Christianity | Author – Richard F Holmes

This post is the result of some musings of mine that relate to my own journey, but I’m sharing them because I feel that other people will have had a similar experience and may have drawn the same conclusion. Looking back, I would describe my evolution in this life as follows: It seems as though I have gone through two stages and am now going through a third. The first stage is that I’m born into this world and immediately start to be conditioned by my surroundings. My conditioning ensures that as I grow, I lose sight of my true nature and become fully entrenched in “life” and remain completely oblivious to the bigger picture. I’m completely unaware of the grip that the ego has on me and my only understanding of reality is what I see around me and what I’m told by my parents, teachers, peers and the media.

I think that is fairly general and probably applies to pretty much all souls taking human birth. Although, I’m sure there are exceptions to the rule. The conclusion from the first stage is that “I am this body and my reality is the world around me and its inhabitants.”

The second stage starts thus: I feel uncomfortable; there is something missing but I don’t know what it is. I start to seek, but I don’t really know what I’m seeking or how to seek it. Personally, I never felt that I belonged anywhere and this period, which started during my teenage years and carried on until I reached my 50s, was a very difficult time for me. The first place I looked was towards religion. However, the Christian church didn’t do it for me and I just drifted aimlessly for many years, getting more and more confused and feeling more and more isolated. Eventually, I realised that spirituality was far more expansive than my conditioning had led me to believe. I became aware of other forms of spirituality that were more appealing. By the time the 1980s came along my experiences and contacts at that time led me towards Spiritualism. It was also a religion that didn’t do it for me and I walked away for several years.

For various reasons, I ventured back and remained involved for many years. During this time I never considered myself to be a Spiritualist, but through other contacts that I made became drawn towards Eastern religions; particularly Buddhism and Hinduism. In the early 2000s I also acquired a guru in the form of Sri Sathya Sai Baba. What I conclude from this stage is that although Spiritualism pointed out the truth of eternal life to me, it seemed firmly entrenched in the past. In addition and in hindsight, I realised that it encouraged me to become attached to “objects” such as spirit guides, wolves, angels and crystals etc. These things have their place along the way, but ultimately, all objectivity, being dualistic in nature, is an illusion. It was Buddhist principles in particular that brought me to the awareness of “Oneness.”

Other milestones from stage two are that I became aware also of my greatest influences, namely – Paramahansa Yogananda, Neil Donald Walsch, Ramana Maharshi and of course Sai Baba. I read quite a lot of their writings without properly understanding what I was reading.

As I embarked on stage three I was dealing with the realisation that Buddhism and Hinduism, although still very appealing, also did not complete the picture for me. It made me further realise that all religions have their limitations and are mere stepping stones along the way.

I had the knowledge of Oneness but not the knowing. There is a huge difference. We have a habit of gathering lots of knowledge, which generally speaking is the experience of others and not ourselves. Knowing is to know something through the experience of it. An example that is used very often is the fragrance of a rose. How can you know what the fragrance of a rose is like through someone else telling you? You can only truly know by smelling the beauty of its fragrance yourself. A huge help to me has been the “discovery” of Rupert Spira. His videos and writings have helped me greatly to understand in greater depth the works of Neil Donald Walsch and Ramana Maharshi. Also, it’s worth mentioning that the greatest thing that Sai Baba taught me was that at no time would I have a need to worship, or become attached to, his physical form; the physical form being akin to the objectivity mentioned above in stage two.

I can conclude this post by describing my soul’s journey as follows: From the complete knowing of Infinite Consciousness to complete ignorance on embarking on a physical experience. Then awakening to the understanding that I am not a body/mind but making the mistake of thinking that all the answers are in the esoteric and pretty much at one point believing that the world had no significance whatsoever. To the further understanding that the only reality is Consciousness, therefore the world and the esoteric are in fact One, both being projections of Consciousness, by Consciousness within Consciousness.

Will there be a stage four? I don’t know, but what I do know is that one day I will complete the cycle of changing perceptions by returning to the complete knowing of Infinite Consciousness.

Those who know me will be aware that I accept that organised religion can help people find a purpose in life and a blueprint for “right” living. However, I also know that ultimately, organised religion can only ever be a stepping stone to absolute truth. I hold this view mainly because the whole purpose of the spirit is to be free and to evolve within that freedom. This of course, includes the freedom to make mistakes. With organised religions you are required to believe things; things that quite often have no substance or credibility. Whilst it is true that our beliefs create our reality, it is also true that our beliefs are nothing more than thoughts and opinions, which are not necessarily representative of truth.

A classic example of this, is the concept of going to either Heaven or Hell. As a Westerner, I am of course, talking about Christianity; it would be unfair of me to use another religion as the example because I don’t have enough experience of other religions. Let me first just clarify a few things. In Christian mythology, it is stated that the world, the universe and beyond was created by a personal god. Presumably, the god created everything, not just a bit of this and a bit of that. So surely, that must include the mechanism via which everything functions. A religious person would probably refer to this as “God’s Law.” But, depending on what your leanings are, this could also be referred to as Natural Law, The Laws of the Universe, Spiritual Law or The Laws of Physics. I think we can agree that it is all pretty much the same thing. Either way, these laws are very precise and cannot be interfered with or altered.

We are told, that when we die we have to stand before God to be judged. If we are deemed to have been good we ascend to eternal life in Heaven. Alternatively, if we are deemed to have been bad, then we descend to eternal damnation in Hell. Now, it has occurred to me that having already established that the god’s own laws are very precise, and also that whether we go to Heaven or Hell, it is still an eternal life; be it one of bliss or damnation. Regardless of the name of the place, eternal life must surely take place in eternity, which in accordance with the god’s laws “does exactly what it says on the tin.” What I mean is that eternity is just that; it is eternal, boundless, unlimited, infinite.

So, forgive me for questioning religious dogma, but how can you have two different eternities? This would imply that there is a cut-off point or boundary between Heaven and Hell. Or even, a boundary between Heaven and a kind of no-man’s-land and another boundary between that and Hell. If there is a cut-off point or boundary, then either Heaven and Hell are not eternal, or they are one and the same place. I would even take this a step further and say that if we “GO” to Heaven, Hell or eternity, whatever name you want to use in the example, then there is no such thing. How can you go somewhere that is boundless? Where is the cut-off point that distinguishes between where we are now and the place of eternal life? How can infinity have a cut-off point?

The truth is, that Heaven and Hell are mind-made concepts that we create for ourselves here on earth. We already have eternal life, we are just experiencing an aspect of it here in the physical body, and when we eventually shed our bodies, we will go on to experience another aspect of it.