Good, Evil, God And The Devil (IV)

God has no opponent, no rival, no equal and no superior. God is the power on both sides; the yin and the yang; the black, the white and every color in between. God does not play dice with the universe. God does not attempt to outsmart God, or go into battle with God (because that in itself is impossible). God knows where a tree is going to grow, how big it's going to be and what the fruits produced will look like...long before the seed is even in the ground.

Spirituality is about discovering God, knowing more about God...and this journey begins from within you. You don't take one aspect of spirituality and base everything else on it. God's nature, the entirety of which is really impossible for the human mind to grasp, is not based on any one thing. God is experienced through prayer. And prayer is not an act (definitely not the kneeling down and clasping our hands ritual that we've been made to believe for so long). It is the opening of yourself to Divinity, spiritual and infinite; and it doesn't depend on what position your body is in. You don't discover God for any reason less than that; God is not mocked or deceived. You also do not discover God deciding with a particular intent in mind. You come to God on God's terms, not yours or what you think God's terms are. God is like a master conductor who's creating the perfect harmony from a blend of voices and instruments. Any voice or instrument that sounds higher or lower than expected, or is out of key altogether, threatens the harmony of the choral and the conductor cannot have that. Come with an open mind, expecting to understand more about yourself, more about your life and the relationships within it, and more about what you need to do to live your best self.

There's a reason why everything that's happening to you is happening exactly the way it is. Discover God...for only in this experience will you find the answers you're looking for (and we're all looking for answers). And when you do, you will also come to realize this most profound and deeply exhilarating truth: the voice of God never condemns.

The Spirit, The Soul And The Body (VI)

It is "unattractive" because we do not like it; because it frustrates the hell out of us; because we do not know as yet why it happened or is happening. It is not necessarily evil on its own; it's just how we see it, and this is entirely based on how much of our soul is developed at the time of its happening.

We don't know it all; we only know it one step at a time... like a night rider who has a long journey ahead of him but only sees as far as his headlights allow. But in the times when we really don't know, it is the development of our souls that has occurred so far that will help us understand the situation at hand and subsequently know what to do. No matter how much about life you've grasped so far, there is so much more that is yet to be grasped.

People who have discovered (and are developing) themselves in life, spiritually and mentally, always tell us that the problems that come to us in life have within them the potential of making us better persons; in other words, developing souls. These problems are often described as sandpaper. If problems have the potential of bringing out the best in us, should they then be considered evil? Not at all, but it doesn't make them any less unattractive.

When problems come to us, after a while they lose their ability to hurt us. But that only happens when we do not resist them or find ourselves constantly struggling with them. Many times we don't know how long a problem will last. When problems like these come, we've got to let them, not fight them. But strangely enough, this is a message one can preach only to oneself, for it is far easier said than done. How we see our problems will decide what we make of them, and that in turn depends on how far the development of our souls has gotten over time. Our world's educational system is a perfect analogy for this. You have to be tested on what you know, or what you think you know; and only then can the institution justify what level you're in. The easiest way to find out what you know, or are capable of, is always a test.

The Soul, The Spirit & The Body (V)

For the sake of clarification, I will refer to the things we desire to happen to us as "the attractive" and the things we do not wish upon ourselves as "the unattractive". When our soul is underdeveloped, we find that we are unable to control what we attract to ourselves, which is more often than not the unattractive. This lack of control is why we're very prone to believing that the Devil has visited the evil upon us. I will say here again that the enemy we are so flustered about is the untrained, underdeveloped part of us.

All the things that we know, understand and believe make up a very small percentage of all that there really is, in just the same way that we use up a very small percentage of our true brain capacity. All that we know make up the cognitive part of our existence. But there's so much more about our existence that we do not know. This cognitive part helps us control only a small fraction of our day-to-day lives. For example, knowing that you have a certain amount in the bank helps you control the parts of your life that fall within that range, be they many or few. Knowing how fit you are physically helps you control your reaction in times when defense is needed. With your knowledge, you are able to attract certain things to yourself...like a quality of life because of what you own, or a particular reaction from an attacker when you show that you're able to defend yourself. In other words, our cognitive self (that which we know of ourselves) attracts these things to us. If it's knowing that you have money somewhere, it also attracts things like taxes and bank charges. You don't tax a man on money he doesn't own. If it's knowing you have a car, it also attracts constant fueling, servicing, and obeying of traffic rules (not to mention fines, when not in compliance with the rules). A man who doesn't own a car doesn't attract these things to himself.

Now, there are certain things that come to us that are beyond our control. These things, whether you believe it or not, have a lot to do with what we do not know about ourselves, and this forms a greater part of our existence, far greater than what we already know. These are the things of which we say, "I really didn't see this one coming!" And the truth is, not-knowing does not really stop things that are beyond our control from coming to us.

Good, Evil, God & The Devil (III)

Who then is the origin of our evil side? We've all come to accept that our good side originates from God. That's pretty easy to do. Now I dare to disagree that the Devil is the origin of evil, as has been taught to us for generations. God is, and will always be, the origin of all things...everything good and evil, everything light and dark. Take one of the components away, and you've created the image of something less than God. So what role then does evil play? In its simplest form, it is that side of the two-edged sword in us that draws experiences toward us; experiences that ought to either shape or refine us for the better, or awaken us to the fact that we all have a dragon within us that needs to be tamed.

Does God therefore not reserve the right to express whichever of these two is more necessary at every given moment to be used to accomplish purpose and fulfill destiny? If God is indeed sovereign, then this is indeed true. Why then do we call it evil if it originates from God? Is it really evil because that's how we've chosen to see it? Is it not in reality a different kind of good? Could it not be referred to as the dark kind of good? Is black any less a color than white? Is night any less important than day? Yes, evil hurts when it happens to us...there's no doubt about that. But do we not, in those times of pain or sometime afterwards, begin to see life a little differently than we did before it happened?

The God of Light is also known to dwell in thick Darkness. Can this dark side of God's goodness be referred to what we've come to know as evil? Tell me something you've come to define as evil, and I will tell you it is something that God allowed to happen for a specific purpose, whether we know/understand that purpose or not. If we deny this, then we really deny that God is truly Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscient.

A knife is a useful tool to have in the house, because of its often-time sharp edge that we need every now and again. But when you see a little child playing with that knife, at that moment you understand as an adult that an enemy is present, that "evil" is present...because there is a threat to safety and the possibility of harm is made evident. Do you then rid your house of all the knives you have (and resort to the tedious task of tearing meat with your bare hands in the kitchen or at the dinner table) or do you simply put them (and other potentially-dangerous things) out of the reach of that child until he's old enough to handle them properly? How we as adults see knives in the home, is how God sees what we refer to as evil in the world. Everything that happens to us, evil inclusive, has a purpose in our lives. And the fact that we may not understand it when it's happening doesn't make it any less purposeful. Usually, with time, we actually come to understand these things better...if we let ourselves.

The Soul, The Spirit & The Body (IV)

I am not going to climb a mountain as high as Everest just to show the world that I can do it, no matter how beautiful that snapshot will look when taken. I'm moving in a certain direction, and whatever does not lie in that path really doesn't matter much to me. If I'm truly moving in the Everest direction, then it'll be because that's what I ought to do, as I believe in my soul. Too often we get caught up in what other people think we should be doing, regardless of who they are and how well we think of them, and then we end up losing sight of what we really ought to be doing.

I've had deep and profound epiphanies in the past that have prompted me to take the decisions that I made at those times. Those were the times I made decisions by myself, for myself, and chose to take my life's journey in certain directions. Those epiphanies are why I cannot blame anyone for the outcomes of the moves that I made, not even myself; they were also the truest experiences I've ever had (See, blaming someone else is like entering into a casket alive. And blaming yourself is like nailing that casket shut. As humans, it's easier for us to cry over spilt milk and feel sorry for ourselves. Falling victim to this kind of response makes us forget that we will get milk again, because we believe in something bigger than ourselves. So the earlier we get up and stop feeling sorry for ourselves about the spilt milk, the better we can think on how to prevent a spillage the next time). These epiphanies are things you just know and most certainly are unable to explain to yourself or another at the time of knowing. Use them to find out as much as you can about the situation or phase as it pertains to you; it's your life, and that means no one else is going to do that for you. No one actually can, to be honest, no matter how much they love you. And this is not a quest for you to spend all your time alone in your privacy or in hiding...as much as it is a quest for you to open up your heart, regardless of where you are, to the never-ending possibilities of understanding yourself better, thereby enlightening and further developing your soul. And every hungry soul shall be filled.

The Soul, The Spirit & The Body (III)

This whole journey called life in this realm is all about the soul. It's not really about the spirit because the spirit is already in full understanding of life, and always knows all things, as said before. The spirit is always content; there isn't anything more for it to want because it possesses all things. The spirit is all it will ever be. The spirit is always God. We will not become any more spirit than this, or any less either, as some have made us believe in days gone by (We can of course become more spiritual, but that truly means we become more aware of ourselves, and therefore less swayed by the flesh). The spirit is the constant guide to the soul; and at the end of the day, it will return to the Source.

It's also not at all about the flesh either, because the flesh will perish with this mortal realm. It cannot exist anywhere else other than this realm. And like the spirit, we are not going to be any more flesh than we already are, or any less. We will always feel hungry, always feel thirsty, always feel physical pain, always have to pass out waste from the body, always feel cold when we're exposed to lower temperatures and always feel hot when exposed to heat. These things will never change as long as we're alive...and this makes the flesh very fickle and susceptible to any changes around us. It would also be very unwise of anyone to spend all their valuable resources taking care of the flesh far more than is necessary, because it is not the real us.

What is (or should be) constantly growing and developing as we grow older is the soul. The soul will always be us, always. It is the essence of us that is able to touch both the mortal and the immortal realms. It connects with the spirit, enabling us be a part of spiritual affairs of all powers and depths beyond what the eyes can see, and with the flesh, enabling us respond to all the various stimuli around us, and with a lot more feeling than animals too, I might add. The soul has the ability to see far beyond what the physical eyes ever could, but that is truly only possible if it is subjected to training by the spirit. Otherwise, it will be as dull and as "blind" as the flesh, except in those sporadic moments of gifted insight, which are more often than not, too quick and too infrequent to depend on solely. And when continuously trained, the soul will eventually begin to see as the spirit sees...which is eternally.

Good, Evil, God & The Devil (II)

Good and evil co-exist within the same realm. Taking a cue from the biblical story of creation, in the same space where God comes to commune with the climax creation Man, also came the Devil. There is no written record of where the Devil came from or how the Devil arrived there. Becoming aware of this co-existence, the question that then arises is, which will prevail? That which prevails per time depends on the inclinations of the soul in question. Remember, it is with the soul that we express ourselves to the world around us.

Let's use the example of a room with a functioning light bulb. There are times when we want the room lit, to read, to search for something or to just enjoy the ambiance of light. For these and other reasons, we switch on the light. What happens is, the light shines and the darkness that was once everywhere now recedes, almost immediately, but it does not disappear as we've been made to believe over time. It just recedes into the corners or behind any structure, as made evident by any shadow that is cast. And if we want the room dark, again for whatever reasons, we just switch off the light. The light does not disappear either. It just remains in its source, sort of like on standby, waiting to be activated again when required. But the truth remains that there are times we want the room lit, and there are times when we want the room dark. Our soul is like a sword with two edges. The edge you need is the edge you use. And usually, the edge which is sharper is the edge you use. The side you lean more toward is the side you express, because it's the side of you that you're more familiar with and more prone to showing. And the side that you express ultimately becomes the side that you're known for and characterized by. But regardless of which side of the sword you're using, the bottom line is that we all have the two sides of the sword at our disposal.

And taking another cue from the story of the room and the light bulb, a truth is this: that there are some of us who want the room lit most of the time, and there are some of us who want the room dark most of the time. The need for more light or more darkness rests heavily on who we've decided in our hearts that we want to be. That person can only be hidden for so long, because eventually, the rest of the world around us will begin to see us for who we truly are...bringers of light, or harbingers of darkness.