Dear Vywamus,
I have recently “discovered” you…and… I want to ask you to address the issue of religious baggage for some of us who have open hearts and really want to learn and grow and contribute….I was raised…Catholic… but even at a young age felt that there was “more” out there, that God was bigger than even the church taught, etc….Jesus, or Jeshua as I have come to know him has been a touch stone lately, and I wanted to ask you your thoughts on how those of us steeped deep in dogma can be healed to embrace the larger whole.
Thank you,
Francine
Dear Francine,
I see you are already finding your way. For you as a Christian, spending time being present in the energy of Jesus (or Jeshua) is perhaps the most effective way of all to heal and embrace the larger whole.
Often in human history a powerful stream of Energy/Consciousness from the level of Spirit has come to you. And inevitably, usually in a well meaning effort to preserve and carry on this stream, humans have constructed around it a structure of beliefs, rules, and rituals – that is, a “religion.” This is the case with all your major religions. Yet since every religion is a human organization, built by humans, the form of the organization itself is subject to human limitations. And so the pure stream of Energy and Consciousness that Jesus (and other great teachers and masters) brought to humanity has been filtered through the minds and egos of the people who received it, through the framework of beliefs about God and the world that were current at the time. Your religion and other religions, since their beginnings, have continued to be strained through successive “mind” filters right up through the present day.
When a human organization is established to define and carry on the spiritual energies and message, it is subject to the same problems, dynamics, politics, and shortcomings as any other human organization. This is a mind and ego dominated form, and it is a pattern typical of the stage most humans have evolved to, so far. To get out of this pattern – and you will, eventually — humans need to evolve so that your minds/egos contribute to but do not dominate the process. You will need to get beyond trying, as the mind always now wants to do, to “nail down” the message and set up rules and dogmas and rituals around it.
In a sense, the mind is always trying to get the spiritual energies “under control.” Of course you can’t do that. These energies are alive and evolving in your heart and everywhere. And the best way to get back to the “original” message and let it grow within you is to do exactly what you are doing: go to the pure stream of Energy and Consciousness where the message came from, and keep spending time being present there – in your case, with Jesus. Or with another teacher, if you are of another religious background.
By the way, you don’t have to intentionally set about “ditching” or rebelling against the religious structures in your past. You can do so if you wish, and if it seems to be part of your growth. But this is not really a polarity where you have to choose between a religious affiliation and an experience of the broader spiritual energies you long for. Rather than an “either-or” situation, it can be “both-and.” You can embrace religion as one aspect of Spirit, a human and limited aspect which is never able to “contain” or fully express Spirit, yet which may be helpful at times on your spiritual path.
If you keep spending time with Jesus in that pure stream of Energy/Consciousness he brings, you will simply find that you are in harmony with the deepest core meanings of your religion (of any religion), and that nonessential or limiting beliefs and structures will simply fall away, or their importance to you will shrink, so that they are no longer a problem. You will have eyes only for what is essential. You can embrace the limited view of Spirit offered by a religion as one part of the infinite whole – one view through a limited human perspective – one view among the infinite number of views in the infinite sight of the Divine.
With love and encouragement to you on your path,
Vywamus