I Believe

One of my favourite Elvis songs is a song called 'I Believe'.  This song has, of course, been covered by many other artists too, but, as a life-long Elvis fan it's the Presley version that I enjoy the most. The lyrics of the song include the words 'I believe above a storm the smallest prayer can still be heard... I believe that Someone in the Great Somewhere hears every word...'.  It's clear that this uplifting song is a song of worship.  A song that pays reverence to the Creative Intelligence that designed - and now sustains - the entire universe.  I think it's good to believe in such a Creative Intelligence.  I think is important to have faith in a Beneficent Being who exists at a level beyond mortal comprehension.

What do you believe?  Do you believe in a God and/or a Goddess a Creator and/or a Creatrix?  I think this question is the most important question that any person should consider.  How did we get here? How did the Earth come to be?  Was it the result of an unintelligent 'Big Bang' and are we merely the end result of an ongoing process of unintelligent evolution?  Or, is there a Spirit Realm with a Supreme Creative Intelligence at the heart of it which is responsible for the existence of the material world and, ultimately, of you and I?

One of the things I've come to believe is that a lot of what most people believe in a religious context can't be proven.  Most people believe their beliefs as 'acts of faith', a process which could, perhaps, more accurately be described as people being influenced by certain psychological needs which are at work within them that require meaning to be given to their lives and which, as a result, necessitate certain foundations for such meaning-providing-beliefs to be adopted (which systematic religion can provide) which, when inculcated, result in certain degrees of psychological comfort being provided to the adherents because of the relatively simple answers they've been given to help deal with the psychological discomfort caused by the hitherto lack of answers to difficult questions like: Why does God allow evil people to exist, particularly when they do such appalling things to good people?  Systematic religion provides easy answers, such as:

(1) We Can't Know: 'God's ways are higher than our ways, and we cannot understand the Divine Mystery that's at work, so we just have to have faith that everything will work out right in the end', or

(2) Don't Think: 'How dare you question God, you're in danger of damnation. You'd better repent quickly and stop asking questions or it's hellfire and brimstone for you', or

(3) Most People Are Evil And Deserve What They Get: 'Only 'God's True Believers' can expect to be protected from evil, the reason so many people suffer is because they do not worship The True God',

...etc, etc, etc.  Of course, there is an even simpler answer to such simple answers: rubbish!

As I've said and written elsewhere, I don't think any one religion that currently exists nor any 'new age' belief or channelled message, nor, for that matter anything that I've written or said (I'm still searching for answers myself and I make no apology for not 'knowing it all') provides categoric answers that stand up when tested by some very important questions (such as, if an All-powerful God of Love exists why does He allow children to be murdered, women to be raped and men to be sent to war to die in horrible ways, and why did He create such a bloodthirsty way of life for the animal kingdom, where death arrives courtesy of razor-like teeth or needle-like claws?).

This doesn't mean that I don't esteem many of the founders of the so-called Great Religions. In fact I do. From Zoroaster, through to Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Mani, Mohammed, Nanak and saints such as St Joan of Arc, St Therese of Lisieux, Padre Pio, Sai Baba, Dorothy Kerin, and more, I've studied the lives and teachings of them all (and more) and I believe that they were all Divinely Inspired, to varying degrees, and that they were all sincere men and woman: diligently seeking to help make the world a better place, in the contexts of the times and circumstances in which they lived.  But I do have reservations about what a lot of their followers have done (although of course, these Holy people can't be held responsible for what others do). Likewise, some of the so-called channelled messages that I've read about provide good insights into life, new ways of considering things, hope of a better tomorrow...and so on, yet, just as the established religions fail (due to ossification of thinking and rigidity of dogma) to the extent that believing what the religion dictates becomes paramount, even when it flies in the face of the facts, so too some of 'New Age' teachings and some so-called 'channelled' teachings seem clearly to be of human origin (often perhaps with dollar signs and fame as the source of inspiration, rather than, as the root meaning of the word inspiration suggests, being messages sent from Above?).

I've come to the point where I now seek to have no fixed beliefs, I seek to keep an open mind and to be flexible enough, and honest enough with myself and the evidence that exists to change my beliefs when evidence suggests that they are unsustainable.  This hasn't come easy.  I'm now 50 years of age and ever since I was a young boy I've been studying spirituality, the paranormal and religion, along with psychology, hypnosis and human behaviour patterns (using the science of Non Verbal Communication - body language awareness, and Neuro Linguistic Programming, which is also known as NLP).  I've spent a lifetime looking for answers to 'the meaning of life'.  Certainly I've found some, but I haven't discovered them all.  Nor have the spirits with whom I interact from On High chosen to fully explain things to me either.  But, here's what I do know.

(1) No religion which exists (no matter how vociferously some of its members may seek to pretend otherwise, which sadly, often includes using acts of violence against those with whom they disagree, which, using the 'Ye shall know them by their fruits' principle indicates that anyone who resorts to violence to compel - or eradicate - others is bearing hurtful fruits and therefore that they have, by doing so, more in common with evil than with good) is God's unique revelation to humankind.  With the advent of modern textual analysis, cross referencing, historical evidence and depth psychology all religions, I believe, it is now clear, are a combination of historical fact, genuine spiritual experience on behalf of the founder(s); coupled with myth, error and, perhaps worst of all, dogma which personally, I believe, many, if not all of the founders of these religions would be horrified to see having subsequently developed around them. (For example, would Jesus recognise modern Christianity? Would Mohammed see eye-to-eye with Al-Qaeda? In both cases: I think not.)

(2) No channelled message (including my own) represents a superior, or flawless revelation either: and, to any who claim otherwise, I say prove it!  (By the way, regarding channelled messages, I think that all channellers who make public pronouncements should be able to demonstrate the ability to present accurate messages of such a nature as to indicate a strong probability of some form of genuine spirit communication being the source of the information.  For example, they should be able to demonstrate that the beings that they profess to channel can supply them with evidence of the future (such as details of world events, in advance of them happening), and/or psychic/mediumship evidence provided to clients in readings, and/or healings, etc, because, without such evidence there is no substantive reason to accept such channellings as anything other than the product of the human mind. No psychic/medium is 100% accurate all of the time, for example, but they should be able to demonstrate a reasonable array of evidence, on the whole: the same should be true of channellers.)

(3) Modern research on the subject of mediumship, channelling, shamanism, mysticism and psychic development of other kinds indicates that there is a vast body of evidence which supports the hypothesis of survival of the soul, along with reincarnation and the existence of souls of a Higher Order than human beings (we might call them angels, deities and God).

(4) These souls of a Higher Order in various ways and at various times, based on the evidence amassed from the messages presented have sought to encourage humanity to live in a more reverent and more loving way than we currently, collectively, do.

(5) Yet, despite evidence for the existence of these powerful spiritual beings of a Higher Order than ourselves, evil and extreme suffering still co-exist alongside goodness in our world.

(6) This raises the proposition (which I've addressed elsewhere and which, for the reader's ease and continuity of reading, I will address again here): God (if God exists) cannot, surely, be both All-powerful and All-loving, in light of the evil and extreme suffering that is allowed to exist and which is an intrinsic part of the fabric of our world.

This (briefly explained) line of research has led me to understand (if and until evidence suggests otherwise) the following:

(1) A Spirit World exists with whom certain people can communicate (as stated above, science has demonstrated this, along with the evidence presented daily by many mediums and psychics, myself included, which regularly provides support of such in the readings we give to our clients, acquired with the aid of the spirit beings who assist us in doing so).

(2) The material world does not reflect the intrinsic nature of the Higher Spirit Realm (which is Love).

(3) Therefore God cannot be both 'Supreme Love' and 'All-powerful' in the commonly understood sense of the definition of 'All-powerful' (that doesn't stop Him or Her from being the Most Powerful, of course: there is a vast difference in meaning between 'All-powerful' and the 'Most Powerful'), because a Being of both 'Supreme Love' and 'All Power' surely would not allow the kind of cruelties and atrocities that take place to occur.  (Some people suggest that God is both 'All-powerful' and 'Supremely Loving' and that it is because our human minds simply cannot fathom the reason why an All-Powerful Supremely Loving Being such as God would allow suffering to occur that is the problem, rather than the existence of suffering itself. I understand this premise, but, rightly, as the premise suggests, I personally, cannot understand why such a Being would allow such suffering and therefore, until proven wrong, I reject this hypothesis on the basis that (i) a lesser being (like most ordinary people) would intervene to stop wanton acts of cruelty, if they could and (ii) this world cannot possibly be the best possible world that an All-powerful, All-Loving God could create: to say that it is demonstrates that God is not All-powerful, because our world is clearly a troubled place).

(4) There must therefore be a reason why Good and Evil co-exist, here, when the Higher Spirit Realms seek to encourage us to act with Love and to reject Evil - and then turn from it.  I suggest that this is because (as I've stated elsewhere) the Benevolent Spirit Realm is the Most Powerful (because if it wasn't Evil would have taken total control) but is not All-powerful (because if it was, the problems of our world would have been resolved).

Therefore, bearing all of these points in mind I think we can take heart that survival of the soul occurs (meaning we all, for the most part) go to a heavenly realm beyond death, where we're reunited with family, loved ones and beloved animals: a realm which is led by highly developed spirit beings, which includes a Supreme Intelligence that we call God. Yet, for reasons we don't (or can't) fully understand it appears that the forces of Good do not exercise total control (yet) here on Earth.  But nevertheless, neither have the forces of Evil taken total control. What's more, consistently, through the founders of all the major religions and through various prophets, shaman, mystics, mediums and psychics the benevolent spirit beings from the Higher Realms encourage we who live on Earth to develop spiritually and seek to exemplify the Way of Love in our lives.  This means that, I suggest, on this basis, with the help of the Beneficent Spirit Beings we can, TOGETHER make this world a better place and determinedly overcome the evil that influences us to be complacent and to lack the resolve to do so.  I think, to use a popular expression 'we're all in this together' - humanity and the spirit realm, for reasons that we don't yet fully understand, working together to improve the state of our world.

This is what I believe.

Like I said, my opinions aren't fixed, and in light of significant evidence to the contrary I'll change my mind to fit the evidence, but, in the absence of such this (in a nutshell) is my opinion, more or less, at this moment in time.

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Regular visitors to my website will notice that I've covered many of these points, although perhaps from different vectors, in recent weeks in the following articles too:

If An All-powerful God of Love Exists Why Do We Live In Such A Brutal World?

The Coming of Kali

Elvis - Singing I Believe

Here's that Elvis song that I talked about at the start of this article.