My God Versus Your God

Hetep (Peace & Blessings) Family.
Isn’t it interesting that most religions and their founders spent a great amount of time preaching and teaching about Peace.  Yet many of the adherents in these religions (historically speaking) have perpetrated the most atrocious and heinous crimes on humanity?

Have you ever asked yourself, “Why is that?”  Well, clearly the answer has to be that these individuals who claim to be devout followers of (whatever deity) they follow have no clue what Peace really is or how to acquire it because their respective religion has not taught them how to find peace within themselves.

You see, part of the problem (which is a major problem) can be found in the conversion process into these religions. For most organized religions (especially those in the Western hemisphere), the only thing a person has to do to become a devout follower is confess and/or proclaim their belief in the deity. The problem with this process is that the initiate has no actual proof that what they are proclaiming is actually true. They are simply relying upon what someone else tells them.
 
How do we know that a Deity (whatever name you choose to call the Divine) saves souls, improves lives, heals illness, raises the dead, etc.?  Let’s a go step further. Why is it considered blasphemous to even pose these questions?  
I mean seriously if the Deity is all-knowing, all-powerful and everywhere, wouldn’t this Deity know that I was going to ask these questions and already prepared an answer for me? Wouldn’t the Deity know that it would be troubling to my faith in Him/Her? I am reminded of Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik Shabazz) who due to his troubled past with Christianity would never have become a Christian. I mean remember, his family had to relocate, had a cross burned on their lawn and later his father was killed by fellow Christians so there was no way he was going back to church. Don’t you think that the Deity was aware of this? The same can be said about other historical heroes and heroines as well.

I hope you see that religion is a man made tool to help us all understand the Divine but if it is not taught correctly it becomes a dogmatic tool of destruction used to validate one’s own fears and ignorance. God really doesn’t care what religion you belong to or not. People need to stop being spiritual children and become spiritual Men and Women by understanding that if their deity was really that powerful, why do he need you to defend his honor and fight his battles?

These are all questions that everyone should ask but usually fundamentalists gloss over this section and jump right into “It is a sin to do fill in the blank!”
It is always bewildering to me that we are taught to be independent, critical thinkers throughout our life. To ask questions, verify and find proof for how and why “things” work but when it comes to religion we are taught to just accept and believe because someone (the mysterious THEY people) said so.
Well, this is the reason so many people are leaving organized religion and embracing spirituality because spirituality is not based upon beliefs, opinions and theories. It is based upon cognizance, which is personal knowledge, awareness and practical experience.
See a lot of people think that cognizance means knowledge and that knowledge of self refers to studying books. I used to believe this as well when I embarked upon this journey.  No. Knowledge of Self means knowing who and what you are, what motivates you, what makes you tick, what makes you act/react, what works to maintain your physical-mental-emotional-spiritual health, etc. It is about KNOWING….the God/Goddess within YOU. You read a bunch of books to better understand YOU but essentially you are studying YOU.

True Spiritual people know that the real God/Goddess is within you and it has numerous names. True Spiritual Christians will call this awesome force as “Jesus in me” but I simply call it Osar (Asar, Ausar, Osiris in Greek).  True Spiritual people know that their greatest enemy is not someone they don’t like or strongly hate, but themselves – to be more specific their lower selves. This is why you will hear true spiritual Christians say they are fighting against their flesh because they know it is the part that makes them act out of hate. I call this fighting against Set (your lower self/spirit).

True Spirituality as you can see is not about belief. It is not shaped by your opinions, the opinions of others, or some faddish idea. True Spirituality is about developing a personal relationship with the Divine within yourself based upon KNOWING.  This is why a true spiritual practitioner would never proselytize because they KNOW what works for them. They may have an idea, opinion or theory on what will work for someone else but they KNOW without a shadow of a doubt what works for them. And, if they don’t know, they are through trial and error trying to figure it out.
When a true spiritual practitioner honors his or her ancestors, they know the benefit the practice provides them. They don’t just do it because someone told them to or they saw someone else doing, so they are going to try it that way. By the way, they don’t just follow superstitious rules set by others either because that makes it a religion. They do what works for them based upon what they KNOW. As a sidebar, I personally believe that this is how the Kamitic people and other traditional Africans live their lives as well. I don’t believe that they honored their ancestors because it was just tradition or that they used oracles because it was fun or a good way to predict the future. No. I am quite certain that everything the Kamitic people did was for practical purposes. They understood and saw the benefit of honoring their ancestors so it became a national practice. They used oracles because these divination tools inform them on how to live their lives peacefully like the great oracles of Africa and China continue to do today. Simply put, it worked for them.
Where’s the proof? All you have to do is observe a true spiritual person’s living. They don’t live right for the public and live a secret life in private nor do they profess to be “holier than thou” and perfect.  They live right because they have a true connection with the Divine. They don’t just believe that temple of God is within. They KNOW.

Fundamentalists will always say that “(Some Deity) says blah, blah, blah” and will quote their religious texts as if it is the authority on every subject but, my Momma taught me to be a critical thinker so I always ask them “What do you say?” or “How’s that working for you?”
You see we have to start holding these people accountable because they will try to make it appear that true spirituality is a joke but this is a trick from Set (the devil) himself. You have to ask them that if their religion is so great why do they have to  convince and beat people over the head about it?  I mean have you ever seen a doctor jump up and down and threaten people to believe that he or she is a doctor? Let’s not even go that far. Have you ever seen a chef or a cook jump up and down to make people eat their food and convince them that their food is good? No. You use your senses. If it smells good, looks good and have heard good news about it, then that’s what makes you want to try it.  Why? It is because the proof is in the pudding.
Extremists of every denomination simply want you to go on what they (or someone else) says but it is obvious that their religion does not do what they claim because it is not doing it for them.
‘I mean really, your peaceful religion tells you to stand on the corner and yell at the top of your lungs, or knock on the door and disturb my time with my family to tell me that everyone is going to go to hell, or going to be punished by your temperamental all-knowing and all-powerful Deity (who can’t use all of his power to tell me himself) because I don’t believe like you. Get real.’
As you can see, true spirituality requires being a little agnostic or skeptical about everything. The beauty of it is that since God is all-knowing, God doesn’t mind because it is all part of spiritual development.

Everything and anything you do should always have a meaningful and logical reason behind your intentions. Never just do something just because or blindly follow anything because if you ever have to change (which you will) and you don’t understand the concepts behind what you are doing. Your peace inspired, loving practice or going to become your personal dogma beliefs to harm others who have different beliefs than you.

Hope this helps.
Hetep