew: Wikipedia: Gospel of Matthew

17. Pg. 96, Composition of Luke: Wikipedia: Gospel of Luke

18. Pg. 97, Carm.org, newadvent.org, and harvardhouse.com

19. Pg. 99, 114, Dei-verbum 16

20. Pg. 99, Original sin: Catholic Catechism line #397

21. Pg. 99, Disordered appetites: Catholic Catechism line #37

22. Pg. 99, Baptism: Catholic Catechism line #1250

23. Pg. 99, Genesis 3:16

24. Pg. 99, Tension, lust, domination, decay: Catholic Catechism line #400

25. Pg. 99, Human misery: Catholic Catechism line #2448

26. Pg. 99, Death: Catholic Catechism line #1018

27. Pg. 100, Transmission of original sin: Catholic Catechism line #404

28. Pg. 100, Genesis 3:3

29. Pg. 100, Genesis 3:4

30. Pg. 104, Accepts Old and New Testaments in their entirety: Catholic Catechism #105

31. Pg. 104, Council of Trent, Decree concerning the Canonical Scriptures, pg. 19

32. Pg. 109, # of deaths in the Bible: (simply Google that phrase) I used this particular source due to the direct verifiable links associated with it  http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2010/04/drunk-with-blood-gods-killings-in-bible.html

33. Pg. 110, Image and likeness of God: Catholic Catechism line #36

34. Pg. 112, Gospel of Peter: The Apocryphal Gospels p387

35. Pg. 113, Magisterium: Catholic Catechism #100

36. Pg. 113, Council of Trent, Decree concerning the edition and use of the Sacred Books, para. 2

37. Pg. 114, Biblical inspiration conclusion: Misquoting Jesus, Bart D. Ehrman, page 211

38. Pg. 131, John 13:23, 19:26, 20:2, 21:7, and 21:20

39. Pg. 132, Christian: Dictionary.com

40. Pg. 132, 1Cor 6:9, 1Tim 1:10, Romans 1:27

41. Pg. 132, Rom1:1, 2 Cor. 1:1, Eph. 1:1, Col. 1:1, 2Tim 1:1

42. Pg. 132, Footnote #3 in the English version of the Catholic online "New American Bible, 1 Corinthians, chapter 6"

43. Pg. 133, Code of Cannon Law #1084

44. Pg. 133, Code of Cannon Law #1096

45. Pg. 200, Faith: Dictionary.com

About the Author

Ron Roell has always been an artist. He just worked in a different medium than most. In order to effectively design his remodeling projects he had to reverse engineer what was already there to understand it. He always started with the foundation. If the foundation was damaged or weak, everything on top of it would be, too. He carries that same mind-set into many aspects of his life, including his religious teachings. When much of what he was taught didn't make sense he knew he had to start at the beginning to see where the problems began.

When the direction of his spiritual quest intrigued him more than the challenges of the remodeling business, he knew his life was in for major changes. He was inspired to write a spiritual book, but he wasn't aware that a lot of the material would be provided through the trials and tribulations of the decade that followed.

In early 2014, with manuscript in hand and his kids comfortably on their own, he sold or gave away everything he owned, except the tools that could fit in his eighteen-year-old pickup truck, a garbage bag full of clothes, and the items his children had made for him over the years. He moved to Cleveland, Ohio, to share his heart with the woman who somehow had its combination.

Ron lives his life in a state of transparency. His writing style and content reflect that. He openly shares his hardships with the hope people might benefit from his interpretations as they go through their own. He provides honest answers to some of the disparities between what religions say and what they teach because if what we believe does not make sense it is literally non sense.

Religion and God are two separate things. Abandoning one drew him closer to the other.

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