Disclaimer:
If you are religious, stop here, close the window and move on. If you’re more spiritual than religious then maybe you can handle what I have to say. If you are religious and you chose to continue, please do not create conflict by trying to make me believe in your “truths”. I try to repeat the words “I believe” a heck of a lot throughout the blog in full disclosure and admittance that this is my opinion and that I am not trying to state facts that my beliefs need to be believed by you. I write mainly to process my thoughts and most of it I write for when the day my children have thoughts as such they can see my side even if I no longer am around. With that said, I surely hope you think the blog is thought provoking and that they make you think a bit.
Once upon a time I believed wholeheartedly that the Bible was not only the direct word of God but the only communication that God left all us humans.
Once upon a time I thought I would be stricken from the acceptance of heaven if I ever allowed myself to think any other way.
Once upon a time I believed the Bible was the first book ever written, I mean it does talk about the beginning in the garden of Eden.
Once upon a time I was told listening to Buddha and any other divine teachers was equivalent to listening to the devil himself.
Once upon a time I believed heaven and hell were actual places one would go after one dies.
Once upon a time I believed that only through the name of Jesus would I be allowed in the kingdom of God.
Once upon a time I believed that I was born broken; a born sinner, a defective product of God.
Now, I feel and believe differently.
At some point in my life I began to feel like much of the information which was regurgitated through time was fear based meant to control human beings and to scare us to do as authority said we should or else we would be damned for eternity, burning in hell no less. Reading actually helped me realize that it is ok to question these things. I remember reading a book called Angels and Demons which although a fictional book, it made me think “what if?” for the first time that I can recall.
As I matured a bit, I wondered about the many authors of the bible. I wondered if they meant for their writing to be taken as the verbatim word of God. The authors came from different backgrounds, some were philosophers, some teachers, some story tellers, and all human. The bible wasn’t found in a mountain all completed by God himself. As a matter of fact the bible was put together in about 1,600 years from beginning to end, without including the centuries the initial chapters were only passed on orally. Have you ever whispered a message to a person and had them tell the next? After a few folks, the message isn’t even remotely the same. That’s scary. Obviously I didn’t know these things back then. With the information age and access to infinite information, new information has made me look at things differently. I didn’t even know the difference between the canon, tanakh, ketuvim, septuagint, torah, and the bible. Furthermore, back then I didn’t know that so many books didn’t make the cut into the bible or that the bible had been edited throughout centuries according to different processes including what scholars and religious leaders’ opinions on what it should emphasize, keep, drop, etc. Nevermind that only 3,248 years ago the story of Adam and Eve was created although humans have existed for some 6,000,000 years and even our modem evolved humans have been around for 200,000 years. That is just a lot to put faith in believing.
As I became older and more curious for knowledge, I began to try to find the root cause of words and language in order to better understand things I read. To my surprised I found many books much older than the bible. I don’t think anyone ever hid that or any other information from me, but not a single person in my life had ever mentioned it. Reading some of those ancient texts from ancient India, ancient China, ancient Egypt, and ancient Mesopotamia (Iraq) I found so much wisdom. I also found a ton of similarities that I thought were founded in the bible first. One example was Noah’s ark. I found several stories of massive flood stories way before Noah’s ark with the same exact characteristics, two of each animal, God spoke to the creator of the arks, God(s) destroy the earth but they all had a bit of a plot twist depending on what the lesson was.
I pondered on all that information throughout the years with much guilt and even more doubt. I often wondered if God gave me this brain, the ability to question, the resources to find all this information, then it couldn’t be wrong right? Or am I supposed to hold onto the blind faith of believing in fairy tales, the tooth fairy, and santa forever? I know that sounds almost rude but that’s what was going through my head. So much confusion.
Then I began to dig deeper into the studies of Buddah, Krishna, Zen, Taoism, Hinduism, and so on. I found so many similarities in the ethics, righteousness, and community that Christianity taught. Some of the deepest ones went into detail about not having an idol, a deity, one to worship. Even in the ten commandments the bible says we shouldn’t have any Gods before him, yet according to the new testament we should adopt Jesus as God himself. Many of who we call divine teachers including Jesus and Buddah claim that anyone could do the things they did. In some ways they also admitted that God or atleast the God consciousness and them weren’t separate. I’m absolutely certain that throughout millenia the translation of that has likely been so misinterpreted.
In studying Taoism and Buddhism I got the opportunity to study the middle way, or the middle path. We are all familiar with the ying yang symbol although we probably interpret it a bit differently. Here’s when I delved deeper in the subject of dualism, heaven and hell, God and the devil, etc. I even read many works by some very bright individuals who tried to finally distinguish the definition of good and evil. Nothing was very convincing. In my opinion man (specifically religious leaders) could not explain certain acts in nature so they created the devil to blame that which they couldn’t understand. I think we can relate to the old cartoons with the devil on your right shoulder and the angel on the left one. This idea is more believable than the creation of the devil in my book. Besides, how can we truly discuss live after death when we haven’t been there? I’ve read and heard about seeing the light when some folks claim they have died. I do believe that, although I cannot claim I know what the light actually is. Ironically I’ve only read of one who claimed to go to hell. Definitely not enough of a sample in the 80 – 110 billion folks who have walked this earth.
After a while I began to believe that heaven was made up for a slew of reasons, a prize for surviving a hard life here on earth, a vacation for suffering so much, a certificate of accomplishment for following authorities orders all your life, or maybe just to ease the fear that life as we know it may be all there is.
I go to a Christian church, I agree with a community who tries to do good for others, teaches many great lessons from a historical book full of stories and lessons from a diverse amount of authors who shared a lot of useful wisdom. Do you think I create conflict by sharing the way I feel about much of religion? Absolutely not. I think most of the time conflict is negative. I go, take what is useful and move on. I try to filter the teachings with my personal thoughts to my family to insure they are getting the opportunity to view it all with some different lenses but overall, their choice will be theirs alone and I will respect that. I go to prayer service because I believe in prayer very much in the way I believe in meditation. I attend a men’s group weekly to study the bible. Why not? I get to surround myself with men around my age, all fathers, and all trying to become the best version of themselves through study, action, service, and brotherhood.
My conclusion, I feel very different than i did once upon a time. Then again, aren’t we evolved animals? Shouldn’t we change with time?
Although I study Lao tzu, Jesus, Krishna, and Gautam’s life, I don’t claim a religion, or any ism. I am not agnostic, atheist or any other label.
I am a man who believes God is more a divine consciousness that everything is made of including myself which is always available to me as it is to you at all times rather than a being who sits on a thrown many galaxies away with Jesus to his right and Santa to his left. Again, I know it sounds cynical but it is exactly how I feel.
I am a man that believes that Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Moses and such all retreated to the wilderness before they were considered devine teachers. This tells me that what is important is to build a relationship, be open to a relationship, do whatever you must to have a relationship with the divine consciousness of who we call God. I believe we all have this divine access.
I believe prayer and meditation really work. Although I think we misconstrued the how it works many a times. I believe prayer and meditation is a method to access the God consciousness, express how extremely grateful we are for everything we so often take for granted and when we ask for help, I believe it answers with a plan on how to acquire that which we have asked for. I believe that the more folks vibrate in this energy at the same time in the same place, the more access you are able to acquire.
I believe you and I are absolutely perfect beings. The only imperfections are in our perceptions. I believe if heaven and hell truly exist, here on earth is where they exist in this precise moment if we manifest it. Here’s one of our qualities of us and God not being separate. I can live my daily life as if this is heaven and I get to experience this life as a miracle or I can live my day to day as if this is hell and believe that life is only suffering and that when we die, we finally get to live.
I believe that noise is why we have a connectivity issue with the God consciousness, hence why retreating to the wilderness can become a great way to finally build that relationship. I believe allowing the noise of the world to create a false identity which creates an ego and that enables a sort of never ending chatterbox in our heads. I believe this is why everyone is walking around with headphones or on their phones at all times. The fear of paying attention to so many voices in our heads debilitates us because we don’t know what to do with it.
I believe we can do better. I believe it all starts with taking responsibility for everything in our lifes in order to begin to get to know ourselves and maybe, just maybe we can introduce ourselves to God. I believe if we do the extremely hard work of getting to know who we really are, we’ll get to know first hand why Jesus said in John 10 that he and the father are one. You want to know God? Get to know yourself.
Cheers,
If you know better, do better!
Love y’all
Jimmy Perez 
💯
LikeLiked by 1 person